Latest / The TalkBlock Show's Podcast / Neuroscience of Mindset & Radical Resilience with Anne Alex

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Neuroscience of Mindset & Radical Resilience with Anne Alex · The TalkBlock Show's Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, welcome to the Talkbox Show.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Vadeem and today my guest is uh Anna Alex.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: She is a physician, author, and speaker.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: She helps people understand how brain works so they can make real life changes.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: To her medical background and her book is called New Methods.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: She turns complete brain science into simple practical tool.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Anna, welcome to the show.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my pleasure.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh a little bit um about yourself.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh where are you where are you from?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Where are you where are you from and where are you right now?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh like your a little of your background.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so I'm from Germany.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up here, I studied here, but I've also tried to travel the world as much as I can to see different places.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I stayed in the United States for one year as well, and yeah, have a little bit more abroad planned.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: I see, I see, beautiful.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was in Germany many times because I worked in Denmark for two years before moving here to Canada.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I was I wouldn't I wouldn't was going to Germany for groceries sometimes in in Flensburg.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, yeah.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh today our topic is uh all these uh uh brain and uh cognitive issues and uh about healing.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I know uh that you went through how how much was it like three uh surgeries because of tumor, right?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so they found a tumor in my spine in one of my vertebrae, and I had to have three surgery to get it out.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I see, I see.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh how how long uh was it a long time ago or just uh recently?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like um now it's been like eight years, more or less.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a while, but it also took me quite a while to recover.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right, right, right.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And how did that change your view on on on healing, on healing process?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's a it's a very big very big health issue.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like some some regular bone fracture or something, you know, it's a tumor.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: How how did it change your how was it?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was basically a turning point in my life because before then, you know, I just started university, I just moved away from my parents' house, and I had all these plans of you know, you're young, you're healthy, you just want to live your life and enjoy your life.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was also a bit of a perfectionist and had a very had very high expectations of myself, of my performance.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, when I got the tumor, the at the beginning it felt like my world was ending because suddenly I had to be really careful so my vertebrae doesn't break in.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I had to have surgery pretty much immediately, I went through all of the stuff, and I realized that we take our health for granted a lot of the time, especially when we are young.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how it goes.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: It made me realize that I have to change my priorities.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: So ever since I got that diagnosis, my entire perspective shifted.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm focusing like my health is my number one priva priority, as well as my quality of life, and everything else, like performing and you know everything that comes with the pressure we put on ourselves.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um I just kind of try to scale down and I try to find a better balance between health and work basically.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you had to pretty much rebuild your life from scratch.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh what did the daily recovery look like for you?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's uh after after surgeries, how how long it it took you to go back to normal life?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it took me years actually, and I'm still working on it.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been an ongoing process.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning, I was just trying to survive day to day and to just you know deal with the pain, deal with the side effects of all of the medicine I had to take.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, like go through the motions of you know managing the basic daily tasks.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then afterwards I started doing physical therapy.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I went to a lot of different physical therapists until I found two that are really, really awesome.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I also started going a lot into alternative approaches, complementary approaches to medicine, because at one point I realized that the general medicine had its limits, and I was still in pain after my surgeries, I still had panic attacks, for example.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my doctor back then told me at some point I just have to, you know, get medicated for the rest of my life to deal with the pain because I'm a chronic pain patient and all that's all of that stuff.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't happy with it.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I tried figuring out what else is out there complementary to general medicine and what else can I try to improve my situation.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I found quite a bit of very interesting approaches that helped me quite a lot.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really happy about that.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I'm basically more or less back to normal.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Some days some days are better, others are worse, but all in all, I managed to turn it around.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what uh what what exactly you know this uh is bad and uh more than ma medicine?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's where did it fail?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as I said, at some point it it just they they hit a limit of things they could help me with.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they basically told me at some point I just had to accept dealing with the pain.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, to the end of your life, and that's it.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they told me, and I wasn't happy with that, so I started looking in, yeah, as I said, to try different things.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: One thing we it's called kinesiology, it's like a different system where you work with a nervous system where you work with your body, uh, where you can yeah help de-stress different areas of your body and just help your body get back into balance.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I really love that approach.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I've tried everything like acupuncture, different, I don't know, energy healers.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I found like a lot of the times it was kind of like a dead end, and you know, you meet a lot of people and you just kind of like, hmm, I don't know, it didn't help.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But then I found some people, and until today I can't tell you what they did.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they worked with me, they worked on me.