I'll get a team. Welcome to another installment You project. You know who it is. I hope you're enjoying your week.
What is it?
It's Tuesday night. As we sit down and record this, I've got a new friend. I've got a new friend, while I'm about to make a new friend, doctor Sherry Madge.
Did I get it right? Did I nearly get it right?
That's perfect? Greg, you got it?
Wow?
Hey, thanks for thanks for having a chat with us on the You Project. How has your day been?
Wow? Pratty much technic. I'm busy, but I think it is good to have some busy days so you feel alive for production and you feel life is going on and you're part of it.
So yeah, perfect.
Now, in order for me to not read out some bio that puts people to sleep, not that you have a boring bio, but could you tell my audience a little bit about about you, about who you are and the work you do, and then we'll go from there.
Of course, my pleasure.
So Craig, as you probably ask, my name perfectly beautifully right.
So my name is Cherry sharemaj. I am a neuroscientist, a PhD in neuroscience and two pastructress again in neuroscience, I've been working with different universities Flinders University at the moment and Tauhouse University in Canada, Melbourne University in Welburg, and so I work basically on the research and also teaching of neuroscience and my research basically focus on brain pathological situations during aging such as Alzheimer's disease, different types
of dementia, Parkinson disease, you name it, and also brain aging in general. I'm also working as the editor of or in chief for some journals, and the one that I'm really passionate about is my speaking job is about the self hope speaking, also motivationally speaking, keynote speaking, and I really try to bring the science to this area. So what I actually consider as my own mission in this particular field is to fill the gap between science
and different aspects of personal growth. So the like your story short, when you want to talk about how people behave, how people want to improve their lives, it's better to have science backed up. So if you have science, if you can understand what's actually happening inside your brain, when you want to make that change in your life for good. So I think it gives you better motivation to go
for it and to keep going for it. So yes, at the moment, I'm also working with the Council of Ambulance Authorities, which is covering ambulance services in Australia and New Zealand AFA New Guinea, while I'm working with Phillineers University too. So yesience speaking euro science, this is my passion.
Wow, you're busy. Where did you grow up? Sherry Ow?
I was born in Iran, Persia. I got my PhD over there. Then I got invitation for on Flinders University to come over and work with them, so I came here. Then I got first postag from Howard Flory Institute in Mobile and then I went to Canada while I joined the psychology department in Dahouse University and I got my second post tag. I joined the faculty and I worked with department. I also worked with some pharmaceutical companies who
developed some particular therapeutic tools for Alzheimer's disease. Then I thought, oh, Australia is my homeland. They have to come back. So I just came back to Australia.
All right, I love it. So you've been you've been doing not much. The bottom line, you've just been relaxing and paying lazy exactly, exactly, city the academic couch, just twiddling your thumbs.
Yeah right, So let's talk about.
Let's talk about being Firstly, I want to talk about being a science communicator. So, like you, well, that's not your main job, But my main job is podcasting and corporate speaking. So I do over one hundred corporate gigs a year, give or take. Last week I did four. I'm busy in that space. But one of the challenges for me is sharing science in a way that's really
understandable and usable and relevant. And because when you are and I mean this with respect, like when you're talking to corporate audiences generally or just the general public, you know, usually the majority of the audience are not researchers, are not scientists, are definitely not neuroscientists or neuropsychologists. But you're trying to share information and ideas and research that can be not only interesting, but stuff that they can put into practice. Right, So how do you do how do
you do that? Like, how do you how do you make sure that what you're sharing is understandable to a room full of academics one and then two something that they can put to use.
That's a very good question, right, Well, the thing is, I think the secret is simplicity.
So if you want to.
Talk, even to a room full of academics which they do understand your science, it's better to start with simple facts and then basically make your way through.
Bigger stuff that you want to express.
So you translated to a room full of different other people who have very good background, different other skills, but not your science. So you still go with that simplicity and try to bring the science the way that you know it, to translate it to the way that they can digest it, they can observe it, they can actually get it the same thing that you basically. For example, if you want to go to a mechanic and I don't know very much about car and you know, engines
and everything. When I go there and ask them to explain what's happening to my car, he won't go through those very much you know, mechanical, very difficult things complicated. He tries to explain it to me in a way that I actually understand it. So the thing about simplicity, so you bring the science without changing the fact about it and then bring it and then try to actually translate it to a language that people undress that. Luckily
I have your lecturer for twenty years. So this is almost the same way that you want to talk to students, like, for example, the first year of student coming from high school and starts to study biology, for example, it's not working if you want to deliver the information in the actual scientific terms. You want to make her or that person interested this. You don't want to just push that person away. So because if you don't understand the things,
it's going to be boring after why for you? So you have to make it very interesting for that person. And the way is to simplify these things. Try to make it attractive the way that person wants to actually
grab it, every bit of it. And I assume that people are coming to your thought for example or tomorrow talk, they are already interested in that subject, right, So this is the job of you for those people who are interested in the subject to make it simple so they say, oh, that's actually it's worth it coming to this thought.
So yeah, yeah, that's the way I love it. Hell, how well do you think? And these are just thoughts, right, This is This is not like I said to you before. This is not an interview. This is a conversation. How well do you think the average person understands.
Their own mind?
I know, different to their own brain, but well, you know, there's whatever. I know that's a bit of a construct. But how well do people understand their mind? And how much do people are nowhere diverging a little bit from diverting, a little bit from neuroscience, but how much do people think about how they think and why they think the way they think?
Well, lots and listens. So the lots thing is people. I mean, I know myself better than everybody else around, so I know what is happening inside my mind when I'm thinking about something, when I do something, when I act in the way that I act, I know why I'm doing this. That is the That is the lot. But actually the little so something that we do most of the things I can tell you fortunately that we
do during the day, these are happening automatically. These are the things that we or our brains have been trained since we were childhood, from family, from environment, from school, whatever that we've got the brain, the cells inside our brains, they have been trained in the way to think that way, then when we come to adult food, we start practicing and basically acting the way that we have been trained
to act and without sometimes without thinking. So I can give you one simple example, which I'm not saying wrong or right, but like religious beliefs that we have or believes about, some of the fundamental things that are actually turned to be our values and we think of them as our values, but we got them actually since we have been charged, and then we started to practicing them, repeating them. They have been told to us, do this, do that, or this is wrong, this is wrong. Now
we're doing those things right. So when that thing happens to me, and when I want to ask that behavior the daily basis, I actually do it routinely, you know what I mean, And then I know that I'm doing it, but I actually don't know why I'm doing it. So that is the way that is when the neuroscience comes to the state and it tells you, all right, now just a stop, just pause. Think about what you are doing. You know that you're doing it, but you don't know
why you are doing it. Think about if it is right, if it is the thing that serves you the best, or this is just one practice that you learn and you keep doing it, it's not gonna serve you anymore. So you have to pause and think about it to observe what you are doing. And that is the second step that we have to improve. So we know what we are doing, we don't know why we are doing it.
I think it's better to a short thinking about what we are doing, what we are doing, and then if we find them no working for us anymore, yes, sure to think about maybe it's time for a change. So you know, just lying story short answer your question. We know what we are doing most of the times, we don't actually have very much of the clue why we are doing it, and maybe we shouldn't do it.
That's so true. And it's so true also that we were almost on this autopilot. You know, we're living. We do so many things unconsciously without making necessarily decisions. But we do it this way because we've always done it that way, even if it's a five out of ten result. No, this is how we do it, rather than going, well, this is probably not optimal, this is probably not ideal. I could maybe I could maybe, No, this is just how that we do it, and even people who I
mean I told you before we started. You know my background is I didn't tell you this, but owning gyms, I owned gyms for twenty five years and working with the general public and athletes. But even people who simultaneously share you say something like they want to be healthier and fitter while simultaneously having all of these habits that make them unhealthy and unfit. Right, But if you say, do you want to be healthy fit, I'm not talking about vanity or ego or aesthetics. I'm just talking about
health and function. They simultaneously want to be different while doing something that is self destructive. Like there's this divergence of what they want and what they do.
You know, actually, so shouldn't agree more.
It's just like yes, Like one simple example is, you know, going to fast food and we all.
Know that is not with I don't name any company, just fast food.
I mean know that this is not good, This is not healthy, this is full of saturated fat. Whatever we see in like TV and here from radio or everything, still we go for it. And then if we go for it actually in a very exponential rate, I can't say this the general society. So yes, there is there is a line between knowing something and being motivated enough
to do that something. So sometimes we know something is good, but there is something basically we need to push us a little bit more, and I believe that would be that knowledge that we can't occure by understanding what is happening inside the break, is what is going on if I really want to be committed to make that change happen.
So, yeah, you're absolutely correct.
Do you think that one of the reasons that we don't like we know that we should do this thing, but we don't do the thing. And one is because we're in this kind of I guess psychological, emotional and behavioral groove, right, we're stuck in this groove and this is just repetition and this is this is our autopilot.
That's one reason. But another reason is quite often the thing that we need to do to create the change is hard, and we don't like discomfort, so we keep looking for the magic pill and the you know, the two minute apps or the instant gratifications. So there's that you have to be able to you know what I mean, I mean to be able to create real shift. Generally, real change is not quick, fun, easy, or painless.
