Latest / The Body Pod / Midlife Brain Fog, Focus & Female Power with Dr. Therese Huston

Transcript

Midlife Brain Fog, Focus & Female Power with Dr. Therese Huston · The Body Pod

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, This is Haley and I'm Lara, and welcome
0:03
Speaker 1: to the Body Pod.
0:11
Speaker 2: We are so excited to have Terese Houston on the
0:15
Speaker 2: podcast today. She is a cognitive scientist and she just
0:19
Speaker 2: launched her latest book, fourteen Simple Ways to Improve Your
0:23
Speaker 2: Life with Brain Science. We cannot wait to get into
0:28
Speaker 2: this combo with her.
0:29
Speaker 1: And is it sharp? Is it just a go by sharp?
0:32
Speaker 3: You can yeah, you can just call it sharp sharp.
0:34
Speaker 2: Yep.
0:35
Speaker 1: Easy for people to remember and go order on their
0:37
Speaker 1: Amazon cart. That's what I'm thinking.
0:39
Speaker 2: Go to go to Amazon, type and sharp and add
0:42
Speaker 2: to cart because you were going to need to improve
0:45
Speaker 2: your life.
0:47
Speaker 1: Yes, Teresa, how long? How long have you had When
0:51
Speaker 1: did the book launch?
0:53
Speaker 3: It launched April twenty ninth, so just recently.
0:56
Speaker 1: Okay, so rarely beginning. I knew it was in the
0:59
Speaker 1: last couple of months. But yeah, okay, that's not gratualation.
1:03
Speaker 3: So thank you your coround.
1:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I take you to write.
1:09
Speaker 3: I started writing it in twenty twenty one, so I
1:13
Speaker 3: guess three years to write and then there's the year
1:15
Speaker 3: of editing and getting it just right. But yeah, about
1:18
Speaker 3: three years to write. So thank you. It's very exciting.
1:20
Speaker 3: I hope. I hope both of you have books in
1:21
Speaker 3: the future because you bring so much to the world.
1:25
Speaker 1: So we'll see, we'll see. As you've seen, we're very
1:28
Speaker 1: organized and interaction. This is what you can hire out for, right,
1:34
Speaker 1: like as far as the writing, and like I just
1:36
Speaker 1: need a ghost writer, and I need an editor, and
1:39
Speaker 1: everyone can benefit from an editor. So that's good. So, well,
1:44
Speaker 1: welcome Teresa. Can you just give a brief so for
1:48
Speaker 1: anyone listening, obviously sharp we have fourteen ways to improve
1:52
Speaker 1: your life with brain science that can seem like, what,
1:55
Speaker 1: what the heck? I'm interested? What the heck is it?
1:59
Speaker 1: So if somebody coming to you to read your book,
2:01
Speaker 1: what do you want them to get from it?
2:04
Speaker 3: Well, so, the thing I've been telling people when they
2:06
Speaker 3: ask me what my book is about, I say, it's
2:08
Speaker 3: how neuroscience can help you have a better day. Right,
2:12
Speaker 3: And there are chapters on how to get focused, chapters
2:15
Speaker 3: on how to get creative, two chapters on how to
2:18
Speaker 3: be less stressed, a chapter even on how to support
2:21
Speaker 3: your partner when they're super stressed. Because the strategies are
2:24
Speaker 3: different if you're dealing with your own stress versus helping
2:26
Speaker 3: someone else navigate their stresses, and you know, there's just
2:31
Speaker 3: so much neuroscience is having a heyday right now. Brain
2:34
Speaker 3: science is having a heyday where finally neuroscience is actually
2:38
Speaker 3: helpful and can help not just patients but everyday people
2:41
Speaker 3: who are looking to enhance their performance or maybe keep
2:45
Speaker 3: their performance where it's at, but at least reduce their stress.
2:48
Speaker 1: I love that, and I love that that neuroscience is
2:51
Speaker 1: kind of coming into it's getting more familiar. I mean,
2:55
Speaker 1: you would have said that five years ago with or
2:57
Speaker 1: even ten without social media. It's like, well, how does
3:00
Speaker 1: that apply to me? Uh? Today, we're specifically, and we
3:04
Speaker 1: had we've kind of mentioned this to you. We we
3:06
Speaker 1: would really like to focus on not only everything that
3:10
Speaker 1: you just said of kind of nailing down the absolutes
3:13
Speaker 1: that this book can bring and what it can do
3:15
Speaker 1: for you in your life, but specifically since we are
3:18
Speaker 1: pretty much a female only audience of women, you know,
3:23
Speaker 1: thirty five plus all kind of in this perimenopozzle postmenopuzzle
3:28
Speaker 1: phase of how how this can specifically help. So all
3:34
Speaker 1: of us are stressed, all of us are time crunched,
3:38
Speaker 1: multitime except I have to say you're you're yeah, multitasking
3:42
Speaker 1: your your presence and your vibe is like all me good.
3:48
Speaker 1: I might like a yoga like retrieved of just zen.
3:54
Speaker 1: So clearly you've done some work, hence writing the book
3:58
Speaker 1: for women that are time crunched, and they're just like
4:01
Speaker 1: I have got nine million tabs open all the time
4:04
Speaker 1: in my brain. Yes, where do I start?
4:09
Speaker 3: Great question? And not only do I think, because I'm
4:12
Speaker 3: at this chapter of my life as well, and so
4:14
Speaker 3: I tried to write a book that I would want
4:16
Speaker 3: to read, you know, a book that has great science
4:19
Speaker 3: as well as fantastic practical applications that I can do
4:22
Speaker 3: right now today, not not that I need to rearrange
4:25
Speaker 3: my life for, but that I can just work in today.
4:28
Speaker 3: So where would where would And with those nine million
4:30
Speaker 3: tabs open, I just need to say, Haley, I'll bet
4:32
Speaker 3: it feels like half of them are frozen and you're
4:34
Speaker 3: clicking and nothing happening.
4:38
Speaker 1: I can't remember them. I know, we don't even know what.
4:42
Speaker 2: I know what's in them.
4:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, So where to start is a great question. So
4:48
Speaker 3: I would say, first of all, any we're going to
4:52
Speaker 3: talk about how to take restorative breaks today, and I
4:55
Speaker 3: want to reassure you that any break is better than
4:58
Speaker 3: no break at all. Right, So I think all to them.
5:01
Speaker 3: Often we think we need to power through and just
5:04
Speaker 3: keep working because that's going to make us more productive.
5:06
Speaker 3: But we're not powering through. We're actually powering down. I
5:10
Speaker 3: want to introduce to think of it that way. You're
5:12
Speaker 3: not powering through, your powering down. And one of the
5:15
Speaker 3: simplest things you can do is a breathing break. And
5:20
Speaker 3: you know we're breathing now, right, not that you're not breathing,
5:24
Speaker 3: but there are very restorative ways to breathe that actually
5:27
Speaker 3: will help you give your body a signal to calm down.
5:31
Speaker 3: And it might be worthwhile just to do one of
5:34
Speaker 3: those real quick right now. Would you like to try one?
5:36
Speaker 2: Yes? Please, let's do it. Yeah, and everyone listening do
5:40
Speaker 2: it with us too.
5:42
Speaker 3: Yes, you can try it right now, or you can
5:44
Speaker 3: go back and thirty seconds and you're you know, your
5:48
Speaker 3: Apple podcast and try it again and in a few moments. Okay,
5:50
Speaker 3: So just get get yourself comfortable, and I'm going to
5:54
Speaker 3: tell you what we're going to do and then we'll
5:56
Speaker 3: do it. So I'll first describe, so I'm going to
5:58
Speaker 3: ask you to fully exhale, and then what we're going
6:01
Speaker 3: to do is a very slow inhale to account of five,
6:04
Speaker 3: which is a long inhale, and ask you to hold
6:07
Speaker 3: for two and then we're going to exhale for seven,
6:10
Speaker 3: which is a slow exhale. But usually the slow exhales
6:12
Speaker 3: easier than the slow inhale. Now, if you find that
6:15
Speaker 3: you're doing this the slow inhale and at about three
6:19
Speaker 3: or four you're like, I can't inhale anymore, just start
6:21
Speaker 3: holding your breath early that that'll be fine. The most
6:24
Speaker 3: important part is the really long slow exhale. Okay, so
6:28
Speaker 3: everybody ready, Yeah, okay, great, So just exhale and we're
6:33
Speaker 3: going to start an inhale two three four five, Hold
6:39
Speaker 3: two exhale two three four, five six seven, and we'll
6:47
Speaker 3: do again inhale two three four five pause two exhale
6:56
Speaker 3: two three four five six seven. Okay, So how do
7:04
Speaker 3: you feel? I do too, Like, Wow, isn't that amazing? Yeah?
7:11
Speaker 3: So what's happening there is you've got something called your
7:15
Speaker 3: vegas nerve. I don't know if you've I've listened to
7:17
Speaker 3: a bunch of episodes, but I don't know if you've
7:18
Speaker 3: talked about the vegas nerve. I'm getting some nods The
7:22
Speaker 3: vegus nerve travels in both directions, from your brain down
7:25
Speaker 3: to your lungs and your gut, but it also flows
7:28
Speaker 3: back upwards. And one of the things you can do
7:30
Speaker 3: is when you're controlling your breath like that, you're sending
7:33
Speaker 3: a signal back up to your brain through your vegas nerve,
7:35
Speaker 3: like hey, everything's okay, it's all okay, we're not in
7:39
Speaker 3: panic mode. And it sends that signal to your amigdala,
7:42
Speaker 3: your a migdalah will feel less threat It sends a
7:44
Speaker 3: signal to the rest of the brain like, hey, we
7:46
Speaker 3: can be a clearer thinker right now, everything's okay. So
7:50
Speaker 3: your whole system gets clearer and more relaxed. And in
7:53
Speaker 3: the lab they'll do this for two minute cycle. We
7:56
Speaker 3: just did about about twenty seconds worth, But if you
7:59
Speaker 3: did it for a lot longer, if you did a
8:01
Speaker 3: few more cycles all the way through two minutes, they
8:03
Speaker 3: find a huge improvements in your ability to think as
8:06
Speaker 3: well as people feel much calmer. So you know, it's
8:10
Speaker 3: an easy one. You can do it just in the
8:11
Speaker 3: middle of a meeting with other people, right nobody has
8:13
Speaker 3: to know, okay.
8:16
Speaker 1: So two things just came to mind. Number one, No,
8:20
Speaker 1: I'm airing my journey laundry. So I got eighteen year
8:24
Speaker 1: old son, you know, he came home to visit and
8:29
Speaker 1: most of the time now that he's moved out, like
8:31
Speaker 1: we don't have these these periods of animosity. I'll say, oh, contention,
8:37
Speaker 1: but we had this like argument last night. And two things.
8:43
Speaker 1: Number one, I wish I could have paused, yeah, and
8:46
Speaker 1: like done two minutes of breathing before being reactive. I
8:51
Speaker 1: think I would have changed the wall, like fly off
8:54
Speaker 1: the handle. Yeah, you know if that were the case.
8:58
Speaker 1: And then two, same child that happens to struggle with
9:05
Speaker 1: some anxiety, and I feel like this, I've heard this
9:10
Speaker 1: before of stop, pause, breathe, and it sounds so intuitive,
9:15
Speaker 1: like we all know that. Well, I'm not holding my breath,
9:17
Speaker 1: I'm not necessarily like whatever, But when you sit there
9:22
Speaker 1: you can have this clear. To me, it sounds like
9:26
Speaker 1: it makes it It makes you less reactive and to
9:29
Speaker 1: think more about like, you know, we tend to catastrophize
9:34
Speaker 1: in our head that anything at that moment might be
9:38
Speaker 1: life or death. But is it really yes. Yeah.
9:42
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because the you know, people often talk
9:44
Speaker 3: about the amygdala as a threat detector in the brain,
9:48
Speaker 3: but the amygdala is actually just a like this is
9:51
Speaker 3: really important detector, right, So good or bad, it's like,
9:54
Speaker 3: we need to pay attention to this now. And so
9:56
Speaker 3: if you can calm down your amigdala and that long,
9:59
Speaker 3: slow excit is what's really sending that signal to the amygdala,
10:02
Speaker 3: like hey, everything's okay. If you can calm down your amygdala,
10:06
Speaker 3: then other parts of your brain can decide what's most important, right,
10:10
Speaker 3: So you're kind of freeing up other resources to be like, oh,
10:13
Speaker 3: I don't have to be listening to what my son
10:15
Speaker 3: is saying. I need to be listening to the tone,
10:17
Speaker 3: for example, right, or his body language. But you could
10:20
Speaker 3: queue into other things rather than just your own emotional
10:24
Speaker 3: agitation that's going up and up and up. So yeah,
10:28
Speaker 3: it would be beautiful, but I'm guessing your son would not
10:30
Speaker 3: appreciate in that moment saying all right, everybody, let's do
10:33
Speaker 3: a deep breath.
10:35
Speaker 2: He's so mad.
10:40
Speaker 1: So this goes along with the parasympathetic and sympathetic exactly.
10:45
Speaker 3: The vagus nerve is part of the parasympathetic nervous system,
10:48
Speaker 3: and so you're activating your parasympathetic nervous system telling your
10:51
Speaker 3: sympathetic nervous system chill.
10:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:55
Speaker 2: I'm going to use this too with my one year old.
11:00
Speaker 3: I love it.
11:01
Speaker 2: Say more Laura, Well, she's nineteen months but she is
11:06
Speaker 2: the sweetest thing. But she is very spicy, and nineteen
11:10
Speaker 2: months old little babies run around and they get upset
11:16
Speaker 2: very quickly, and just the screaming, the arching of the back,
11:20
Speaker 2: the throwing of the fits. I just have tried to
11:24
Speaker 2: be very conscientious of not reacting because she needs to
11:32
Speaker 2: express herself, obviously, and it's hard. You want to yell
11:38
Speaker 2: or react or whatever. But I have been trying to
11:44
Speaker 2: just wait for a minute. And there's a couple of
11:47
Speaker 2: times I've walked out of the room and just been like, Okay,
11:52
Speaker 2: I'm going to go back in now, because that would
11:55
Speaker 2: have been I would have hated how I responded and reacted.
11:58
Speaker 2: Like Haley was saying, it's not because I never like
12:03
Speaker 2: when I am reactive. Afterwards, once I calmed down, I'm
12:07
Speaker 2: always regroutful of Oh I shouldn't have acted that way,
12:12
Speaker 2: or I'm the adult here.
12:15
Speaker 3: Hmm, exactly, Well, I have. I was talking with a
12:19
Speaker 3: therapist who specializes in some different breathing techniques, and she
12:22
Speaker 3: gave me a great tip that you might be able
12:24
Speaker 3: to use with your nineteen month old, and that is
12:27
Speaker 3: with kids, what she finds especially effective is to tell
12:29
Speaker 3: them pretend you're blowing on a hot piece of pizza. Okay,
12:34
Speaker 3: so it's a really and you could even maybe maybe
12:37
Speaker 3: not not with your son, Haley, but Laura, with you
12:40
Speaker 3: with your younger one, say okay, we're all going to
12:42
Speaker 3: blow on a hot putumber, blowing on a hot piece
12:44
Speaker 3: of pizza. So that rather than having them count the
12:46
Speaker 3: slow x heels, they can already picture like, oh, you
12:48
Speaker 3: got to go. Yeah, that's for a long time, right,
12:51
Speaker 3: So it's a clever one. That's a that's a nice
12:53
Speaker 3: one to try.
12:54
Speaker 2: That is a good tip. Yeah, you have time to
12:56
Speaker 2: not screw up your kids.
13:00
Speaker 1: It was reactive. Okay. So when we look at the
13:04
Speaker 1: neuroscience part of a female brain, and I think that
13:08
Speaker 1: this will kind of lead us into the cognitive what
13:13
Speaker 1: do you call it? Cognitive flexibility? Flexibility flexibility. So we
13:20
Speaker 1: know I didn't know this, as I just say, we
13:23
Speaker 1: know I know now, But the brain changes during menopause
13:30
Speaker 1: and in this pery postmenopause phase, the brain is changing,
13:35
Speaker 1: and I feel like, like what I say, I'm having
13:39
Speaker 1: this brain fog all the time and it makes me
13:42
Speaker 1: feel especially when I'm running groups. I'm like, this is embarrassing.
13:48
Speaker 1: I have this on the tip of my tongue and
13:50
Speaker 1: I can't think of the word or I had that
13:53
Speaker 1: thought and now it's completely gone and I can't. So,
13:56
Speaker 1: just is that where cognitive flexibility could help or come
13:59
Speaker 1: into play or is that a totally different conversation.
14:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's two important concepts you're raising there. So
14:05
Speaker 3: there's both brain fog and there's cognitive flexibility, And do
14:09
Speaker 3: you want me to talk about both or is there
14:10
Speaker 3: one that's more important for people.
14:12
Speaker 2: That don't know what cognitive flexibility is or who haven't
14:16
Speaker 2: hurt Yes, yeah, let's.
14:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, great, all right, So first on cognitive flexibility,
14:25
Speaker 3: which a lot of people haven't heard about, but neuroscientists
14:28
Speaker 3: are very excited about because it seems to be one
14:31
Speaker 3: of the things that is best benefited, for instance, by exercise. So,
14:36
Speaker 3: cognitive flexibility is your ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
14:42
Speaker 3: Nice and simple, can you So you have a plan
14:46
Speaker 3: A and on the fly you need to come up
14:49
Speaker 3: with a plan B. Right, the technology is failing Haley
14:51
Speaker 3: in some part of life, and you need to be
14:55
Speaker 3: on your feed like, Okay, if I can't solve it,
14:58
Speaker 3: who can solve it?
14:58
Speaker 2: Right?
14:59
Speaker 3: Just that's that be cognitive flexibility not being thrown, but
15:02
Speaker 3: being able to come up with a new plan And
15:04
Speaker 3: if Plan B doesn't work, can I come up with
15:05
Speaker 3: a plan ce. Cognitive flexibility tends to go down for
15:09
Speaker 3: both men and women as they get older, and partly
15:14
Speaker 3: that's because you have so much accumulated knowledge on one
15:17
Speaker 3: solution that you just kind of want to just like,
15:20
Speaker 3: can't we just do the thing I know how to do? Right?
15:23
Speaker 3: So it goes down for both men and women, but
15:25
Speaker 3: it especially goes down for women during paramenopause and menopause
15:30
Speaker 3: because as you get these big fluctuations in estrogen, you
15:34
Speaker 3: have a lot of receptors and your prefrontal cortex to
15:37
Speaker 3: estrogen that are waiting for estrogen to like let the
15:42
Speaker 3: prefrontal cortex know we need to come up with a
15:44
Speaker 3: plan B. So it's this part right behind your forehead,
15:47
Speaker 3: above your eyebrows and behind your forehead bone that is
15:51
Speaker 3: your prefrontal cortex, and it's what's responsible for coming up
15:54
Speaker 3: with a plan B and a plan CE, and I
15:56
Speaker 3: got this, I got this, I got this. However, with
15:59
Speaker 3: those estrogen receptors in that part of your brain not
16:02
Speaker 3: getting as much estrogen as they're used to, basically, it's
16:05
Speaker 3: slower to come online, it's slower to come up with
16:07
Speaker 3: a plan B, and so you feel like you're kind
16:09
Speaker 3: of stuck in Plan A and you're getting frustrated with well,
16:13
Speaker 3: I but I know how to do Plan A. Why
16:16
Speaker 3: can't we just go with that? And so that cognitive
16:19
Speaker 3: flexibility tends to diminish as as all of us get older,
16:23
Speaker 3: but especially during this part of life, it can feel
16:26
Speaker 3: especially frustrating because your prefrontal cortex just isn't as responsive
16:30
Speaker 3: as it used to be.
16:30
Speaker 2: So when it diminishes, will it ever come back? Like?
16:33
Speaker 2: Can we improve it?
16:35
Speaker 3: Yes? Well, so there is an interesting yes, so we
16:38
Speaker 3: can talk about the specific strategy. So in general, the
16:42
Speaker 3: research suggests that the good news is that the cognitive
16:48
Speaker 3: frustrations that we're feeling around paramenopause and menopause. I think
16:51
Speaker 3: it was the Swan study. You know the abbreviation for
16:54
Speaker 3: that the better than I do. Anyway, the Swan study
16:57
Speaker 3: found that even the women experience some cognitive you know,
17:03
Speaker 3: not even impairments, but they experience some diminishment in their
17:08
Speaker 3: cognitive function during paramenopause, and during menopause, it either stabilizes
17:12
Speaker 3: or it rebalance and it goes back to what it
17:15
Speaker 3: was before as soon as estrogen levels, uh normalize and
17:19
Speaker 3: you know, become right than goodness. Well, so it's it's
17:23
Speaker 3: not all down here, down here from here already. That's
17:25
Speaker 3: that's what I'm saying. But there are things in addition
17:29
Speaker 3: to the fact that once estrogen levels, you know, either
17:32
Speaker 3: you go on HRT or they just they go down
17:35
Speaker 3: and your body gets used to them being lower rather
17:37
Speaker 3: than being up being down, being up being down, there
17:40
Speaker 3: are things you can do to improve your cognitive flexibility.
17:43
Speaker 3: So aerobic exercise immediately improves your cognitive flexibility. And and
17:49
Speaker 3: so this is a great ide This is great. You know,
17:53
Speaker 3: there's lots so much talk right now about strength training
17:56
Speaker 3: and the benefits to your body of strength training at
17:58
Speaker 3: this period of life so important, but I want to
18:02
Speaker 3: make sure that people know that the aerobic exercise is
18:04
Speaker 3: really good for your brain because aerobic exercise produces something
18:08
Speaker 3: called BDNF brain derived neurotropic factor and as well as
18:15
Speaker 3: lactic acid. Right, So, and lactic acid can cross the
18:18
Speaker 3: blood brain barrier, and when it crosses the blood brain barrier,
18:21
Speaker 3: cognitive flexibility goes up. So aerobic exercise and so and
18:26
Speaker 3: longer aerobic exercise leads to longer cognitive flexibility. So if
18:31
Speaker 3: you can work out for a half an hour, you'll
18:32
Speaker 3: have more cognitive flexibility than if you can just work
18:34
Speaker 3: out for fifteen minutes. Likewise, if you can do a
18:37
Speaker 3: forty five minute spin class even better. So anything where
18:40
Speaker 3: you can do more sustained, moderate level of intensity of
18:44
Speaker 3: aerobic activity, you're going to experience more cognitive flexibility that
18:47
Speaker 3: day than if you hadn't.
18:50
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to just ask the question that I'm
18:53
Speaker 1: going to get hit up with nine I'm going to
18:55
Speaker 1: save myself nine hundred DM answers. So when you say
19:01
Speaker 1: aerobic exercise, so in our world women are hearing you know,
19:08
Speaker 1: yes we need cardio. But it is broken down into
19:10
Speaker 1: two camps. It is zoned to low intensity, steady state
19:14
Speaker 1: aerobic exercise or it's high intensity interval training or sprint
19:18
Speaker 1: interval training, which is kind of under the same umbrella.
19:21
Speaker 1: So there are two main camps here, Steady State study
19:26
Speaker 1: sounds like what you're talking about. And then there's these
19:29
Speaker 1: intervals which pull more lactic acid and require more recovery
19:34
Speaker 1: and all of that. And so you know, as women
19:38
Speaker 1: are getting this because before, I feel like if somebody
19:41
Speaker 1: were going to the doctor at this age, the doctor
19:45
Speaker 1: would say, go do some you know, one hundred and
19:47
Speaker 1: twenty minutes of aerobic exercise or whatever, and so that
19:50
Speaker 1: was really being covered. But now that's kind of being
19:53
Speaker 1: forgotten there and now it's more like, well, we have
19:56
Speaker 1: to make it this high intensity intensity, right, and you
19:58
Speaker 1: know my camp is what we have to do both
20:01
Speaker 1: and strength training of course is in there too. So
20:04
Speaker 1: this all is a well rended program in your research.
