Mindset Neuroscience Podcast

Stefanie Faye
Mindset Neuroscience Podcast

Neuroscience-based strategies for encouraging growth mindset, creativity, emotion regulation and resilience.

  1. 1 DAY AGO

    Cerebral Entanglements with Dr. Allan Hamilton

    "your brain is editing out what it thinks you should know about and what you shouldn't know about." -Dr. Allan Hamilton   Understanding why we react the way we do, where our patterns come from and how we can show up differently gives us strength, agency and internal safety because it increases our ability to choose... choose our boundaries, our behaviors, our values, our preferences.  Understanding our brains and nervous systems helps us stop repeating behaviors and over and over again that don't lead to the experiences we truly yearn for, particularly when it comes to our relationships and desire for true, authentic connection. In this episode with Dr. Allan Hamilton, we cover many themes, such as what happen to brains in love and after rejection, gender, the effects of video games and social media on bio-behavioral outcomes, and intergenerational trauma. We also talk about following one’s interests, passions and curiosities - you’ll hear about my beginnings at the age of 6 hosting N-E-R-D radio on my double cassette player 🙂 Learn more about Dr. Hamilton's latest book Cerebral Entanglements: How the Brain Shapes Our Public and Private Lives   Listen on: Spotify Apple Podcasts     What you will hear as a thread that weaves through our conversation is that... Human connection matters.  Safe, trusting relationships have the capacity to buffer the effects of  negative influences that exist in our world. Dr. Hamilton explains how the hormone oxytocin plays a pivotal role in fostering trust, affection, and deep connections between individuals. This hormone, often referred to as a "bonding hormone," is crucial for nurturing relationships, whether through intimate conversations, warm hugs, or even petting a dog. The research we discuss highlights the importance of  how human connection can offer a buffer against life's challenges.   We also see in this interview that.. the brain, more than anything, is a predictive system. It conserves energy by attempting to predict - rather than truly understand - what is in front of it.  When information is missing, it fills in the blanks based on its past. It seeks out cues that confirm its predictions and distorts or ignores anything that could contradict what it already predicted to be true. Because we are generally surrounded by the same people over and over again in the first phases of life, many of the sociobiological signals we experience are repeated enough to build up a strong, predictive dataset for our brain to make calculations about what the ‘world’ is like.   But this data set is limited. It’s based on only a few people.   From this tiny number of people, it creates a model of how the world is - what it contains for us in terms of human-to-human interaction.   The brain deals in long-term, repetitive patterns.  Until we become aware of these patterns and predictions, we may use them so unconsciously and often that we re-create scenarios that return us to our familiar ways of perceiving and inter...

    58 min
  2. JAN 28

    Season 4 Ep 10 Science of Brain fog: 4 ways to boost your mind's clarity (mini episode)