You know exactly you're you're You're totally true. The thing that is actually happening, Craig, is when you want to make change, we need to know the definition of change. So change, you know, if it is what I mean, behavioral change, ac curing a new skill, different whatever, whatever changes is. The definition of change is transforming from one state to another state, which is quite the same as the state that we had before. So to do that change, whatever change that you name it, we need to make
that change first happen in our brain. And actually, when I say brain is physically like the brain, the cells inside the brain which are connected in one particular way that causes us to have that behavior, that thought, whatever, they need to change their connections to the different way. And it's not happening overnight. So the thing that happens to people is when they go like for as I said, like gym or changing the diet, changing more particular behavior,
different things. They expect to see the results in very short time, like in maybe a couple of days, a couple of weeks if they're committed. But this is not happening. So imagine the behavior that you have or the skill that you learned.
How many years for that language that you learned since your childhood?
How many years it took for you to get perfect and fluent in that particular thing. Few years? So how could you expect it to change that behavior in just a couple of weeks or a couple of months. Yes, your brain actually needs those cells which are connected so strongly to each other that actually makes you do that thing. They need to break down those connections and at the same time they need to break make new connections. And
that's actually about actually making connections proteins. They need that, they need to build those proteins inside the brain. That takes time, that takes maybe months, sometimes years, and then you will see the results eventually. But unfortunately, this is the thing that as you said, like you see the ads and they say, oh, you have like five weeks you will lose like ten pounds. I make you assure that if you lose ten pounds in five weeks, just like based on a very not healthy thing, it comes
back because it is not happening inside your brain. So you need to be patient, You need to be consistent, You need to be persistent in following that particle ar goal.
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent agree.
I've written a few books, but the first book that I wrote, which was a long time ago, maybe twenty five years ago, was about was about the reality that changing your body is largely not about your body, right, so exactly right, Yeah, working in with it's almost like
the physical transformation is the byproduct. It's like, what I really needed to change was my cognitive default setting, you know, the way that I thought, the way that I chose my relationship with food, myself talk like, there were all of these other emotional, psychological and cognitive variables that were drivers of behavior, and ultimately my body was at the
mercy of my choices and behaviors. And you know, and so while everyone was talking about fat and protein and carbohydrates and set and reps and energy in and out, which is all relevant, I realized that even if we got all the you know, the physiology stuff kind of right, sets, reps, weight, volume, workload, there was still this other cognitive, psychological, emotional component that really impacted the kind of results that people could get. And like you said, if somebody loses say ten pounds,
let's wear Australia. So let's say they lose five kilos in five weeks. The chances of that person depending on how they lose it. But in my experience, which is vast in this space, the chances of them losing five kilos and then maybe another five and another five if necessary, and then keeping that off for the next thirty or forty years is almost zero, right, because we didn't change the underlying kind of stuff.
You know said it that's totally true, Yes, exactly. It takes time, and it takes understanding that it can happen.
You have to believe it.
You have to make it a believer that it can happen, because it's as simple as this. If you work on the brain, it can happen. It's not just like until I guess, till the last moment if the brain is healthy. Of course, I'm not talking about pathological situation or this ease situation. But if your brain is healthy, you can't change it till the last moment that you breathe on this planet. That is actually gonna happen, just you have to work on it. But the working on it is
as a discipline. There's a commitment, and I'm sure if we get to that turning point that we see that Okay, this is a time for the change, and we understand what is happening inside your brain, then we can change it. There is, there is, There is no no question that it's gonna happen.
So yeah, and I know there's no set answer to this question, so I don't want an answer. I just want your thoughts. And the question is and it varies person to person, and it varies depending on what the issue is we're talking about. But one of the things that I'm always trying to do is help people create a new operating system cognitive emotional behavior and to change habits.
Do you have any you know destruct now, whether or not that habit is drinking too many coffees or snorting cocaine or pawn or you know, gambling.
Obviously there are lots of variables. But what are your thoughts around changing habits that are destructive?
Yes, So that's a very good question.
And I really love to answer this question because some of those problems actually the problems.
That most of the people at this era are dealing with them.
So the thing about changing a destructive behavior is think about why destructive behavior was created at the first step. So, for example, one simple example is gambling, whatever behavior that we have and we keep doing that. That's because that behavior is actually giving us a sense of pleasure, a sense of fulfillment, even those bad behaviors. There is a system inside the brain which is called reward system. This
is a simple system that the kid has. When the kids is doing a good job and then it's just like a candy or something as like the you know the price, then that reward system inside the brain is getting more activated and more activated. There is no difference between adults and kids. So when you get to do something and you activate your reward system, that makes that behavior stronger and stronger. You keep doing that, the reward system is getting more more active and the behavior actually
consolidated inside your body. So exactly about gambling, about smoking, about different distructive behavior, about eating like fats like very delicious, the salty fatty which is really nice to the taste once and then you keep doing it. You keep activating your reward system. So if you want to stop doing that, you have to do something about that reward system. It's
not just happening. When I say, as parents said to my kid, that don't do that, that's not happening, or do this, that's not happening.
You have to work on that reward system.
And there are two. Actually I'm not going to give you kind of a prescription, but these are the things you have to consider if you want to change a behavior. Why you want to change a behavior you have to do and you have to work on two different areas. The first area is to try to get rid of that bad behavior. Why you replace it with a good behavior?
Because the job of the brain is to think. The job of your brain is to ask for your If you cannot suppress that reward system without replacing it with something good. Right, So at the same time, if you want, for example, to stop gambling, you have to get those gambling neurons connected to each other weaker and weaker. Why you replace it something else, something that can make your busy and a brain busy. So the first thing to get rid of that bad behavior is to think less
focus on it. The job of the brain is thinking, is focus, and this is the job of the brain. You cannot fight it if you keep yourself less focused on that thing, that bad disruptive behavior.
After a while, after a few.
Months, a couple of years, maybe those connections they get weaker and weaker.
Consequently, you will.
Lose interest in that particular destructive behavior because the brain cannot get any reward of this anymore, any pleasure of this anymore. But at the same time, it still needs that pleasure. The still needs that we That's why people who are stopping gambling they come back to gambling after Why because now after a couple of months, they don't feel that pleasure anymore. They're just seeking that pleasure. So that's the second step. You have to replace it with
some good things. Distract yourself with doing something that you know you're passionate about. I'm sure every single of us at least has one thing in life that we like to do. If it is like learning a new language, going to the gym, doing some sport, doing some writing, whatever, Just make your brain busy while you can get enough pleasure by doing that other thing while you're getting rid of that one. So long as sure make something and you know, destroy something else.
I love it. I love it.
I'm just writing notes here. It's like unlike a student. Well I literally am a student. I'm your student at the moment, all right.
All right myself, so don't worry about it.
We're all teachers and students.
Okay, so again, no, as you said, this is not a prescription, this is not a personal recommendation. But let's just talk a little bit about how we can keep our brain functioning as optimally as we can.
At any age.
We know there's cognitive decline, but we also know that there are lots of variables around that. You know, some genetics, some lifestyle, some you know, food related, some sleep related, booze habits. You know, there are a lot of things that impact one's cognition. Talk to us a little bit, Dock about how we can keep our brain working somewhere close to optimal. Like, I'm sixty, right, and I'm very grateful. I don't drink booze, I've never calcol I've never been high,
I've never had cigarettes. I sleep great, I don't have a lot of stress. I love my life. I work out every day. I don't think I have optimal genetics, but I have not bad genetics. But I think it's very hard because the Craig experience for Craig is subjective, obviously, but I feel like my brain works better now than it did twenty years ago because I'm researching, learning, studying, speaking, focusing all the time. So but enough about me, tell us about how we can optimize our brain.
Sure, definitely, Well, Craig, I have written a book lately.
It's name Metamorphosis, and that is From Neuroplasticity to Happiness, and I said it available on Amazon. But the reason, as I'm saying it, is that all's come back to a term which is neuroplasticity. And by neuroplasticity it maybe just sounds a very big warrant, but it's actually not neuroplastic the meaning change. So change in the neurons inside the brain can help you to change whatever you expect from yourself, behavior, thought, whatever, So that neuroplassics it is
actually very important, but it's not happening by itself. You have to do some change something around it to make the environment the situation prepare for doctor Classicity.
And one of the things that you said is our lifestyle.
If you want to make a change, you have to make sure that you are starting changing your lifestyle. So, for example, you want to change a behavior, a distructive behavior, as you said, first of all, you need to change your lifestyle. It's really difficult sometimes if I want to change my diet. If I want to change the way that exercise, if I want to change the way that I sleep, I still like four or five days because the rest of the day I'm watching TV, I scrolling
down my phone, and then like five six hours. So you have to make those changes. But first of all, to make those changes, you have to change your mindset. And that's when it comes to having a growth mindset. You need to open the I gues say, the cage of your brain to change. I can't change. I want to change. I'm not fixed under sound. I want to make some changes. So starting with what is not making you happy? And when you do want destructive behavior one
at a time, past and think about that behavior. Think if that behavior is going to serve you for good or not. Usually it's a very good feeling to have a very nice fattierer pullop salt. But I guarantee ninety five percent of us we don't have a good feeling after eating it. Maybe during it ag but after what we feel heavy, we feel a little debiguilty, we feel not hap because this is.
Not what exactly what your body praise for.
It is not actually healthy, right, So pouset when you want next time you want to do something, post just for a few seconds and think if that behavior that you're gonna do is gonna serve you for good or not.
If it is for a good point.
If it is not, stop doing it and start trying to Okay, this is not good for me, then find out what's gonna be good for you to replace. Right. If it is not, I'm not telling you just go to be just it's just vegetables all day. No, it's start little and simple at the time. Instead of having two guard years a day, one day, maybe instead of having to to to casino to do gambling, maybe just pouse and think, oh, maybe it's not a good thing that I keep doing it. Maybe I have to go
to a movie, for example. Replace it with something else. If you are not doing exercise and doesn't vary good example, because physical exercise actually will help your brain to have good blood circulation, work, healthier, work nicer, get rid of those toxic proteins that's gonna build up during when we are aging, and that's that's gonna work.
For you for good in different areas.
Right. So next, I'm not saying like you have to go to gym every every hour, now. But if you want to do some physical activities and you just don't want to do it, just.
Think about it. It's short and small.
Maybe ten minutes. It's not gonna tell me ten minutes, I start jogging. For ten minutes, I start doing like simple exerts even at home for ten minutes. That's good. I'm watching TV. Ended up sitting on the couch. It started like.
Doing some exercise in front of TV ten minutes a day.
And that actually that that that sounds really logical for every other behavior that we can have. And this is the thing that you said at the beginning of this podcast, and you said, do we know what we do? And I said a lot, a lot, Because when it comes to pausing there and thinking about the behavior, we.
Know a lot. We know that this is not good for us.
That's the part that knowing lots comes about us, right, So I know that that's working for me, Then that post helps me.
That's that's the mindfulness of what we are doing.
Observing what we are doing, pose it without just repeating it automatically. Next time that I just drive to that fast food shop automatically, just a sub car. Actually, maybe I'll turn it around and this time, I just ignore just going this sub time to fast food and just maybe tomorrow. So try to do one thing at the time, start small, and then as I said, like, try to change your life son with open minds. So and I
guarantee that it's gonna happen. It is going to happen to you one at a time, and then at the end of you know the day, you.
Will see like lots of change happened in your life for good.
Now love it. I've got a million questions. I'm gonna you busy, all right, My next question. My next question is this. So, in terms of things that can impact the way that your brain works negatively, I'm going to give you four things, and I want you to rank them in terms of like one being the worst, like one is the worst, down to four the least bad, which is yeah, and you know what you might say to me, Craig, They're all equally bad.
It doesn't matter.
So in terms of things that might impact our cognition, the way that our brain works, brain health in the.
Short, medium and long term. Yes, So number number one is for sleep.
Number two is alcohol and drugs, and of course there are lots of variables. Number three is terrible diet and number four is consistent stress.
So sleep, sleep, booze, boos and drugs, sleep one, boos and drugs too, diet three and stress and anxiety four.
All right, So then I really don't need to think very much because the answer is simple. So when you have you are in a imagine that you are in a very uh disasters scenario. You are in the in the middle of for example, fire like it fire in just in the middle of the fire, or like something very dangerous to you, right, So, and there are different dangerous around you, and each of them can kill you. So you cannot point to one that can kill you more because when they kill you, they kill you. Right.
So the four thing, those four things, they are actually all.
Of them are dangerous.
So I cannot say this one is better than the other one. What I can say is how each of the stronger it can affect our lives. So, but if I want to go for everything, and that might be a little bit uh stress to the audience, but I go.
For a stress. A stress is the mother of every other bad things.
I mean by a stress, I mean toxic stress because the stress as a as a very normal level is actually good for us. It keeps us away from danger, it keeps us focus on what we want to do. But if it is toxic, it's gonna affect every single part in our body and then it will bring us to a stage of totally unastable situation. So this is the mother of everything. That doesn't mean that alcohol is good or smoking is good or different other bad elements
are good. So for example, talking about the sleeping, you need to have a quality time sleeping and you can live. We human we can live longer without water, without food than without a sleep. So you don't sleep for fourty eight hours or three days is in a row and the brain is sort of losing its functionality. It gets confused, just start hollosing anything around you know, So then then
the brain actually starts to die. So that meaning that you can stay alive for without water for two, three, four five days, without food for a week or so, but not without the slip. So that how makes it important about drugs and alcohol? Definitely they are nothing. They don't have anything good for your health and definitely not for your brain. Actually alcohol and you say we don't drink, I don't drink either, and not because of religious reason,
not just because of science reason. And the reason is because the brain is so sensitive to alcohol. If you drink alcohol, after a minute, you can feel the actual effect on your brain. This is how fast the brain absorb alcohol, right, and then alcohol actually kills the brain it cells. So there is one There is one thing about red wine which has a component and it is correspiratol, and it is good for Alzheimer's situation. However, you can
get it from other elements. I'm not saying don't drink, but I'm saying at a moderate level, not too much. Same as drug drug, No, no moderate level. There is nothing zero tolerance for a drug because every single amount of it could affect your brain in a very bad way. So that's the thing. What was that?
What was the other one?
So slight alcohol and drugs, poor diet and stress?
Yes, exactly, so diet. Have you heard nothing that they say you are what you eat?
Yeah, no, that's actually sure.
So if you keep eating something healthy and I'm not saying don't eat meat, or I'm not saying don't it you know soft because soft is actually.
Is sodium chloride, which your body actually needs.
Is a part of the cell components, so you need to have everything in moderation. But going for extreme of some particular types of food is not actually healthy for our body, and that is coming in combination with doing exercise. So you barely see any fat animals in the wild nature, right, So you see like lions and their feet, so you don't see fat. And because they have a balance between workout they have to hunt and the balance within what
they eat, like they input and their output. While in human beings we eat more than we burn, more than we use as energy, that's what we keep actual relating fat is not a good way and in long term definitely.
Going to affect our brain health, our cardiovascular health.
Like yeah, we do say fat labradors though, and that's because they're aren't by humans exactly exactly, that's because they aren't by humans and fed by humans. So so something I'm I'm more in the neuropsych than the neuroscience, but I'm fascinated with I'm fascinated with the physiological consequences of thinking right right, and so like for example, if right now, and my listeners have heard something like this before, but if right now I have a thought that I'm in
danger for no reason. But I think I'm in danger, but I'm not in danger. But I think I am, and I believe I am. Then the emotion is fear, and then the physiological response is elevated heart rate, breathing, adrenaline, cortisol, sympathetic nervous system, all of those things. So all of a sudden, just from a thought that is not true. But well, you know, I believe it, but the idea
is not true. I'm not in any danger. But when I believe that I'm in danger while not being in danger, my body can't tell the difference, So my body will go into a stress response state. Right, And so that you know, the mind and the emotions and the physiology biology are intertwined. It's one system kind of. I mean we isolated in research, but as a as an experience of being a human, it's all integrated. Right, Everything affects everything.
So now here's the thing. If twenty times a day I'm telling myself some story, I've excuse my language, fucking doom and gloom, right, twenty times a day, then twenty times a day, my sympathetic nervous system's going off and my endocrine systems go and nuts and I'm doing it to myself. Talk to me about that from a neuroscience point of view, and just you as somebody who's curious about human behavior.
That's a married good question. I can give to another example. That's what I say to my Audia sometimes in the like of having the talk, and I asked him to imagine that you have a lemon, very sour lemon in your hand, and then you cut it, and then you start squeezing it into your mouth.
Is your saliva is running, yes, in your hand. But you know what I'm talking to you, I feel actually myself.
It's like if you say to someone picture yourself scriping your fingernils down a blackboard.
Oh god, God.
You're not anywhere near a blackboard.
So you know what is a mechanism behind that. I'm sure you know it, but I'm just trying to just bring it out a little bit to the details that the brain actually doesn't have that ability to separate fact from fictions. So whatever happens to brain, whatever you tell the brain, whatever we've see the media, the brain accepts this as a fact. That is the job of our brain, because that's actually there is one evolutionary reason behind it.
Brain has to do that to basically protect our body from danger, it has to believe everything around to them. The next step to see, oh this is dangerous, I have to just either hide from it or fight them. Right. So, based on that the brain, whatever you say to brain, the brain accepts this as a fact. So when you go to for example, let me start having that negative self talk, which we have all of us. I'm sure
ninety five percent of our self talking is negative. When you start talking that negative self talk to yourself since the moment that you work up for a morning, the brain start having those experiences for real life. The brain start thinking that those things that you're saying to yourself is going to actually happen to it. That's the brain. That's the brain perception from what you say to yourself. Same as when you start saying positive things to yourself,
you suddenly I start feeling happy inside. That's why when we see somebody's laughing that gives us a sense of happiness, is that that event, whatever it is which is making the happiness sense, is not happening to us. We just see somebody smiling, We just see a kid or a baby is laughing, and that actually brings happiness to us. Right, that's because the brain thinks that thing actually happens to us. When we see a dramatic movie or something, well, start crying.
We're not going there is nothing happening to us, but the brain start believing that thing. Actually, we can't use that ability of our brain to our advantage. We can start thinking that. Okay, now that I know that the brain is gonna believe it, how about I take it to make it right? How about I start talking some good things about myself. I am good, I'm strong. I can't do it. Even if I cannot do it, I
cannot do it yet, but I can do it. Sure, So start saying something good and believe me, your brain is gonna believe it. And at the end of the day you will have more achievement than days before. You will have more happiness than the days before. And then at the same time whenever again again it comes to mindfulness, but the self. Next time that the self negative self talk comes to you, pause it, pos it And then I start thinking, if I keep doing this, my brain
actually thinks that's happening to me. And that's one every thing is actually my beautiful, amazing mom does. I have the most beautiful mom in the world that did everything for me, and whatever I have is from her, and she will. We all have some problems in our life. And still when she starts talking to me from time to time she says, remember when like that thing happened
to us? And I feel that when she's talking about that kind the story from behind this, I can see the sadness in her face and I stop her.
Mom's up.
You see, your brain thinks that sad event is going to happen to you again. That's why you feel sadness. That's why your voice is getting down. So pose it. Think of it as this is the behavior that I don't want to have. I don't want my belief, my brain to believe that this bad thing is going to happen to it. So I pose it. As soon as you pose it, the brain stopped thinking about this, right and then again. So this this is the power of
our brain. The job of our brain is thinking. You cannot stop thinking, but you can't pause on something that is not working for you and work on the other thing. So, as I said, like ninety five percent of the thoughts that we have during that they never going to happen to us. So be thinking about what if if I go through this and I lose my job, and I lose my home and I lose and that ninety five person even I can say ninety nine percent never going
to happen. But it keeps armone and that is natural because our brain wants to protect us against the danger. But that's actually too much.
So yeah, yeah, I love it. They actually did some research on that. How many of the things that we ruminate on the negative future potential problems and catashphes and it's it was either ninety one or ninety four percent, and of the remaining of the remaining percent, they generally weren't as bad as we thought, right, you have you heard Sherry about And I apologize to my listeners, but I love this experiment. There was an experiment done by
some Canadian researchers around milkshakes. Have you heard of the milkshake experiment?
No?
No, you'll love this right, So talk about the power of the power of thinking and brain. And so they had all of these people who were hungry, so they hadn't eaten, they were hungry, so they measured their you know, grellin the hunger hormone. Yes, right, So they measured their grellin levels. It was high, and then they gave them
over three different sessions. They gave them three different milkshakes, and one was a full fat, full sugar, full calorie like six or seven hundred calorie milkshake, and then they gave them at a second sitting same.
You know, when they were hungry.
They gave them a middle of the range three three hundred and fifty calorie milkshake, and then at another sitting they gave them like a low calorie, low fat, no sugar, one hundred and ten or twenty calorie milkshake.
And as you would.
Expect, after they had the full fat, high calorie milkshake, their grelon levels had plummeted, right, Their grelon levels were very low, and then when they had the next one they were a bit higher because there was not as many and then when they had the low fat, low sugar,
low calorie version, their grelon levels remained relatively high. And then they got them all together and they brought them in and they debriefed them and they said they told them that they gave them the data, the results, and everyone's like, well that makes sense. And they said, yeah, it makes sense, except you had the same milkshake every time. How crazy is that?
But that is crazy?
I can I can send you that study. Yeah, and so they actually.
Yeah, so what produced the different result or the different ground level result was not what they were drinking, but what they thought they were drinking exactly.
The brain. The brain is amazing, isn't.
It is amazing.
It is amazing.
I can give you one a more example. And that was really amazing that you just said. And you know what, like uh, and I think many of athletes, they have their professional ones, they may have had this experience that.
For example, if you see many of those football players or psychoplayers when they are in the field and they actually eager, they actually actually actually don't feel the pain they I mean, you see that that person is running all through the game with kind of the broken thumb or broken something, you know, and then it actually is not just like it's pretending it doesn't feel the pain.
This is the power of your brain. And the pain is there, the damage, the broken bones, but the brain actually expends you not to feel the pain because you are important for this team to win. So if you just get out of the field.
Your team will lose. So this is the power of brain.
We we have the most powerful tool in the entire universe in our hands.
It's totally up to us if.
We want to use it in our advantage or we don't use it, or even worse, we use it against our advantage.
So it's totally in our hands.
And that is that is the most important thing to know that we are in control, not you know, not.
Anything else you know in this is very current, but in you're in South Australia, right, yes, yes, okay. So there's a guy called Christian Petrarca who plays for Melbourne in the AFL. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, so he not this weekend, the one before he was playing, he got hit really badly. He broke four ribs. He punctured his lung and he ruptured his spleen and he kept playing. He kept playing, right, I mean, obviously he was in pain, but I mean there's no way he should have been
able to play. You know, even if you have one broken rib, it's agony. Yes, so, I mean, I don't know if that's adrenaline or what that is, but all right, we've got to wind up. But I want to ask you. So we've had we've had a guy on the show a couple of times from Harvard University. His name is Professor Jeffrey Reddiger, and he is a genius in the space of place ebos and spontaneous healing, and you know he talks about again in this space.
Have you heard of him?
Yes, of course, yes, most of the people who say they don't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's amazing. So we've had him a couple of times. What are your thoughts on placebo like the power of the mind to basically create a healing effect on the body.
Yes, well, actually I totally believe it. Plus and that is not actually a fiction thing or just the war. That actually comes back to the power of reign to basically, either in short term or long term, change the way that it can act. So I just give you a simple example, and I'm not sure that you're not about to, but the job of the brain cells are talking to each other. They communicate with each other, that's the job.
That's the simple thing that they do. If they want to send a message to a muscle to work or my tongue to talk, they just send that civil right. So the way that they can do their job better and stronger is when they communicate a stronger and by that communicating a stronger I mean that they have to actually connect more to each other, they have to grow more hands.
To each other and then make it happen. So this is the long term.
Effect that the brain uses to develop a skill, develop something else. But that's all of those the long term development of a skill. That's sort of in the very short term. Like the first step as I can say, and that is the thing that you want to change something. You think that you need to change something, and then after reach into that when you start doing that thing. So doing that thing or thinking about changing that thing could actually happen to brain in real life or could
happen to break not in real life, doesn't matter. As I said, the brain cannot differentiate with fact and fiction. That's why the team in that Canadian said it. The brain actually worked the same way because the brain thing that change is going to happen. That is the most important thing. If the brain thing change is going to happen, it will happen to the brain, and the brain makes it actually realistic for you. So you think that you are going to feel less hungry because of the milkshake.
So then you will feel less hungry because of the milkshake because that change is the trigger for the cells to start communicating in different different terr right, So that's happening when you have placebo. So next time, if one of your family members have not not a serious physical problem, just a little bit of headache or something that just sometimes give it the ticksack instead of you know, uh, perceptable, and the person start feeling better actually because the brain
actually doesn't think. I said, if it's not a serious problem, I'm not going through the medical terms. But the brain thinks that that is perceptible. What's the job of personable? It makes me feel better to feel less pain. So now I'm taking it and it starts actually working on
the brain in the same area. Right. Your brain start to think that, oh, this cell which is happening something to it, and then it's started feeling pain for me now receiving and actually happening inside the braain is receiving the agent, the substance that's gonna help it. So the brain starts automatically physically feeling less pain around itself. So I don't want to go through the details, but actually physically it happens to the brain. It's not just like
a fiction that it inside the brain. If you go inside the brain, you see that those elements which are creating pain, they are reducing just by that thought in your brain. That's why you feel less actually pain. That's why that person in the in the field. The injury is there, I'm sure even sometimes the bleeding is there, the damage, the tissue is there, but the person doesn't feel that much of pain. That's because the brain thinks that this is the change that I have to happen.
I have to come it to happen, and that is the winning of the game. And I forgot one. There is no injury, there's no breaking bones, there is no no, no, no serious damage, and it believes it, you know. So
I give you one example. Uh, like back to a few years ago, I had a few of kids in my home, like playing like my families, and one of them actually uh started writing dot point like red with the red pencil and the other ones hand and the other girl thought that it was blood and it was not blood, just like the marker and the kid crime somehow that it was actually painful.
And that's the power of brain. You see that thing, and do you think that's actually happening? So, as I said, each i'n use definitely in our advantage because the brain actually believes it whatever you can give it. That's the power of media.
Actually, you think when you see at the news is not going to affect your brain, It's going to affect you massively. So because whatever you see, you're gonna believe it. So again, that plasicle thing sometimes is good because it helps you to heal without actual chemical intervention or anything, which is good. But I'm not saying that it's going to help for in any situation. Depends on the situation, of course.
Yeah.
Wow, I love how excited you are about your work and your I love that.
I love that.
Hey, hey, how do people connect with you? Share if people want to book you, tell us where to find you on social media and website, and how organizations or individuals can connect with you.
Definitely, So I actually, as I said, like I had a book on Amazona mindset with some more folks from your Plasity to Happiness. Uh if it's online like ebook, and also you can order it. But if you want me to, I'm more than happy to get involved.
To workshops, to talks and as you see, I'm very passionate.
At the end of the session, you will find you just have to jump on, you know, doing something, and I really like this.
Is yeah, sorry, sorry, keep going.
So I really I really like, like I'm not saying that you're my students, but I really like to act as somebody to motivate my students still to go do it. You can do it. And because I saw the results happening. So I have a website shrymagic dot com. So and also so I am in Flinders University, so we can work well. I can go to my Flinders University website. I'm linked in.
Just search for my name Sherry Shoremas.
And I'm also on Google scholar if you're interested in reading my publication, my peer review articles. But the best way to book me is to go through that website Sherry Maas dot com. And you can go through different services that I can offer you in their workshops, in their webinars, in their talking and then you can book It depends on the events. And yes, yes, I will be available to come and talk to you and we
can go through that journey together. I'm still learning so I can learn something from you and you can learn something from it.
Two ways awesome.
And if all that files, everyone just send us an email via the show through the website and we'll put you in We'll put you in contact with Sherry. We'll say goodbye off but for the moment, Sherry, thanks for being on the You project. I really enjoyed it and I appreciate you.
Thank you so much Craig for having me.
I really enjoyed your insightful podcast and I hope I can come back sometimes again.
Well, I would love it.
Thank you so much.