20:09
Speaker 1: When you're saying aerobic, you're meaning not these high intensity
20:13
Speaker 1: interval sprint, hard effort sessions. You're meaning just you know,
20:18
Speaker 1: aerobic as we understand it. Steady State, Yeah.
20:23
Speaker 3: Well, here here's what. Unfortunately, where the literatures are, I
20:26
Speaker 3: wish there was more overlap. So the research on this
20:29
Speaker 3: is usually instead of talking about zone one, zone two, zone,
20:32
Speaker 3: you know, instead of talking about the zones, they usually
20:34
Speaker 3: talk about how high intensity is it, and they are
20:38
Speaker 3: usually talking about moderate intensity. So fifty to seventy percent
20:42
Speaker 3: of your maximum heart rate is what these studies are
20:45
Speaker 3: finding is optimal. So would that be zone two or
20:47
Speaker 3: what zone would be?
20:49
Speaker 1: Zone two is okay, depending on the expert and.
20:52
Speaker 3: Fair enough and arch share enough.
20:56
Speaker 1: It's usually around sixty to seventy percent is zone two,
21:00
Speaker 1: and then you know above that is zone zone three.
21:04
Speaker 1: But zone two and zone three, it's kind of like
21:07
Speaker 1: the lines get crossed a little bit with exactly where
21:10
Speaker 1: that threshold. I mean, unless you were doing like a
21:14
Speaker 1: breath test sure at an exercise physiology lab those lines,
21:19
Speaker 1: so it sounds like anywhere in that zone two slash moderate.
21:23
Speaker 1: Some people call it moderate, some people call it low
21:24
Speaker 1: intensity studies. Okay, yeah, fifty to seventy kind of put
21:29
Speaker 1: you in that that what we would call low intensity
21:33
Speaker 1: study state.
21:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. I'm glad that you got that. That
21:36
Speaker 3: you asked for that, and I've been frustrated that the
21:38
Speaker 3: literature doesn't talk about it in terms of these zones.
21:41
Speaker 3: But I appreciate that you can do the translation. The
21:45
Speaker 3: challenge can be with going at a high intensity, which
21:49
Speaker 3: it sounds like it would be, you know, zone four.
21:52
Speaker 3: The challenge there can be that people get so tired
21:56
Speaker 3: that their cognitive flexibility goes down for other reasons. Right,
21:59
Speaker 3: So if it's just an exercise snack, if it's just
22:02
Speaker 3: perhaps ten minutes of that kind of high high intensity
22:06
Speaker 3: interval train, that might be fine. But if you were
22:09
Speaker 3: to do a full forty five minute workout where you're
22:12
Speaker 3: doing a whole bunch of those, you might feel so
22:14
Speaker 3: exhausted afterwards that your cognitive flexibility actually takes a hit
22:17
Speaker 3: for a while.
22:19
Speaker 1: This is absolutely what I wanted you to say, because
22:21
Speaker 1: I think that there is there's reasons. This is another
22:26
Speaker 1: one because I'm thinking of just like the physical reasons,
22:30
Speaker 1: not necessarily the brain cognitive flexibility. That was never on
22:34
Speaker 1: my radar. But you know, there's that camp and then
22:37
Speaker 1: there's that high intensity. And again the pendulum in fitness
22:42
Speaker 1: usually tends to swing one way or the other. But
22:46
Speaker 1: really what you're saying is like, we need both. We
22:49
Speaker 1: need the high intensity because most women aren't getting that,
22:52
Speaker 1: but clearly we need this as well for the neuroscience,
22:57
Speaker 1: the brain, the stuff that we're talking about for being
22:59
Speaker 1: sharp today. Wow.
23:02
Speaker 3: Okay, exactly, Yeah, So you're you know, you can think about, Okay,
23:06
Speaker 3: what kind of exercise am I going to do for
23:07
Speaker 3: my body? What kind of exercise am I going to
23:09
Speaker 3: do for my brain?
23:10
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a quick break to hear from
23:13
Speaker 1: some of the body pod sponsors. We'll be right back.
23:20
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about anything else on the cognitive
23:22
Speaker 1: flexibility piece that we haven't covered.
23:26
Speaker 3: Another way to and so this is something that I'm
23:30
Speaker 3: doing in practicing more and more often myself, is to
23:34
Speaker 3: do what psychologists call cognitive reframing. So cognitive reframing is
23:40
Speaker 3: too and this is this is to practice so that
23:43
Speaker 3: when game time comes, you want to do this kind
23:45
Speaker 3: of in the low stress moments. But by practicing this
23:49
Speaker 3: in the low stress moments, you're going to be able
23:51
Speaker 3: in those high stress moments to have cognitive flexibility. And
23:54
Speaker 3: the thing the practice in the low stress moments is
23:56
Speaker 3: what's called cognitive reframing, and that is to ask yourself
23:59
Speaker 3: questions like what would my best friend advise me to
24:04
Speaker 3: do here? Or what am I not thinking about right now?
24:09
Speaker 3: You're basically because doing things like that activates your prefrontal cortex,
24:14
Speaker 3: and your prefrontal cortex gets really engaged with like, oh,
24:16
Speaker 3: what would my best friends say right now? You can
24:18
Speaker 3: even like fill it in with a name, so you know, Laura,
24:21
Speaker 3: you might fill it in with Haley's name. What would
24:23
Speaker 3: Haley advise me to do right now? Or you can say,
24:26
Speaker 3: all right, what am I missing here? What am I
24:28
Speaker 3: not thinking about? But to practice that activates your prefrontal cortex.
24:32
Speaker 3: And as I've already mentioned, your prefrontal cortex, it's not
24:35
Speaker 3: functioning is the way you'd like it to or the
24:37
Speaker 3: way that it used to because of diminished estrogen. And
24:40
Speaker 3: so you're basically helping get kickstarted back into gear. And
24:43
Speaker 3: so that can be a really helpful way to get
24:47
Speaker 3: practice in the less stressful moments of life, to practice
24:51
Speaker 3: having a new plan be or a new way to
24:53
Speaker 3: think of things. So those are some nice little phrases
24:55
Speaker 3: to play with. What would my best friend advise me
24:57
Speaker 3: to do? Or what's another way to think about this?
25:00
Speaker 3: And that can help in getting you more cognitive flexibility.
25:04
Speaker 3: It trains that muscle.
25:05
Speaker 1: All right. So we always hear that we only use
25:08
Speaker 1: a certain percentage of our brain. Yes, what is that percentage?
25:14
Speaker 1: And can we expand on that?
25:16
Speaker 2: Can we tap into a higher percent.
25:20
Speaker 3: So this is this is one of the most popular
25:22
Speaker 3: myths worldwide, and I think we can blame the media industry.
25:26
Speaker 3: Like the movie Limitless, which I love with Bradley Cooper, right,
25:30
Speaker 3: it was this notion that we only use ten percent
25:32
Speaker 3: of our brains. It's it's a it's a popular movie trope.
25:36
Speaker 3: The research actually indicates that what we use on a
25:39
Speaker 3: given day, maybe if you're really sick, you might use
25:41
Speaker 3: less one On a typical day where we're interacting with
25:45
Speaker 3: others and we're solving any kind of problems and moving around,
25:48
Speaker 3: you're using one hundred percent of your brain or or
25:50
Speaker 3: close to it. So you're using all.
25:52
Speaker 1: Of your brains. Oh, it seems like a weight. The
25:57
Speaker 1: biology would give us ten percent.
25:59
Speaker 3: No, exactly. Yeah, if if there were areas that you
26:03
Speaker 3: weren't using your basically, your brain would start metabolizing those
26:07
Speaker 3: areas and and you know, use it for you use
26:09
Speaker 3: that space for something else. You know you're not You're
26:12
Speaker 3: not going to have brain areas that are just sitting dormant.
26:17
Speaker 3: The brain is way too expensive metabolically for it just
26:21
Speaker 3: for dishoot tissue to just be sitting there. On the
26:24
Speaker 3: other hand, one of the things I'm really emphasizing in
26:27
Speaker 3: sharp is we can improve our potential, not because we
26:30
Speaker 3: are all of a sudden, you know, capitalizing on all
26:35
Speaker 3: these fields of neurons that are just sitting there fallow
26:37
Speaker 3: and not being used, but because we can use our
26:40
Speaker 3: brains differently. And by that I mean, for example, what
26:45
Speaker 3: we've just talked about the example of your prefrontal cortex
26:47
Speaker 3: is not as responsive as you start to go through
26:50
Speaker 3: pre perimenopause and post menopause. That's so frustrating. However, there
26:55
Speaker 3: are ways we can be sneaky and activate the prefrontal
26:59
Speaker 3: cortex by things like aerobic exercise at a moderate intensity
27:02
Speaker 3: or level level two, boarding on level three, or that
27:05
Speaker 3: those kinds of things will get your prefrontal cortex working
27:09
Speaker 3: in the way that you're more used to it working.
27:11
Speaker 3: And so the prefrontal cortex was working even before you
27:15
Speaker 3: did that aerobic activity, and you're just getting to fire
27:18
Speaker 3: more robustly. Now.
27:19
Speaker 1: Exercise is really the medicine, like the cure for for
27:25
Speaker 1: so much, so many things exactly. So Okay, if we
27:31
Speaker 1: have if we're using all of our brain, then and
27:36
Speaker 1: we start to have this decline when we're right, and
27:39
Speaker 1: then again, I know what happens for men and women
27:45
Speaker 1: if we're if we're doing that, Like we we know
27:48
Speaker 1: that learning a new language can kind of stimulate that,
27:52
Speaker 1: is that part of like solving a problem. Is that
27:54
Speaker 1: kind of the same. Dancing is another one that that
27:58
Speaker 1: can help. What about like crosswords obviously that like crossword
28:02
Speaker 1: puzzles and stuff like that is does that kind of
28:07
Speaker 1: help with the cognitive flexibility too? Or the everything that's
28:12
Speaker 1: in your book for being short?
28:14
Speaker 3: Sure, So things like dance and movement are not necessarily
28:20
Speaker 3: at least the research it might help with cognitive flexibility.
28:22
Speaker 3: I haven't seen research on that. One of the things
28:25
Speaker 3: that for instance, dance is especially effective at doing is
28:29
Speaker 3: because yeah, you know, I haven't danced with anyone recently,
28:34
Speaker 3: but when you dance, right, there's the memory component because
28:37
Speaker 3: you've got to remember the steps if you're doing some
28:38
Speaker 3: dance that you've learned. There's a social component because you're
28:42
Speaker 3: interacting with others. You're trying not to bump into people
28:45
Speaker 3: or you're making jokes as you bump into them. And
28:47
Speaker 3: there's also the physical component you're moving around. So it's
28:49
Speaker 3: this wonderful trifecta and memory tends to be improved when
28:54
Speaker 3: all three of those are activated. So that's one of
28:56
Speaker 3: the reasons dance is so wonderful, but you could also
28:58
Speaker 3: get it from exercising with a friend, right. Exercising with
29:01
Speaker 3: a friend would have those various components, particularly if you're
29:04
Speaker 3: doing some kind of circuit where you have to remember
29:06
Speaker 3: the circuit, right, so that would have memory that would
29:09
Speaker 3: have the social component as well as the physical component.
29:12
Speaker 3: So these are reasons to get out and exercise with
29:15
Speaker 3: other people and to text your memory while you're doing it.
29:18
Speaker 1: Now, I'm really mad that I was supposed to go
29:20
Speaker 1: dancing this weekend with some friends and they were like,
29:22
Speaker 1: we're going to go lat and dancing, and I was like,
29:24
Speaker 1: let's make the dinner take.
29:31
Speaker 2: No brain. Your brain could have been working better this week.
29:38
Speaker 1: To my friends.
29:41
Speaker 3: So if I could just.
29:43
Speaker 2: What are the other what are other ways that we
29:46
Speaker 2: can make our brain work better and have those improvements,
29:51
Speaker 2: because I didn't know that about dancing or you know,
29:54
Speaker 2: the like trifecta.
29:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well it's really it's really fascinating. One of
29:59
Speaker 3: the things that they is that for people over sixty,
30:02
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know how much of your audience
30:04
Speaker 3: is in that age group, but for both men and
30:06
Speaker 3: women over sixty, if they take a six month dance class,
30:10
Speaker 3: even if they've never danced before, they're starting it at
30:13
Speaker 3: sixty six month dance class. They actually get more neurons
30:17
Speaker 3: added in their hippocampus, a key area for memory. So
30:20
Speaker 3: it's not just that you're using the memories better that
30:22
Speaker 3: you have. You actually get more brain. You increase the
30:26
Speaker 3: volume in your brain by taking a dance class. So
30:29
Speaker 3: it's just like, well, this is what I'm going to
30:31
Speaker 3: do when I retire. I need to take a dance class.
30:33
Speaker 1: I think my fitness over forty and start dancing.
30:38
Speaker 3: Start dancing, all right, age. But to get back to
30:42
Speaker 3: your question, Laura, let's come back to brain fog. So
30:45
Speaker 3: brain fog many of us are familiar with this idea,
30:49
Speaker 3: Like you're trying to think of a word and it's
30:51
Speaker 3: just not coming to you, or you don't think nearly
30:53
Speaker 3: as quickly as you used to, or you're trying to
30:57
Speaker 3: problem solve and you're just like, why why is it?
31:00
Speaker 3: Because it's I haven't had my coffee yet or have
31:03
Speaker 3: only had one cup of Why Why am I just
31:05
Speaker 3: not thinking as clearly as I used to? Right, we've
31:07
Speaker 3: all been there, or if you haven't been there, you're
31:09
Speaker 3: lucky one of the reasons, and some I've heard some
31:14
Speaker 3: neuroscientists take the strong, really strong position on this, one
31:18
Speaker 3: of the reasons that we experienced brain fog is because
31:20
Speaker 3: of the sleep disruptions during perimenopause and postmenopause. Because one
31:24
Speaker 3: of the things that and I've heard that people take
31:26
Speaker 3: the strong position that it's entirely because of sleep disruption,
31:30
Speaker 3: and the reason is one of the things that happens
31:33
Speaker 3: in sleep is something called glymphatic clearance. Have you guys
31:37
Speaker 3: talked about glymphatic clearance at all? Is that a phrase that.
31:40
Speaker 1: You're no, no.
31:42
Speaker 3: No, okay, So glim This is really fascinating. So one
31:45
Speaker 3: of the things that happens, especially in deep sleep, which
31:47
Speaker 3: often happens for most of us early in the night,
31:49
Speaker 3: is that some of the some of the neurons in
31:53
Speaker 3: our brain actually shrink a little bit, just temporarily, and
31:56
Speaker 3: they're basically creating room for what's called glymphatic clearance, where
32:00
Speaker 3: basically cerebro spinal fluid kind of rinses through and it
32:04
Speaker 3: removes waste products in the brain. So I think of
32:09
Speaker 3: this as like your night janitor, right, you know, you've
32:12
Speaker 3: you've been busy all day you know, coffee cups are
32:15
Speaker 3: like piling up on the tables. There's you know, people
32:18
Speaker 3: have been throwing away paper and missing the trash can,
32:20
Speaker 3: like there's all By the end of a busy work day,
32:23
Speaker 3: a bunch of stuff is piled up, and at night,
32:25
Speaker 3: the night janitor comes in and clears it all out.
32:28
Speaker 3: The thing is, if you and that's what glymphatic glymphatic
32:32
Speaker 3: clearance does. It clears out the waste products so that
32:35
Speaker 3: the next day you're clearer in your thinking. If your
32:38
Speaker 3: sleep is disrupted, especially the deep sleep early in the night,
32:41
Speaker 3: and you're waking up because of hot flashes first let's say,
32:45
Speaker 3: or night sweats, oh my goodness, you don't get that
32:48
Speaker 3: glymphatic clearance, and as a result, you're more likely to
32:51
Speaker 3: experience that brain fog the next day. You know, basically
32:54
Speaker 3: the room is you walk into the meeting room and
32:56
Speaker 3: everything's cluttered and you're like, what happened? Like I can't
32:59
Speaker 3: get to work, and so you're more likely to experience
33:04
Speaker 3: brain fog on nights when you've had those hot flashes,
33:07
Speaker 3: you've been waking up and you've had trouble going back
33:09
Speaker 3: to sleep.
33:10
Speaker 1: I'm really ticked about the estrogen receptors being all over
33:13
Speaker 1: our body and the fact that we lose the it
33:15
Speaker 1: just seems like, okay, take away the menstrual cycles. Fine,
33:22
Speaker 1: but like, why God don't we just keep like the estrogen.
33:26
Speaker 3: I know, it's so rough, It's it's really interesting. I
33:29
Speaker 3: listened to a fair number of wellness podcasts, some hosted
33:33
Speaker 3: by men, some hosted by women, and it's one of
33:35
Speaker 3: these frustrating things, especially when they'll have an expert guest
33:37
Speaker 3: on talking about sleep and it'll be two guys talking
33:41
Speaker 3: about it, and they won't mention in any of the
33:44
Speaker 3: issues that women face at this stage of life, like oh,
33:47
Speaker 3: come on.
33:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're getting canceled in the in the you know,
33:53
Speaker 1: Perry and post menopausal community service.
33:57
Speaker 2: Yes, I want to know what you learned over all
34:01
Speaker 2: these years in how they approach decision making and if
34:06
Speaker 2: there's ways to improve it, how can we make better decisions.
34:09
Speaker 3: It's a great question, and it's been interesting as I've
34:12
Speaker 3: consulted with female leaders at various companies, especially in male
34:16
Speaker 3: dominated industries, which unfortunately most industries are. These women who've
34:23
Speaker 3: risen to roles in leadership face a number of challenges
34:27
Speaker 3: that all of us or many of us can relate to.
34:32
Speaker 3: First of all, they are often they often have to
34:36
Speaker 3: juggle this balance between being collaborative and being decisive. Right,
34:41
Speaker 3: So the research is very clear on this. Women as
34:43
Speaker 3: leaders tend to make more collaborative decisions, which is great.
34:47
Speaker 3: So female mayors will do more work to find out
34:51
Speaker 3: what their constituents want, right, so they take more input.
34:54
Speaker 3: Female doctors are more likely to consult with another doctor
34:58
Speaker 3: before they make a decision on a hard case. Then
35:00
Speaker 3: a male doctor is likely to consult with people, so
35:03
Speaker 3: they tend to be more collaborative in their decision making. However,
35:07
Speaker 3: so that and the research shows that clearly leads to
35:09
Speaker 3: better decisions. Okay, so we should all be doing it right.
35:12
Speaker 3: The downside is is that often when women leaders are collaborative,
35:16
Speaker 3: there's as decision makers, they're seen as indecisive. Right that
35:20
Speaker 3: she couldn't make that decision on her own, and that's
35:22
Speaker 3: why she had to ask for others, ask others for
35:24
Speaker 3: their input, as opposed to being seen as no, she's
35:26
Speaker 3: just a smart decision maker and that's why she asks
35:28
Speaker 3: other people. So is this really tricky thing that I
35:32
Speaker 3: see so many female leaders facing? Is like, I know,
35:35
Speaker 3: it's going to be good to ask for input, but
35:37
Speaker 3: I don't want to be seen as a week leader
35:38
Speaker 3: who can't make a decision, right, So how do I
35:40
Speaker 3: do this? And so that's a really fine tight rope
35:43
Speaker 3: that a lot of female leaders walk. So I just
35:47
Speaker 3: if you've experienced that in your own work situation, you're
35:50
Speaker 3: not alone. It's very common. And another challenge that I
35:56
Speaker 3: think women face as decision makers is that there are
36:00
Speaker 3: and labeled as you know, she's just going with women's intuition.
36:08
Speaker 3: You know that they're just going with their you know,
36:11
Speaker 3: women's intuition as the label. With men, they'll call it
36:13
Speaker 3: going with their gut, and that scene is a good thing,
36:15
Speaker 3: whereas women's intuition is seen as like this mysterious, I
36:18
Speaker 3: don't know what's happening over there. I don't know what
36:20
Speaker 3: she's doing. Maybe it's an emotional decision, right, It's almost
36:23
Speaker 3: laden with that. And the research actually shows women tend
36:26
Speaker 3: to actually be more analytical in their decision making than men.
36:29
Speaker 3: They actually tend to go deeper into research before they
36:33
Speaker 3: make a decision. So it's actually the opposite. I think
36:35
Speaker 3: perhaps because women's decisions are questioned so often that they
36:39
Speaker 3: tend to do more research because they want to be
36:41
Speaker 3: able to back up why they are doing a particular thing.
36:45
Speaker 3: Does that answer your question at least a little bit
36:48
Speaker 3: about men and women differences and how they perceived as
36:51
Speaker 3: decision making up.
36:52
Speaker 2: I just think that's probably an interesting part of your
36:55
Speaker 2: career because I think women generally do think about all
37:00
Speaker 2: the layers of decisions, So that doesn't surprise me that
37:04
Speaker 2: women are better decision makers.
37:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, And one of the fascinating things is that testosterone.
37:11
Speaker 3: I did a New York Times article on this a
37:13
Speaker 3: few years ago. One of the fascinating things is that
37:15
Speaker 3: when testosterone levels are really high, it can impair judgment.
37:20
Speaker 3: And so it's one of these really interesting things that
37:23
Speaker 3: a lot of researchers or some research neuroscientists are making
37:27
Speaker 3: the argument that women make better decisions because of their
37:30
Speaker 3: lower testosterone levels overall compared to men, especially men that
37:34
Speaker 3: take testosterone supplements. It creates a false confidence, and so
37:40
Speaker 3: people who have high testosterone levels might rush into a
37:43
Speaker 3: decision before weighing all the evidence, as opposed to lower
37:46
Speaker 3: testosterone individuals. You know, we don't usually talk about the
37:49
Speaker 3: advantages of lower testosterone, but that would be one of them,
37:52
Speaker 3: So it's pretty fascinating stuff.
37:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's news to me. No, I'd never heard any point.
38:00
Speaker 1: So something I've been wanting to ask you is about shortcuts.
38:06
Speaker 1: Oh show, we always we always want to try to
38:08
Speaker 1: take shortcuts, And on our intro pre podcast call, we
38:15
Speaker 1: kind of discussed that a little bit. Why doesn't the
38:17
Speaker 1: brain like shortcuts? Because if you tell me to breathe
38:20
Speaker 1: for two minutes, I'm going to breathe for forty steps
38:22
Speaker 1: and that's good enough. You know I did it. I
38:25
Speaker 1: checked it off. And so our shortcuts good or bad
38:29
Speaker 1: for us in our brain when we're trying to be
38:31
Speaker 1: like step by step by step, or I'm going to
38:33
Speaker 1: find an easier way to shorten something down.
38:36
Speaker 3: Well, when it comes to taking breaks, a short break
38:39
Speaker 3: is better than no break, right, So in terms of
38:42
Speaker 3: if you're looking for ways to restore yourself, it's better
38:44
Speaker 3: to take a little break. For instance, researchers are finding
38:48
Speaker 3: that as short as a fifth of a mile walk
38:52
Speaker 3: is enough to increase your creativity levels when you come
38:55
Speaker 3: back to your desk, So a fifth of a mile walk,
39:00
Speaker 3: even if you only walk at like a twenty five
39:03
Speaker 3: minute mile pace, which probably is slow for most of us.
39:06
Speaker 3: Most of us are going to be faster than that.
39:07
Speaker 3: You're only walking for about five minutes, right, So a
39:10
Speaker 3: five minute walk can boost your creativity. And so that's
39:13
Speaker 3: a very brief break that most of us can take.
39:15
Speaker 3: Just be sure to sit back down at your desk.
39:18
Speaker 3: So it's not that the brain is resistant to short breaks.
39:21
Speaker 3: There's a growing movement in the neuroscience community for things
39:24
Speaker 3: called micro breaks, and a micro break is less than
39:27
Speaker 3: ten minutes, anywhere from two to ten minutes, and that
39:31
Speaker 3: might mean the breathing exercise that we did, that might
39:35
Speaker 3: mean getting up and doing some jumping jacks or plank
39:39
Speaker 3: hold a plank on and off for two minutes, So
39:42
Speaker 3: it could be physical or it could be. One of
39:45
Speaker 3: my favorite little micro breaks is actually an affection micro break.
39:50
Speaker 3: There's fabulous research that twenty seconds of affection will lower
39:55
Speaker 3: your So I was going to say cholesterol will lower
39:57
Speaker 3: your cort assault levels. Soul levels tend to really be
40:02
Speaker 3: a mess during a parimenopause and post menopause. And it
40:06
Speaker 3: can be simple as you guys can do this with
40:08
Speaker 3: me if you just put both of your hands on
40:10
Speaker 3: your heart. Because self affection here works too. It doesn't
40:13
Speaker 3: have to be affection from another person. Twenty seconds and
40:15
Speaker 3: you just you know, just move your hands around a
40:17
Speaker 3: little bit whatever feels cozy. It might be a self
40:19
Speaker 3: hug where you grab the tops of your shoulders, but
40:23
Speaker 3: if you do that for twenty seconds, it lowers your
40:25
Speaker 3: cortissalt levels and it will make you feel calmer. I
40:29
Speaker 3: employed this the other day in a store where I
40:30
Speaker 3: was having a very stressful experience with a sales clerk
40:34
Speaker 3: and I just, you know, as we're talking, I just
40:37
Speaker 3: put my hands on my heart as we're talking, and
40:38
Speaker 3: I just began to calm down. She had no idea
40:41
Speaker 3: what I was doing. Maybe she just thought that I
40:43
Speaker 3: was like, you know, calm down, heart, but really I
40:46
Speaker 3: was actually trying to lower my cornsol levels and it worked.
40:48
Speaker 3: We improved our interaction. So it's a wonderful little tricky
40:51
Speaker 3: technique you can do.
40:52
Speaker 1: So you can do that with hugging an animal for
40:56
Speaker 1: twenty seconds, yes, or yourself.
41:00
Speaker 3: So the research that I've seen has been with interacting
41:03
Speaker 3: with either another human so a partner or a child
41:07
Speaker 3: for twenty seconds that works, or for yourself, so self affection.
41:13
Speaker 3: The research I've seen with pets has all been done
41:16
Speaker 3: with dogs, maybe because cats won't hang around this long,
41:18
Speaker 3: but it has all been done with dogs, and they
41:21
Speaker 3: find that three minutes seems to be the key for changing. Actually,
41:27
Speaker 3: oxytocin levels will increase for both you and your dog
41:32
Speaker 3: if you play with them for three minutes. And by
41:34
Speaker 3: playing with them, you know, like looking at them, stroking them,
41:38
Speaker 3: not like throwing the ball in the backyard. It has
41:40
Speaker 3: to be something where you're physically close to one another
41:43
Speaker 3: and that's enough to increase your oxytocin levels. Oxytocin levels,
41:47
Speaker 3: as far as the research I've seen, it doesn't tend
41:49
Speaker 3: to go down during paramenopause, but the receptors become less
41:53
Speaker 3: responsive to oxytocin in the brain, and so it might
41:57
Speaker 3: be one of the reasons for any women who are
41:59
Speaker 3: listening who are like, yeah, I don't feel as connected
42:01
Speaker 3: as I used to, you know, to certain people in
42:04
Speaker 3: my life. That could be changes in those relationships. But
42:06
Speaker 3: also because oxytocin is you're not as responsive to it.
42:10
Speaker 3: It's one of the reasons you need even more oxytocin
42:12
Speaker 3: right now in your life because basically the neurons in
42:15
Speaker 3: your brain aren't as receptive as they used to be,
42:17
Speaker 3: and so you're probably feeling a little more disconnected or
42:20
Speaker 3: lonely than you used to and that we can chalk
42:23
Speaker 3: that up to that change in responsiveness to oxytocin. So anyway,
42:27
Speaker 3: three minutes with your dog, that could be another wonderful
42:29
Speaker 3: break that you can take in the middle of the day.
42:31
Speaker 3: And actually it'll lower cortis in the dog. It also
42:35
Speaker 3: increases oxytocin levels. In terms of lowering cortisol, it's not
42:39
Speaker 3: so clear, but it does change oxytocin.
42:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm obsessed with dogs, so I mean everyone should
42:46
Speaker 1: own it. And this has just started since perimenopause. I
42:49
Speaker 1: mean I was indifferent to dogs. I grew up with dogs,
42:52
Speaker 1: but then we got one, and I guess it's different
42:54
Speaker 1: when it's your own at this stage in life. But
42:57
Speaker 1: I mean, my dog, I am. I get it, Like,
43:02
Speaker 1: of course it's going to help you know, they're going
43:04
Speaker 1: to help relax you. And yeah, hence the service animals
43:08
Speaker 1: that so many people have.
43:10
Speaker 3: Oh so true. Good point.
43:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, if someone is listening that that just wants
43:15
Speaker 1: one takeaway from our conversation, what would you hope that
43:18
Speaker 1: it would be?
43:19
Speaker 3: I think the takeaway and I really appreciate your asking
43:21
Speaker 3: this question. I think the takeaway would be getting older
43:25
Speaker 3: is not a grim picture. We can I talk quite
43:29
Speaker 3: a bit in my book about all the different ways
43:31
Speaker 3: that we can get back to our old selves, if
43:34
Speaker 3: not even be sharper, we can we can add to
43:35
Speaker 3: our hippocampus, we can add to our prefrontal cortex. So
43:39
Speaker 3: getting getting older can be I like to think of
43:42
Speaker 3: the analogy of a stage and acting. It used to
43:46
Speaker 3: be when we were younger, we thought like I could
43:49
Speaker 3: be anything, and I could be any role in any play. Right.
43:53
Speaker 3: I could be a full time stay at home mom
43:55
Speaker 3: and be amazing at that. Or I could be in
43:57
Speaker 3: sub Saharan Africa and be a doctor and be amazing
43:59
Speaker 3: at that. Like we saw all these possible rules for ourselves.
44:02
Speaker 3: At this stage in life, we're no longer picturing all
44:04
Speaker 3: those rules. Instead we're like, what is my real self?
44:08
Speaker 3: What is my true authentic self? And I'm going to
44:11
Speaker 3: step into that spotlight as that person and the mic
44:15
Speaker 3: is on and I'm going to be heard and I
44:17
Speaker 3: want that. And so that's what I want people to
44:19
Speaker 3: be thinking about. I want them to be thinking as
44:21
Speaker 3: I step into this stage of life. I am going
44:23
Speaker 3: to be mentally sharp, and I'm showing up as my
44:25
Speaker 3: true authentic self and that's really means something I love.
44:28
Speaker 1: That's that's the perfect way to kind of wrap this
44:31
Speaker 1: up if we're looking at because obviously our message is
44:36
Speaker 1: always like you know, getting talking nutrition and fitness and
44:40
Speaker 1: outside of different different guests that we have on that's
44:44
Speaker 1: all always what we're pushing. But this, uh, this need
44:50
Speaker 1: for strengthening the brain, and I think it's just again
44:53
Speaker 1: we all know this, but I feel like it's so
44:55
Speaker 1: far down the line. Like I know that metapause is
44:58
Speaker 1: around the corner for me, but the brain, you know,
45:01
Speaker 1: kind of dementia or losing the you know, the cognitive flexibility,
45:07
Speaker 1: all of that, I feel like seem you know, I
45:11
Speaker 1: wasn't even really aware of that or really being like
45:14
Speaker 1: I need to start doing this now. So how much
45:17
Speaker 1: time would somebody need in a day every day if
45:20
Speaker 1: they're like this is important to me. I love this book, Sharp,
45:25
Speaker 1: I get it. What's the minimum again? Sure? The minimum
45:31
Speaker 1: dose that will make someone just stick to a habit
45:35
Speaker 1: and be consistent with you know, how much time is
45:37
Speaker 1: that or what would you.
45:39
Speaker 3: Recommend if you're only going to do one thing. And
45:41
Speaker 3: this is the this is the one huge change I've
45:43
Speaker 3: made to my daily routine. That would be adopt a
45:46
Speaker 3: morning meditation. And the research is clear that ten minutes
45:50
Speaker 3: has huge benefits. If you don't think you could do ten,
45:53
Speaker 3: adopt a five minute morning meditation because that has huge
45:57
Speaker 3: benefits for several areas of your brain. It actually improves memory.
46:01
Speaker 3: It can improve your ability to remember things by seventy
46:03
Speaker 3: five percent on that given day. So if memory, if
46:07
Speaker 3: you're feeling like so much brain fog, that's a lot, right,
46:11
Speaker 3: and so and you know you need to meditate a
46:14
Speaker 3: lot to see that benefit continue. But that would be
46:17
Speaker 3: a reason to work it into your day every day.
46:19
Speaker 3: So that would be if you were just to add
46:21
Speaker 3: one thing, and my favorite it would be okay for
46:25
Speaker 3: me to mention my favorite app is that all right,
46:27
Speaker 3: of course?
46:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay?
46:29
Speaker 3: And it's free, the Healthy Minds app. It's out of
46:31
Speaker 3: the University of Wisconsin, Healthy Minds. It's free. And what
46:35
Speaker 3: I love about the Healthy mind that's what it's the
46:37
Speaker 3: one I use now in the morning. Is I've had
46:38
Speaker 3: other I've had paid subscriptions and I still have those.
46:41
Speaker 3: What I love about Healthy Minds is you can do.
46:43
Speaker 3: They have. You get to choose do I want to
46:45
Speaker 3: do an active meditation while I'm taking a walk? Or
46:47
Speaker 3: do I do you want to do a sitting meditation?
46:49
Speaker 3: And do I want to do five minutes or ten
46:50
Speaker 3: minutes or fifteen. So you you set all these parameters
46:54
Speaker 3: and then it gives you the meditation that you've just
46:56
Speaker 3: dialed in. So I can do it while I'm doing
46:58
Speaker 3: the dishes, can do something else while I do the meditation.
47:03
Speaker 3: So it's that's worth looking into.
47:06
Speaker 1: That's available to everyone.
47:08
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful that you wrote this book because all
47:11
Speaker 2: of my conversations with my peers and friends, we all
47:16
Speaker 2: are talking about how we feel like our brains are
47:19
Speaker 2: just not working the way they used to and hoping
47:23
Speaker 2: that we can get back to filling normal again. And
47:28
Speaker 2: I love that you are giving us the hope and
47:32
Speaker 2: the encouragement that we will be sharp again and sharper
47:37
Speaker 2: we can even improve.
47:39
Speaker 1: Thank you. I love that you just said that that
47:41
Speaker 1: this is you can make it active like a walk,
47:46
Speaker 1: but that still counts as meditation. Does I sit in
47:48
Speaker 1: my hot tub? Please tell me that that counts. I
47:51
Speaker 1: think that kind soil like that would count, so I
47:56
Speaker 1: try to stay off my phone, and I'll get on
47:57
Speaker 1: my hot tub in the morning and I just try
48:00
Speaker 1: to like relax because for me, meditation it makes me
48:03
Speaker 1: want to I had a client just come back from
48:05
Speaker 1: India and I train her and the first week she
48:09
Speaker 1: got back, she'd be like, Hayley, I see her in
48:11
Speaker 1: the morning before the sun comes up, and as soon
48:13
Speaker 1: as the sun will start coming up, she's like, you
48:15
Speaker 1: need to go outside and watch the sun come up.
48:17
Speaker 1: And she would just like stare at the sun. And
48:18
Speaker 1: I was like, so we do something. We gotta go back,
48:25
Speaker 1: get and do this and it's really hard for me
48:27
Speaker 1: to calm down. So this is so it can be
48:31
Speaker 1: actual meditation where you're sitting, you're listening to an app,
48:34
Speaker 1: you're guided through it, guided through, you're quiet, you're just
48:37
Speaker 1: you know, letting whatever come to you. Or it could
48:39
Speaker 1: be a walk without a podcast or you know, scrolling
48:44
Speaker 1: Instagram or anything that we're just present.
48:47
Speaker 3: You're just present exactly. And sometimes I do walking meditation
48:50
Speaker 3: where I'm going to try to pay attention to the execs,
48:54
Speaker 3: to all the things in my nature environment as I
48:56
Speaker 3: do my walk around my neighborhood and I notice, oh,
48:59
Speaker 3: look at the little tiny buds on the flowers right now,
49:01
Speaker 3: we're you know, we're doing this in the spring, or
49:04
Speaker 3: that's a new crack in the sidewalk I'd never noticed before,
49:07
Speaker 3: But just trying to become aware of things in the
49:09
Speaker 3: environment that even on the walk that I do every morning,
49:12
Speaker 3: that perhaps I haven't noticed before, and that would be
49:14
Speaker 3: meditative as well. So there are so many ways to
49:16
Speaker 3: do this to work it into your day that feel
49:19
Speaker 3: restorative and that you know, don't require you to go
49:22
Speaker 3: to India for example. Benefits are well and so I
49:26
Speaker 3: haven't seen research on the active meditations, so that's a
49:28
Speaker 3: fair question. But this program by the Healthy Minds team
49:32
Speaker 3: is actually developed by a neuroscientist, so I think he
49:36
Speaker 3: you know, I trust him to be guiding us in
49:38
Speaker 3: the direction of what's going to be best for our brains.
49:40
Speaker 1: Is and.
49:45
Speaker 3: No, no, no, His name is Richard Davidson, Richie David
49:52
Speaker 3: Davidson at University of Wisconsin. So different different.
49:56
Speaker 2: I am to Haley and I are not good meditators.
49:59
Speaker 2: We talk about it often.
50:01
Speaker 1: This is great.
50:02
Speaker 3: I think you'll like this one.
50:03
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Teres. This is I wish I
50:07
Speaker 1: could keep you on for longer. This. This has been
50:09
Speaker 1: an incredible conversation and something that honestly is not easy
50:15
Speaker 1: for me or I think for Laura. Naturally we're used
50:19
Speaker 1: to really running at high levels and just always having
50:23
Speaker 1: ten million tasks. Sure, but I'm kind of like hopeful
50:28
Speaker 1: and that this is the next step that I need
50:34
Speaker 1: to go down, and that feels like it's right for
50:37
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, but even more for the brain benefit.
50:42
Speaker 1: I feel like for peace, I would say, for me
50:46
Speaker 1: to be able to do some of these drills and
50:49
Speaker 1: and you know, take on something where I like dancing
50:53
Speaker 1: that we discussed or something like that. That's something new
50:56
Speaker 1: that keeps the brain engaged and it's important. I mean,
51:01
Speaker 1: it's all important as we are on this aging spectrum.
51:07
Speaker 3: One of the things I like, I'm beginning to say
51:08
Speaker 3: to people. You know, people love to say it's not
51:11
Speaker 3: about working harder, it's about working smarter, And I'm starting
51:14
Speaker 3: to try to push back on that and say, it's
51:17
Speaker 3: not just about working smarter, it's about resting smarter. Yeah,
51:21
Speaker 3: And that's what I want to empower people with. How
51:23
Speaker 3: can we rest smarter.
51:25
Speaker 1: So everyone healthy minds app We'll put that in the
51:29
Speaker 1: show notes as well as Teresa's book Sharp. I'm super excited.
51:34
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that we have the PDF. I'm longing
51:37
Speaker 1: to sit down and actually read it. I think I'll
51:39
Speaker 1: get the audible version as well, so I can listen
51:43
Speaker 1: to it. I like to listen to something while I'm
51:46
Speaker 1: relaxing and getting ready for bad So thank you for
51:50
Speaker 1: your time today, and thank you for your beautiful vibe
51:54
Speaker 1: and what you bring to this conversation and your sweet spirit.
51:58
Speaker 1: It's been an honor to with you over the last hour.
52:01
Speaker 1: And thank you for joining us on the body Pod.
52:04
Speaker 3: Thank you. I'm learning so much by listening to your show,
52:07
Speaker 3: So thank you for all the good you're both doing
52:08
Speaker 3: in the world.
52:09
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks for listening.
52:12
Speaker 2: If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a
52:15
Speaker 2: five star review and sharing the body Pod with your friends.
52:20
Speaker 1: Until next time.