    Ever feel like your brain's in a fog? Like something is off and your brain is not firing on all cylinders? This is something I come across a lot when working with clients, and particularly in doing brain maps. What might be underlying our brain fog, and importantly, what can we do about it?   Mindset is important.  Our belief in our ability to change our brain is a key to actually changing our behaviors because it changes WHAT we notice and HOW we interpret what we notice.  BUT…  if we don't set the stage with certain aspects of our life and certain conditions, it can make that change a lot more difficult. If we're not complementing our mindset with other aspects of life, it just robs our brain body system of the resources it needs to create change and to do what it needs to do. Please note: None of the suggestions in this article are intended as medical advice. If you're concerned about your brain health, please talk to your doctor.   Why Brain Fog Happens There are a few things that I see contributing to brain fog based on self-report measures and brain maps I have seen. One is an imbalance of brainwaves. If you're feeling foggy, it's possible that you have too much slow-wave activity (like theta waves) and not enough fast-wave activity. The theta brainwave is a slow wave, and is related to a state of sleepiness - it’s the state we’re in right before we drift off to sleep.  It’s not a ‘bad’ brainwave - it is also related to deep states of meditation, and creativity and daydreaming...but if we are trying to learn or pay attention, it’s not ideal to feel like we are in a fog or drifting off. There are four things that can be helpful for us to explore if we want to accelerate desired changes in our brain body system.  There are many others, but i’ll just cover four that come up in terms of patterns I see  in brain maps and what people self-report from the surveys they answer in conjunction with the brain maps.  Listen to this article as a mini episode on: Spotify Apple Podcasts or directly on this media player: What and when you eat. When I worked as a school and family counselor, I was often asked to work with students who were falling asleep, who were very drowsy. One of the first things I always asked was what they had for breakfast that day. Too many times, the answer was nothing or sugary cereal or maybe a soda. And that was hours before the lunch period.  Making a small adjustment such as adding a bit more protein and hydration, and lowering processed food and sugar made a big difference in the behaviors and mental stamina of those students.   I can say that for me, personally, anything with a lot of sugar, processed food, can really deplete  my energy and mental stamina. Having too many sugars or carbs especially in the morning results in feelings of brain fog, and having protein especially early in the day helps sustain better mental clarity and energy. I’m also a fan of Time-Restricted Eating (also known as intermittent fasting). I find that this helps me have my highest levels of mental clarity in the morning.   See also: UC San Diego research on time-restricted eating in humans , Time Restricted Eating and Gene Expression

    20 min
  3. JAN 7

    The heart as a little brain: the power and beauty of mindful breathing

    Years ago, while studying with my mentor-professor at NYU, Zoran Josipovic - who was looking at brains scans of monks - I decided to stay for a few months at various monasteries. One of them was Deer Park - under the guidance of Thich Nhat Hanh.  It was an eye-opening experience. We engaged in many meditation and mindful breathing practices. These practices taught me the power of our breath. How it is a bridge not only between brain, body and Mind, but also a bridge between conscious and subconscious forces that play a role in our behaviors, feelings and reactions. In neuroscience we talk a lot about the brain.  We often forget that our circulation system was the first to form in the womb. And the master pump that orchestrates so much of our life is indeed the heart. The heart picks up on a lot of things. It’s a system that serves as part of a bridge between body and brain. Its rhythms link with how we feel.   And how we feel is a critical factor of what we will do next.   How we feel internally drives both our conscious and unconscious behaviors.   Our heart and how it slows down or speeds up is intricately connected to how we move, what we pay attention to, what we decide.   In fact, the heart has a lot of different networks that actually can give it the title of its own 'little brain'.  It even has an endocrine function, which means it actually releases hormones like serotonin.  As much as our brains are part of our experience, our hearts integrate massive amounts of data that are critical to our optimal functioning. For example: a heart condition that can result from losing a loved one can cause an outpouring of adrenaline and abnormal contraction in the left ventricle - this is known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (named after the Japanese trapping pot for Octopus that resembles the heart) High social connectedness may be associated with better outcomes after stroke By contrast, reduced social interactions caused by panic and anxiety disorders have been associated with reduced parasympathetic tone, a known contributor to cardiovascular disease risk. Listen on: Spotify Apple Podcasts     Within that heart-brain network, there is a way for us to have more control.   Having control over our attentional systems is possibly one of the most important skills we can have in order for any other kind of progress or technique to work.   One way we can work these attentional systems is to focus on and control our breath. Even if it is fast initially, there is still a rhythm to it, and it is always with us. This makes it an ever-present tool for improving our attentional control.  Focusing on this and using our voluntary somatic nervous system tools to extend it or slow it down also works inhibitory control networks.

    9 min
  4. 12/17/2024

    How to not take things personally: science of stimulus-response

    As we approach the end of the year, we may start notice within ourselves - and others - feelings of exhaustion, burn out, feeling frazzled or overwhelmed.     There are seasons that are influenced socially and symbolically.. for example, the beginning of academic years, the end of a calendar year, holiday breaks, shortened days, different temperatures...  all of these can affect us in different ways. For many people, as we approach the end of the year, there are potentially different gatherings, breaks from routine, and added expectations about what 'should have' happened this year, what didn't happen, unwanted patterns we didn't want to have repeated...   All of that can influence our internal state, as well as the internal states and behaviors of the people around us. While there is so much that we cannot change, there is power in getting better at how we tune in to ourselves and how we stay as open as we can to new possibilities. Many of those new possibilities come from a more intelligent, flexible and sophisticated way of interpreting and responding to our own fluctuations, and emotions - AND doing the same for how we respond and react within our interactions and communications.   Below is an article and podcast about a modern perspective on Stimulus-Response - and how we can use this wisdom to not become overwhelmed by the behaviors, reactions and expectations of others.   Taking things too personally can lead to overamplified emotions and reactions that distort our thinking and relationships.  The good news is that we can get better at navigating challenging interactions, feelings, and relationships when we understand how unconscious influences play a role in our response.  To help us understand all of this, an important framework is the Stimulus Organism Response Model.  This is in comparison to a Stimulus-Response Model. A term we use for the basic stimulus-response (SR) model is “unmediated”. It means that there is no in between process or mediator between the stimulus and the response.  The SR model can sometimes be applied to single-cell organisms that have fairly simple stimulus-response systems. If an event occurs, it's fairly predictable what their response will be* If we were to try to apply this SR model to more complex organisms, however, we would see that something's missing from the equation.  For example, if a traumatic event, such as a natural disaster occurs, that's the stimulus. According to the SR model, we can reliably predict a person's response. Or if an event like winning a lottery happens, we would also, using the SR model, be able to more or less predict the response for every single human that that happens to. Because according to that model, it's the event or stimulus that directly causes the response.  As we can see from those two examples, and as a lot of research has demonstrated*, humans do not have a universal, identical response to events like the lottery or tragic events. *I go into this more in-depth in my book **see research citations Listen on: Spotify Apple Podcasts   What we need to realize is that…    Every interaction between humans is an interaction between two complex nervous systems with histories.  Humans are complex and adaptive, meaning that a lot of things evolve and emerge from our interactions and our relational dynamics. That can't be simplified into a very simple equation.

    22 min
  5. 12/03/2024

    Season 4 Ep 9: Brains on the same wavelength: better teams, higher collective intelligence

    Connection is a 'biological imperative'. Being a mammal means that we are extremely 'nurture-dependent'. We cannot survive without connection to another. On the one hand, each human must become self regulating to a certain degree. Self-regulation is what we do on our own to regulate our nervous system.Co-regulation is another essential aspect of our survival as mammals. Co-regulation is the mechanism we use to regulate our nervous system by connecting with other living beings. We can co-regulate with other mammals and with people. As wonderful as pets and animals are, however, an essential type of co-regulating in terms of our brain functioning is with other humans. Why? Because the health of our neural circuitry depends on complex feedback loops. The more complex and less repetitive the stimulus we get, the stronger our brains become because we need to fire up very flexible and sophisticated networks to respond. All of this means that if we really want to have our brains function at their highest level, we need to connect with other humans. Bittersweet, right? Sometimes we don't want to deal with other humans - which is where self-regulation comes in… BUT we can't stay alone. We need to balance our alone time with relationships - for the sake of our brain and nervous system!   There are various ways we can co-regulate.  One way is to use the physical (and online) presence of others to regulate our state.  We can also call this 'bottom-up' or ‘conditional’ regulation. This can include conversations, * doing activities together, * moving together (dancing, sports), * eating together. The cool part about spending time with another person is that when we engage in 'joint attention' or 'joint movement' we actually increase the chances of forming brainwave coherence with that person. Human brainwaves can synchronize for better problem-solving and co-regulation This means that our brainwaves can synchronize its patterns with another person's, and this can make us actually feel like we are 'on the same wavelength' as them. Teams and partners who have brainwave coherence can solve problems more efficiently and effectively.     Have you ever felt like you were on the same 'wavelength' as someone? In this episode, we take a look at how synchronized brainwaves help us move into higher levels of collective intelligence.   Listen to this podcast on:   Apple Podcasts Spotify     I met Caroline Szymanski several years when we co-facilitated a workshop on the Neurobiology of Innovation at the Design Thinking Festival - hosted by the Hasso Platner Institute for Design Thinking. She is a social neuroscientist, consultant, coach at the HPI School of Design Thinking and former researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.   Caroline’s work explores how our brains function not just in isolation but in dynamic, social settings. Her research focuses on concepts such as co-creation and innovation, and how our brains align in terms of wave frequencies when we engage with others. Her insights challenge traditional views of neuroscience that often consider the brain in isolation, rather than as part of an interactive social organism.  Her social brain research helps us better understand how brains functio...

    31 min
  6. 11/19/2024

    Bravery and the Brain: how to cultivate courage and vulnerability for learning and trying new things

    Whether it's asking a question, raising our hands, speaking in public, posting or publishing, expressing something new, asking someone out, having a difficult conversation, setting a boundary, or wanting to have a new experience that challenges us…  our ability to push through the unfamiliar and take action has to do with the idea of bravery, courage and vulnerability.    "In order for there to be courage, there needs to be risk.  It doesn't take courage to open up the refrigerator." - Seth Godin     When we want something new to happen in our life, we need to do something we’ve never done before. A lot of the time, doing something we’ve never done before makes us so nervous that we may not end up doing it all.  Putting ourselves out there requires courage and our willingness to be vulnerable. In this episode I share the science behind building new neural circuits that can help us override our fear of doing new and challenging things so that we can build up courage and bravery as a skill that we can learn - and then teach to others.   Listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Can we teach people (and ourselves) how to be brave?  What does being brave even mean? Can we learn how to have more courage? Is there a process behind it? While there are no simple or concrete answers to this, looking at the idea of bravery through the lens of neuroscience might help us understand it better.  And understanding things in new ways can help us and teach them.    There are 5 key aspects that come up as we explore bravery from a nervous system and brain-body perspective.  Learn about these in today’s Mindset Neuroscience Mini Episode:   The Fear Quadrant This is a tool we can use to explore how our nervous system categorizes fear and what we can do to respond adaptively to stress and anxiety about situations that are new and unfamiliar, but that could bring us to higher levels of growth and resilience.   Agency  This refers to the belief in one's ability to handle and survive different experiences, whether they involve physical or psychological threats. High levels of agency make it easier to face challenges.   Neural Track Records  Repeatedly facing specific kinds of challenges can help us strengthen neural circuits that lead us to persevere through challenging situations.   Reappraisal of Physiological Sensations This involves interpreting bodily responses (like nervousness) in ways that shift our nervous system response so that we are able to approach new situations and opportunities.   Expectation-Shifting We can rewire our expectations to focus on personal growth and learning rather than external validation (like likes or applause). This expectation-shifting can lead to continuous increases in our sense of agency.   These concepts can help us get curious about how we can build, inspire and teach bravery by changing perceptions and responses to fear and challenging situations.   Learn about these in today’s Mindset Neuroscience Mini Episode.   Listen on Spotify Listen on A...

    21 min
  7. 11/12/2024

    Beware False Growth Mindset: signals of inauthenticity and how to change them

    When we truly understand the power of the human brain, and we authentically become learners, neuroscience becomes a language of the human spirit - one that empowers and inspires.  Unfortunately, it can also become a language of buzzwords, hype and cheerleading without substance.   There are micro-signals of authenticity that reflect our internal states and that transmit frequencies to others that can lead them to trust us. However… those signals can also lead people to resist us when they can detect that we are not truly walking our talk.   Listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts Spotify For the past decade, I have been teaching the neuroscience of growth mindset to audiences all over the world and have developed curriculum for non-profits, international organizations and schools to help more people understand the power of the human brain and the influence our Mindset has on our behaviors and life trajectories.     Many people have asked me about how to infuse their organization, their business, or their classroom or school with the idea of growth mindset.  I always get excited that people are understanding and learning about neuroplasticity and how our mindset affects us. However, I also see a lot of resistance to it.   A lot of people believe growth mindset is too much of a hype and an overused catchphrase.  A key issue that has occurred is that growth mindset is used in ways and by people who have not necessarily really understood and reflected on it as deeply as they could.  One way I have seen this happen (and research attests to) is that many teachers and leaders skip right to trying to teach it or convince others about its importance, but they have over-simplified the complex research surrounding it, and they have also skipped over the internalizing process.   This is part of what Carol Dweck calls false growth mindset. Learn more about what false growth mindset is and a 3 step process to help avoid this in today’s podcast. The bottom line is that when it comes to teaching people how to become more curious, open to challenge, discomfort and iteration - we can’t just talk about it on a conceptual level. We also have to understand that growth mindset is not an either/or category.  We all have a variety of mindsets depending on each context.   (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//forms.aweber.com/form/24/1430274624.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "aweber-wjs-uxrc1vkxj")); As we speak, we send nonverbal micro-signals about how we FEEL as we say the words we are choosing.  We do this partly through sensory motor simulations about what we are saying. The richer and more personal our own experiences are,

    9 min
  8. 11/05/2024

    How to not repeat history: neurochemical identities & self-fulfilling prophecies

    As we approach the holidays and important moments in history… are there social or family dynamics that feel like repeats or remnants from the past?   Do you sometimes get the feeling that nothing ever really changes?  Repeating history isn’t necessarily a bad thing… If we’re repeating the parts of it we like. A part of our growth and learning is that we take what has happened and we try to get better at having more of what we want and less of what we don’t want. If we are finding that we have similar patterns that we don’t like and these patterns keep repeating, then we may want to think about what it is that keeps us in the same cycles. It might be relationship patterns, arguments or conversations that you have over and over again with the same people that seem to go nowhere or make things worse.  Or it might be habits that you want to improve, but you just can’t seem to.   Listen to this as a mini podcast episode on: Apple Podcasts Spotify What can keep us in repetitive cycles has to do with neurochemical patterns and identities These are sensory-motor patterns and sequences of micro-movements and adjustments that have been established in terms of our brain activity and neural circuits. These patterns and cycles can feel very familiar.  Familiarity is often favored by the brain body system because it’s efficient. It’s already figured out the resources, behaviors, patterns, and algorithms associated with very repetitive things that happen. Unfortunately, if these things are not things we want to keep repeating, we must introduce new behaviors enough times that the brain body system begins to favor those instead. The first step to disrupting these, however, is awareness. Without knowing we are in these patterns, and without reflecting on what it is, that keeps us in them, we don’t activate the brain systems that that are needed to make alternative choices and to perceive things in new ways. What are patterns and cycles that you see happening in society, your communities, family, and your own life that you would love to see disrupted or improved? Simply starting with that first step: of noticing repetitive cycles that are not leading to new results is a powerful first part of the process to disrupt them.   (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//forms.aweber.com/form/24/1430274624.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "aweber-wjs-kba0n6qyf"));   "When we say that we are aware of a certain piece of information, what we mean is just this: the information has entered into a specific storage area that makes it available to the rest of the brain" -Stanislas Dehaene, Consciousness and the brain We’ve all heard the saying that the same level of consciousness that thinks of a problem is not going to be the same one that solves it. Noticing that a pattern is repeating and becoming more aware of the sensations and behaviors associated with it will help light up new brain circuits that bring you into a new level of consciousness. noticing our behaviors puts them into what neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene calls our brain's global conscious workspace . This workspace is where we have the ability to improve our mastery and control, where we activate neural circuits that make us better humans.  We begin to access the precise features of the human brain that move us...

    16 min
4.9
out of 5
113 Ratings

About

Neuroscience-based strategies for encouraging growth mindset, creativity, emotion regulation and resilience.

You Might Also Like

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes, and get the latest updates.

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada