Ep. 488 How Perimenopause Changes the Brain with Dr. Caroline Leaf
- Team Cynthia
- Aug 1
- 44 min read
I am thrilled to connect with Dr. Caroline Leaf today. She is a cognitive neuroscientist, a bestselling author, and an internationally recognized expert in mind management and neuroplasticity.
In our discussion, we explore perimenopause and menopause as brain-based events rather than hormonal changes and discuss the distinctions between the brain, body, and mind. Dr. Leaf shares key insights from her latest book, Help in a Hurry, which offers a workable solution for self-regulation, acquiring knowledge, and navigating crises. We also dive into mental health management and building coping skills, and we tackle the importance of self-regulation, the impact of people-pleasing, and why labeling can be problematic.
Tune in for today’s powerful and insightful conversation with Dr. Caroline Leaf. I strongly recommend her new book, Help in a Hurry, for clear and actionable strategies to steady your mind as you navigate life.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:
The changes that occur in women's brains during the perimenopause to menopause transition
Why stress can become toxic when we fail to manage it
How managing the mind, body, and nutrition helps to prevent cognitive issues during perimenopause and menopause
Dr. Leaf explains the difference between the mind and the brain
The benefits of self-regulation for managing stress and preventing cognitive decline
How to shift your mindset in just 60 seconds
Dr. Leaf introduces Neurocycle, her five-step process for rewiring habits over 63 days
How people-pleasing is driven by societal expectations and personal narratives
How recognizing and addressing your people-pleasing patterns will allow you to regain your identity and self-worth
Why labeling offers temporary comfort but worsens stigmas and reduces the effects of mental health solutions
Bio: Dr. Caroline Leaf
Leading the Future of Mind-Management and Mental Health Transformation
Dr. Caroline Leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist, bestselling author, and global expert in mind management and neuroplasticity. For over 30 years, she has pioneered groundbreaking research on how thoughts shape the brain—and how we can harness this power to transform mental, emotional, and physical health.
Creator of the proven 5-Step Neurocycle® method, Dr. Leaf equips people worldwide with science-backed tools to break toxic thought patterns, build resilience, and create lasting change. Through her books, courses, and media appearances—including TEDx, The Doctors, and Mindvalley—she has empowered millions to take control of their mental well-being.
Her bestselling books, like Switch On Your Brain and Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, continue to inspire transformation, offering practical strategies to rewire the brain, overcome anxiety and burnout, and unlock true potential.
“Self-regulation is probably one of the most important things we can learn.”
– Dr. Caroline Leaf
Connect with Cynthia Thurlow
Follow on Twitter
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Submit your questions to support@cynthiathurlow.com
Connect with Dr. Caroline Leaf
On her website
On all social media: @drcarolineleaf
The Dr. Leaf Show (On YouTube)
Dr. Leaf’s Neurocycle App is also available on iTunes or Google Play
Transcript:
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Cynthia Thurlow: [00:00:01] Welcome to Everyday Wellness Podcast. I'm your host, Nurse Practitioner Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives.
[00:00:29] Today, I had the honor of connecting with Dr. Caroline Leaf. She is a cognitive neuroscientist, bestselling author, and global expert in mind management and neuroplasticity. Today, we spoke about perimenopause and menopause as a brain event and not just a hormonal one, the distinctions between the brain, body and mind, the impact of mental health management, as well as coping skills, key insights from her latest book, Help in a Hurry, which provide a workable plan and solution to not only self-regulation, but also acquiring knowledge and how best to navigate crises, the importance of self-regulation, the impact of people pleasing and why labelling is so problematic. This is truly an invaluable, insightful conversation with Dr. Leaf. I highly recommend her new book, Help in a Hurry. And you definitely want to tune into this podcast to get some actionable strategies for navigating life in general.
[00:01:36] Dr. Leaf, it's so nice to have you on the podcast. I know we met in real life a few months ago in Nashville and I've been really looking forward to this conversation.
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:01:43] I've been looking forward to it as well. Thank you so much, Cynthia. It's great to see you again.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:01:47] Yeah. In your work, when you are looking at research surrounding the changes that go on in women's brains as they are navigating this perimenopause to menopause transition, as a neuroscientist, what are some of the common ways that the changes in sex hormones will show up in terms of brain functioning? What are some of the common things that you think women are dealing with that are directly attributable to these shifts in sex hormones?
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:02:14] I think one of the first part to that answer is to really understand that it's the brain and the body. And so, you mentioned the hormone system. So, we're all under the impression I was talking to someone-- Actually, let me jump to this question. I was talking to someone about this very thing yesterday and they were asking me about Alzheimer's and the way I'm going to answer your question and talk about using the example of Alzheimer's. So, we all are told constantly that Alzheimer's is because you've got neurofibrillary plaques and tangles, which is these little things in your brain that basically will mess up your brain function. And we see memory and so on changing. And that happens over time and used to hit people in their 80s when I first started practicing.
[00:02:59] And now people are getting Alzheimer's as young as 35 and 45, and they're called early onset Alzheimer's. Okay, so why am I using that as an example? To answer your question, here's the reason. There's more evidence that things like cognitive decline in things like frontal lobe dementia, Alzheimer's, etc., are actually thought disorders. Now, you may not find the word thought disorders, but it's how one is managing. You'll see things like how we manage stress. We'll set you up for Alzheimer's, how we manage that kind of thing. So, what's really important is to look at the unique stress that a woman is going through versus a man and humans. So, as all humans, we experience stress. Stress is good for us, except when it becomes toxic. But there's unique things that male and females go through and all genders go through.
[00:03:43] So, whatever gender you are, you're going to go through different experiences. You talk mainly on this podcast about women, menopause and perimenopause. So, we'll focus in on that. And as you know, the statistics are pretty high that women will suffer from any cognitive dementia. So, when I talk about it being a stress and a thought disorder, stress is good for us, except when it becomes toxic. When does it become toxic? When we don't manage it. When we see it as something-- we don't have tools in place to manage it. And then what happens is the mind, brain, body connection gets disrupted.
[00:04:16] And over time, if we get into patterns of not managing, we are going to then set up our brain and our body for breakdown, and that breakdown will manifest in different ways in different people. The reason that we are seeing it so much earlier now is because of the whole way that mental health has been managed. It's moved from something that is based on people's extremely complex narratives in lives and their responses to life and how they're managing life to a type of medical disease. So, if someone has cardiovascular disease or they have diabetes, they'll diagnose and a diagnosis has an implicit in a diagnosis is that there's some underlying biological cause-- I'm just giving you already know this, but that the word diagnosis implies there's an underlying biological cause. We're going to do tests, we're going to find that underlying biological cause, and we're going to target some treatment whether it's medical or whatever to that underlying cause.
[00:05:12] Now, that definitely does work when it comes to the physical body. And we're getting more and more advanced, as we know, with that approach. But it doesn't work with mental health. Yet that is the approach that has been used with mental health. And so, when people in early parenthood, like a new mom or a young woman who's gone into university and young woman who then starts working and gets into relationship, becomes a mother, and those are major, major changes that are very, very stressful. And if they don't have coping skills, right from entering university, entering parenthood, entering relationships, which we don't really do very well, we don't really guide. There's just all these expectations that women must just, do it all. And there's all the patriarchal philosophies as well, that are putting women under pressure.
[00:06:00] I've got to be able to do the motherhood thing perfectly and work perfectly. So, I'm painting a picture here of stress that is something that unmanaged, can start becoming toxic quite early on. And that sets us up for the decline that we see. And then if you add then the hormonal changes and you teach so much on nutrition, your brain and body are 1% of who you are, but you've still got to look after them. And so, if you're not managing your mind, which is the 99%, no one's helping you manage your mind. And you're just like going through life and on top of it, you are not managing your nutrition, your exercise, etc., in a bio-individual way that you help people to understand, that is just a calamity waiting to happen. And so therefore as perimenopause and menopause hits with those major changes, instead of it being nice-- not always nice, but a transition that is actually normal.
[00:06:52] The stresses of life and the environment and diet and all these things that have been mismanaged have all accumulated over the years and now you're sitting in a perfect storm. Then perimenopause and menopause become very traumatic. And that's when we see increasing cardiovascular issues and the cognitive dementias, etc., etc. Your question was, what specifically do I see? They complain it's memory, brain fog, overwhelmed, don't like their body anymore, libido is dropped, so that's those very typical sorts of these patterns and they're very real. But we know that medicine has focused mainly on male research and there's not enough on female research.
[00:07:30] So, very often things like cardiovascular disease, which are also indications of cardiovascular disease, doesn't just happen, it builds up over years. The symptoms are often missed. Still the hysteria is not used, but it's still-- there's often overemotional women. So, a lot of that combination I think creates these perfect storms that women go through and it makes it so much more difficult. So, we really do need to target from very very young. We need to be teaching our young girls, the five- and six-year-olds, and as they go all the way through the different stages, we should be talking about how to manage their mind. What does that look like? What managing my mind, managing my brain, managing my body. They shouldn't be coming to you at 50 and needing help and that's what's happening or coming to me. I don't practice anymore. So, many people would come to me in their 50s and 60s and their life's falling apart and their relationships have fallen apart and they've got all these early signs of dementia. And it makes me so sad if you then just hear the story of their life. So, that's a long answer, but I think it's a big picture answer.
[00:08:34] And even if you are in your 60s and 70s, if you're listening to this podcast and whatever age you're at, there's always hope. I did some of the first neuroplasticity research back in the late 80s, early 90s and I showed with directed mind management, you can rewire your brain and your body. And the other piece of good news is that your brain and body work as a unit. Memory is not just in the brain. And that's what we also told. It's incorrect. Your brain only holds a type of memory, a version, your body holds another version and your mind holds the main version. So, we've got three different versions of memories. So, we've got a network and if we understand that network, we can actually then target the network and we can do something. So, there's always hope to change and improve health, etc., etc.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:09:17] Well, and I think it's so important to have a message of hope. If you didn't get the proper training or modeling of behavior growing up that somehow once you cut to middle age, the wheels are going to fall off the bus and suddenly you're not going to be able to get back on track. That is not what you're saying. What are some of the important skills that either children or young adults or teenagers should be learning to help manage not just their emotions, but managing-- as you appropriately astutely say, managing your mind. What are the things, the skills that you think are so important to teach or instruct our younger people about so that they can navigate those major life changes, whether it's going to college, new job, getting married, having children, some of the things that happen that are just part of life transitions that we expect.
[00:10:11] In particular, we expect our young women to do it in a way that it's effortless and easy and everything's perfect. And I think this exterior pressures just make it harder for women to navigate, these major life's milestones.
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:10:24] A great question. What I try and help people understand are these three aspects. Knowledge is really important. We need to understand and educate because if you just give someone a technique, it's not sustainable. So, a big part of what I do is to educate. It's also what you're doing. It's what I did in my practice too. And that's why I do the research, write the books and do what I do. So, education is a massive part. And when I talk about education, it's really understanding what your mind is. So that's the first thing is to really be educated to understand your mind and the power of your mind and what you can do, the power that's in your hands, what is your real superpower? It's your mind. And so, what that is.
[00:11:02] I'll give the three main things and then we can dive in a little bit to each if you'd like. Then the other thing is what to do in the moment of crisis, in that moment of reaction? Because if I'm in that moment of reaction, what we see from the research, if you can learn to control that moment and the moment that we talk about in science that is very significant is the 62nd mark. It's a very unique time frame. I talk about 63 and you'll see why, in a moment. But if you can learn to manage that moment and start training yourself to mind manage, which is self-regulation, which is absolutely key to preventing things like Alzheimer's and dementias and catching that brain fog and fixing it up quickly.
[00:11:42] You can also then see if I can self-regulate this minute, I can self-regulate the next minute and the next hour and the next day and my relationships and I can learn the self-regulation process. Then I can also see it gives me a window into me and then I can see my patterns that are driving me which are habits, which are the dysfunctional habits or disruptive habits, which are coming from things I've just made bad choices about or things that are coming potentially from trauma at any stage of your life. Trauma being the trauma, not the concept creep trauma where if you can't get a parking spot, it's trauma, not that kind of trauma. Trauma happens to you. So, it's to identify those patterns that we have created that have come out of our life.
[00:12:23] So, there's three aspects is knowledge, understanding the mind, brain, body, connection properly, psycho-neurobiology, what is the mind, etc., understanding how to manage the 63 seconds and then once you've managed the 63 seconds, that level of self-regulation gives you insight into the habits that are driving you. And then knowing how-- to recognize each of those and then knowing how these formulas that you can apply and you can use. There's so many great techniques but if you just slap on a green juice, a bit of exercise and a bit of meditation, your band aiding the wound, you're not solving the problem. So, I show you-- I can briefly overview how to fit those concepts into the plan of three. So, that's the big picture. Would you like me to dive into each a little bit more?
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:13:07] I would. And, in particular because I literally just said this this morning. I need to have someone come on and talk about self-regulation because people hear that term and they don't fully understand or appreciate what it means. So, this is divine intervention that we're having this conversation right now.
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:13:23] Oh, that's amazing. Okay, well that's wonderful. Self-regulation is probably one of the most important things that we can learn and it's a true evidence that you are managing your mind. So, let's start with the education. And obviously, can't teach everything in the next hour. So, I'm going to give you the broad overview and then and I can just reference the books where people can find information. So, the first thing is your mind is not your brain. So, I've got a little model of the brain here for those of you that are listening. I'm just holding up a plastic bottle of the brain. And you are not your brain. That's the first thing to really understand when it comes to the knowledge component, which is the first arm of this triad, is to understand you're not your brain.
[00:14:02] And if you think you are your brain, if you think the mind and brain are synonyms of each other, it's totally understandable because that's the messaging that you're getting 24/7 from every media, medical, psychiatric, psychological outlet. They are terms that are used so incorrectly. The terms you would have heard words like mind, brain, consciousness, subconscious, unconscious, emotions. I mean, there's just all these psychological terms that get thrown out and it's very confusing. It feels like you know what they are. But if you don't really know what they really are and how they work together, it can mess you, it can be confusing.
[00:14:35] So, you want to be equipped with the correct knowledge. So, your mind is not your brain. Your brain is a physical organ and it doesn't even do what we think it does. It's not the only place where memory is stored. It is only one of the places as I mentioned earlier on. So, your brain is part of your body, it's a system. And every time that you learn something new, like this podcast, you're learning new information. This information is going to be stored in your brain and your body. There's 37 to 100 trillion cells in your brain, in your body, and every word I'm saying is basically little memories, and the memories cluster together to form thoughts. So, this podcast is a thought basically built of memories, which is a conversation built of details, if that makes sense.
[00:15:17] So, what you are doing as a human every day is you're taking all the experiences, all the conversations, and you are gathering all the little memories and you're building them into a thought and that you getting the information, listening, thinking, feeling, choosing, that's all mind work. That's not brain work, that's mind work. Your mind does that. Your mind is your whatever you want to call it, your spirit, your soul, your levels of wisdom, conscious, nonconscious, etc. But your mind is this life force, this energetic force that drives all this psychological stuff. To a physics level, you can literally put your hands in a circle around you, and that's your biofield, and that's not anything weird. It's the same energy in your biofield that runs your cell phone. It's an electromagnetic energy force.
[00:16:03] And what we see with people that are alive is that they have this field. And that field goes through the person. And everything about you being able to listen to conversation, go through the experiences of life first goes into this mind biofield, which is your mind. And it's got different levels, which we'll talk about in a moment. So, once it's in your mind, your mind processes the information. This is 99% of who you are. This mind thing that's got three different levels, drives your psychology and your neurophysiology. So, the fact that your brain works, that it has neurohormones and it has networks and neurons and different structures like the amygdala that everyone hears about and the prefrontal cortex that people to talk about, all those are run by your mind. Your brain can't do anything. It doesn't generate thoughts, it doesn't think.
[00:16:53] The amygdala doesn't do anything, they’re just responders, they host. So, the brain is made of parts, each part structured to host a different function. Like the frontal lobe is designed to host executive-type functions. The amygdala is designed to host perceptual experiences which are books in a library. And there's scary and happy and sad and all that stuff. So, it's perceptual emotional experiences. And different parts of the brain are structured to respond. So, when I'm thinking deeply, I'm going to have activity across my whole brain in response. But if I'm really getting insightful, I'll see more firing in the front part of the brain. If I'm really getting in tune with my identity and I'm really confident and whatever, I'll see a lot of lighting up in this part of the brain.
[00:17:32] So, it doesn't mean that part of the brain's generating your personality, it's just responding. But at the same time, my body's responding because every cell of my body is working in coherence with the brain. And so, the nervous system, as you know, goes through the entire body and we express ourself through our nervous system. And the nervous system reaches all the different systems of the body, which are made of organs, which are made of cells which are made of energy. And essentially your brain, your mind is running all of that. So, brain and body are 1% about of who you are, and mind is 99%. Yet we live in a world that focuses predominantly on the 1% and we should focus on it. I'm not saying don't, I mean it's really important that we feed our brain, that we don't get addicted to substances, that we do exercise. Because if your brain and body break down, then your mind can't work through it.
[00:18:21] So, then that creates feedback loops that are damaging and so on and people end up crashing in different ways. So, we have to look after our brain and our body, but not at the expense of our mind. And for the last 50 years, that's what's happened. As we've learned more about the brain and body, we've become more neurocentric, more physicalist, more materialistic, materialism in the sense of not buying stuff, in the sense of only the physical counts. And so, when people talk about wellness, for example, then it's all about, okay, exercise, diet and stress management.
[00:18:53] But it's stress management like one of the pillars. So, sometimes there's a fourth thing they'll say maybe spiritual development, but they put them on an equal level. It's not like that. It's 99% mind work and of that is managing stress, meditating and all that kind of thing. And then you have a plan for your brain and your body. So that's really important because your mind takes every experience, processes it builds it into little energy clouds and then puts it in the brain. So, there's a sequence here, the brain and then from the-- puts it in the brain as soon as this energy of the mind hits the brain, there's all kinds of reactions and little trees of networks are formed on the dendrites grow on neurons and they form like little tree-like structures.
[00:19:34] And as soon as that's happening and this happens really fast, we're talking like 400 billion actions per second and faster. Because everything is going in this way, mind, brain, body. And in the body, we don't build trees in the body, we build little tiny hedges in the cells. And I'm not going to go into all the technical elements of that, but essentially just think of this network of these clouds of energy in our mind, which are thoughts holding the details, the thoughts with the memories. And then, copies are made. That copies put in the brain, tree grows. copies are put into the cells of the body and little hedges grow. And there's a connection between all of those. And that's a network. It's an internal world wide web.
[00:20:11] And you build that. Now it's also very organic, it's dynamic, it's alive, it's moving and that energy of the mind doing that is also the same energy that makes your heartbeat, that makes your brain respond in this way, that makes your hormones work, that makes every system of your body, your lungs breathing. If you're dead, none of that's happening. Within 10 seconds of your heart stopping, your brain flatlines and everything starts to disintegrate. So, when that life force, mind is removed, everything stops functioning. So, mind drives psychology and neurophysiology. So, that's called psycho-neurobiology mind, brain, body, connection.
[00:20:48] And the psycho part, the mind part is the part that is the most neglected, and that's the part that should not be the most neglected. Because if you make the 1%, 100% and the 99, 1% we've distorted, and that's been the model, so the biomedical model does the whole diagnosis thing. And if a person's very anxious or having panic attacks where you've got anxiety disease, if you're depressed, you've got something wrong with your hormones. If you're anxious, you've got some. These are different pillars. They'll talk about genetic issues or they'll talk about brain chemicals, or they'll talk about your brain's doing it, your brain's not doing it, your brain's responding to what's happening in your life. So, it's a shift in language, but that shift in language gives you power.
[00:21:29] Because if you think your brain is doing it and your body's doing it, then how do you manage it? What do you do? What part can I play in my own healing? And then it becomes easy to focus. Okay, well, I can do diets, I can do exercises that's logical. And then am I managing my mind? Well, I'm using my mind to make the decision to do the exercise and the diet. So, yes, you're using your mind in a good way there, but you've also got to manage that anger that you have towards someone in that meeting who drives you crazy. Or that regret cycle that you're living in where you keep saying if only, could have, should have, would have every time something happens.
[00:21:59] Or that reactive moment where someone says something and just triggers you and you want to punch them in the face or snap at them, or those moments where you just feel yourself, people pleasing again or everything seems so black and white when nothing's black and white, those moments can catch us. And if those are the moments, if they're not managed, become 99% chaos because it's a mind thing. It's in your mind first. Everything's first in your mind. So, every reaction you feel, every emotion you feel, everything you are experiencing as a human is first in your mind, then in your brain and your body, they work as a unit. So, you will feel the mind in the body, which is all the somatic work that's so popular now on meditation and so on.
[00:22:39] And it's important because your body does have a preconscious level. The mind is in the brain and the body. So, your mind's in your body. So, of course, your body feels it. That's why when you have this gut reaction or you feel like someone's punched you in the gut, or you feel your face flushing or you feel your heartbeat increasing, your body just does what the mind tells it to do. So, if the mind's feeling chaotic, the body will respond. And then these networks that are described, they form and they lodge in the brain and the body. So, if I have a toxic, chaotic thought that I don't manage, it's also going to be a toxic tree in my brain. It's also going to be toxic elements in my cell, little hedges.
[00:23:16] And if I don't manage that, it gets bigger over time. So, now we have one thing happening, one network, then another thing in life and then another thing and in between mostly, thank God, otherwise we wouldn't survive. Most of those networks are healthy. Most of those networks are the mundane things of the day-to-day life, the joys of life, the ups and downs, the good, the bad. It's sort of the good and the wonderful, the bad and the ugly are fortunately minimal, In some people's lives, they have been through very abusive lives and so on. So, in other words, what I'm saying is we're a mixture of all of those and they feel like they dominate because we live through our nervous system, we live through our body.
[00:23:53] And if we just think this is everything, how I'm feeling in this moment and how I'm speaking in this moment, if I feel that's all I have, it feels so hopeless. I feel like I can't control this. But if we stand back and say, “Okay, my brain and body are just responding to something, what are they responding to my mind. What part of my mind are they responding to?” They're responding to the conscious mind. The conscious mind is awake when you're awake. It can only do one thing at a time, which Is hold one conversation at a time. I mean just try and have two conversations at once, it's impossible.
[00:24:25] So, the conscious mind is designed to focus on now and what's coming in now, data that's coming in now and whatever that stimulates coming up from the nonconscious. And it focuses on the incoming through the eyes of our existing experiences or existing networks and things feels and chooses and responds. So, it gathers data, it either reacts response. If it responds, you then are listening to the wisdom of another part of your mind which is called the nonconscious where the conscious only is awake when you're awake, the nonconscious is awake 24/7. It never stops. It's always going, it's always active, it's brilliant. It's where your intuition, your insight, your wisdom, it's on your side.
[00:25:08] It's finding all those toxic areas that are disruptive and putting them in, making you aware of those through the subconscious, which is a little holding area between the two. The unconscious is really fast. So, it has to catch those things, slow them down, put them in the subconscious, make the conscious aware. So, when something comes in from outside and we process it immediately or all three levels of our mind are aware. But our conscious mind is always slower than the nonconscious mind. So, everything comes in, it's already in us. By the time we are aware of what we are hearing, it's already in us, already copies have been made and it's already in us. A mind, brain and body but then we consciously aware we can say okay, “Wow, this is making me angry.”
[00:25:51] And the network that is already built in the mind, brain, body, you can immediately adjust that. So, in the 63-second moment, someone says something to you in a meeting, it's made you mad, they say something and this maybe happens repeatedly. It's someone at work who just constantly is just negative or whatever. They woke you up in a meeting. So, now you're in another meeting with that person and the trigger happens and you want to react. So that meeting, the stuff went in your mind, all of it's gone in. Your nonconscious has absorbed everything and filters through sections of that and puts it into your subconscious, into your conscious mind. Now you're aware and your conscious mind is saying okay, this person's saying this now, they said that yesterday and last week.
[00:26:31] So all those networks are activated and everything's now-- and this is a little bit chaotic and a little bit messy and that's normal because everything that's happening day to day and moment to moment is messy. We like little science experiments dealing with stuff. Kind of like a toddler. Think of a toddler, they're excited, they're happy, they're learning. And then think of a parent needs to guide a toddler. Well, there'll be an issue. So, here the angry person that’s come in, it's triggered memories. Now, we can either stay in our toddler portion of our conscious mind and get chaotic and dis-react and argue back and it just gets worse. Or we can think of a parent guiding a toddler and we can stand back and say, “Okay, they've said it again. I can react. I can feel the response in my body because it's already in my network. But I can change what that looks like. I can't change what they've said. I can't change how they feel because I can't control anyone else. But I can change my response.”
[00:27:23] So, if they feel like that, that's honor the fact that it's making me feel frustrated, angry, tired of this happening, etc., etc. So, you go through this little process of honoring how you're feeling, but you shift your mind to say to help yourself understand that this is them, not me. If I respond, I wire toxicity into me. I'm not going to have wisdom. I'm going to bypass the parent. The parent is how I access the nonconscious. I'm not going to have wisdom. The nonconscious has got all the tools that we need to survive and deal with this person who's made us angry or whatever we need in life. Everything's there, but I have to get access to it. And if I stay angry in that 63-second moment and there's a lot of significance around that 60 seconds scientifically, then I'm going to reinforce the toxic network and I'm going to be very reactive or I can stand back and do this little thing.
[00:28:13] So, this book which comes to the second part of what we can do to help ourselves is ,it's called Help in a Hurry. It's coming out on the 5th of August, and it's filled with the 18 areas that we found people really battle with in the moment. And we found that, and from our research, clinically and so on, is that if we can manage that moment, create the pause, create the gap. We all hear about people, create the pause, create the gap. Think of a traffic light, red and orange before it goes green, before we jump into green, can we get into the red and orange zone? Can we create the gap. In that gap what we're doing is the toddler then listens to the parent. Okay, I'm not going to stand up in my high chair and fall off the back and crack my head open. I'm going to sit down. Stupid example. But it came to mind because I have a granddaughter who's 20 months and she did exactly that when we were talking to her yesterday on the phone.
[00:29:00] She stood up in her chair, nearly fell over, and her mom had to step in. So, simple example, but I can stand back in that moment, in that 63 seconds, and I can get wisdom from the parent. And then parents read books and they get all kinds of advice to be good parents. That's an example of as soon as I'm listening to my parents, as soon as I stand back, honor, acknowledge, I then tap into my wisdom of my nonconscious, which you could see is your spiritual level, your wise level. It's connected to the ultimate source of wisdom, which could be God, universe, whatever you source, whatever you call it, reconnected beings, we have this in us. We have everything that we need is in us. And what we don't have in us, which we actually do, we have everything.
[00:29:38] But we'll have the questions that we need to ask to get what we need. It's there, but you can't find it if you're stuck in the toddler conscious mind, you've got to start getting into the parent mind, which can then tap into the nonconscious. And the nonconscious helps us by sending messages through the subconscious. The subconscious slows down. Nonconscious is so fast and so big that your brain would explode, your body would explode, your conscious mind would explode. It's too big. So, it has to be filtered. Too big, too fast. The subconscious slows everything down and the nonconscious finds these most disruptive things.
[00:30:08] As that angry person yells at you in that meeting, that memory that is from the cluster of memories, which is a thought from the previous time happening, the nonconscious finds that. It's been telling you to deal with this because now it's in your face, you have to deal with it, puts it into the subconscious, slows it down. The subconscious sends you a signal. The signal is you feel that emotion. “They're doing it again.” You feel it in your body. Your shoulders tense, your perception, they're doing it again. Your behavior, I'm going to snap at them. So, there's four signals that the subconscious will send from the toxic thought that the anger triggered that came from an unconscious. And those are your emotions, your behaviors, your bodily sensations, and your perceptions. Four categories of signals, notice I said emotions, behaviors, perceptions, and bodily sensations.
[00:30:55] They're four signals. They're not diseases. Depression would fall under emotions. It's not a disease, it's a signal. All of these give you data. They work together as a team. So now we're transitioning into the third part of how you can learn to help yourself. And that is I need to learn to listen to these signals. So, here I'm in this meeting. The angry thing has happened. This has come up. Now it's in my subconscious. And now I am feeling those four things, the frustration, the tension in my shoulders. I want to snap, oh no, they're doing it again, simple example. So, now in that moment, I honor that. Literally can say that as four little-- I feel this, I see, I'm going to do this, this is what I did in the past.
[00:31:33] This is my perception of this, my perspective, my attitude at the moment. And this is where I'm feeling it in my body. You can do that in under 10 seconds. You can catch it, you can do that, and then you can reflect. “Okay, why am I doing this?” Well, it's happened in the past. I know because it's attached to the thought so I can remember the past events. Okay, so what can I do? I can then shift into a little mind shift where I can say, okay, let me reconceptualize this. Let me see. I don't have time to go through all the detail. I can't solve this in this moment. I have to still run this meeting or I have to still respond. But let me distance myself from that person. They are coming with their baggage. That's their perception, whatever, whatever.
[00:32:08] All those things you need to say. But in addition, I would say, what can I learn from this? Even if I don't have to agree, the fact that it keeps coming up. There's something here that's going on. The fact that they say that I say this, something's going on. I need to take the time to find out why there's this pattern. Not now and then from a mind shift. I go into some sort of action, like a deep breathing exercise or something, and I give bunch of different techniques. So, it could be if they're angry, you could see them as very small. You could like in your mind visualize them shrinking or visualize them as ant on the stage or visualize them in a ton. There's hundreds of different techniques in here.
[00:32:46] You can find what works for you, whatever, whatever. But you use that in that moment. So, in 60 seconds you can gather awareness of how you feel, where it's in your body, how it's shifted your attitude, what it's making you, what your behavior would normally be. You can acknowledge that, you can honor that, you can then do a little bit of a mind shift by saying, “Okay, well could be-- something I could learn.” That's their thoughts, that's their day, they're having a bad day, whatever. So, you distance yourself and then get some action to get yourself into a calm state neuro-physiologically deep breathing, sip breathing and all of that redirects the neuroplasticity.
[00:33:21] So, that network that was there as it happened, which you only consciously were aware of 10 seconds after it all happened, you can now go in and you can change that network. So, instead of it going in as more toxic, making it worse, the next time you're in the meeting, you actually redirect the neuroplasticity and you change even as you breathe, that information gets attached to the molecules and you even breathe differently because if someone makes you mad and you just go [breathes], you're going to be madder because you've taken madness or anger onto the breathing and you've breathed that into your body. It's an energy on a molecule of oxygen and you take that in your body.
[00:33:58] So, you're not going to stop breathing, but you're going to be aware of changing what you attach. So, you do a little mind shift. So, the breathing even changes. Helps to direct the change in the network. And this is a lot. It takes me longer to explain it than it does to do it. So, the first thing is that knowledge aspect mind is 99%. Second thing is what I do in the 63 seconds that regret cycle. If you get stuck in that regret cycle, “if only I said this, then this wouldn't have happened.” That will destroy you and will not able to move forward. And it can keep you so stuck and destroy is not something that happens immediately over time. And eventually if we don't handle it, but if I get stuck in that regret cycle, for example, I'm going to reinforce it. I'm going to make this even stronger than before. But I can start catching that.
[00:34:45] In that moment of 63 seconds, I can step into step three, which is okay. I keep getting angry with this person. I am doing regret cycles six times a day or whatever I need to spend time. Then you go into the third phase, which is the 63-day habit change. So, habits don't change in 21. I've done 40 years of research on this. Habits take at least--, it’s a myth from a plastic surgeon in the 60s. Lots happening 21 days you will face the issue. You'll deconstruct, find the source, the root, reconstruct, reconceptualize. You can never get rid of your story, but you can change what it looks like inside of you. You do all that hard work. And I've developed a formula called the NeuroCycle that's based on all the science that I use as a therapy technique. It's used as a learning technique, it's used as a formula for.
[00:35:31] And you can add things onto that. So, I explain how to use it in the 63 seconds in here. Then I have an app called the NeuroCycle which literally me giving you therapy for 63 days, where you use the NeuroCycle, which is a five-step process daily that you go through for 63 days takes about 15 minutes. You can do longer, you can do less, but not more than an hour at a time. In other words, it's too tiring. If you like, whatever meditation technique, whatever CBT, affirmation, whatever you like. I teach you in that system where to plug it in. So, for example, if you use an affirmation too soon, it won't work. But if you use it when you've gone through the four steps and use it at step five, then it will work. So that's the kind of thing I teach in the NeuroCycle app and I also teach in this book here cleaning up your mental mess.
[00:36:16] And then, actually I know you've got a lot of moms, I have one where you can help your kids. So, it's teaching the kids how to use the NeuroCycle. So, in a nutshell, whatever's a pattern is a habit. Whatever's a habit in the nonconscious driving us, the nonconscious is making us aware of it by putting it into the subconscious and giving us signals. Those signals we can start learning to deal with in the 63 seconds. And then I see the patterns and I can work, okay that's a pattern I need to change. In the first 21 days, you deconstruct, reconstruct. And in the second set of 42 days is where you stabilize that new thought. If you stop at day 21 whatever you've built the new healthy thought, it's not strong. It's like a little seedling that's been planted without watering, it will die. That's what happens. People get frustrated. I did this work and I'm stuck and I'm doing this again and I'm never going to get-- you didn't go long enough. There's a healing journey.
[00:37:06] So, I have done all the researching what happens literally each day of the healing journey. So, in a nutshell and in summary, this book helps in the 63 seconds the NeuroCycle app and this book will help you in the second 63 days give you a pattern. And this is basically a lifestyle of regulating. All of this is mind management and it's self-regulation. So, it looks like in real life someone says something, you get really worked up in the moment, you can catch it and you know that you can do whatever technique. So, don't wait until you-- in the moment to then, “Oh, let me dig through the book.” Just hold on before I scream at you. Let me go find a technique. Don't do that. Read the book, work out the few favorite techniques, find yourself your best fun.
[00:37:47] Maybe you only read the chapter on regret cycles because that applies to your people pleasing or something. But get yourself into practicing in the good times. How do you manage the 63 and then the 63 seconds are so revealing of the patterns in our life that are driving us because we often don't realize what is driving us. So, we need the 63 seconds to find that. Then we need the time to take to work on the patterns. So, it's an ongoing lifestyle that we live and that is basically self-regulation. The more you do it, the easier it becomes.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:38:17] Well, and I think your work is so important and starting from a very high level. Even as a clinician we were taught it's brain and body that's in probably talking about the mind was not even ever discussed during my training. So, I can recall when I first learned about your work, I thought to myself this makes so much sense. But we're taught completely the antithesis as clinicians. The other thing is how many women in particular get caught in these cycles where they are triggered. Whether it's maladaptive coping mechanisms that we just learn as we're getting older and how I feel like your work in particular, you break the science down in such a way that people can understand it, they can act on it, they can help change their lives significantly. You may mentioned people pleasing.
[00:39:04] How many women listening, including myself, are either reformed or persistent people pleasers? What does the science tell us about people pleasing? And obviously using these techniques, we can work through that, we can relearn habits. But what is people pleasing? What exactly is it from a neuroscientific level?
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:39:24] So yeah, such a great question. I'm just trying to think now with the exact statistics, exact number. In fact, I might have it written in front of me. But basically, everyone battles with people pleasing. But some people more than others. And the reason why some more than others, and so often women. With women, there's a couple of things happening and I hate to use the word, but patriarchy has set up certain expectations of how women should perform. And I was actually interviewing someone who about this yesterday, who's written a whole book on this and how it shapes society. So, we have certain patterns that have come through epigenetically.
[00:39:58] And a lot of that is you're supposed to please everyone as a woman and you know, you're supposed to please as a child growing up, you're supposed to do, there's all these. And there's also men. Men go through too, it's not just women. These roles that we have been defined. Men don't cry and all this nonsense. And so those roles have created these patterns so of people pleasing. Because people pleasing, I'm supposed to be performative in a certain role. And if I don't do that, then I'm not fulfilling whatever my identity is. And it's like the subtle epigenetic thing that's happened, which an epigenetics is patterns that pass through the chromosomes basically through the genes to the next generations. And so, it's unresolved stuff.
[00:40:41] It's patterns and belief systems that have come through culturally for years and they go through the generations. Now, it doesn't mean that you're automatically going to do those things. If your parents had a lot of depression, battled with depression for whatever reason, because depression is not a disease, it is a response. But so maybe they had a lot of trauma that was undealt with and identity issues and for whatever the narrative was. Those are all just responses. But if it wasn't dealt with. It passes through the chromosomes and it passes through. But it's doesn't mean that you have. It's a proclivity, it's a potential. So, you can see, “Wow, my mom responds in this way.” And because you're nurturing, whatever, you may find yourself responding. How often do we say, “Oh, my mother did that. Now I'm doing it. I don't want to do that thing as an example.
[00:41:28] But we don't have to. When we self-regulate, we can actually identify those patterns and we can basically destroy those toxic trees and we can rewire. We have this ability to direct on neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is quite simply you can change the brain and the body. You can change the network in the mind, brain, body, connection. So, it's not just brain and body, it's neuroplasticity in the electromagnetic field as well. So. And we do that with our mind. So, knowing that I think is a huge plus and a huge bonus in terms of people pleasing. I'm just saying that just to remind people.
[00:41:59] So people pleasing is literally like a toxic pattern that has been generated probably first and foremost from societal expectations and then from each person's unique narrative, whatever, whether it was good, bad or ugly, you're growing up. Every parent comes into the parenting style with their own baggage. And their parents were doing their best with what they had and you do your best and whatever. So, we all kind of mess children up a little bit and it's a reality. And the big thing is that if we all accept-- it's like you can hold two spaces at once. You can hold the space of “I was a little messed up because my mom was a little messed up. And I have the right to give honor that she did her best, but that did impact me. So, I have the right to work on the impact.”
[00:42:40] And so, we can always work on both at the same time. We can honor the experience, but also honor ourself and deal with the impact. It's not an either/or situation. It's dealing with both. And it's that thinking that will stop people pleasing. But people pleasing is like [unintelligible 00:42:55] are the patterns. I feel too guilty to blame my past or to blame this one and so I'm just shaming myself. And the only way I'm going to be accepted is if I-- that's a broad thing, but everyone's going to react in a unique way. What makes you people please will be different to what makes me people please. It could be in a work environment.
[00:43:14] Being a woman in science, I found myself having to really control the people pleasing aspect because men would look down on a woman in science. I've been in the field-- I'm 61. I've been in the field 40 years. 40 years ago, they did talk about the mind, by the way. It stopped in the 90s. They would teach mind, brain duality and interaction, interestingly enough. But that stopped around the 90s. But men would not really honor women in science. And it was sort of whatever, it's a reality. And now it's changed definitely. It's much better. So, there was patterns. I would definitely find myself people pleasing men more than women in terms of in a scientific meeting or in some sort of meeting, whatever area I was working in, I would tolerate more from a male than I would from a female.
[00:43:59] And I stopped that-- As soon as I realized what I was doing, I stopped that. So, a lot of men and women reacted negatively to that because that's what women do. I said, “Why?” you must stand up. We're not talking about male or female. We're talking about a scientific concept. I've had male scientists say things to me like you're not a scientist. I said, “Tell me why not?” What research have I done? What have you done? And then how can you challenge me like that? How can you talk to--. This is the sort of not many, I must say a lot of them weren't that rude, but often it was very patronizing. And so, at first when I was younger I would people please. Children, I've got four children. I find myself wanting to fix things so I will people please to keep my kids happy. Not good. It teaches them bad patterns. It's rather to be honest than to deal with a little bit of a crisis from the honesty.
[00:44:50] So, it comes. Each of us need to look at our own things. So, there's the societal stuff, down to your unique role and what you do in your life, down to the narratives of your life where you-- what situations, people in narcissistic relationships, they people please. People in-- Abusive bosses and have to keep their jobs because they need the money, they compromise. And so, what happens with people pleasing is we lose ourselves. And one of the things that I talk about in Help in a Hurry is to track. I've got little charts and things that you can download, there's a QR code and to just track if you catch yourself in a people pleasing moment in that 63 second, use one of the little techniques.
[00:45:28] But it is to track, going to track over time like seven days is often enough to track the pattern of your people pleasing. Who's it worth, what type of people, the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, the how, that's really important. So, a technique in the 63 seconds is to honor I'm people pleasing. This is not who I am, I'm doing it because of- And do some breathing or visualization, see yourself as powerful or whatever, an affirmation, a quote, have something like that. But then spend the time, seven days, fill in the chart and work out what the pattern is and then do a 63 day. Maybe you need to do multiple cycles because you might find it comes from a complex source of multiple different things. So, you can change that.
[00:46:08] One of the great ways of that I always recommend if you're doing a 63-day NeuroCycle and you've worked out your pattern of people pleasing is to read fiction as one of your active reaches, which is step five of the NeuroCycle. And when you read fiction, it's a great way of getting to know yourself because you'll be drawn to characters that feel like they represent things that are in your life or that you're seeing around you and you get caught up in the story, it stimulates creativity, it taps and that opens the door to wisdom and you start finding stuff inside of yourself. My son is an author and writes fiction and brilliant fiction. And just the conversations, that's how he explores himself, explores life and etc., etc.
[00:46:47] And not that you have to be an author to benefit, you just have to read fiction. It's one of the most phenomenal ways of you finding yourself again. Because a consistent people pleaser tends to lose their identity. They've compromised so much and they're running around depending on how much and whatever the pattern looks like. So, fiction is a really-- it's a quick way of just breaking the ice to get you into a pattern of healing.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:47:11] That's so interesting. Part of that question was selfishly I was like, curious because I think of myself as a reformed people pleaser and I think my people pleasing tendencies came out of a bit of chaos growing up. And if I was fairly malleable and didn't create problems, I navigated my home situation. And then ironically, I end up in medicine where in many instances with the patriarchal environment in which medicine is and certainly was in the 90s and early 2000s, I worked in a very male-dominated area of medicine. And the way that I survived the grumpy positions that I worked with as a nurse practitioner was to be very people pleasing. And I remember a physician described me as like the most affable, which means most likable nurse practitioner that they had within this group.
[00:48:02] And at the time I thought that was so great. And I look back now and I'm like, “No, I never want to be likable. That just means I'm going with the flow. I'm not challenging the status quo.”
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:48:10] Exactly. Right example.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:48:12] And so, yeah, and so for me, when I reflect back on as a younger nurse practitioner, younger woman, what I found interesting was as I was navigating perimenopause into menopause, I started losing that desire to be people pleasing. Whether that was a reflection of that loss of estrogen, which is that bonding hormone that is that hormone that in many ways makes us very accommodating. And it's not a bad hormone. It's not bad that we as women have more estrogen than we do other sex hormones. But for me, I noticed that I started to find my voice in my 40s and certainly now in my early 50s. I reflect back and I'm like, “I don't know that person.” But I think in many ways when you brought up reading fiction, I was like, “I don't read as much fiction because of my podcast, because I'm always learning for the podcast, interview the experts.”
[00:49:04] And I was like, “I read a lot of fiction as a kid” and yeah that is such an easy way to reinforce that creative side of our minds and subsequently our brains and our bodies, but mostly for that mind piece. Do you find that women at this stage of life in your research, are more receptive to addressing maladaptive patterns that they have created throughout their lifetime?
[00:49:30] I'm thinking from the perspective of, when I'm listening to patients, clients, women that listen to this podcast, making it really relevant, for many people, they're finding themselves again. They feel like they're reconnecting with their minds. It's not their bodies and their brain. It's really their minds. Because as you astutely stated, that is 99% of us and the 1% is the rest. Do you find that this is a time where women will try to reconnect or reassimilate the way that they view themselves moving about in the world?
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:50:02] Oh, for sure. There's definitely a resurgence of desire to or a surgence, maybe not a resurgence. There's definitely an awareness much more than when I practiced for 25 years and I stopped practicing about 15 years ago. And I found if I look at the trajectory of my career, I worked with all ages and definitely it was more the kids that they would bring and they didn't always want to work on themselves. And I'm fine. You know, that's a typical woman statement, I'm fine. Towards the end of my 25 years, it was not like, I need some work done. I need help with this too and I need to work on this.
[00:50:35] And now it's definitely, if you look at, I mean, just these parts, the podcast the openness that there is now to talk about these things through social media. Oh, there's also, I mean, this on the other side we've got the tiktokification of mental health [Cynthia laughs] self-diagnosis and I've got a whole chapter on that as well and the dangers of that. The awareness that's being created has actually been an awareness that's got people stuck in labels. We don't want that awareness because it makes it worse than. But these conversations happening much more now and women are really good at say this is a solution, I need to know more about this. And that's why most women listen to podcasts between 35 and 65.
[00:51:16] They buy books, do the work because they instinctively may know that I need to make the change. Before it was more hidden, now it's very open. Women are much more outspoken. Not enough. There's still religious circles where it's terrible and in all religions, not just one type of religion and certain cultures. But I do think there is a change. I see by the kinds of questions I get asked at a conference when I'm doing book signing, it's different now. People really want to get in there and solve things, and get their identities and stop the people pleasing.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:51:53] That must be exciting for you. And you mentioned TikTok and you mentioned labeling. And social media is both helpful and sometimes in not instances, helpful. And I was mentioning to my husband, I must have ticked a box somewhere on social media that now I'm flooded with narcissism, you know, stuff. Its either—[crosstalk]
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:52:14] All the algorithms. Yeah.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:52:16] Experts, why or how can labeling be problematic when we are trying to navigate finding our way along this trajectory of self-exploration?
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:52:30] Labeling gives us a feeling of comfort. It's a categorization. We want to name things and put them in boxes. We like order. Our psycho-neurobiology works, as in the medical world, everything works on order. And the whole biochemistry, everything's-- And that's how our mind is also. It's organized. Electromagnetics and quantum physics-- everything's very organized. So, when we have these bodily reactions to our mind, it's very overwhelming. And when we deal with these things that people do and the things that we do, it's overwhelming. So, if we don't manage that, then our most automatic thing is, okay, People don't know about the mind. They don't know about self-regulation. So, they think, okay, I've got to solve it, I've got to slap a label on.
[00:53:13] Because that's what in medicine, we've labeled it, we've diagnosed it makes so much sense and it gives people a level of comfort. So, I always say to people, if you've been diagnosed and you've been told you have bipolar or something like that, don't see it as an it. See it as a description and see it as helpful for a time. But it's a little bit like a gift that's empty. So, it's beautiful. Wrap box and whatever. And you open it up and now what? And so, what the research shows is that it's actually made the stigma of mental health worse. The labeling, the diagnosing, this current model, things have got worse. It hasn't improved. The system hasn't worked.
[00:53:45] The temporary comfort that's provided by giving people a label, because we know there's so much concept creep and there's so much labeling, and it's a way people are trying to make sense. It's really a wave. So, we have better conversations about what these things are and what is an extreme form of the signal depression versus a normal depression. Because most depression people will get through. They don't need the medication. The medication is not fixing anything. It's a psychoactive drug that just numbs emotions. It doesn't fix. It actually creates more problems. But most people are thinking, “Oh, I've got a disease, I need that medication” because of the conditioning, like the woman conditioning thing that what females do, what males do. So that we're fighting that system.
[00:54:27] And that's really come through a lot with TikTok and with social media where people are identifying also with-- we have a desire to be part of a community that's inherent in our nature. So, we get us linked into a community but it's not the correct information and it does reduce or reduce those people that I have worked with people with autism for 25 years in my practice I have seen extreme forms of autism and high-functioning autism. I've trained in it and every second person that's been labeled with autism now, I don't deny that there's something going on, but I don't believe that the label of autism is the solution. To label more people with autism or label more people with ADHD.
[00:55:07] It's because that science has already been disproved. ADHD brains are not different to other people's brains. It's that science has been pulled apart. And even though that's the science that's being quoted in a lot of these TikToks. So, the wrong science is quoted because it's misread, it's misinterpreted and we want to simplify and categorize and that's why this be so drawn to that. The good thing is at least it's opening the conversation and if we can have more open conversations like this and say, I understand that you feel socially inadequate and you feel you have these symptoms and this potentially could be high functioning autistic.
[00:55:40] But let's not get stuck in the label because what about that person who's really, really battling with autism and they genuinely have a life pattern that's disruptive and they've been diagnosed and gone through this therapy and I'm thinking of some of the patients that I worked with and then someone who I know they battle socially and there's a few little signs that could cross over. But to say that both of those autistic does the service to the one who actually really has the problem. I'd rather say to that person, look, let's talk about the behaviors here. Let's talk about the signals. There's four signals. Let's talk about the emotions and the behaviors and they're very relevant. We validate them, we're not invalidating.
[00:56:17] You don't need a label. You don't need a disease label to validate what you're going through. What you're going through is very valid. It's your story and you're reacting to your story. So, we can shift the conversation from validating people through a label to validating people's stories and unique experiences as individuals. We'll then won't use these the tiktokification of mental health. We'll shift into more conversations of my life experiences and be more bit more careful. Also, you don't want to share everything with everyone. There's a lot being shared that is helpful but there's a lot that makes you more vulnerable and that can make you feel judged and so it's just a little bit of an imbalance we've swung into to that side and hopefully it'll swing back again with better conversations.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:56:59] Well, this is such an invaluable conversation. Dr. Leaf, please let listeners know how to connect with you outside of this podcast, how to purchase your brand new book or your other books which I always tell listeners you are one of my very favorite, favorite neuroscientists and I love all the work that you do.
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:57:15] Thank you so much, I appreciate that. Well, my podcast is the "Dr. Leaf Show." You will be on that, I'm actually interviewing you very soon and all my social media handles, I'm on every platform, all the different platforms including Bluesky, LinkedIn, everything is Dr. Caroline Leaf. Webpage drleaf.com. My books are available wherever books are sold. This book's on preorder at the moment. Help in a Hurry. Lots of bonuses like we always do as authors we give lots of bonuses. There's some very unique bonuses with this book so they can preorder helpinahurrybook.com and then this book's available wherever books are sold. My NeuroCycle app is available and this one to help your child.
[00:57:49] I have 19 books but these are the top three that are great place to start. The NeuroCycle app is available on iTunes, Google Play and we have a web version and that's the NeuroCycle. This the formula that is how you manage the 63 seconds and how you rewire habits, how you basically rewire the psycho-neurobiological network, how you manage those things that are driving you crazy, basically.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:58:12] Amazing. Thank you so much for your time.
Dr. Caroline Leaf: [00:58:13] My pleasure. Thank you so much. Great questions. I enjoyed our discussion.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:58:18] If you love this podcast episode, please leave a rating and review. Subscribe and tell a friend.
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