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea what exactly was going on, but it helped.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was I was so surprised because it wasn't evidence-based, and you know, I studied medicine, and we learned that everything has to be evidence-based, and that you have to prove that it has, you know, that it works.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, I just started being way more open to see to I realized that I don't have to understand everything, and I don't need the evidence because if my body says it helps, and if I feel better afterwards, for me that's enough.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I developed an entirely different open-mindedness for these kinds of things.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I see, I see.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And now we can go to your book.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how long time ago you you published it?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is it already published, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's already published.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's on my website.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I started writing it at the beginning of last year and managed to publish right before Christmas.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: It calls new paths, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, new paths.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and how does the brain create new pathway and how long does it take according to your book?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is um, yeah, one of the main things I talked about in my book.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's something called neuroplasticity.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it basically like the concept is cells or neurons that fire together, wire together.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a very common principle, and it tells you that the more often you think along the same lines, the more often you have the same thought, the stronger those connections in your brain get.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's pretty much what creates our habits.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it is, or it creates everything.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It creates our entire life because everything starts with our thoughts, and that is also the area we are we don't really pay that much attention to because we have thoughts all day, every day.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And for most people, it's kind of like this background noise, and they just happen over and over again.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you have your common patterns, you have your common reactions, you you know, everything is kind of set because we've been thinking is along the same lines the entire time.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: But once we start noticing it and we start realizing what we're actually doing, we can also start changing the way we think.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And once we change the way we think, we can change the way we act, the way we react to things, and we can basically change our entire life.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of need to pay more attention what they're doing, like awake your mind to like daily I don't know, whatever we do.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: That that's the first step.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Being aware is the first step.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right, aware.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And what actually happens in the brain when we feel stuck in old patterns, like because sometimes it's like we do something for years and years, and probably it it calls patterns, right?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh what what what actually happens in the brain?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: This is like uh in some uh neuron uh connections or some can you please unpack it more?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Explain more?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can basically imagine um the connections between the neurons.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I like to compare them to you know, like a path in the woods.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's if you have like a very small path and there's a lot of bushes and a lot of trees, and you can't really walk, but there's like a small path.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then the more often you walk the same path, at some point it's gonna get wider, it's gonna get more open, and you can walk it over like way more easily.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what happens in our brain, basically.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: So every time we walk one path over and over and over again, it becomes um yeah, wide, it becomes easy to go, it it just established.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: But when you stop walking that path and you change directions and you try to like a different path, then the overgrowth starts happening again.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the neurons stop working together so often, and one path closes and you can open up another one.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, got it, got it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, and also, as I know, one of the biggest resistance our brain can make is like resistant to change.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's always hard to start something new, always like not enough motivation or so.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, when when we feel resistant to change, uh what is our brain actually doing?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's what's going on?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's going the easy way.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's why change at the beginning feels hard, because we have these established paths in our mind, we have these established patterns, and we like following it because it's the path of least resistance.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just easier to stay with your old habits and to think along the old lines because it doesn't require any energy.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But once you try to change it, you have to put effort into it.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And even like even just changing your thoughts and changing the way you think, it requires effort, and you have to do it over and over and over again until it uh works.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so also a question uh where uh where does the medicine fall short and uh what fills that that gap, especially in this um in this case uh with uh your health issues and uh like what's what would you improve and uh what would you add maybe to modern medicine?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for me it's important.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to build a bridge between general medicine and between non-evidence-based approaches, basically.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with the non-evidence-based approaches is that you can't um like watch the like watch them as uh how do I say it?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like with the non-evidence-based approaches, a lot of people can do it even though they don't have the necessary know-how.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's why in medicine we have like a really good system, it's proven, we have all the studies.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I understand why it's hard for both to work together, but they complement each other.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I would like the doctors or in general medicine to maybe be a bit more open to say to accept that other approaches, even though they may not be studied as well, we may not know why exactly they work already, but to accept that if they help, to use them.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying for example, if you break your leg, obviously go to a surgeon.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you to try something different if you have to have somebody fix your leg, a broken bone.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if you deal with things um like pain, like panic attacks, you know, like other areas, I think there are also other approaches that you can try before you medicate completely.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it's that's why I'm saying you have to like you have to work together.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't just go there and you shouldn't just go there.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: You should find like the middle way.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's probably because everything is established, and to accept something new, it it should go through tons of regulations, like maybe involve politicians and everything, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's I don't know, with with health, it's a big responsibility, that's why they probably don't want to accept anything new unless it's already uh like regulated and signed.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Which is understandable, but that's what I'm saying.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, that's why I say it's complimentary.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's and that's why I'm saying you should just do this and never go to a doctor again.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, obviously go to a doctor, talk to your doctor, but be open that there's maybe something else out there that can help.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: And also, this um term, how we call it mindset, it's it's pretty much everywhere now.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you keep it real and practical without without sounding it just like a buzzword, you know?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Just yeah, that's the thing.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Mindset is a little bit of an overused word, but it's really important because it basically tells you the way we think, the way we go through life, decides everything.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I'm back at the part that we have to be aware of our ch our thoughts, we can change our thoughts, and we if we change our perspective or outlook on life, our entire life will also change.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: I see, I see.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um if someone is forced to change their life uh like you were forced with your with this uh tumor issue and surgeries, and what what is the step one in in this case if somebody if somebody's forced?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean unfortunately, yeah.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that anybody is really forced to do it, because you could also go through something like that and not change if you don't want to.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's a list and it depends on you how you deal with it, and if you want to change something or not.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: For me, for example, my first step was to get out of um what I call the victim mentality because I used to be really upset at the beginning, thinking, why did this happen to me?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it always me?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm still young, I was supposed to have the time of my life, my early 20s.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kept really like whining about it because I was really upset about it, and I thought everything was happening to me and that I didn't have a say in the matter, that I that I didn't have any control, that I couldn't do anything.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And my first step was getting out of this way of thinking and just take small steps, and I started doing the little things that I could do, and then with more time I could do more, and I started just trying to change my mindset, trying to change my perspective, trying to find also the positives and what I could learn from it, what lessons I could, yeah, that's it's gave me.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and looking back, what you wish someone had told you during your hardest times.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: If it's possible.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's kinda you would like to know something and you would act differently or No, it's kinda a difficult question for me because during my hardest times a lot of people told me a lot of things that were meant to help me, but at one point I was just too preoccupied by trying to just make it through every day and trying to deal with everything.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, every good advice kind of sounded like some generic legitive, you know, okay, you got this.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I can't really tell you this.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just can tell you that for me now I have no regrets.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I look back at everything that happened, and I saw I can see all the positive things that came out of it.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I like the person I am today, and I wouldn't be the person I am today if I wouldn't have gone through it.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a light at the end of the tunnel basically, but I didn't start seeing that light until after.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the midst of everything, I was just trying to survive.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: What is one simple daily habit we can start today to retrain our brain?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is there any exercises or like for for the brain I mean?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um yes, there are various exercises.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know I'm repeating myself, but again, the most important part thing is at the beginning to be aware of your thoughts, to just realize and basically constantly double check what are you thinking, in which situations and how your mind works, because you can't start changing it unless you know what's going on, and that's something just take a pause and just evaluate okay, what are my thoughts right now, and just watch them, just be like, okay, this happened, and my first reaction, my first thought was I don't know, ABC.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then you start seeing a pattern, and then once you are aware of your patterns of your thoughts, then you can use other techniques to start changing them and redirecting them.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Makes sense, makes sense.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: And also about your book, where can our listeners uh find your book?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh right now it's worldwide or only in Germany?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so it's online, it's an ebook uh on my website, and right now there's an English and a German version.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, directly over my website.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right, I'll make sure I'll add the link in the description.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um like right now, uh, do you have any uh like uh clients for uh um uh I mean do you do you work in in some clinic or you you have your own clinic?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well right now I'm working on my project, so there's there are quite a few things that will be coming out at the end of the year, and I'm taking also taking a bit of time to do that, and I will start working in a clinic next year, the beginning of next year.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I do mentorings as well.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um meaning I support people and have like one-on-one conversations with people who want to make a change in their life, who are stuck, who don't know how to get out, and I help them through mentorings to yeah, find a new way basically.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: You do it online or in person?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Also online, yes, and also in German and English.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, okay.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: I see.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, we're almost done here.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh yeah, I wanna say uh thank you so much for uh joining me today.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was um incredibly interesting, and uh I feel like I learned something new and uh yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and thanks to everyone watching and listening.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for tuning in.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you can find all the links down below in the description if you're interested.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Anna, thank you very much for joining us uh today.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's it for today's episode.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hit that like and subscribe button, it will help us a lot.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Leave a comment and take you to the next one.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Take care, bye-bye.