#28 What is Neuroplasticity and why it matters with Gemma Herbertson

Gemma Herbertson is the founder of Neuro Frontiers an online learning platform dedicated to empowering individuals to understand and harness the power of Neuroplasticity therapies.

These powerful tools, if properly uses, can maintain, restore, improve, and even create brain function.

In 2012 Gemma invented the Exchange Breathing Method to help tackle her baby boy who was suffering from relentless seizures. Up to 500 a week. 

Our conversation covers her journey into the field of Neuroplasticity driven by a relentless pursuit of making her son's life better. She gives some practical advice on how to improve brain function and I'm also the beneficiary of some on-air therapy! Gemma's story of turning adversity into a lifelong commitment to learning and public service is one for us to admire and emulate.

You can learn more about Neuro Frontiers here: https://neurofrontiers.org/

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper (https://linktr.ee/thisismattcooper) with music by Loverman (https://open.spotify.com/artist/6mH930VvONxn76Kqpnixjy).

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Question

Speaker 1 0:02

Hello and welcome to Meeting People with me, Amul Pandya. Meeting People is a podcast where I have long conversations with rebellious, adventurous, and sometimes courteous free spirits. Gemma, thank you very much. Welcome to the Meeting People podcast. I'm delighted that you could spare the time. I want to talk to you about all things neuroplasticity, which is a topic that has become of interest to me um recently, and also about your work with this organization that you founded called Neuro Frontiers, if that's alright.

Speaker 2 0:38

Oh yes, I mean it's a thank you so much for inviting me here. It's a joy to be here, and yes, I'd be uh delighted to talk about all those things. Thank you.

A Baby’s Seizures Change Everything

Speaker 1 0:47

Great. Well I thought we'd kick off um with a difficult part of the conversation, I suppose, which is how it all began for you. Um what what kick started your interest in this area and the this journey that you've been on, I think is that over the last 14-15 years or so, um to really become a subject matter expert in this area. Can you just talk us through that very uh take as long as you need?

Speaker 2 1:16

Oh I don't know if I could call myself an expert. I I I aspire to be one, um but there's literally every day there's something new to learn, so um, but thank you. Um so yes, I mean when you say the subject area, so neuroplasticity is one aspect, and but this is more neuroplasticity therapy, so in in a we'll go into those, I'm sure, later, but um in a very dumbed-down way, these are things which can help your brain to work better. So it's an area of neuroscience and it's a um translational neuroscience. So you're um translating the neuroscience and making it good you know for practical use. So um that that's the area, um, and really um, yes, it's uh a journey that I'm on, but it's more of a blessing in some ways as well. A silver lining, there are silver linings to this journey, and they you know, and it started out as quite a dark cloud. So um with it started because of my son. So my son, um 16 years ago he was born, um, and and not long after that he started having seizures, and there it was a very traumatic time, very challenging, um, and then he remained having seizures for uh about four years, and these were um day and night, and um the very first one that he had um was he was about he was you know just a baby and then he turned blue, and so at that time they didn't know what they were, and that took so then uh soon after that it became um a hospital stay of about three months. Um we might be let out for a few days and then be back in the hospital, and then there was an outbreak of swine flu. So I was literally in a in a box room and because he hadn't had all of his vaccinations for um for about three months, which was you know that would be challenging to most people in itself, but um on top of that I was getting um no sleep because he was um his seizures would be every every couple of hours or so and they they started getting up and up. So um that was a very uh difficult time, you know, and it and he you know and then when they got and they realized it was uh epilepsy, which it was, they said, Oh, you can go home now. I was like, wow, so but what about getting better? Um so they tried lots of different drugs, so he did go home, but you know, I I I was trapped with him really. Um so it was very difficult. Um was this your first child?

Speaker 1 4:05

Was this your first child?

Speaker 2 4:07

No, no, this was my um I've got two gorgeous children, so but my daughter being born um two years earlier, so I I knew how a normal baby should be behaving, and I knew that this was very difficult, and then also then I had a two-year-old I should be looking after, and that was that was heartbreaking as well. So um and then she's she's just been incredible, uh you know, and I feel um very grateful to her for being so incredible, but equally I feel very um guilty that she's had to be so incredible.

Speaker 1 4:42

Um you know, yeah, it's it's she feels she almost had to grow up faster than she would have done because of uh of of the sort of having this youngest sibling come into the household that is the focus, you know, in many ways of a lot more tension than she was probably used to.

Research Mode Data Notes And Trials

Speaker 2 5:01

Yes, huge amounts of attention and and she's uh just such a lovely child, and it and I loved spending time with her, I still do. Um but it was so difficult to spend time because I had to be dealing with emergency after emergency after emergency. Um and then also when he would go to try after a seizure, he needed a good recovery period of sleeping, and then that would um sort of abate the next one arriving so soon if he didn't only had a small sleep. Oh gosh, we're gonna have another one. So for her, I kept saying, Oh, be quiet, you know, let's be really quiet. So there was no joy and laughter in the house, and that's what it was just you know, it's ever so sad. And you know, and my experience isn't um isolated. Excuse me. I work with many families now, and over the years I've seen uh you know hundreds of families, and they have similar experiences. How this ripple effect, you know, there's this one challenging situation has this ripple effect across the whole family, and so it's it's you know it's not an easy life. I um grew I I um say disillusioned or lost faith in the conventional medicine services because they couldn't they couldn't stop this. Like then we would try a new drug and then it might work for a few weeks and or might not work at all, but that whatever the effects would wear off and then we would be back to um not being able to, you know, having control of seizures again. So it was really hard for about four years. Um and so in those four years, because I was trapped, I was you know, the life is a trap, it was a great inspiration to just do anything I could do to find out about um seizures, epilepsy, um, the brain, everything. So I just took a deep dive into all the literature that was out there. I read thousands and thousands of papers. I um wasn't a great social media fan, but then went on to Facebook and um started um a couple of groups there, and then found some like-minded people that were also on this. We have to there must be some answers out there, and and then I was very lucky to be interact with some incredibly uh wise, wonderful people who and pointed me in different directions or said this is what I found out, and then I went off down lots of not necessarily rabbit holes, but you know, just um areas of knowledge and thinking, all right, and then I um started putting bits of the puzzle together in my head. Um by the time my son was so diet was one thing that we worked with with my son, and so he went from having just over 500 seizures uh a month and a a week, sorry, to um 104 a week on average.

Speaker 1 8:09

Three seizures a week is quite the number.

Speaker 2 8:13

That was day and that was day and night, you see, and that's really really hard because so I was getting between two and three hours, and so is he, two and three hours of broken sleep a day. So it's just horrendous. Um, and then you're supposed to function. I mean it's sleep deprivation, you know, spies get taught how to do how to cope with sleep deprivation if you're you know, but um um special needs parents, we are experts at this. You could you know we we can deal with that, you know. It's incredible how uh what what you can cope with. It's not healthy though.

Speaker 1 8:50

And it's the kind of it's the hope that kills you, I guess, is that will this be the medication that works? Will this diet change be the one that you're kind of looking for a silver bullet in your you know your in your mind, hopefully, you know, that um and then there's that kind of competing tension between the hope and the kind of having to be strong and uh you know keep keep battling through. And what was it a was it like a a switch that flipped like I need to figure this out now myself because the health the health establishment is just not up to the you know then they don't have the capability or the interest or the incentive or the motivation, whichever, whichever, or all of the above, to try and find the answer here beyond just trying different drugs that are on the market. Or was it a gradual pro was it a gradual process where you were like just getting more and more into the literature as you were trying to learn more about your son's condition? That snowballed into a or was there just a moment you were like, right, over to me now because the professionals have aren't able to do this right now.

Speaker 2 9:53

Right. So the professionals are are uh mainly an incredible bunch of people, really you know, um dedicated and want they they most people in the health service have got an amazing heart and want to do the right thing. The same applies in education. Many teachers want to help and do the right thing and get the child to flourish in some way, so um so their hearts in the right place, but do they have all the tools in their toolbox? And what became increasingly obvious as I went through the literature was that there are some things which can be tried and that have worked in certain cases that that weren't being tried by the NHS, and not you know, and there's there's two things at fault. Training um doesn't include some of these things for medical professionals, and then the systems preclude them from doing that. So the UK system has gone down a very similar route to the American system where we are very litigious now, people can sue each other, so you you you don't want to practice out, you know, you can't do anything outside the scope of your practice, or even if you've been to a Yeah, but as a doctor, you are and most other medical professionals, you're supposed to keep your uh do a certain number of hours of CPD, this is continuous professional development, um, in order to continue practicing. So you have to take off those hours. You might go to a conference, you might hear from an amazing you know, researcher from I don't know, somewhere else in the world, and then they say, Oh yes, this works on 100% of patients, blah blah, but you can't tell your impatient the next day because it's not written in the protocol, so you you couldn't, you can't, you know, you know, you might maybe leave a paper out and hope that they'll notice it, but that's not good enough. So you you know, it's um it's a strange um scenario in that way that there are barriers, you know, even if the person is has read all the literature, they can't tell patients uh about this. So um you said where where did this is it's a sort of a I think you're looking for when my epiphany happened, is that what you're really saying?

Speaker 1 12:04

Well epiphany or kind of at what point did your intro obviously you were you know if something happens to your you know you know anyone's don't when my children get ill or have something, I kind of end up googling the the the thing and then I start learning a bit more about it, but they could they will pop there would probably have come a point in your in your you know let's say 400 steps after that where you were like actually now I need to do something about this myself and you went from following you know following instruction and trying to to taking the lead and I'm just kind of curious did you know that early on or was that a gradual process?

Speaker 2 12:43

Um yeah, so a gradual process would be um yeah so I thought um I very I'm very solutions focused, so I but I I know that you can only make the best decisions with the best information, so or enough of the best information. So you want you know so I I did start collecting data. I I just um initially the hospital asked you to say when did your child go to sleep, when do they feed, um have they had any bowel movements, you know, you so you note all these things down in the time that they did it, and they've got little sheets that you can do it. Well that became a habit. I just continued that I didn't because I thought anything could help. If if this is if this is the this is what they want, then I'll keep on giving clues and giving them information because they that might mean something to them. Now, as it turned out that with my son this did mean something, but nobody had put the um nobody had put such two things together, it wasn't something um they were um uh trained to notice or put together. So um so that that's one aspect and um of something that I was measuring. And then um and then I think you know later on because as I as the process developed and I was reading these things, I did think to trial things. I wanted to I ask a medical professional whether this would do any harm, or you know, whether it I'm okay to do this, and then I tried things on myself and I thought I'll I'll see how that feels for me. I don't want to put my child through this unless I tried it myself. So um uh yeah, that was another method, if you like. So I started experimenting, and that was um and it began with diet, right?

Speaker 1 14:28

So get uh how what did you do with the diet to um sorry you're gonna interrupt correct me? Correct me and then go to the diet. I'm quite I'm just I'm focusing on this because I'm really keen to just kind of get into the journey so that it better informs what comes the solutions that you've you know that you know we see on the other side when we visit your website and all you know the the the output of all that journey, but it's to better get an understanding of that. I really want to kind of properly understand how you got there if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 14:59

I tried all sorts of things. I thought, oh what happens if he's a nurse suggested that some children seem to have seem to do better if they sleep on one side or the other side, so he uh had little um rolled up towels to see if that would help him. You know, there was it was just you know anecdotal grandma things, um, and I went down to Sussex and this is this is over a period of four years, so this wasn't all immediate. This is um as things go. I went down to Sussex and did a treatment with him for hyperbaric oxygen therapy um and um some some strange flannels that you pressed on things. We went up to I Leyland, where's that? Lancashire. Um that direction near uh it was either Lancashire or Cumbria and did something called handle therapy up there. Um oh gosh, I you know, I was just trying all different things. It was it was a scattergun approach, it really was um using too many things. I didn't understand what I was doing, but I wanted to do something. That feeling of not having, I mean, I you know, of wanting to have some control over this, and not because you're controlling, but because you want to help your child, you know, your role as a mother or as a parent drives you to want to look after your child, to to control the sit, yeah, to control the situation so that you um so so that you can say mother, but I mean it is it is uh mother, mother's instinct for sure.

Speaker 1 16:33

Uh speaking as a father, I can I'll give that to you as uh fathers take more risks push you on the swings harder and and higher, it's fine.

Speaker 2 16:43

But yeah, mothers are definitely the cotton wool um yeah, bearers, yeah.

Speaker 1 16:49

But also the you know, evolutionarily you need you need the mothers to kind of worry and do do those things, otherwise the survival chances go down versus the risk takers. Um so it's a good yin and yang. But so you so you had a kind of skip the scatter gun approach where you were trying, I guess looking for silver bullets if that's the right way to look at it, not intentionally, but like you know, maybe this fix or this this sort of little um manipulation of the environment or whatever it might be will kind of cause a an alleviation or a or a cure or whatever the right word is, uh and it will scattergun and and at what point yeah, keep going. Yeah, if you keep going on the kind of what came next.

Speaker 2 17:35

Yeah, so uh I think my error, if you like, um had been thinking that epilepsy and seizures are one thing. So epilepsy and seizures now I know are a secondary symptom. There's always a root cause, and they are the secondary thin symptoms. So people think of them as a diagnosis, but actually they're you're just you're finding a symptom, and the diagre truest diagnosis would be what the finding the root cause of that. Um so you look online and you might join a group, and I've still got some groups on Facebook, and people say, Oh, what works for seizures? What you know, has anyone tried this? But that they the you need to appreciate that you know there are such a wide range of root causes which cause the similar outward event you know symptom of having a seizure plus lots of other things. So, you know, having uh been in that naive place where I thought, oh yes, epilepsy, I'll just see what works for that, and then you look, and then gosh, this seems to be loads of things. Um I I thought I'll try loads of things um just to see. And yeah, then what that didn't work next, that didn't work next. And that hope thing that we you just talked about, um it it's uh it keeps you going because you think, okay, well, you know, at least we're not at the end of the line now. Whereas with um you know the NHS it must be really hard to work in that environment where your options are very limited, and you've got I don't know, eight six or eight drugs, and you try one, try two, then you try combinations, and then eventually you you you're out, you know, nothing's worked, so then what's next? Um so yeah, it's um we're blessed to be able to uh in a way have access to information, but you you know, my error had not been my naivety in not realizing I needed to tailor that information to my son's case. Um but anyway, it gave me a wide range of experiences, and I met um lots of amazing people along that journey.

Speaker 1 19:44

And that thing you say is very interesting, that kind of epilepsy seizures are a symptom, they're not a root cause, and so if you spend your whole time trying to address the symptom, you're never gonna identify what could be the the the thing that's called the manifestation that what is causing these these uh symptoms to manifest. And did you yeah, what kind of happened next? What what what how does the journey continue from from that you know from trying this Scatagon approach to alleviate these downstream effects?

Food Triggers And The Diet Shift

Speaker 2 20:18

What what so I mean diet was a huge step that so that um yeah realizing that there were certain things that you could take out at a diet and that improved him enormously. Later on, um I'd have to do that. What were they? So it was yeah, if he went from 500 seizures to 100, is that right, with some dietary changes? So what were out of interest? What was that? Gluten, dairy, sugar, what what was the type of thing?

Speaker 1 20:46

It was interesting. So it means even as a clue, so he was he would only eat five things. I think he must have been about two or three, so he would he because he weaned and he was definitely eating himself, so he would eat pasta, um toast, uh Cheerios, hula hoops, and I think the last one was milk. Anyway, sounds like my daughter's diet. Yeah.

Speaker 2 21:13

So those are very um you know, um inflammatory and they're not they're not highly nutritious. Um anything that's nutritious within them has been fortif fortified. Sorry. Um so it it's not it's not true nutrition, it's not fresh food. Um so so this is not I'm sorry to hear that your daughter's you know on a similar diet.

Speaker 1 21:37

So no no no, I'm sorry, I was being um I was being glib uh to say because that's that's what they want to eat is cherry then cherrios, hula hoops, and pasta and bread is kind of the go to uh and then it's a battle to get them to eat something else. But no, ignor ignore me.

Spotting Breath Patterns Before Seizures

Speaker 2 21:53

Right, sorry. Um so um so there was a day I'd come into the kitchen and he Was on the floor and he'd poured out a whole box of Cheerios and was just eating them and eating them and eating them, and then his seizures were terrible. Um, so I was you know, so that was a clue that something was not um uh going right, you know, that there was something happening there, there was a cause and effect. Um so yes, so so diet, we took out um gluten and dairy, um, massively reduced the sugar and soya. I think those were it was it was a sort of a gradual period, but um we got there. Um, and then an his seizures went right down, and we because you don't know how all these variables you think, well, I don't, you know, I was still trying some other things as well because I was so desperate. Um, and then but we went on holiday to Wales, and he we couldn't find all the things and just thought, oh, just you know, just a week off, let's go back. So, but that that was it. You know, he was his seizures where it came back with a vengeance, so then it was right, we're going back to what we and then they went down again. So it was oh, there's definitely seems to be some correlation here. So that was um the the first blessing for us to learn that. Um do you want me to carry on with yeah, please, please, yeah. So I'm trying to think. So to um but in his third year, um a number of things happened. They found that he had a brain tumour, but equally my um my sort of research was coming along as well, and I understood a few more things, and then during that time I um learned about breathing. So that's when if I go back to when he was a baby and I started making notes, I started it right in the hospital. I I noticed that his breathing had a certain pattern to it just before he would have a seizure. No, three months in hospital is a long time, so you know, I and I try with seizures happening every couple of hours, um, I I have plenty of opportunities to press the red button, then everyone comes and then to see what happens. Then I started pressing the red button before he would have a seizure and saying, Oh, he's about to have one, and then he would have one. Not and I'm not some sort of guru or anything like that. Um it was just because I noticed this, but it's not on um conventional doctors' radars to really monitor the breath. So, but I can put that in hindsight now. I can say, gosh, that was so relevant, that's so relevant to my son. Um, and so I uh had also been putting together a number of ideas into my head, and then came up one day, and I'm very grateful to some of the people I met online who pointed me in the right direction, but I suddenly had a a great eureka moment and realized that if I breathed out um or if I could get some carbogen, it was called, into my son's nose then um or into my son, then I could um uh it's carbogen is a mixture of carbon dioxide and oxygen. So I thought um yeah, if I could get some carbogen into my son, then I could make him stop his seizures, um, or as a first aid method to to halt a seizure. So not to stop them in the first place but to halt them if they if they started. So I um tried British BOC, they're something chemistry, British something in chemistry, um they're they're the gas people, and they you might see their big lorries driving along the road. So I I tried them and they said no, you need some sort of license, are you a university? Um no. So so I so I couldn't do that. And then then rem and then I realized you know that you've actually got a free supply of carbon of carbon that comes out of your mouth all the time, which you know because that is a mixture of carbon dioxide and oxygen, and then um putting some more things together, read a study on on mice, and realized that you could that um that the best thing to do would be to breathe this mixture into somebody's nose. Um so we've been doing um with another friend who was following and taking part in you know contributing to um this uh these this thought process. Um he's in uh was in Austria and uh he he said, Oh let's lose plastic bags. So breathing into plastic bags and then washing it in our faces in the face of your thing. But but then we were thinking, well, this isn't this this is quite good, but it doesn't make you know, it's a you know it doesn't it doesn't look very good if you go to the supermarket, you blow into a plastic bag and then w whack a plastic bag over your baby's head.

Speaker 1 26:44

It's just not a bad look. Yeah.

Speaker 2 26:49

So um yes, then realised you've got this free sauce coming out of your your your own, you know, out of your mouth, your not your mouth, well, it would be your mouth. So yes, so then I that was my eureka moment of putting lots of things together and realizing just breathe out of your mouth into into your son's nose. And I sat with that thought, I you know, read and read uh back over what I thought, could this be right? So 48 hours, I think it was roughly, when I'd had the thought of trying this and thinking, God, this could really work. What would it do? Could it could it do any harm? And then I tried it, and and that was it. Just a seizure would just stop, just stop.

Speaker 1 27:31

So you built up this intuition almost like a skill, like you that's how people learn skills, right? Is they have repeat exposure to something, and then they build up this sort of sixth centre intuition, and you could tell when your son was about to have a seizure because you spotted the patterns that would manifest before the seizure would happen. And then um this then you had this solution which was to I guess is it like the what scuba divers do in first aid courses? I remember having to do a first aid course in the water where if if someone had passed out in the water, you'd have to get to the surface and then you'd clamp your lips around their nose and make an airtight seal and then you just blow in. You can't do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the water, basically, because the water will get into their lungs if you're trying to do mouth-to-mouth whilst you're swimming, so you have to do it around the nose, and you go pfft, you you kind of breathe out, exhale heavily into their nose to re get some air into them. Is that is that the same what you were doing exactly?

Speaker 2 28:34

I I'm going to look into this. Yeah, I don't I um and why that would be a good thing, but um it would now with what I know that makes a lot of sense. Um so yes, essentially you're you are but you're not giving a very hard breath. It's not necessary to give um a hard breath. There is some um motion necessary, but um you wouldn't have to be breathing your full strength into to the nose. Um but that's interesting, you know, and it's something I'll I'll look up now to understand um that sort of first aid, because you know it might contribute towards the yeah, so thank you.

Speaker 1 29:13

And and and this would this would cut the seizure effectively. You'd apply the breath to the nose, to the to your son's nose, and it would stop a seizure flat. Is that right?

Brain Tumour Surgery And New Anxiety

Speaker 2 29:25

Yeah, yes, it would just um stop the seizure. So I um when you say I I noticed his breathing going over, I so that was very easy in a hospital setting because you have monitors, you know, and that so I'm watching the monitors seeing, so it's easy to see when his breathing goes differently. It's it's more difficult when somebody sat across the the other side of the room and you're chopping up some uh mushrooms. You know, you can't be just focusing on their on their their their torso or their chest, so or listening and he hasn't got any equipment. So um so yes, it was he would often start having a seizure, so so it would be more progressed than that, and then um yes, and then I would just administer it and then they it would stop. And then so prior to that what would happen is that he would have have a seizure um which would last uh five minutes and then you know up to five minutes, and then it would, and then he would have to sleep for a couple of hours, and it would just be so stressful. So you've got your uh a young daughter, you know, wanting to be picked up from school, and that would be my one daily trip out, and then he might have just have a seizure, and then you're in a dilemma. Oh gosh, uh if I put him in the car, then he's gonna have to he will stay awake, he won't go to sleep, um, and then but I'll be late for my daughter, you know. So all of these things were just so stressful, or you'd say, if if everyone was at home, right, silence in the house now, silence in the house because he's had a seizure, he's asleep. Um, you know, just but so then the quality of life that changed after that, you know, it you know, extraordinary change because he you know he was just back in the room and then he would just carry on what he was doing before. And that's you know, that was the um just incredible that you know he didn't need any recovery time, or um if it had progressed, you know, if the seizure had progressed, it would be min it would be far less, and his memory then you know would be um better if you like. So yeah. And did you say he it transpired that he had a brain tumour? Is that right? Yeah, yes, it's how how old was he when you found when you found how when you found that out, how far into the I was in his third year of um he was three years old. Um and then um yes, and so then there was uh some tests that we needed to go through um just for for assessment purposes, you know, multiple MRIs, um and they couldn't sedate him either, so he was he couldn't be sedated, so that was um yeah, well, it was really you know, they tried everything, you know, things which should just knock a horse out didn't seem to do anything for him. So, you know, um so that was that we had a number of attempts to to do MRIs, but eventually we we found something that worked, so um yes, and then he had an operation to remove um which was able to remove 95% of that, but that meant um for a lay person about a quarter of his brain um had to go is a temporal lobe, which is a sort of a banana-shaped thing across here, um uh was gone. So and that's got some really sort of vital bits of equipment in, and he was four, so you know, parts of uh human being a human and how our human functions have been housed in that area as well. So which which hemisphere was that out of interest? What side of the brain? Or is it across both hemispheres?

Speaker 5 33:04

No, that's his left, that's on your left, his left side.

Speaker 2 33:07

Oh, it's his left side, okay. We'll come on to that uh a bit later.

Speaker 5 33:11

Um I was curious why you bounced.

Speaker 2 33:13

Well, that's how I found you actually. Um you liked a post by s someone called Ian McGilchrist who I've been uh deep diving on. So I was just curious anyway, we can come onto that later. Um so he had brain surgery to remove a brain tumour that took a quarter of his brain out at the age of four. Um wow, and yeah, what what um yeah, what happened next?

Anti-Neuroinflammatory Diet For The Brain

Speaker 5 33:44

So the quality of life started to get somewhat better. So at that point he was about four, but he had a mental age of way less than that, still like a baby. Um so um yeah, so he was you know um doubly incontinent, no speech. Um the operation he had an an eye that turned out, um and yeah, just and is and the seizures continued, not at the the the uh 500 a week but six a month, which was you know, for anybody who's listening that also has you know um somebody that they care for with seizures, you know, that I I've been used to a regularity. I knew that um you know every two hours this is when it's roughly going to happen. Now then there suddenly was this new experience of um being anxious all the time. Is one going to happen now? Because I don't know, I can't predict this anymore. So it was a whole it was a different scenario, and I hadn't wasn't really prepared for that. Um yeah, so it it was agonizing in a different way, um, but you know, some quality of life was coming back, and then you we were having um yeah, then there would be some sort of assessment going through. But by that point, so I had learnt you know the exchange breathing method, which is what the method to stop a seizure um is called, and and so I'd learnt that, so I could use that. I also um had uh towards that the end of that last year found and done a fantastic course. Oh, I don't I think that was after his operation, yes it was, but but um I'd found out about um something uh something called the anti-neuroinflammatory diet, which I then later really um took a deep dive into and um really instituted with him, and that does help us a lot well as uh a lot as well.

Speaker 2 35:39

So and what's that do you mind just me? I'm very curious about diets and the linked diets and health and brainhouse. So is it again no sugar, gluten, dairy, that kind of thing, or was it vegetable protein heavy, fat heavy, meat, vegetable heavy?

Speaker 5 35:53

What was the kind of what was the so there are certain um if you like uh nutrients or um certain food types which are more much which have a role like a drug, you know, you eat, you swallow drugs, um, but so you can use food in a way that is medicine. And um so certain foods actually have a are going to dampen down inflammation. Now you've got this amazing you you know your brain has got something called the um blood brain barrier around it, like a membrane, which you know it's it's almost like cling film. You know, you shouldn't be able to put, you know, we wrap cling film around things, you can't get things through. So there's but it's got some very little gateways in it, but um if you imagine these are two cells, they're very close together, you can't get very much through the things called close junctions. So you you so it it's very fussy about what it lets in and out of that, and you know, should nothing should get in and out. But there are certain um foods and that they where you can uh for where their constituents can pass through that barrier, so you can get them into um into the brain, and then they have what's called this anti-neuroinflammatory effect. So a wonderful, um, really amazing man called Dr. Datis Karazian um has you know um done a lot of research into this and now has has translated that research into practical things that you can do. So he runs a fantastic course. So if anyone that this is for practitioners, but if you but he also has a list of people who are trained in this, so if you're interested, you could go and look um at somebody who's um training.

Speaker 2 37:37

And what what are these foods that can penetrate the blood brain barrier and nourish and/or anti-inflame, reduce inflammation in the that that's happening in the brain?

Speaker 5 37:48

So you know we were told to you know eat a rainbow of colours, it's not far off that. So so that so you do want to eat a range of plant-based um foods, but not anything that's been pro processed ultra-processed. So, you know, like oh anyway, so there's some sort of you know, um plant-based pretend bacon and things. Yes, it might be plant-based, but that's ultra-processed, not that. Real plants, real whole foods, so um and a wide variety of them. So let's think of uh pulses, um, beans, um you've got different types of rice, so not your highly polished white rice that's um lacking in things. You want really dark um black rice, um, red rice, um things, and then sort of spices, herbs and spices, uh, certain of these, so um curcumin, which is turmeric, that comes from that. Um buckwheat, buckwheat flower flowers are high in flavor flavonoids as well. That's um I think it's uh something like a rhubarb, it's I think it's in the rhubarb family, but it's but it's buckwheat is uh um is not a wheat. So uh it's these things, and so um reserva troll, which is found in red wines, but also in Japanese knotweed, um and uh green tea, um but that does have caffeine, so but she can have the constituents from that, and if you use it wisely. So a whole variety of things to to eat, um, and if you want to end up end up by getting um 28 different plant-based foods a week. Now that sounds huge, doesn't it? If you're thinking of packets of vegetables, you don't want 28 packets of vegetables over a week. But if you think, oh that includes includes all the spices, all the herbs, you know, some garlic, um, and then you know, even in even in breakfast, so I'd put in seeds. So for breakfast, um, you might have my son loves pancakes, I I love porridge, but you can have so I'd go through my porridge, you you can have um just normal oats, and then you can have um you can sprinkle in some some coconut, you can use some seeds, so you use three or four varieties of that, so we're already up to like six or seven things just with those. So then some fruit, some different berries. Oh gosh, right, you've easily hit your um your daily target within um you know, so yeah, to get 28 a week um is you know is is becomes achievable once you've just done all these things. So so lots of that, good fats.

Speaker 2 40:34

Um and then you did that course and you found that that was helping as well. You were down to six a month, but you weren't quite sure where you'd have the surgery. Yeah, you'd have the surgery, you were having six six, but you didn't know when they were, it was a horrible kind of uncertainty as to this weight, this kind of permanently being on edge.

Speaker 5 40:56

Yeah, no, so I think it was a jewel thing. So I um used some of those. I uh you know, so I was using this diet, and then also I think because he you know we were able to stop most of his seizures with the exchange breathing method, and then if you know they're use it or lose it, so if the brain's isn't using a pathway, it will lose it. So there is I can't prove this, but there is thought that if you are stopping something happening, then the brain will forget how to do it. So was was there is a question, was that helping my son to forget having seizures by interrupting them so that they didn't continue? Um it not necessarily, but you know, even does the the fear that's associated with a seizure by the person that can exacerbate the seizure, making making that go away. So so yeah, there's various elements that uh all came into play, and then um yeah, we we did a course of hyperbaric oxygen therapy right after his surgery as well, which um they when we looked at his scar afterwards, it was beautiful, you know, it's a very pristine scar, so there was lack of scarring, which is a great thing, um, because if you have scarring after surgery, then your your your chance of having seizures is greatly increased. So that was uh another beneficial thing. So we tried many things and yeah, sort of like a gradual process.

Speaker 1 42:28

Um so Wineford today, how how is he, how is that how is that recovery coming along or come along?

Speaker 2 42:40

Um particularly having lost such a big part of your brain. I guess the inevitable question people have is you know what what does that mean in terms of one's development? What kind of life can they expect to have when they're older? Does the does it grow back? Um just be curious to kind of you know see how he's doing really and how you're doing at the moment, what's what's steady state life look like at the moment.

Rapid Progress With Drug-Free Therapies

What Neuroplasticity Really Means

Speaker 5 43:04

So um I'll I'll wind back to just a small bit because um um after he If there's anything important, go go please tell me. I asked the uh hospital what would be his sort of rehabilitation plan. I didn't use those words, but it was that's what I was asking. And they said, Oh no, you just go home and fingers crossed, that was it, which I really couldn't believe because um I was thinking, well that that doesn't seem right. You know, that doesn't that that's that's not good enough. And so that's what got me started into thinking about neuroplasticity therapies, and then I came across something in Philadelphia, um, and then heard about what they were doing in Denmark, which is a very different um program for rehabilitation. And yes, Gen just got inspired and started being able to to go and train in. in different areas and yeah I did lots and lots of training all for the sake of my son and that's when things became everything just went up a notch and everything became a lot more scientific and I became a lot more fussy about what I was going to do because um yeah I had spent you know a lot of time money money um that was very you know no not great either you know because you just do whatever you can to get your child better. Because of this ripple effect you want everyone your whole family's life to be better um so that yes you've got the time and the energy and the effort that you're putting in as well and you you want that to be as targeted and efficient as possible. So yes I started learning about um neuroplasticity therapies and that was during his um year after he uh had his operation and then you within that you're measured a number of times in the year to see your progress so his initial progress wasn't wasn't um you know you think oh he's gonna have an operation and he's going to get lots better but it it didn't really happen in that way so it's it was a you know it was almost plateauing and then we then I discovered these therapies and within it was just incredible within about six weeks we went back to the psychologist for uh another assessment so he had had no language and then I got him to speak words um just individual words I had flashcards and so then he was reading as well you know his learning had been so impaired by having seizures and and now um it and it wasn't because I was showing him flashcards and he was reading the words it was because of the other things the foundational parts of his brain that we were really helping that he was then able to do that. So um so we were doing some therapies with him drug-free um non-invasive nice fun that's really important um therapies that you can do exercises with um on yourself or with it with your loved ones so he was doing them um and I did them with him and then that's what really started and then as as I got um more aware of these and discovered more from around the world and got went and trained that's when uh we saw enormous um leaps forward and when we saw his psychologist for I think probably the final appointment he he later related to me that he'd had to go and sit down he just couldn't he he just was absolutely flabbergasted that uh that that the progress within just a few weeks that my son was then you know reading um he got out of his wheelchair and he'd he walked up the stairs into the man's office started reading I showed him I also had flashcards of dots and each each set of dots um uh represented a volume and so my son would just say oh six twenty four yeah you know one you know so he you know he was aware of volume um with these dots as well um I can't think what else he did just talking was I mean it was just words odd you know definite words um but they were yeah not conversation at that point but then that progressed once I learned something else like oh wow this is this is these are the foundations that a brain needs in order to have conversation and then that was you know truly oh gosh you know if you've got a child that doesn't speak or struggles with language then you know if they can say um to you as a parent you know just if they start talking at all that's a blessing and then there was a day obviously when he would say you know I love you and it's like oh wow yeah honestly it you just yeah you just um yeah that it was things like that huge huge milestones which you know everyone else takes for granted with a child when they're young but then this was just huge so yeah and this is from neuroplastic um sorry what they call therapy from neuroplasticity therapies yeah neuroplasticity therapies yeah and so you alive and and you you mentioned the beginning this these these are basically what make your they make your brain work better but um how is it plasticity is is a moulding sense with that word is it reshaping your brain is it re-moulding it what's happening yeah are you creating new neurons are you strengthening the links between neurons what you know what what uh what what is neuroplasticity actually mean you've just done a done a very good job of explaining so yes it is I mean plasticity comes from a sort of a Spanish um understanding of you know things being plastic mouldable um so our wiring uh David Eagleman has a really good term where he says our brain is live wired it's biologically live so so say we were talking and you and you you just told me suddenly oh my name's not I'm all um and even though it says it on the screen and you told me that your name I don't know Susan yeah there we are we got secret desire that you so it's um right I'm not reading anything into that um oh I think my phone's ringing just two seconds sorry that's okay um so neuroplasticity therapies yes so we're live wired um and so if there's some if yeah if I tell you my name's Susan then um you'll react in a way that's what Charles yeah yes Susan so um so yeah so you're I would then have a rewiring so you've got um so I thought your name was Amil and then now is now you've told me oh no so I have to disconnect that and then I have to reconnect some new information and so I'm forming a new pathway. So if word association is a really easy way to understand this. So if we say um the colour um yellow um and then if you can you think of um four things associated with the colour yellow right now uh sand ducks bananas sun yeah very good yeah so so you've got if you like um so this is a nice way to imagine it so one neuron which is represents yellow but then you've got then it goes and it but it's got an attachment and a link with ducks sand um I can't remember the other two you said sun is I think and sun is yeah so so then it's there you are so then there it's got these four so what you have is um uh a dendrite coming out a sort of as um a root if you like coming out of a neuron and then it can have more subroots coming out and it will join to these other things but then equally like if you changed your name you said oh no that's not really my name I can undo those so we're live wired we can we can grow links between these things and then we can undo them. So if you if you use something um you uh strengthen that link so um it might be the strength of the signal that comes out that that that's actually strengthening it um because you're using it many times um or it's very strong if there's a very uh traumatic memory you you you have more strength of those memories so so um yeah so we have these uh strong pathways that are connected a or that are there in the brain and then other things which if we don't need to use it we won't remember it.

Speaker 2 51:57

And I guess that applies to trauma as well so if you have like a traumatic experience whether it's an event or an injury or whatever that will cement itself quite hard in your brain and you'll associate the things with that trauma and it's hard to undo that I'm guessing w or ever if if ever at all possible to undo it and without neuroplastic therap neuroplasticity therapies. Is that right?

Sensory Targeting And Personalised Programmes

Speaker 5 52:26

Um yeah so that would be if that would more likely there's different ways in which the trauma can affect the brain but if it was something that you were able to verbalise and talk about and that your brain worked perfectly well um up until that point but you just had been you know with something traumatic we will go over and over typically you'll go over and over and over and it you'll think about it again and again you're you're wired for survival so you don't want to relive that experience so you're going to be thinking if that ever happens again this would what I'll do what can I learn from this so you're you know whilst you're sleeping and whilst you're awake you'll be taking that memory in and out in and out because it would have been so traumatic most likely for many people so you're you're strengthening that those memories um but for um this is quite high level you know and across here of of being able to think about those memories and and possibly attach emotions to them so um yeah so the though that's when some uh so talking therapies could could help with that but then also you've got other things like EMDR which is um helps to um detach the emotions from the memories um so yes there are things like that which can help trauma can also affect us in in other ways it can be an interrupter particularly for children so it can interrupt their development so it that works in a different way that of course right yeah so it's um okay so let's move away back away from trauma back to kind of um the therapies neuroplasticity therapies so I was looking at the the the various ones that are listed on your website and it's it feels to me that a lot of them are kind of and you'll you'll no doubt correct me but about your sensory perceptions kind of re-engaging um you know you've got aromatherapy so kind of re-engaging your ability you know using smell fascia your skin that kind of you know massage your touch your kind of sense your touch tactile perception and you know auditory you know your music therapy whatever it might be and uh and that's you know why is that important what why did I find that interesting you know our before before we developed language you know we the only way we could understand the world as up the evolutionary tree was by using our sensory perceptions.

Speaker 2 54:59

That was the only link we had with the outside world to kind of try and map it and then we developed language and and symbols and that was a completely totally new way of like being able to understand the world and we've gone so deep into langu we've ended up creating a whole new world that's of abstract representation that isn't really real this sort of terrain or or map which lives on the internet lives on social media lives you know and it's almost like reconnecting ourselves back to the old way we used to perceive or you know understand the world which is our sensory perceptions not just our ability to abstract and linguistically understand what's going on around us is that is that a fair way to kind of map a lot of these therapies that they're sort of getting us back to kind of putting our feet on the ground and feeling the earth or whatever it might be that is it sounds a bit I'm sure it's much more involved than that but I'm making it seem a lot more uh kind of airy fairy yogury if that makes sense but yeah is that is that right um so definitely not airy fairy yogury so and so um but something in what you've noticed yes so then you have your um uh motor um nerves which are you know output and action related and then you've got your sensory nerves which are input and you know what am I noticing about the world and so these all have to be uh stimulated and um used in order for our brain to be functioning really well.

Speaker 5 56:32

So what also that you've noticed is that you know the modern world is is encouraging us to just do sort of cerebral tasks generally typing away on a laptop or you know speaking of thoughts that can translated into words and that's you know the be all and end all well no being a human and having a well functioning brain demands a lot more than that so um these types of things where you would be using um scent but it's not a it's not a one size fits all so you wouldn't use the same scent for everybody for um each person they may somebody may be um feeling very drowsy all the time you might be using something that would um uh perk them up but equally going back to hemispheres you might be saying I only want to use the left nostril for this so you're very you're working in a very targeted way and you're deliberately stimulating certain areas of the brain so there's no um there's no like in sort of psychology or general aromatherapy where you're like oh well 18 out of 20 people found this like a lovely experience so um just use that no we we want to know is my patient one of those two out of 20 where this won't be so so you're cutting out that guesswork and you're not using sort of generalized behavioural theories you're um assessing the brain so you've got many many um regions of the brain so typically we think of there 52 but there's closer to six um 700 um when you count all the sub regions and then you this is left um and then then those are divided into left and right so then you're thinking okay which side of the brain do I want to be stimulate where you know what have I found um during the assessment and of those areas and then how which which area am I going to target first and then with this individual in front of me what um what are their perhaps their interest areas um what uh and or may quite often less so well yeah so what are their interest areas so can I make it relevant too so um yeah so for example um if you were wanting to use somebody's sense of balance and that they were I don't know interested in horses you might have a picture of a horse and you know so something which um that's a very basic example but something which they it it it's tailored to them in some way that you're you're going to use their or what they're familiar with already and what which they perhaps enjoy to then use that um in integrate it with your therapy so that it's it's motivational for them to continue.

Speaker 2 59:29

Okay and just stepping away from therapy specifically or therapy per se how does one let's say someone like me how should I think about neuroplasticity in my day-to-day life if I want to you know people may question whether I need therapy or not and argue strongly with me that I should but you know i when I'm not having therapy let's say if I want to be a better person or concentrate better you know learn new skills better be better at my job be a better parent better husband whatever it might be how um should I be thinking about neuroplasticity on a day-to-day basis are there habits is it meditation what what what being in nature what what what are the some practical day-to-day things I can do or kind of not do to to use neuroplasti the concept of neuroplasticity and are there limits what are the I guess a second question to that is what are the limits to neuroplasticity I I assume I cannot make myself a Premier League footballer by doing you know by changing my brain remoulding my brain that that that that's not going to happen right no matter how hard I try so what what what is what is the scope of this um sounds very powerful but what is what are the limitations and what could I be doing you know today after this conversation tomorrow for the rest of my life to kind of be use neuroplasticity to kind of be a better person.

Speaker 5 1:01:02

So um so you want to be Susan the Premier League football player is that right? Yeah exactly so um that's that we can take that on offline or maybe one-to-one therapy but yeah but uh but in general so you're looking for when you say becoming a better person you're you're interested in in tweak because you are you know you're achieving a lot in your life already and you've you you've got a lovely family and you've got a good job and you're you're even doing podcasts so you've got an a and you meet amazing people so there's lots of things going on. So you're thinking what what would those tweaks be that I could perhaps do?

Speaker 2 1:01:40

Well I guess they don't feel like tweaks but I mean yeah putting me on the couch maybe like if let's say 10 you know on the 10 occasions that my my kids will do something annoying or that you know right you know I eight out of the ten times I will you know be able to defuse it or not react or kind of but there may be the couple of occasions where I'll be like you know snap or I'll kind of you know that or I'm working and um I'm feeling a bit lazy actually I'll let this piece of work go or I won't quite do that thing as well as I could do because I'll just get it done and ship it off because what does it matter really? I you know actually how do I you know eight times out of ten I wouldn't do that but there's this few times where actually you know I look you know looking at my phone I think I hate the fact the amount of time I spend looking at my phone or going to the internet or whatever. You know what there's so many things that you know but don't feel like tweaks that are actually quite fundamental you know that that I wish I could um I I could you know that are are stopping me from maximising my ability to contribute to the world or you know be be the most that I can be and whether it's you know bad habits with technology or it's not spending you know not having those slippages in my personal relationships which you know are fundamentally I think fine you know I'm not saying this but they could always be better and I could you know um you know not forgetting my sister's birthday or whatever. Yeah I don't I don't know bad organizational skills doing my tax return on time. These things don't seem you know I guess they sound like tweaks to you but yeah I got I guess real fun you know you when you're kind of a um a person where nothing's ever good enough or you're kind of always you could always be you know doing better. Yeah I don't know I don't know how to wrap that up but I hope I've given you enough there to kind of to sort of but what can you I guess what I'm asking is I mean there's no quick fix but what can neuroplasticity therap therapy or near an approach to understanding neuroplasticity on a day to day basis is you know I'll give okay I'll give you a very simple plastic example. I try to meditate every day but it doesn't always happen and all the times when it happens I am just thinking about things and not achieving the the thing that's it's set out to now maybe that's the wrong thing for me to do or maybe but how do I do the things I want to do better the habits and how do I not do the things I don't want to do and I get I appreciate that's a big question but it's from the lens of the way you see the world with your experiences.

Speaker 5 1:04:28

So um you're quite self-critical and you're um you you you've got this list of things that you'd like to be better in your life um and then you know you've given me an example of meditation where you have um thoughts which come in and interrupt that and you find you you're thinking rather than um meditating able to easily block those out is that right yeah let's let's yeah I I mean I've I I could keep going now on and on if but yeah let's start there and so so there are two halves to neuroplasticity therapy so the first half is what we talked quite a lot about at the first part where we talked about um things which are good for general brain health so you've got um you know the very first thing we need to be alive once after we've born is to breathe so your breathing is um and the way that you breathe but also the quality of air that we are breathing as well is really important but so that's a general health thing am I getting good quality of air where I am but then how am I breathing? That is that's also important as well and um you can have an assessment for that and and then that's uh something that can help then fuel your brain better because we do need um the a good the the right ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide within our system in order to help our brain to be nice and nice and healthy. And then diets so how how is our diet so we've talked something about that general lifestyle and we you know there is we've talked about aspects of um how you know even parenting in in the modern age you know the modern age of people just typing or doing in that you know not using all their senses um each day so uh yes there's certain things that we can certainly do to um be put our brain in a in a much better starting place healthier so we've given all the health things but now are we stimulating it enough so um for longevity we it does need stimulation so we've got all these regions um so let's just go for the bigger ones there's 52 of those which is 104 altogether 52 on each side so then you you are thinking how what do I need to stimulate each of those so so um we typically think of the big ones when if people say oh let's do some brain training apps on the but that's that's really high up that's these ones here but the ones lower down are actually what this is resting on when you've when you're doing your meditation you're you're having and you're having these thoughts that come through and they are bec there are to do without um if you think of this as like a barrier and to to filter out you know um other stimulation whether that's from external um or to or internal with thoughts so if there's a barrier and then your filtering system is like this it's letting stuff through and you want it to be like this not let through so why isn't your filtering system working well and so that that rests on other parts of your brain being able to work well and why aren't they is there something about them that's not not um as efficient or effective as it could be and so why are they weak let's work on those and then then you should then see this domino effect of oh oh gosh it's much easier now I should be able to do that but I couldn't they couldn't the brain is more unique than a fingerprint far you know billions of you know pieces of of um of neurons and and all the connections between them and if you've learnt lots and lots then you've got even more connections which is great but um in and have you learnt are are all the are there many connections in all regions have you learnt lots you know is the sort of social side of your um brain uh working really well does it does that get enough stimulation do you have enough conversation even every day or are you just watching YouTube videos all day yes you're learning things are you reading or are you listening to podcasts that's input input input have you do you get a chance every day to practice lots of output maybe not or um movement dance rhythm um creating music you know it's when we go back to Ian Gilchrist you know creativity is not something that's encouraged in our society we are very um you know everything manufactured in a very uniform way you know we've probably got very similar looking laptops you know I and you know I we don't do very much uh creatively you know making things in a personalizing thing we you know our houses probably look quite personalised but you know as many items as well they don't probably and if you walk you know the suburbanization of most people you know you never in nature see such kind of neat 2D shapes as these sort of Euclidean you know triangles and squares that you know you walk down any given street and most these shapes are just all the same these boxes and triangles just sat on top of them with and we've lost that our eyes have lost that kind of diversity of perception.

Speaker 2 1:09:53

Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:09:56

We spend so much time in them and yet young people you know hang dangle things and you know put um I don't know wrap their steering wheels in pink fluffy things but but beyond that we all behave in quite a uniform way and just you know um you know it's like amazing that our cars are just so precious and yet we do very little to to be creative with them and um decorate them in any way.

Speaker 2 1:10:21

So just going back to kind of breath work sounds like something that's you know A obviously getting better quality air where possible if possible as much as you can but um practising breathing exercises in some way on a daily basis could help um you know just you know get your brain in a better place to be able to concentrate focus not react to certain situations that you don't want to react to or whatever it might be or be more yeah more more creative and responsive. Is that right?

Speaker 5 1:10:57

So y yes and no so yes your breathing can have an effect on you but you want I mean in an ideal world you would want that breathing to be as um as natural and so that breathing rhythm and pattern and and how you breathe um needs to be part of you rather than something you think oh I can manage this situation if I do X which can help but then that means that you're you're managing it rather than changing it permanently. So if it's but if it's gonna it will very likely help because we can trick the brain so the brain has some output and then it it and there are different uh nerves which then sense that output and then register that back to the brain again.

Speaker 2 1:11:46

So and there's people who are so yeah you've got to kind of change your your steady state way of breathing or kind of how you so to to long I'm assuming longer deeper breaths are better than constantly rapid shallow ones. Is that fair?

Speaker 5 1:12:03

So what yeah what's your understanding of deeper as a breath?

Speaker 2 1:12:08

Oh so like yeah so uh so shallow breathing is when you're yeah it's just it's more frequent and it's less the the the length of the inhale and exhale is shorter than than a deeper breath where you're kind of you know how they say in kind of yoga or whatever you take the breath into your stomach rather than keep it in your you know try and bring it all the way down and then bring it all you exhale for as long as you can that that having a breathing pattern steady state when you're not thinking about it that's deeper or long that lasts longer in the inhale and exhale is better than a shorter one for example. Developing that is an example.

Speaker 5 1:12:51

So I I only ask because a lot of people think it means a big breath. So when it's deeper it's your you're using your diaphragm you know you're at at the bottom of your ribs there. That's what you want to do and you don't want to take a big breath. Big is really not physiologically good for the body at all. But yes using uh lower down part portions of your anatomy to to create that breath and making it long but not not big it can be a way to help remain calm in stressful situations and then there are various nerves which are feeding back to the brain oh this is how my lungs are moving and and the surrounding anatomy is moving oh and we must be in a calm state because that's what I'm registering. But you've tricked your brain that's a management tool because you you're deliberately positioning things in as part of your anatomy in that way and and making them move in a very slow, elongated way.

Speaker 2 1:13:52

So but if you can make that happen naturally so if somebody can be more so if you can do things uh to encourage that more um then that yeah and and do do you encourage and I I'm just caveat I'll just caveat this now because I'm sure you're not you're not claiming to be some sort of guru or medical expert this is all from the learnings you've had and the experiences you've had and the work you do so I'm I I know I'm just making sure that you know people aren't getting you know you think that you're making claims you're not but um we live in an age of distraction as you know you've mentioned ultra-processed foods for example you know think you know things that we like are being you know uh amplified to the point where they are very easy to kind of or very hard to say no to whether it's food or it's you know digital distraction let's say um is that's going to have an impact on your brain in a negative way I'm guessing are neuroplasticity therapies a way to counteract that or be better at saying no to them or helping you cope with them or do they take you away from kind of um you know I mentioned look you know I look at my phone too much for example at certain points of the day and I have to kind of it just you know or flicking to the internet when you should be working or whatever it might be concentration focus it gets harder and harder.

Speaker 5 1:15:20

I've seen that you know you've you've linked to Andrew Huberman on your on your website as a podcast that you like you know there's a lot of talk about dopamine these days and that being the currency that's driving everything and um so how do you think about dopamine distraction and then your side of the equation with neuroplasticity to kind of counteract that or address that so we have we as a species have learnt a lot about um the things which people will be addicted to and then we want and then we've allied that with earning money so you know so then we people want to and uh you know there's a whole other philosophical debate or tour or something to talk about which is you know um the drivers of society but people want to take advantage and that's what's um not nice people want you to stay on that screen and to scroll um and to do things so I mean if um there's a fantastic book that's just come out The Digital Delusion um by Jared Cooney Hovarth and he actually gave some evidence to oh sort of I think uh in America somewhere like the Congress even though he lives in uh Australia he was he's he's the world expert anyway so um I think I saw the clip and I think I um there's obviously the work of Jonathan Height as well about the anxious generation and uh the role of I mean you know the flip side of that is actually the community that helped you was was very you know you if we didn't have Facebook and we didn't have those online communities you would have been you know so there's obviously a good slide to all these things we've got to give the devil its due and and there are there is you know there are positives to having you know you know nice food which maybe is not that good for you but in a social setting where you can kind of bond over it and there's you know but there's the kind of ultra availability that and and um the distraction that can have if you take it too far. So yeah so we because we are susceptible to these things I think there's you know it's maybe a bit of critical thinking is needed in terms of making yourself aware that that you are being you know you're the you are the generator of this if this entertainment you know if if people didn't input into it then it wouldn't it wouldn't be very entertaining if you were the only member of Facebook it would be quite boring. It'd be you know quite maybe a useful record for you to be to your grandchildren one day but it'd be very boring.

Speaker 1 1:18:02

Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:18:03

So but so we're all contributing towards this um this isn't an answer from neuroplasticity therapies really but but I think it's two pronged so it's it's useful to think of this. So there's some side of us which needs to um you know for people who are otherwise very able and capable and should be progressing well through society to to know that we're being hijacked by this tech technology that if we stick with and thinking about our phones and how far and how you know how far gone our society is and you know you only need to go on a train or a bus and you see everyone addicted to them. They're literally addicted to to these to the screens um you know it's interesting that we scroll up as well so our eyes are moving up oh well I'm not going to fall asleep you know because I'm constantly opening you know so we're you know it we're doing they things have come out of neuroscience and psychology studying of behaviors and you know so and then these are being taken advantage of so I think if people can educate themselves around this you know and Jared's book's a great place to start then you you have this awareness and then there's another chap um oh dear what's his name Daniel Priestley I don't know if you've heard of him the business sort of guru and so his father Andrew Priestley I heard him speak um about 13 months ago and I thought it was just really a light bulb moment. So he explained he said your phone he said it was it was to do with business and business development and you know motivating people just to get on with it. Come on just get on with it you know and this is so he said but your phone will how how many hours so you right look on your phone I mean you you can do this now if you want but you can look on your phone and see how many hours you've spent um you know on on average what's your weekly amount um you know and anyone listening I encourage you to have a look at this now and see um how what your screen time is you can go into settings on most phones and look up screen time and see how many hours that is our daily average so we so we all have a look and it's like what it's shocking you know how much of your percentage of every day is is on that then he said then he explained this you know look you are the entertainers you know you're creating this and he said people there are for every one of you there are um at least there are um about a hundred thousand developers developers software people marketing sales you know all these companies the the people that work in these companies that they are all there and they want you to stay staring at this piece of metal and plastic so they'll do everything they can they've learned all the tricks from psychology neuroscience this is how to keep people on there and on there and on there and so he said you'll you'll would you do battle with a hundred thousand people and no you just wouldn't physically you wouldn't you you wouldn't you wouldn't be able to win so you're not it's easier just to not just to put it away basically don't engage just don't engage take all the apps off your phone well I'd never thought of it like that before and I did take all of the apps off my phone and um that was apart from LinkedIn I left LinkedIn on um but then I um I had an epiphany later on um and then I took that off as well and now I do the eight eight till eight um so eight eight at night my phone is just um uh it won't it won't activate any of those things it will take a phone call but that's it I switch off everything else.

Speaker 2 1:21:39

It's a phone it's just a phone it's kind of like you're in the old in the old sense.

Speaker 5 1:21:44

Yeah honestly the eight till eight challenge is I I don't know if it's a challenge but it's a lifestyle now for me that I do get your quality of sleep the dreams you have amazing your ability to think the next day so much better your productivity way up. 8 till 8 I mean okay if you can just do that one night you'll feel you know that that horrible feeling of deleting apps. So if I need to go and I do look at apps I'll but I or these and some social media things I occasionally but I go on my computer it's a huge huge hassle.

Speaker 2 1:22:17

So I don't I just it's not like it's the friction it's the friction that's important in introducing a kind of to give you that um check on yourself to kind of go okay it's like locking the whiskey bottle in the top right covered by the time you've kind of got the ladder out, got the right key out put the right combination in you may have a better chance of stopping yourself from going oh maybe I'll just leave it in there versus it being on the on the kitchen counter or whatever it might be. Not that I I don't have that set up at home I don't uh but I just just as metaphorically speaking.

Why Neuro Frontiers Exists

Speaker 5 1:22:50

So look I'm I'm conscious of time and there's there's uh there's uh there's three or four things I wanted to talk to you about and I'd give and then and I realize you need to you need to help soon so quickly quickly I'd quickly say on neuroplasticities how you can how can you benefit you would need the equivalent of an MOT which is like a car test an annual car test on your brain if you if you really wanted to get into this and then you would somebody would be able to assess you and then assess all those regions and say okay this is this is where I think you should start and you know based on your lifestyle here's some things which would stimulate that area of your brain or you they more rarely you say I don't want that area to be stimulated let's do some other things to to stop that being but you generally you're looking at strengthening an an area or areas of the brain and those are in the foundations which are the things that we you know modern life doesn't tend to encourage us to do but um that can strengthen those and then your ability to meditate and so on will um be better so um so let's let I'll I'll be sorting on M O T ASAP that sounds like a great idea I'll can recommend someone that's near you I don't know where you live but we'll figure that out um so that takes us neatly on to Neuro can you tell us about Neuro Frontiers?

Speaker 2 1:24:08

When did you set it up? What does it do?

Speaker 5 1:24:11

What are you trying to achieve um what would you like people to take away from that um and and yeah so let's start with Neurofrontiers and then um yeah that's been such a blessing so um I felt that once I'd I'd done years of work with my son and so he wasn't in school for great periods of time or we did dual a dual placement where he was at home and in school because he just needed all these treatments to be done and it wasn't so easy. Some of them were only available abroad so I learned went off learnt them and came back and instituted them with him and you know it sometimes it was a challenge but as I learnt um this was a huge lesson to make it fun and then I enjoyed it he enjoyed it and we got on with it and and that was yeah um you you do need to make it fun and and that some of that means you need support but anyway so um I then he I didn't want to be a therapist forever I wanted to be his his mum and to get on with it with my own life so then I was really lucky in in being able to get the people I was working with to write something and then it got put into his what's called an EHCP a document which sets out what a child needs to experience many in a school setting. So then his teachers were suddenly empowered with this as well and then they could see the progress oh gosh wow um as his ability to balance gets better he seems to have be a more emotionally balanced so and that that's not um wacky there is a uh if your brain's more organized you're not going to be so anxious so you can be more um you know um emotionally balanced so so then they could join up the dots and see that these things were happening and um and so I thought right that that was a transition and then I realized gosh I have been given this gift and a huge opportunity I've got a wealth of knowledge I need to do something with this and so I started um so that's when Eurofrontiers really uh started and then I was able to work um one to one with people which which year was that what which year was that 2019 around and then I um yes and then I uh have more recently um evolved that because I've worked with many many people now and you know have great faith um in the in in neuroplasticity therapies and the power um and the hope and the level of oh gosh yeah this this is it and that they bring and so um I now started teaching so but that's um it's in its infancy if you like but but I've done uh like last autumn did a great course on the it was on the neurophysiology of breathing but it uh it was called breath and it still is you can still get it is called breath brain behaviour so you're looking at the relationship between the breath and the brain and then the the final output of behaviour and figuring out what you can do with breathing how you can make that better in order then actually have that quality of life thing at the end. So would that help people with anxiety depression ADHD concentration problems I mean what what what kind of or is that just for everyone people been through yeah what what who would that be targeted at yeah so again so some of those labels that you've just mentioned are from um are are uh from sort of psychology where again you know it's it's similar to epilepsy they're labeling that final outward um behaviour and that is probably a root cause so we can't Say, oh, definitively, oh yes, that will always happen, that will always help depression. So that's um why in neuroplasticity therapies you say um you know don't treat the patient, not the diagnosis. So you treat everyone, you'd have this MOT on them, an assessment of all their brain areas, and figure out something personal for them. Um, it's much more scientific, you can't um guarantee. But yes, um definitely so for people who are experiencing ADHD-like symptoms, um it's uh breathing um understanding where that's that's uh over 70% of them uh are likely to benefit from some sort of breathing um pattern um sort of regulation and and you know improvements, then um yeah it's it it it is useful. But again, you don't because there's another th nearly 30% where it's not going to be of any use if you've got ADHD like symptoms, this might not be your um what you called your silver bullets. So but you know, rather than the guess taking you know guesswork using lots of guesswork, if you can take a more scientific approach, you can be then saying, Oh, this is your best starting point, and that's his best starting point. Even if 10 people in a room came with ADHD, they wouldn't get the same program.

Speaker 2 1:29:19

Fantastic. Well, I um we'll link to that and uh um would love to learn go deeper in that at some point. Um anything else you're up to at the moment that uh you want to tell people about? Um which uh with in this in this sphere of of the brain and uh making the world a bit of a better place through through being able to kind of mould our brains into into into a better shape.

Speaker 5 1:29:47

Well we can talk about Ian if you like and you know his inspiring work and and you know thinking about you know going back to being more creative and you know thinking of areas of our brain which we don't use. And if they if we don't use them, they're going to if you like go stale or you know um there'll be less connections in in them, and connections bulk out areas of the brain. So healthy brains are nice, you know, got lots of ridges and um curves and like waves all over them. So um, but if you're not using an area of the brain, it will just become almost flatter and flatter. So so we need to be thinking about you know, do I smell things on on a regular basis? Do I can I distinguish between you know a tangerine and an orange, for example, which is you know, that's if you close your eyes, could you do that? And once you you know, so that you can stimulate your brain with lots of things. Um, you know, when was the last time I danced? When was the last you know, made made movements that that's a creative thing of ourselves from ourselves? Um, and uh you know, painted, do you know, talked about something. We were talking about things now, so that's a you know, it is a creative skill in itself. Um yeah, there's lots of things we can do that are but that aren't necessarily um cerebral, they're more you know, require movement and stimulation and listening and and output.

Speaker 2 1:31:15

Yeah, and the problem is from a very young age, if you get put in a box uh and say, Well, that's not for you. I mean, James Dyson, if you I don't know if you've read ever read his biography, it's quite interesting. He kind of very glib puts it, you know, talks about the education system is like, well, if you've got glasses, you know, you do maths, if you're a bit thick, you do PE, if you do uh if you like drawing, then off you go. You know, like we just from a young, I mean, I'm literally paraphras quoting what he said, like in the book, he's the way that you know, society, the education establishment, whatever it is, you know, just from a very early age say, well, you know, dance isn't for you, drawing isn't for you, maths isn't for you, you're not a mathsy person, you know, whatever, you know, and so you then for the rest of your life are deprived of something which maybe at that moment when you were seven or eleven you weren't ready for, but at 37 probably you could do with doing a bit of you know, learning an instrument or uh, you know, taking up running or whatever, you know, whatever it could be. Um and it's just unshackling people from that that those chains that that they've been put into from an early age, either by their parents or society or you know, teachers that are overworked and over pressured to kind of run you through a standardized curriculum and and and so um there is that side of the so say you wanted to to do dancing, but you always you know you were labelled uncoordinated as a child, you might well find that you're still uncoordinated as an adult.

Speaker 5 1:32:46

So, but why is that? What's what's so you know, there are if you like sort of pulses through the brain, sort of um they are happening in networks. So we so if you were um you can is there anything you can do to help your brain to then be more coordinated and then you're physically more coordinated or and vice versa, physically more coordinated, the brain is more coordinated. So um so yes, you're you're trying to uh you you know if if you are struggling and you think, oh, I'd love to dance, but I'm feeling undercoordinated, there are things that you could probably do to help that coordination before you hit a dance floor. Um or or a bit of bad.

Speaker 2 1:33:30

And it is it in the struggle where the kind of magic happens, you know, you start a new skill, and obviously, you know, the point of it being a skill is that it's hard, and it you know, it's not meant to be easy, and it's gonna take repeat practice and repetitions and must you know reps. And that's where the magic that's that that's the point, right? Rather than just thinking, oh, I've tried this thing, it didn't work, I'm no good at it, I'm gonna stop.

Speaker 5 1:33:53

Ish, ish. Um so let's imagine that you um thinking so I'm I'm just gonna pause for a minute. Um don't worry about time. It's my father I need to see, but I he can wait half an hour, that's okay.

Speaker 2 1:34:09

Okay, great. Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:34:11

We can relax. Um so I say ish because um oh gosh, I've lost my train of thought now. So sorry. Yeah, sorry.

Speaker 2 1:34:22

I no no, it's okay. I asked um I asked a lot of people when they try and learn a new skill, particularly when they're older, there's a okay, there's there's there's that thing of like plasticity drive dries out. Once you're past a certain age, you actually you know when you're young, you can absorb, you know, your ability to learn is much easier, apparently, if you can concentrate on something because your brain is much more plastic, mouldable. And then when you're older, forget it, forget trying to learn an instrument or a language or a or a skill because you're just set, you're done, you know, that's it. And don't teach an old dog new tricks.

Speaker 5 1:35:01

So I I say say ish because um repetition is not isn't always the answer. Yes, if you can get those connections going first, so say it's like a thread, and then you you make it like a piece of string, and now it's like a big thick piece of rope, and yes, you're going to become more expert at that skill. But if you you're struggling to even get the first bit of thread to even match up, gosh, that's so hard. Then it's like children who struggle with handwriting. So they're if it's just doing more and more and more handwriting is is not is the you might eventually get some results, but it's the hardest bloody possible path that you could put that poor child through, and they can they're feeling like they're failing all the time. So, you know, you that's when neuroplasticity therapies are so useful because you can say, right, what are the building blocks that go towards a child being able to do neat, flowing, smooth handwriting, easily legible? And there are different building blocks, and they they have nothing to do, many of them have nothing to do with the hands. So you need to be thinking, right, how does the brain work organize itself to that point that enables this beautiful handwriting to appear? Okay, so I need to go back through those um developmental building blocks and then work with those, get those better, and then bam, that child can write pretty fluently the first time, just like right. So now they've got that thread, now they can build on it and make better handwriting. If you're struggling right from the first point, no.

Speaker 1 1:36:39

Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:36:39

So so doing something, that's why I said ish, so doing something first time, um you know, and and so doing more and more and more of something is really not um always the answer. And then mm and then also if you are thinking about people getting old and um and struggling with uh oh no, not necessarily. So if you when people get old, you they don't need um you can still learn something. That's what I'm trying to say. Sorry. So when someone gets old, you can they can still learn something. Your um Michael Merzenek, um he's the father of neuroplasticity, um, he said um the brain is never finished. So your your brain, you can learn a new language, you know, a few words at least, uh, even on your last day on earth, because you your brain is never finished, it can always grow a new connection. Um that's and that's what we should be wanting to grow can new connections, but not not in just one area. Oh, I'm really good at crosswords. Yes, but now let's see if you can balance on one leg. You know, so we need to, or can you tell the difference between these two roses? You know, um we need um yeah, we need a variety of things to stimulate.

Speaker 2 1:37:56

So is would it be fair to say that growing new connections is in itself a skill, it is something that you need to keep up to be able to therefore grow new connections. So the reason why older people, or it's perceived that older people struggle to learn new skills is because they haven't learned any skills for ages, so they've forgotten how to create new corrections because they haven't kept it up, so then you all of a sudden try and do it when you're whatever, 65 and you haven't done that, you haven't kept that up, that that ability to learn new things, which is why whereas if you'd been doing it from a young age, yeah, we leave school and you're kind of writing poetry and you're doing sport and you're practically you're learning science, and then you kind of you get a job and then you you do the same thing every day for 40 years, you kind of lost that um keeping it up, you know, doing a martial art, doing an instrument, doing you know, getting out into nature or whatever, and learning to build things and use your hands. That's why that's why neuroplasticity diminishes when you're older, because you haven't been learn learning to learn or keeping up the skill of learning.

Speaker 5 1:39:06

Um so we I think because you said about growing new connections, but you need to grow new healthy new connections because each time you're on you know social media you you're growing some connections there, but they're not necessarily where you want to be strengthening a pathway or growing connections. So let's think about growing healthy new connections, and then and then older people, why do they struggle with learning things? So that's it's twofold. So roughly every seven years are we're going through new phases of life, uh, hormones change and so on. And so um, you know, there is times when learning is so much easier, um, and that those are in uh in I think is in your sort of your um early to mid-20s that you're going to that learning is and this is that's a great time that you're going to be able to take on lots of information and and work with it well with that, but then but you still you know our skills and abilities continue to to grow beyond that point. So um, but there comes a time when the the what the brain absolutely loves is efficiency. So if it's it's thinking um I don't it prunes off connections, which it doesn't need if it thinks I haven't used that. So if I um did you take A levels?

Speaker 2 1:40:23

I did, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:40:25

But if I asked you to take your A levels tomorrow and get really good grades in them or the similar that you got before, would you be able to do that?

Speaker 2 1:40:32

Uh yeah, uh we know, yeah, yeah, absolutely no way. Yeah.

Speaker 5 1:40:35

No, so so we you've pruned off all that knowledge because it's not relevant. You haven't you haven't needed it in your lifetime. So the brain says, Brilliant, I'll I'll take I'll I'll not maintain that connection. And then so older people tend to feel want to feel safe as well because your body's becoming frailer, so I'll just do the same thing as I've done every day because that's I've got into this groove now, and I know all of these things are familiar and safe, and you know, if if the electricity failed, I could still get up the stairs in the dark and find my bed, I know where everything is. So change becomes um uh resisted um into older age, so we will stick with those familiar patterns, but we um for the health of our brain, um, to keep it you know, kick getting new connections, we do need to challenge ourselves, or what would be wonderful is to create a culture where it would be normal to do things which took us out of our comfort zones, and you know, yeah, this is where um Dan Bruttner's work of um blue zones uh around the world is useful, looking at things which help people to um remain healthy into older age, or even studies of nuns. Um nuns tend to live um you know to a ripe old age, and they also uh appear to have, and there's studies that show they appear to have um brains which look like they should have dementia and yet they have no symptoms of dementia.

Speaker 2 1:42:03

So I'm really glad you asked you mentioned nuns because that's taking me on to my next Susan the footballing nuns. Yes, Susan's uh be doing keep keepy uppies in her habit uh and uh touring bicep bicycle kicks.

Speaker 5 1:42:22

You're gonna be on a lot of podcasts.

Meaning Purpose And What We Celebrate

Speaker 2 1:42:24

Yeah. Um the I was gonna ask you about meaning. Um I I feel a lot of again, what I you know what I what I'm questioning internally is this sort of let's take something like ADHD or the lack of ability to focus on something, you know. Is it because it doesn't matter? You know, some society said you should be able to do this, but you know, this exam or whatever, this road learn this piece of homework, but it just doesn't matter to you. You don't attach any meaning to it. You know, my a you know, my A levels that you brought up, you know, that knowledge versus the ability to ride a bike, which I also learned, you know, at a young age. You know, one has stuck with me, the other, you know, is not that it's it's a short-term memory. Um you know, maybe taking your example, you've driven yourself to achieve a lot of what you've achieved, you know, and done all the good for the world that you have because you have this meaning that came from your son's uh illness, and that drove you, that meaning drove you and you know, gave you the power to to kind of do what you wouldn't have done had maybe had that not happened. Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But people people who are religious have that meaning in their life to kind of uh you know do things, live in a certain way, have something that they can anchor themselves to or hook themselves onto that that gives them a framework to live off. Whereas a lot of the issues with society or the world is this lack of anything to attach yourself to, but you know, going on nice holidays, earning money, being f getting lots of likes or being famous. These are all kind of we've we've encouraged you know side effects to be the actual or like symptoms or knock-on effects to be the goal rather than the things that you know if you want lots of likes, do you know, create interesting things or do good things, and maybe a knock-on effect of that is you might make a bit of money and you might you know build a bit of a following. But it shouldn't be the end goal in itself to kind of have a nice house. Having a nice house is a function of creating something the world wants and then being paid for it. And so what we're living in is a crisis of meaning. Um and and if you know the meaning drives you to work harder or to concentrate or to you know look past your fears or your anxieties or your you know, to to kind of get the piece of work done or to to to um um not worry about looking silly or kind of being embarrassed because this thing matters to you more than the the those things that affect people. Uh what do you think how do you think about that? What do you think of that? Is that is that an interesting way of looking at it?

Speaker 5 1:45:26

Yes, it is. Um, you know, again, we go back to the blue zones and so meaning and having a sense of purpose is really important. You also mentioned religion, so having some sort of faith that you're on a that per that purpose is you know, if you like your pathway um feels allied to that as well. So these are things which you know are seem to be part of a good, healthy um lifestyle. And so yeah, I think um you know I do have um you know, it says a faith in something. I wouldn't um hang my uh coat on any particular hook for a faith, but I definitely think that there's something out there, and I do feel that um this sense of being on a pathway not of my choosing, but then but um it as long as it's going smoothly, then I'm on the right pathway somehow. Yes, you know, and I'm getting a great sense of joy and happiness out of it, and then reflecting that back on society as well. You know, we in the UK we are not encouraged so much to do our own thing at school. The conversations if in the careers department come and give you some uh chats from about 15, you start thinking about your career, um, and then who are you going to work for? We don't have this mentality of um setting things up, being creative, setting something up yourself. What do you know? Do we have an or if we do amongst young people, it's very narrow. As you say, how can I become an influencer? How can I become famous on YouTube? You know, it's it's it's sort of a um you know, and another thing I notice is that we celebrate the BAFTAs, the Oscars, the Grammys. Why don't we think about why don't we have a fantastic program or anything really on Nobel Prize winners or people who've won MBEs and OBEs? I mean, there are some amazing people who are not celebrities that have done something world-changing that should be used to inspire, you know, anyone of any age, and especially young children, that so they're you know, and these are the jobs that matter and are changing society, and that these people have contributed. You know, contributing is another thing, you know, we're all encouraged to act um as individuals in a competition. And are you going to be better than your neighbour? Not love thy neighbour anymore, not contribute, no better than your neighbour. What car is on your driveway? Look at your neighbour's car, yours should be better. It's just a crazy world, and we're motivated, you know. Um, well, we're taught to be motivated by money, but what you know, sense of purpose and feeling like you're contributing in the world is so as much, you know, as you get older, most people realise that that's the that's you know that's what they want on their gravestone, not the number of you know, how many numbers did I have in my bank account? It's you know, it's it's other people or not necessarily peach people, it's as much nature, lots of things it keep, you know, are are important to us, and I think um yeah, it's really interesting. I I've I've got a book right beside me just because we're on this topic, and um I um yeah, I I'm reading it at the minute, and and a paragraph stood out, and I can read it to you if you've got two minutes.

Speaker 2 1:48:55

What's the book you're about to read?

Speaker 5 1:48:56

Um, autobiography of a yogi. Have you read that?

Speaker 2 1:49:00

I've heard of it. Who who is it by?

Speaker 5 1:49:03

It's it's by himself, but um Paramahansa Yogananda. Such a good book. I mean, and it's a lovely audio book as well. So I'm reading them both. I've got audio and and the book because um oh gosh, it's a man who's a famous actor, but he's got a lovely voice. So anyway, all ladies out there, it's a great, it's a lovely, it's a lovely listen as well. Um so it he's relating a conversation in this bit, and he says, Sir, I commented, I have been thinking of the leading scientific men of the West, greater by far in intelligence than most people congregated here, living in distant Europe and America, professing different creeds and ignorant of the real values of such melas as the present one. They are the men who could benefit greatly by meetings with India's masters, but although high in intellectual attainments, many Westerners are wedded to rank. Materialism. Others, famous in science and philosophy, do not recognize the essential unity in religion. Their creeds serve as insurmountable barriers that threaten to separate them from us forever. It just feels relevant because it, you know, it's this materialism and this this um you know, just you know, being an individual, you know, we're it we need to sort of shatter some of these illusions, and and we've just been talking about the drivers and challenges and how um people can get a sense of purpose from you know Victor Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning, a sense of purpose when you have a great enough challenge. And um very sadly, I think you know that the climate change is coming upon us, and then that will uh there are some very astute people already, you know, and Ian McCrillchrist is among them, you know, thinking about gosh, a huge challenge is coming to us, and then that we need to connect and join together in order to tackle this and stop we just need a wake-up call, and then you know, eventually nature is going to give us that big wake-up call, which will then be a challenge for us all, and then how can we then with a collective intelligence um work together to um to try and solve this problem, and it will be a problem by then, and and the reality of the problem, and we are starting to experience it now. Whereas you know, before we've been talking about even when I was at school, probably in Europe at school, you know, climate change was a thing and deforestation and desertification. But now, you know, the the really the the big um uh results of this, it's not really a result that sounds too her, but the devastation of this is is happening.

Speaker 2 1:51:54

Um this um I guess it can boil down, I mean, the the left hemisphere dominance of the way we think, which is on metrics and um utilitarianism and you know um things that can be measured. I've got a book here that's called the uh the the tyranny of metrics, uh which is quite interesting and how we kind of overfocus on the things that can be counted uh rather than the things that count, you know, to kind of paraphrase paraphrase Einstein and uh um I guess likes on Instagram or cash in the in the bank or the square footage of your house. The number of people you slept with, all these types of things probably are um easier ways to kind of map your world versus kind of genuine meaning. And so how do you how do you um how do you reinstill some meaning? And maybe it's something that brings people together and jolts them out. It could be a war, it could we we thought it might be a pandemic if that didn't happen, but yeah, maybe it's maybe it's the environment, who knows? But just I guess um there is a there is a a yearning for meaning out there, and it sort of comes up in the data now indeed, like people are going back to churches again, looking at you know young, especially young people, because they're they're looking for something that isn't just you know, having a good career, earning lots of money and game and most holidays.

Speaker 5 1:53:26

Um that's true. Yeah. I think you know, you love to phrase think that you know, um not the things that can uh that you can that can be counted, but rather the thing, you know, the things that count. That's so yeah, it's really important.

Speaker 2 1:53:43

So um as you know, I like to try and wrap these conversations up with a question I ask every you know maybe you've alluded your answers kind of you've alluded to it just now, but uh I I like to invite all guests to do a kind of prediction over ten years of something they think is gonna happen or something they'd like to happen or both. Um and I quite like ten years as a number because um it's far enough away to for it to be something big and meaningful, but it's uh it's not so far away, then it's sort of, you know, the prediction kind of you know is meaningless. And it could be, you know, you can't be I can, you know, hopefully talk to you in two or three years' time and we can see how the prediction's coming along and because you'll be uh a third of the way through. And uh so if you've got anything that you think, you know, positive or negative, um I'd love to love to know your thoughts from the lens of the world that you know that you see.

Speaker 5 1:54:41

So this is you know, I feel oh gosh, a sense of pain, to be honest, um, thinking about ten years hence, um which is um I want to, you know, you want to end this on a nice um lively upbeat note, and and I but I can uh ally that with some sense of hope. And so yes, you know, I having working in neuroscience, I can appreciate that the way we treat the planet has a direct bearing on our our nervous systems. So you know, if we are being moving, doing and creating planting flowers, you know, even you know, thinking of like neurophysiology of breathing. Now, for the first time uh last year, the the amount of oxygen started going down. We definitely we were having too much carbon dioxide producing it, but then you know the trees were um and you know plant lives mopping that up, but now we're even it's uh very small amount, but it's still a start that we are using up uh more oxygen than we are able to then produce on the planet. Now that's out of balance, very out of balance. So you know, I feel gosh, we we're in 10 years' time I think we'll be in a very painful place, and lots of um we'll be faced with many dilemmas, you know. If people are retreating away from places which can no longer grow food, and then they arrive to places when their arrival will mark a vast overpopulation. So, what do you do? Do we say, uh we'll be kind to nature because this is the biodiversity can only occur when there's not that many humans, or do we say, come on in, we'll we'll just muddle through together? You know, we should be compassionate in one way but not compassionate towards nature. So lots of moral dilemmas I think will emerge over the coming years, and but my great hope is that um uh we will have some mechanism for um helping people en masse to be to uh approach it with some um togetherness and that people will be able to remain calm through this. And there's a lovely course I'm about to start actually in March, it's called Then and the Art of Saving the Planet, and it's a course that anybody could do, and that's done by Plum Village down um in the south of France, but it's an online course. Um I'm very much looking forward to that. They had a thousand people did it last year, and and everybody just raved about it. So I'm wanted to that starts in a few days' time. Um, and so I think that that ability to remain calm is is a very good thing, and that's good for our nervous systems too, and a whole new system of being. So all these systems that you know we've got at the minute of how we get about, and that you know, we can just get on an aeroplane and travel as many times as we want in a year. They you know, if we've every decision has to be is is this good for the environment, is this good for nature, is this good for our planet, then our decisions will be very different, and we might you know live very in a very different way. Um it's a shame that the wake-up call will have had to have been so big in order to get us to that point, but that's the only thing that will represent um the continuation of humanity uh in you know in decades to come, which is you know a tragedy for our children, but um we something will have to change, and ideally it will be the systems. And then then we can live the types of lives which Ian McGillchrist is talking about because with a life that isn't so high-pressured and individualistic, where everything is measured by numbers and how many likes, etc., have you got, or how much money's in your bank and how many cars are on your driveway. And then if we're living a much more simple life and we'd be much more choosy about this, there will be um there is great opportunity for happiness. You know, the way we treat the planet has a direct relevance to our nervous system. So um, if if we if we're treating the planet better, then we should naturally be calmer and happier. So there's great hope for some joy and uh uh much less stressed. Imagine having a life where it's almost like being on holiday every day. You don't have to be like we call it the rat race, and so we would be not in a race and not like rats, we would be um I don't know what would be the opposite to that, but a joyous life in some way. And so I have um I've set up um a website actually, it's called thundays.global, and um it represents some hope hope for the future, and it's for experimenting with this lifestyle just one day a week on on a Sunday, and um hoping to launch it in the spring around um April, which is when Earth Day is. So just just experimenting with this life where we don't take part in things which are harmful to the planet, and we only embrace those things which are good for us, our family, our friends, our local community might go and do something. So you're putting nature first, and but you're but at the same time, you're putting yourself first, you're really looking after you, and have you know you're feeling good about this. Um, so yeah, um, I'll I can share that link with you.

How Her Son Is Now

Speaker 2 2:00:12

No, please do. And I guess before we sign off, um how how how is your son doing now? What's the kind of where where are we now after you know we've we we kind of finished that we didn't quite finish that journey early on, we moved on to the your work and uh but it'd be be good to know people will be dying to know kind of how how he's doing today, what's what's what's uh uh what's life look like at the moment for you and him and the family.

Speaker 5 2:00:41

He is m mostly um uh quite a joy to be around because he's he's 16, he's he's incredible, he doesn't he's got some amazing talents and interests. So um probably through him I spent more time in nature than ever. He absolutely loves nature and he's um not followed a conventional curriculum at all, he has just followed his own interests. He loves trees, he can identify trees by their bark, their buds, their seeds. Um he also he can even, if he shuts his eyes, he can tell you that what a tree is by the rustle of its leaves. So he he's incredible in that way. He also has a photographic memory, um that's to do with left and right hemispheres and what's become dominant, and so he's then uh he can take a picture of a tree in his head and then he draws. He just it's art, he'll draw, do sculptures and drawings of trees uh so uh accurately, and then I'll say, Well, it looks like a willow tree, but you know that could be any willow tree. No, no, and so he takes me to the spot and makes the camera no, just there, just there, oh that's it, take that picture, back with the picture. Bloody hell, yeah, that's it, that's exactly it. And he, you know, he's just and then a branch might fall off a tree, and he'll say, Oh, there's a branch mish thing up there, just there. I'm like, it just looks like a tree to me. How does he know? And no, he's he's he's really amazing, and yeah, he's good fun. Um, he just you know, he will not be perfect. I mean, but he's I enjoy being with him, you know, as he is, and there's certain things which you know will remain a challenge and I'll be uh forever parents, but there are um you know, uh there's enough of life which is joyful and and I learn things through him, things that you know, stopping to notice things that I would never have noticed otherwise, and you know, from intimate details of things, you know, mainly outdoors because he loves being outdoors, um, and you know, to to grander things that also he notices. He um if you have you've ever seen uh Police Academy, the film, when there's not remember the character. Do you remember the character that can do impressions of everything?

Speaker 2 2:02:57

Yes, I know I can't remember his name now. Hightower. Hightower is the big was the tall one. High Towers is was the really tall one.

Speaker 5 2:03:10

So um he's like that as well. He can like sounds, he just makes impressions. It's hysterical, yeah. So anyway, yes, um, he isn't conventional, but um he is able to have a conversation easily. Go, you know, life is a lot easier. There are still some challenges, um, but um you you know, we we we get on with them, and um I I don't I I do feel he would not have got to this point had we not have done um all the work that he's um been doing over the years as well. So yes.

Speaker 2 2:03:44

Um well look, thank you so much for sharing all of that and all the time you spent today sharing you know some pretty tough memories as well as some amazing things that came out of those memories. Umtiers is where is that the best place? People can find you on LinkedIn as well, of course, which is where I found you. So the internet does work again, once you know it can it can be positive. Um so um um LinkedIn, Gemma Herbertson also I advise people to look out for Neuro Frontiers, go to the website, there's loads of really cool things there that you can read and you know access. Um other than that, uh thank you so much. I'd love to have you on again soon, and um really appreciate the time uh you've shared with us all today. So um um yeah, what a pleasure. Thanks so much.

Speaker 5 2:04:40

Thank you, thank you ever so much for having me here. Thank you.

Speaker 2 2:04:43

This has been Meeting People. I've been your host, Amulf Handier. This is a podcast produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman.