Neuroscientist: After Doing This Everyday, Your Brain & Life Will Never Be The Same! | Tara Swart

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 Are you open to sharing what you do on a daily basis to keep yourself in check with yourself?

Dr. Tara Swart 0:05 Um, so as soon as I wake up in the morning, before I, you know, start to have... start to think things like, oh, what's the time and, you know, where do- what do I have to do today, I immediately give gratitude for my pillowcase, my pillow, my mattress, my mattress topper, and my bedding. So I... So I'm, I'm intentionally pushing myself towards that ox- oxytocin state rather than the cortisol state, um, as soon as I, I'm aware that I've become awake. I then do deep breathing whilst I'm still in bed, and I really feel into, like, all the directions that I'm breathing in, and I just see, like, is there any tension somewhere or...

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:44 So you're tuning into your body immediately?

Dr. Tara Swart 0:46 Immediately, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:48 You're not allowing yourself, I guess, often into the emails, the social media, the news where, you know, you suddenly... You've lost touch with your body, and you're right into your brain and your thoughts, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 0:59 Yeah, I mean, I d- I don't have my phone in my bedroom, so I... And it's several floors down, so I... It, it's quite a while till I can get to my phone. Um, and yeah, I got a, I got an old-fashioned alarm clock 'cause I just didn't wanna, like, have to... You know, that's people's biggest excuse, isn't it? I use my phone as my alarm clock. [laughs] Um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19 So gratitude-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21 Breathing

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21 ... breathing.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:22 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22 And then?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23 Then I get up, and I, I take my probiotic first thing 'cause I have to give a 10-minute gap before I can eat or drink anything. Um, and then I will l- look at my phone.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37 But what, what I love about that is what you have just said you do, as a neuroscientist, former doctor, coach, right? With all your knowledge and experience of helping people, you have built into your life a practice, dare I say a ritual-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:57 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:57 ... each morning-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:58 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59 ... whereby within minutes, it's not much, that gratitude is not much-

Dr. Tara Swart 2:03 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:04 ... that breathing is not much.

Dr. Tara Swart 2:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:06 And, you know, 10, 15 minutes later you're on your phone, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 2:09 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:09 That's very achievable for people.

Dr. Tara Swart 2:11 Yeah, and but I'll add that because I have that 10-minute gap until I can drink my cup of tea, that's why I look at my phone [clears throat] 'cause I'm kind of waiting. But my making my cup of tea, whether it's regular tea or matcha tea, whether I'm using mushroom powders or not, that is a ritual for me. That is like a sacred moment. Like, the phone has, is left behind, and I do that almost like a form of meditation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:37 Why?

Dr. Tara Swart 2:38 Um, I like, I like rituals. Um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:42 What, what is a ritual?

Dr. Tara Swart 2:43 A ritual is something that you do intentionally. So it's not just a routine. It's something that you do regularly, but you do it very intentionally. And I actually stopped formally meditating when I realized that if you regularly meditate, then for 15 or 30 minutes in your day you are being mindful, and for 23 and a half hours you are not. So [laughs] I try to bring rituals into my life so that I've got... It's like a patchwork quilt. There's moments of mindfulness throughout my day, and that to me is one of them, and also then when I drink the cup of tea, I savor it, like, so much.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:25 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 3:25 Like, so that, you know, that's... Okay, I've looked at my phone for a few minutes, but I've got another pause there.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:31 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 3:31 Um, and, you know, then I'll go and get, like, ready for the day. But something that became like a real demarcation between work time and home time was the way that I would prepare my vegetables, peel them, chop them, think about what I'm gonna cook, cook. Um, you know, I've always done mindful... I don't know if you were raised the same way as me, but we had to, like, you know, say thank you to God before we took the first bite of food.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:58 Yeah. Um, very, very similar.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:01 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:01 Um, and, and obviously in our culture there's also, depending on which family you're in, of course, you know, there's also about not cooking in a stressed state, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 4:11 Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:12 You know, it's massive.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:12 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:12 The, the state you're in. I mean, we've been talking throughout this conversation about the, the state in which you're in-

Dr. Tara Swart 4:17 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:19 ... impacts who you are in the world.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:21 But our culture would have the belief, I think, that the state you're in when you cook impacts the quality of that food.

Dr. Tara Swart 4:29 Totally.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:30 Now, a skeptic will hear that and go, "What a load of rubbish. You guys are doctors. You're a neuroscientist. What the hell are you talking about?" What would you say to that person?

Dr. Tara Swart 4:42 I would say to them that when you've got high levels of cortisol, the, the cortisol actually leaks out of your sweat into the atmosphere around you. So if you're in a bad mood and you're cooking, and your family are about to come to the dinner table, then simply your elevated levels of cortisol that are leaking out, the particles are gonna go in through their skin and stress them out too. And also, it's an opportunity for you to stir something mindfully. Like, I love making risotto because you've gotta be so patient and measured. Um, that, to me, that is, like, the best form of cooking meditation. So there's an opportunity there for you to chop things slowly, to think about the si- you know, the size of the piece of vegetable that somebody's gonna put in their mouth, to stir it, you know, intentionally. But what you're doing instead is being agitated and, you know, banging things and doing it quickly and, and making yourself more stressed out and, you know, yeah, of course you could argue that it doesn't physically have, like, an impact on the food, but it's, it's just not, it's not ideal.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:52 Yeah. I, I, I-

Dr. Tara Swart 5:53 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:53 ... love it, and look, for that skeptic, right, well, we all know that feeling when we've walked into a room at work or at home where something's going down, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 6:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:06 Where there's been an argument or there's... You can feel it.

Dr. Tara Swart 6:09 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:09 ... right? So you, all you're doing, you're walking into a room. There's people there. There's air, right? But you can tell what the energy is in that room.

Dr. Tara Swart 6:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:20 You know? That's real. We all know that.

Dr. Tara Swart 6:21 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:22 You know? And that makes me think of what you just said about cortisol leaking out.

Dr. Tara Swart 6:26 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:26 You mentioned as part of your morning ritual, you go to a cup of tea.

Dr. Tara Swart 6:29 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:29 Now, I go to a cup of coffee.

Dr. Tara Swart 6:31 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:32 And in my book on stress, I referred to caffeine and alcohol-

Dr. Tara Swart 6:40 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:40 ... as forms of liquid stress.

Dr. Tara Swart 6:43 Ooh, nice term.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:45 And so I'm interested. We, we spent a long time so far talking about stress, the brain, how it affects our physical health, our emotional wellbeing, all these kind of things.

Dr. Tara Swart 6:56 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:56 How do caffeine and alcohol affect these things?

Dr. Tara Swart 7:00 Yeah, so I did think about giving up that morning cup of tea, but in the end, I, the enjoyment of it for me was so great-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:07 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 7:07 ... that I just thought, "That's not gonna benefit my life to give that one up." I only have one caffeinated drink a day, and I never have it after 10:00 AM. Um, so the reason for that is that the quarter life of caffeine is 12 hours, so 12 hours after you've had your last caffeinated drink, a quarter of it is still circulating in your blood-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:28 Mm-hmm

Dr. Tara Swart 7:28 ... and going to your brain and potentially disturbing your sleep. Now, the way that caffeine could contribute as liquid stress is that if you're already stressed and agitated-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:40 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 7:41 ... what drives agitation is basically caffeine and sugar.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:45 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tara Swart 7:45 So in that state, if you are using coffee to keep you going, or you're drinking a lot of coffee because you're not really eating properly and you're trying to fill yourself up, then you're also, like, cumulating the amount of caffeine that's in your system.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:00 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 8:01 That, you know, is not good, and I, I do see people who are stressed, like, drinking a lot of coffee, and I definitely advise them to cut it down, but, but mostly focus on the last time slot that you would have a caffeinated drink. Um, alcohol, so people will, you know, think that it relaxes you. They may even use it proactively to try to reduce stress, but actually it, um, you know, suppresses activity in your prefrontal cortex, so your ability to regulate, regulate-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:37 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 8:37 ... your emotions actually becomes lower, and your decision-making ability, you know, is negatively affected by that. Alcohol is a neurotoxin, so it will actually be killing off brain cells. Um, and the other thing is that, you know, ob- obviously 'cause of COVID, COVID, we all know that we used alcohol gels to kill bacteria. So basically alcohol, like antibiotics and processed food, affects the good bacteria-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:03 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 9:03 ... in your gut as well, and we've already talked about how that connects with, you know, your intuition, your decision-making. Um, and the effect on sleep as well, so-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:16 Of course

Dr. Tara Swart 9:16 ... yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:17 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 9:17 Yeah. Although I have to say, from heart rate variability monitoring, I can tell you that not leaving a two-hour gap between finishing eating and going to bed is as disruptive for your sleep as drinking alcohol before you go to bed.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:33 Now, I know what heart rate variability is, but for someone who doesn't, please explain that first, and then let's elaborate on what you just said-

Dr. Tara Swart 9:42 Okay

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:42 ... because that's huge.

Dr. Tara Swart 9:43 Yeah. So heart rate variability monitors are... I, I was using them n- during the financial crisis, I was using them on, you know, on my banking clients, and at that time they were quite clunky gel electrodes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:56 Yeah, you had to-

Dr. Tara Swart 9:56 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:56 ... you had to got these... Yeah, I remember.

Dr. Tara Swart 9:58 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:58 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 9:59 Um, but nowadays, you know, people have those bracelets that, um, basically are monitoring your heart rate and also an element of your heart rate, which is called the variability. So you and I, we may both have a heart rate of 60, but mine might be like a metronome, one a second, and yours might get faster sometimes, slower sometimes, you know, and just vary. Um, and the description that I've just made of you is a healthier state 'cause you've got variability.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:26 That's counterintuitive, isn't it?

Dr. Tara Swart 10:27 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:27 Because you, you would initially think, "I, I want my heart beating like a metronome."

Dr. Tara Swart 10:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:32 "I don't want any variation. I want it to be ba, ba, ba, ba, you know, right on time."

Dr. Tara Swart 10:36 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:36 But it's the opposite that we want.

Dr. Tara Swart 10:37 That seems to correlate more with being in the sympathetic state-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:40 Yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 10:40 ... which is more the fright, flight, fight. Um, and the, the fact that, like, you're adaptable, you're var-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:45 Exactly

Dr. Tara Swart 10:45 ... you know, your variation, if something good happens, it's, you know... then it changes. If something bad happens, you can adapt to it. You know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:52 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 10:52 That's kind of a b- a benefit. So these sorts of monitors, um, they can give you trends over time, but the ones that I used to use show, like, down to each 15 minutes whether you're in stress, um, recovery, light physical activity, or heavy physical activity, and so the recovery period is, like, psychological-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:13 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 11:13 ... relaxation. And yeah, so I did, I've, you know, did a few experiments on myself. Like, I did a few with jet lag and different types of sleeping aids, um, and I did one where I had no alcohol, one unit of alcohol, and three units of alcohol, and I compared them. And I didn't do this one intentionally, but I went to see... you know, I went to the theater with someone, and they were happy to eat afterwards, which, you know, I f- I finish eating by 8:00-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:43 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 11:43 ... so this was kind of starting to eat really late. Um, and by the time I got home, it was late, and I, I couldn't... Well, at that time I didn't, I didn't know this. So I, I came home. It was late. I went to bed. Couldn't sleep for two hours, and when I looked on my heart rate variability monitor, it looked like I'd had three units of alcohol because it was just, like, two hours of red stress before I actually fell asleep.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:06 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 12:07 And now that I know that, um, I'm very, very conscious that if, if I haven't digested my food- I know I won't sleep. So I'm conscious of always trying to leave that gap. When it's not possible for various reasons, like recently I was filming on the Navajo Nation, you know, basically living out of a van. And, um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:28 Oh, wow

Dr. Tara Swart 12:28 ... when we got to a, a motel, we had, we hadn't eaten, like, for a long time, so we had to eat. And I worked out that I needed to get eight hours of sleep to be good for the filming the next day, but ideally, I needed to stay awake for two hours to let my food digest, and I had this book about the Navajo people that I n- I needed to, to get through as well. So I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna end up going to sleep at 1:00," which is really, really late for me, "but I can read the book for two hours, 'cause I'm not gonna sleep anyway, and I'll still get eight hours sleep 'cause we're not having an early start." So, you know, I kind of work it out like that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:06 Yeah. I love that. I mean, what it, what it really speaks to to me is that you have spent time getting to know yourself.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:14 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:14 Right? So you know what works for you.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:16 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:18 What you said about caffeine and you knowing that finishing before 10:00 AM works for you-

Dr. Tara Swart 13:24 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:24 ... I, I think there's a wider point here, Tara, which I, I'd love your perspective on, but this is kind of, this idea that we'll hear coffee is good or bad. Okay, the research shows that two cups of coffee a day does this for your health.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:38 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:38 It's the biggest source of polyphenols in the American diet. We, we, we read all this stuff-

Dr. Tara Swart 13:42 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:42 ... and then we go, "Yeah, so coffee's good." Well, it kinda depends.

Dr. Tara Swart 13:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:49 Right? If you're chronically stressed-

Dr. Tara Swart 13:51 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:51 ... overworking, and anxious, and you're using caffeine to prop you up, I don't think it matters how many polyphenols it's giving you-

Dr. Tara Swart 13:59 No. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:00 ... uh, like, it's probably not gonna be good for you-

Dr. Tara Swart 14:03 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:03 ... in the context of your life-

Dr. Tara Swart 14:04 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:04 ... but for someone else... And, and to be clear, you know, I drink coffee.

Dr. Tara Swart 14:08 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:08 Like, I think that, you know, caffeinated drinks can absolutely form part of a healthy, balanced life.

Dr. Tara Swart 14:13 I completely agree.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:14 But you've gotta tune into yourself-

Dr. Tara Swart 14:16 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:16 ... and figure out what works for you, don't you?

Dr. Tara Swart 14:18 Yeah, um, absolutely agree. I mean, there, there is some evidence that a small amount of caffeine is actually, like, beneficial-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:24 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 14:24 ... for your, you know, your brain as well. Um, it's just, like, it's, it's the too much and the, you know, what time that's the issue.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:35 We touched on nature earlier. We haven't gone into depth on nature, and there's a term you texted me about yesterday, neuroaesthetics, which I thought that is a wicked term. I haven't heard of it.

Dr. Tara Swart 14:46 Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:47 So we've been talking a lot about stress, right? And the damaging effects of too much stress.

Dr. Tara Swart 14:55 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:56 One of the antidotes is nature, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 14:59 Mm. Um, so neuroaesthetics is basically the science of the impact of beauty on our brains, um, on our health, our mental health, and our longevity. And so within that... You're frowning. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:14 No, I'm, I'm thinking. I'm taking it in, 'cause I love it, and I've never heard the term before. I absolutely love it.

Dr. Tara Swart 15:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:19 The impacts of beauty.

Dr. Tara Swart 15:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:21 I, I, I, I love it.

Dr. Tara Swart 15:23 So it inc- it basically says that create, making or beholding creative activities is good for your health. So that's art, dance, music. Um, and it's both doing a painting or going to an art gallery. It's both, you know, singing in the shower and going to see a musical. Um, and it's, you know, it's both dancing around your living room or going to the ballet. Um, and there are, you know, differential benefits of making and beholding. Uh, both are good for you, but y- you know, ideally you would do a bit of both. And so within that, you and I might have the same taste in art, but different taste in music, but nature is the palette that we have existed in since the beginning of time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:19 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 16:21 And so we all feel a sense of beauty when we're in nature. And, you know, we know that when we're in nature, our blood pressure goes down, our heart rate goes down. There are certain trees that secrete, um, chemicals called phytoncides that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:36 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 16:36 ... boost the natural killer cells in our immune system. So there's a lot of good stuff going on when we're in nature. Um, and yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. That, you know, basically thinking of nature as, like, a, a beautiful, you know, uh, scenario, and understanding that beauty and creative activities are so beneficial to us. And if you think about it, when we lived in the cave, we, you know, we lived with the seasons. We looked at the stars in the sky at night. We walked barefoot, like you-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:15 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 17:15 ... you try to. Um, and we danced around the fire. We beat drums. We s- we chanted, and people... You know, okay, once it went dark, you, you know, there was not... It's not like you could be hunting or whatever, but it's, you know, people didn't... There was no excess time for luxurious activities. When you lived in the cave, it was all about survival. So we really believe that these sorts of activities are somehow crucial to our survival, whether it's the social connection or whether it is, like, the benefit on your cardiovascular system of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:54 Yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 17:54 ... you know, lowering your blood pressure and heart rate.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 17:57 Yeah. It's, it's such a... It's a beautiful idea. It's a reassuring idea. We all feel good when we're in the forest or in-

Dr. Tara Swart 18:07 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:07 ... nature.

Dr. Tara Swart 18:08 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:09 Right? Generally speaking, it's, it's hardwired into us, isn't it?

Dr. Tara Swart 18:12 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:13 For a number of reasons. I don't know if you've read the book by Dacher Keltner, Awe. He's a Berkeley professor.

Dr. Tara Swart 18:20 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:21 He's been studying happiness for 20-plus years, and he released a book about a year ago, I think it was called Awe or The Science of Awe.

Dr. Tara Swart 18:29 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:30 You'd love it, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 18:31 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:31 And-

Dr. Tara Swart 18:32 I'll look into it

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:33 ... really unpicked what happens to humans when we experience awe, which of course we do in nature, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 18:42 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:42 And it lowers stress, it improves mental wellbeing, improves physical health. I think it, it's related with longevity as well-

Dr. Tara Swart 18:50 Mm. It is, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:50 ... which is absolutely incredible, isn't it?

Dr. Tara Swart 18:52 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:53 So how much nature does one need to get these benefits?

Dr. Tara Swart 18:58 I mean, in, in the field of neuroaesthetics, they say s- ideally 20 minutes a day of, you know, either a creative activ- activity, making it or beholding it, or being in nature. Um, personally, when I, you know, used to, like, go for a walk in the woods every day, and for, like, you know, just physical purposes, I, I would do 30 minutes. When I started doing an hour, the effect on my mental health was so noticeable, it was incredible.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:29 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 19:30 Um, I didn't realize it would make that much difference, and we don't always have the luxury of being able to go for a one-hour walk.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:36 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Tara Swart 19:37 Um, but both physically and mentally, I, I could tell the difference between half an hour and an hour.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:43 Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 19:45 And I can also tell the difference between walking for an hour in really beautiful nature, like in ancient woods, versus walking for an hour by the river in London.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:56 Which is better? [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 19:58 [laughs] Definitely the fr- you know, really beautiful nature. Like, no concrete jungle.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:05 The difficulty there, of course, is that the world is becoming more and more urbanized.

Dr. Tara Swart 20:09 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:09 Many people are living in mega urban environments.

Dr. Tara Swart 20:14 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:15 And, you know, a, a lot of the time it's people in deprived communities, right, who we know have worse health outcomes anyway-

Dr. Tara Swart 20:23 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:24 ... for a variety of different reasons.

Dr. Tara Swart 20:25 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:26 And I think it's important to acknowledge that, you know... I'm lucky, I live in Cheshire, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 20:33 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:33 There's, there's nice nature everywhere.

Dr. Tara Swart 20:35 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:35 It's very easy within five minutes of my house to, to, to, to get that nature.

Dr. Tara Swart 20:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:41 But not everyone has that, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 20:43 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:43 So for that person who doesn't have it, what would you say to them?

Dr. Tara Swart 20:47 So even just having more plants in your house is, you know, has the effect that I mentioned of the trees in the forest. Yeah, you, you're doing well.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:55 We're trying to in this studio. [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 20:56 Yeah. Um, and you know, I mean, one of the examples that the, you know, the neuroaesthetic researcher that I spoke to gave was just having a small vase of flowers by your bed so that when you wake up, that's the first thing that you smell and see.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:11 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:11 You know, that's, that's a neuroaesthetic day starting, you know, with a real piece of beauty. Um, yeah, it is harder if you're living in an, you know, an urban environment, but there are amazing parks in most cities.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:26 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:26 So trying to get to them. Um, but even just, you know, noticing the trees that you can see in the skyline kind of thing, or a body of water.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:38 Yeah, it makes a difference. I've, I've seen research, uh, on fractals-

Dr. Tara Swart 21:43 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:43 ... which are these, of course, as you know, these geometric shapes that we only get in nature.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:47 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:48 That when a human eye sees a fractal, you lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Dr. Tara Swart 21:55 Oh, wow.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:55 Right? So I think that's one of the, one of the many reasons why nature is so powerful.

Dr. Tara Swart 22:00 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:02 Right? And there's research also showing that just looking at a picture of nature will lower levels of cortisol. M- I don't think it's to the same degree, but it still does it.

Dr. Tara Swart 22:13 I was gonna say that. I was gonna say, if you really literally cannot get to a park near your house, then it's probably not as good. But if you look on, on your phone or on, you know, TV or whatever, and just look at naturescapes. I mean, one of the things I'm planning to do next, planning to do later this year is, um, release a series of meditations, guided meditations with my voice, but that are, um, played over some really stunning-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:41 Oh

Dr. Tara Swart 22:41 ... nature time-lapse photography.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:43 I love it. Look forward to that.

Dr. Tara Swart 22:45 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:45 Might become part of my morning routine.

Dr. Tara Swart 22:47 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:48 Um,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:49 I wanna talk about death, Tara. Um, I've watched quite a few of your interviews recently-

Dr. Tara Swart 22:56 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:57 ... uh, online, and they've been truly, truly fascinating, and death is something I've seen you talk more and more about over the past, I'd say year maybe. Why is that?

Dr. Tara Swart 23:12 Yeah, I would say year or two. Because you know how at the beginning of the pandemic, I said to you, "I feel like this is potentially a mental health crisis"? What I came out of it feeling like was there were so many people that experienced loss, and I do mean, you know, loss through actual death of loved ones, but also a lot of relationships broke down, a lot of people, you know, really suffered during the pandemic, either because they were isolated or, you know, things in the way that they work changed, so that loss of sense of self. So I feel like there's a lot of suffering in the world at the moment, and I also feel like we are more lost and disconnected than I think we've ever been before.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:00 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 24:02 Um, and so as part of, you know, my personal spiritual practice, I made season two of my podcast more about ancient wisdom, 'cause I wanted to learn about Sufism and, you know, South African traditional healers and, you know, Tibetan Buddhist beliefs and things.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:20 Oh, love it.

Dr. Tara Swart 24:20 Yeah, so, but as part of that, actually, our friend in LA, um, Drew, he suggested- Um, a guest for my podcast who was a Austrian doctor called Alexander Bathiany who works on terminal lucidity. And terminal lucidity is when people who have some kind of brain damage or reduced consciousness because they've had a stroke or they've got dementia suddenly become lucid, completely lucid. So people who've forgotten that they even had children suddenly remember the names of their children and tell them that they love them and have a conversation with them that was, like, completely normal until a few years ago. And that really got me thinking about whether it's possible that consciousness can exist outside of our physical body. Basically, is your spirit still around somewhere after you've physically died? And then there was this, um, documentary on Netflix, Surviving Death. So I kind of went down a rabbit hole. You know, I get into a topic and then I really-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:26 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 25:26 ... I get into it. But I felt very passionately that this could bring a lot of comfort to people. Um, and s- and something else, which I'll come onto. So, um, after I interviewed Alexander, I said to Drew this to- fascinating topic, and he gave me another guest who is a, a professor of psychiatry from the University of Virginia who works on near-death experiences. So these are people who, you know, their, their heart stopped, and the number of minutes that went by is enough that we would know the brain was starting to decay. Um, but they somehow returned to physical life and could ex- could ex- uh, describe the experience that they had had. He's also got a colleague that works on past life memories, but I've ... I haven't been able to s- to speak to him, but he works with children who remember being somebody else before.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:16 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 26:17 And then, um, I spoke to a Tibetan doctor who does dark retreats, which is the closest experience to a near-death experience that you can have without actually nearly dying. Um, so you're in complete darkness for seven days and seven nights, and actually, the, the monks do it for 49 days.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:36 Oh, wow.

Dr. Tara Swart 26:36 Yeah. Um, so that led me, uh, the re- ... What it's led me into thinking is, you know, you said to me that you're very interested in intuition at the moment. I've been interested in intuition for a long time, but all of this, you know, potential research that can't prove anything but points to the fact that the mind and the brain could be separated makes me ... I mean, the way that Dr. Greyson put it is that the brain is essentially filtering down the mind, because the mind is capable of so much. But to survive in this material world, we can't be overwhelmed like that, so the brain actually makes our mind fit for purpose for this material world. So if you think about the fact that bats and dolphins can see and hear things that we can't see, that means a biological model has a range in their consciousness that's outside of our range.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:35 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 27:36 So if we believe that it's true that the mind is being filtered down by the brain, is it possible for our- us to expand our consciousness in this life, in this lifetime, in this world? Um, and y- you know, he said that, again, bringing, bringing us back to the ancient wisdom, that the Greeks and the Egyptians, they had people that discovered that, and they, they were the seers. You know, they were the people that predicted the future or, um, you know, knew if someone was going to die or become unwell. So I'm just very fascinated by this fact that I didn't think that the ancient wisdom and all of the kind of death stuff would be, you know, potentially connected. But, you know, I am, I am tempted to look into things like telepathy and extrasensory perception and, um, f- you know, from a neuroscience point of view, always with that, that lens of trying to explain it to people in a way that might help them. And, you know, n- not wanting to be too woo-woo, really wanting to see if I can create that same balance that I did with The Source.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:53 Yeah. I mean, that was a great book a- and you did such a wonderful job, as you say, at creating that balance. There was a scientific rigor there-

Dr. Tara Swart 29:03 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:03 ... as well.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:04 You know, which is very important I think for many people.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:07 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:07 Do you know Anil Seth? He's a bonafide neuroscientist.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:11 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:11 He spent decades studying consciousness.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:15 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:15 And when he came on my podcast last year, we spoke about near-death experiences.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:20 Oh, okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:21 Just, we touched on it and ... You know, 'cause you can't ignore the reports. There's plenty.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:28 Yeah, there's, there's thousands now.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:29 There's so many people-

Dr. Tara Swart 29:30 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:30 ... who are reporting these experiences.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:31 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:31 And a lot of people are saying that it's changing how they experience the world.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:39 They come back from it-

Dr. Tara Swart 29:41 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:41 ... and they're making different decisions.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:42 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:42 They know what's important now.

Dr. Tara Swart 29:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:44 Right? And he was great, 'cause he said, "Listen, these things have really powerful meanings-

Dr. Tara Swart 29:49 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:49 ... and I don't want to ..." He didn't wanna take away from that, but he also said, "What ... But you could also explain them through the lens of the visual cortex getting less oxygen."

Dr. Tara Swart 30:00 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:01 Sorry to interrupt. If you're enjoying this video and want to learn more, you can download my free special guide containing six simple breathing practices that will help you calm your mind, lower stress, and improve your energy. To get ahold of this guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below. Because he says often what people will describe is a white light-

Dr. Tara Swart 30:26 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:26 ... that's very focused.

Dr. Tara Swart 30:27 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:27 He goes, "Well, if your visual cortex is l- i- is having less oxygen to it-

Dr. Tara Swart 30:32 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:33 ... the periphery of your vision- ... starts to shut down.

Dr. Tara Swart 30:36 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:36 So he was, you know, he was great. I would-

Dr. Tara Swart 30:39 And people do say it's like a tunnel as well, which also makes sense from what he said.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:42 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 30:42 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:42 So he was kind of saying, well, both things can be true. There can be a physiological, biological explanation, and it can have a transformative effect on people.

Dr. Tara Swart 30:54 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:54 I guess he would probably, and I don't want to speak for him, stop short of some of the things that you're talking about.

Dr. Tara Swart 31:01 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:03 Um, as someone who has been to medical school, who has lectured at MIT, who is a neuroscientist, it's really interesting to me that you just spoke about those things on a microphone. Would you have done that five years ago?

Dr. Tara Swart 31:21 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:22 Why?

Dr. Tara Swart 31:23 Um, well, five years ago, just, uh, I think I'd written The Source, but it hadn't come out yet. And so at that stage, by writing it, I was like, "Yes, I know I can use cognitive science to explain things like manifestation and visualization." But I was still unsure about whether those two things should be together in my career as a scientist and p- particularly as representing MIT. Um, it was when the book came out, the response that it got that really had a big impact on me. So, you know, I, I... it had an impact on me to see that I could make sense of things like that with cognitive science, but it had more of an impact on me, the com- you know, the sort of comments that I got from, both from people I know and, you know, just on Instagram. And I think the pandemic, uh, you know, you could say allowed or pushed me further down the spiritual route. Um, I also have a friend who used to be a client of mine, who I met at MIT when he took my class, who's got this, like, eclectic, fascinating background with, with a lot of spiritual knowledge, and we started speaking a lot. That got me really interested. So I would have to say with that, I'm gonna answer your question [laughs] with something that we've discussed, which was my intuition told me I cannot keep doing corporate work. I have to go down this road. I still can't tell you why. Um, but I think, you know, I think it's, it's becoming a bit clearer. I don't, I... And, and also, I think something that's been really helpful for me is that I have a lot of icons who are either a doctor or a scientist or both, that have gone down a very spiritual path.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:16 Mm.

Dr. Tara Swart 33:16 Deepak Chopra, Daniel Siegel, Bruce Lipton. Um, and I remember when I was younger thinking, like, you know, "Why have they done that? How could they have done that?" Or, you know, kind of... [laughs] And now it makes sense to me because it's a natural persuasion for me. But also I've got evidence of these, you know, other people. And I, and I think it is because I love science, but it's possible that it is reducing our human experience.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:46 I talk a lot about health and wellbeing and, you know, we often talk about food and exercise and sleep, uh, and stress, which of course are all very, very important. But, but what I really like about your approach is that you, you talk a lot about how important our thoughts are, how important our mind is, and I don't feel that that gets enough air time when we talk about health and wellbeing. Why is it that our thoughts are so important?

Dr. Tara Swart 34:15 So I actually think that the pillars that you talk about, like sleep, diet, exercise, mindfulness, um, they're important to improve the quality of our thoughts. 'Cause if you actually think about it, w- why are you doing those things? You're not just doing it so that your body is in good shape. You're doing it so that you can think more clearly, you can do your job better, you can have better relationships. Um, and all of that really boils down to how you think. Um, so all the physical factors put your brain in good condition, and then it's what you do with it that really counts.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:50 Yeah. I guess it's, um... it, it works both ways, doesn't it? Because I guess, you know, paying attention to these physical factors helps your brain function, helps you think more clearly. But at the same time, I guess if you change your mindset and you work on your thoughts, it can make it easier to actually do a lot of these physical things we're talking about.

Dr. Tara Swart 35:09 Absolutely. I mean, one of the chapters in the book is about that brain-body connection. So I think because psychology was around for a long time before we could scan brains and bodies, it left us with this sort of idea that there's a cutoff at the neck, and that what you think and feel isn't connected to what goes on in your body, and vice versa. But absolutely, if you're cold or hungry or tired, it affects the quality of thinking, and if you're confident or anxious, it affects the nerves and hormones in your body.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:37 Yeah, absolutely. And I think this whole brain-body connection that you do beautifully talk about in the book, um, is so important. And I guess for me, it's something that's really been missing in my medical training. It's, it's something that I think has been missing for a long time in medicine, particularly 20th century medicine, the way we've, you know, the, the way medicine really, really evolved to do so many great things. But I think we've lost, lost the idea that, that really, I guess people have known for, for donkey's years. Was that one of your frustrations with medicine?

Dr. Tara Swart 36:11 I heard you speaking about that on another one of your podcasts, and I... it absolutely resonated with me. I was almost relieved to hear you say it, to feel like I'm not the only one. And you'll notice that I sort of started the book by talking about how we evolved, and the fact that once we developed this cortex, which is much more, you know, a modern part of the brain that we use for articulated speech and for predicting and planning for the future- The part of the brain that had got us to that point, the in- intuitive, emotional part of the brain, sort of seemed to be downgraded by society. You know, like, logic and, um, being able to speak suddenly became important, and gut feeling and emotions just became less important.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:52 Yeah. I, I, I totally agree that there, there is that societal narrative, isn't it? Isn't, isn't there, that, you know, logic is, um ... Logic is key, and intuition sorta gets marginalized, and feelings get marginalized. Um, what I think you've done so well, and obviously y- you're, you're very well-trained, you know, huge, um, huge scientific background. You have brought some of these ideas that have been there before to life, but you've got some scientific grounding in them now.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:23 And, and one of your, you know, I guess, one of your core concepts is how do we create the life that we want? How do we be in charge of, uh, what happens to l- you know, what happens to our life, rather than let life sort of happen to us? Um, is that something you've ... Is that something you feel you've, you've always had an incline towards, or is this something that has really evolved in your thinking in the past few years?

Dr. Tara Swart 37:48 Well, it's, it's funny you should say that, because as I look back now, it feels like a lot of the concepts in the book were always there in the way that I lived my life. But even since writing the book, I've come up with this new analogy, which is let's say you and I want to go on a journey. Would you rather be sitting in the passenger seat, and I choose where we go and the route that we take, or would you rather be driving and choosing the destination? It's kind of like that in life. It's very easy to go through the motions every day and let life happen to you. But if you think about it, if we stop and step back, we have a lot more choice in what we tolerate, in what happens to us, in the choices that we make, um, than we necessarily think, 'cause it's easy to just sort of go on autopilot.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:32 And, and I think that's something that, that really does happen these days, doesn't it? We, many people are living life on a treadmill, day to day, week to week. Before you know, another year's gone by. A- and, and I think one of the issues is that people don't have time. They don't, they don't feel that they can actually, um, you know, separate off some time where they l- reflect internally. They reflect on, on their own life and their journey. It's just sort of something I, I know, um, I've talked about this a little bit before. I've certainly written about it, that, um, I mean, we're recording this podcast just, I mean, yesterday was six years, um, to the day since my dad passed away. And, um, you know, that, that was a ... 'Cause I, I used to care for my dad, um, for, for a long period of time. That's why I moved back to the northwest to help my mum and my brother care for Dad. And what's really interesting is since my dad died, um, I suddenly had a lot of time. All that time that I would spend caring and, and trying to look after the family, I would think. I would reflect. I would reflect on his life. I would reflect on my, my upbringing. And it really helped me understand, wait a minute, you know, am I living the life that I want to live? And actually, you can literally mirror my happiness, um, the things that have gone well in my career, literally since the moment my dad died. And it's, it's a real clash for me. On one hand, I wish my dad was still here, but on the other hand, if Dad was still here, I don't think I'd be doing any of the things that I'm doing currently, because I would be too busy. Um, I don't know how that sounds to you at all.

Dr. Tara Swart 40:01 So that sounds to me like, you know, he, he lives on through having given you this gift, which is the new life that you've chosen for yourself. And I feel exactly the same, that, you know, I wish I'd never got divorced, but it was at that exact time that I thought, "Okay, something's happened to me that I hadn't factored in. Now what do I do with my life?" And it was the absolute turning point of then choosing my career, where I lived, what I wanted to do, who I wanted in my life. Um, and, you know, it's ended up with me writing this book.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:30 Yeah, well, I guess that's, that's quite empowering for people, isn't it? Instead of looking at something, you know, and, and maybe if we, we've got time, we'll explore what, you know, how the divorce changed you. Um, but you know, being, you know, getting divorced, for many, is, you know, it's clearly, um, can be a very traumatic, um, episode in, in one's life. It can cause a lot of negative feelings, a lot of frustration. Lots of kinda things can happen that can actually, unless they're turned into being a positive, unless that is used as a, as a sign to say, "Hey, look. What can I learn about this? How can I move on from this?" Um, often people can go in a downward spiral. So, look, there's j- there's so much we can talk about.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:08 I wanna really get, get into the meat of this book, which, which is really good. Um, it's called The Source. What is The Source?

Dr. Tara Swart 41:16 Okay, so The Source is your fully integrated brain power. So we've touched on it by saying logic is, you know, really key in society, and emotions and intuition may be are less valued. Well, The Source is having, is basically mastering your emotions; knowing your body and listening to messages from your body; trusting your gut, which is your intuition; making good decisions, which is your logic, which is super important; staying motivated and resilient to achieve your goals; and then really taking on that ownership of creating your life. So it's six ways of thinking, um, and it's about doing all of those, not sort of, you know, thinking, "Well, I'm very logical, so I'll mostly rely on just making good decisions, and I'll neglect the fact that I may get burnt out or that I may lose sight of what I really want in life." It's about keeping all six of those sort of fires burning at the same time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:10 Um, it sounds, it sounds wonderful. Um, is it achievable for people?

Dr. Tara Swart 42:17 I think that if you don't know that those are the key six ways of thinking, then you're unlikely to sort of suddenly find out and, and create this idea for yourself. But I've laid it, laid it out almost like a map. And so now I think people can sit down and think, "Okay, how much do I listen to my body? How, how much do I trust my intuition?" Do I sometimes, you know, l-lose it with my emotions, and what could I do about that? And sort of just work through the six. And I've, you know, worked successfully with business people over the last 10 years going through those six ways of thinking, and of course, I've done it myself. And, you know, literally, if I have a sort of an acute problem at hand, I think, "Okay, what's going on emotionally? What's my body telling me?" And I work through the six, and now it's become more natural.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:04 Yeah, absolutely. Y- Right at the start of the book, um, there was this section, um, where y- you, you, you outline a series of questions. Um, if you find yourself nodding your head, this book is for you, and I thought it was brilliant. Uh, I, I won't read them all out, but some of these statements are, for example, "I feel stuck in an unhappy long-term relationship and can't see a way out." That's something very, very common that I see in my practice. Uh, "I feel desperate to meet someone so that I'm not the last childless person in my group of friends." God, I've got so many people I know who feel like that. Um, you know, "I agonize over what decisions to make. I've never asked for a pay rise or promotion. My work bores me, but it pays the bills." You could be describing, um, you know, maybe 80% of the people that walk through my door as a GP. So I think, you know, in, in many ways, what you're saying is if, if you resonate with those statements, which I think many people will, the book is for them. Um, so if someone has nodded their head to one of those statements, they think, "Okay, fine, I'm interested," you know, what are the practical steps that they can take? What... How do they start doing this?

Dr. Tara Swart 44:11 Okay. So the book is really practical. In fact, the last four chapters are all totally practical exercises. They involve some meditations and sort of visualizations, but throughout the book, I ask people to start journaling. So you know how you talked about that time to step back and reflect. It can seem like a really big sacrifice to think, "Okay, I'll take a weekend or a week or a month to reflect on my life." But if you start journaling for a few minutes each day, I found that looking back over that and reading it was just so insightful. I could see where I was repeating the same patterns. Um, I could see what happened when I was feeling really confident and happy, and how different that was to when I was feeling a bit down and uncertain of the future, and that helped me massively. Um, so I think if people read the book, start the journaling, um, absolutely do a vision board, and we can talk about the science. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:04 Definitely gonna talk about the vision board, for sure.

Dr. Tara Swart 45:06 Um, with things like that, you know, it was really important for me to ma-make the science around it really clear so that it's not just another nice thing to do. It's, it's you understand why you're doing it and how it can change your life. Um, and then as I said, there are four chapters of exercises which you could complete in four weeks or four months or as long as you like. But I think that by the time people get to the end of having done those, I'll be amazed if you are nodding at any of those statements that, you know, happen at the beginning of the book.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:35 Yeah, I mean, that, that's a very powerful and, and seductive sell for people. It really. Um, but, but I absolutely agree. I think there are some really powerful tools i-in your approach. W- I just wanna touch on journaling. Um, so I'm aware that you know journaling, I know what journaling is. But some people listening to this may have heard that term, but may not really understand, w-what is it? How do I journal? So, you know, if someone has never done this before, and they want to, how might they start?

Dr. Tara Swart 46:00 So you literally get a, a blank sort of diary, and you can start by just saying what happened to you today. So, you know, I could literally say, "I woke up earlier than usual, feeling a bit grumpy. Went to, you know, meet Rangan and do this podcast. Immediately cheered up." And even just in that little snippet, what you've realized is maybe if I don't get enough sleep, that it affects my mood. Maybe if I'm with somebody who I really respect and have fun with, that improves my mood. You've learnt something already just by recording that. Over time, you can get down to talking about things like emotions and intuition. T- You're basically talking to yourself. You're recording it to look at later. So you might say, you know, "I had an argument with this person, and this is how it left me feeling. I wish I hadn't said X. If something like this happened again, this is what I'd choose to do in future." So you basically use the journal as a way to sort out your thoughts, to get them out of your head, and sort of be able to look at them more objectively and create a narrative that you can look back at and make certain different decisions about your future.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:05 I mean, some people who recommend journaling say that they do it, but they never look back on what they've written down, yet you're saying you do actually go back and look. Is there merits or different approaches there?

Dr. Tara Swart 47:17 I'm sure it's very individual, and I never intended to go back and look. But, um, I do these two trips to America twice a year, and, um, just out of curiosity, I read back over the trip from six months ago when I was there. And I'd been having these little sort of muscular twitches, and to my, you know, surprise, I saw that I'd recorded that in my journal six months ago. And so I basically worked out that the travel, the jet lag, the sort of stress of being away meant that I needed to take more of my magnesium supplements, and it was just a real eye-opener. And then I thought, "Well, what would happen if I looked at the more emotional stuff that I've written down? What, what could I discover?" And to me now, I would say that reading back over your journal is actually more helpful than just writing it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:01 Yeah. Wow, incredible. Um, I, I, I, I do journal from time to time. I haven't made it a, like a, a constant daily practice, but I go through periods of time in my life where for a few days, a few weeks, I will journal. And I personally like doing it first thing in the morning as part of my morning routine. And, you know, I, I wonder if you know about this as a neuroscientist, but I'm, I'm not entirely sure. But sometimes I feel, you know, you've, you've, you've, you've been in a deep sleep. You've woken up. There's so much going around in your subconscious, and when you just start writing first thing in the morning, I sort of feel that what I'm doing is I'm just helping to process my subconscious mind and get it out onto paper. So as you say, it's getting out of my head and onto paper. And, and one of the big problems I see these days is that people are living in their heads. They've got all kinds of anxieties, fears, insecurities rushing around their brain. But the simple act of writing it out in some way, quite literally, takes it from your brain And out, you know, onto paper

Dr. Tara Swart 49:01 Well, I fully believe that, um, just like doing aerobic exercise, um, can help you to reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol, that speaking out loud or writing down these thoughts that are racing round and round in your head instead of suppressing them or just letting them build up, you know, till it feels like your head's going to explode, is a way of reducing stress. So actually, if you've got anxieties or negative thoughts and you write them down, or you have somebody that you trust that you can talk to, it gets it out of your brain body system, just exactly like exercising can release stress hormones from your brain body system.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:39 Although we talked about vision boards last time, Tara, I, I, I think people really like that idea, and I, I wonder if we could just sort of... Because, because I feel at the moment if someone's doing that and thinking, "Oh, I like this, I like that," could they potentially use a vision board here to, you know, put their attention there and maybe increase the chances of that happening at some point in the future?

Dr. Tara Swart 50:03 That's actually such a good idea because in a way, I was thinking, you know, the vision board that I created in January for 2020, there are simply some things on it that can't happen now. Um, you know, some of them can happen remotely, so, you know, um, I think I did say to you last time that doing a podcast with you was on my vision board last year.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:22 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 50:22 And, um, you know, getting to do one with you again is, is, um, just so wonderful and, you know, doing more podcasts [laughs] was on my vision board because this way we're re-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:31 Aw

Dr. Tara Swart 50:31 ... you know, changed it. Um, so I've sort of been saying to people, "Don't put too much pressure on yourself to, you know, feel that you need to achieve the visions that you had at the start of the year," or, you know, it may be difficult to create a vision board now, but I think you've just hit the nail on the head. The vision board could be how I want my life to be different given what I've learnt during lockdown. So I've actually been collecting images, um, that I like, but they're all very colorful, very exotic, and I think it sort of... Although I will never travel for work as much as I did ever again, that's a promise I've made to myself and I've said it in public now. You know, I sort of, I feel very, very lucky that I've traveled as much as I have for pleasure. There are a few places that I'd still like to go but I think, you know, my heart and my spirit or whatever is, like, longing for these faraway places and these different foods and people that I might, you know, not get to experience again as much as I have in the past. Um, but I love this idea of using the... Because, you know, I call it an action board because it has to be backed up by action, of creating an image of the life that you would, you know, the, the balanced life that you would want when things return to, you know, or go b- go to however they're going to be and they're not like they are now. Because one of the things I worried about early on in lockdown is that it would be so easy to just get sucked back into being in that rat race, commuting, traveling, not spending, you know, quality time with your loved ones or not doing the walking in nature. So I think a vision board is, you know, that's... I, I'm gonna do it after today. And also, I have to say to you that you said you were going to do a vision board after the last podcast [laughs] and I haven't seen a picture of it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:17 That's a good point. I, I did actually start it but I don't think I finished it. So I, I, I will tell you what, what, uh, this morning when I was thinking about chatting to you, and I have been thinking, and, and again, it's that sort of accountability by because I knew I'd be talking to you. I was thinking, "Okay, Rangan, if you really do wanna change certain aspects of your life afterwards-"

Dr. Tara Swart 52:40 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:41 And I'm always thinking at the moment, how can I combine what I do with my children and my wife? Because then we're doing something together, so then it's not either spend time with them or work or do personal growth. But, you know, it's kind of like, "Well, let's do something together."

Dr. Tara Swart 52:55 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:55 And then I sort of felt, well, maybe, you know, at the weekend or they've got the half term coming up shortly, maybe the four of us together should try and create a vision board and m- and, you know, they can do whatever they want, whatever their focus is. I would never wanna put that onto them, but mine might be what kind of life do I want to live post-lockdown?

Dr. Tara Swart 53:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:19 Um, because I, like you, travel a lot. Now, I think I was very mindful of when I was back spending quality time, undistracted time with my family. But yeah, I, I've realized that maybe I was traveling more than I ideally wanted.

Dr. Tara Swart 53:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:32 So for people, Tara, 'cause we have a lot more listeners now than we did when you first came on the show, which is fantastic. Like, someone might be listening going, "Vision board, I'm skeptical," right? Number one. And they might also be thinking, "Well, how do I actually do that?" So although we did cover some of that last time-

Dr. Tara Swart 53:52 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:52 ... I always think a, a little refresher on why a vision or an action board, why it can be helpful and how do you actually do it.

Dr. Tara Swart 54:00 Yeah. So, um, the, the science behind why it's helpful is that we're bombarded with so much information all the time, so, you know, everything we read, everything we see, every person we interact with, and even our own emotions and memories. And so, um, there are, there's a natural process in the brain to selectively filter, um, what's important to our survival and, and selectively put attention onto what's important for us to thrive. And then there's also another system in the brain called value tagging, which puts those things in order of importance, and there's a, there's a logical element to that, you know, things I need to do today to, to live and work, and then there's an emotional element to that which is, you know, the spending time with your family and having, you know, feeling comfortable with who you are and, you know, all that sort of thing that you've, you've already mentioned. And so if you create imagery that represents the things, like how you want your life to be post-lockdown, then you're more likely to notice and grasp opportunities to make that a reality. So that's all it is. It's not, you know, it's not- As woo-woo as some people, you know, the skeptics might think it is. It's literally priming your brain to remember what's important. Um, and so ideally it's a collage made by hand, although, you know, I've been getting a lot of DMs from people saying, "Well, I'm not getting magazines, [laughs] so how do I do it?" And you can do it on Pinterest, you c- there's an app called Corkulous, which is like a corkboard. Um, you know, there are ways on Google of just generating images of things.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:30 W- what exactly... L- okay, so l- let's just break it down even further. So-

Dr. Tara Swart 55:34 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:34 ... what? You've got a collage. Okay. So you- you're- you've got a piece of paper or some card.

Dr. Tara Swart 55:40 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:40 And, uh, what exactly are you wanting or suggesting that people put on it? Is it just images? Is it words? How many do you need? You know, I guess I'm asking semi for myself as well, 'cause I've forgotten-

Dr. Tara Swart 55:53 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:53 ... from last time. And I am going to do it this time.

Dr. Tara Swart 55:55 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:55 And I am going to text it to you. Um, so yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 56:00 Yeah. So I, I suggest that you don't use words or numbers. So it's, it's visual imagery, 'cause that tracks to your subconscious more strongly. Um, also, i- ideally that it's metaphorical representations of what you want. So, you know, f- so sort of for travel it could be, you know, just an image of a very exotic place that you like the look of. For you, it sounds like, you know, that very central on the board would be something to do with the four of you. Um, as, you know, as I, I said last time, if you want a life that's crammed full, then the, the, you know, you should have as many images as you can on that piece of card. If you want some space in your life, then you, the images could be more separate with space between them. It's important which images are touching each other. So where you've said, "Let's do stuff together," you may find a way to combine work with, you know, with e- either with your wife or even with your children doing something with you, then you'd want those sections of the board to be near each other. Um, so yeah. I mean, there's a whole chapter in the book on exactly how to do it, where to place it, how it works.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:04 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 57:05 Um, but it is, you know, it's like those collages or scrapbooks that we used to make as children or, you know, or what people call mood boards, which is images that you're attracted to, images that represent something that you want. Um, I, I'm honestly going to redo mine based on what you said, which is, which is about how I'd like my life to look after lockdown. Because I did have this feeling, I feel better about it now, but I did have this feeling that I don't 100% trust myself not to just go back to how things were before.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:33 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 57:33 And I know that I don't want that, but I just also realize that it can be very easy for that to happen. I mean, what sort of came into my mind was, um, when I'd been traveling in Nepal, and, you know, just trekking for days and days, and like, you know, sort of eating very simple food, and, you know, being very immersed in that Buddhist and Hindu culture. And I remember I came back and I went into a shop, and it was all about, you know, just indulge yourself, buy all these things, and I was quite horrified by it. [laughs] But what I noticed was that two weeks later, that was completely normal to me. So, you know, we adapt quickly. Um, but I just think that having agency over that adaptation is really important.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:18 Yeah. I, I think that's a great point. It reminds me of, uh, I was chatting to a really good mate of mine, Jeremy, recently about what are certain things gonna be like afterwards? Um, you know, are we gonna remember all this? And he says... And he, he, he loves reading history books, and he said, "Mate, listen, when all the history books I read seem to suggest that after things like pandemics or wars, people wanna forget as, as quickly as possible and get back to normal."

Dr. Tara Swart 58:43 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:43 And obviously for me, I, I knowingly don't really know, or I don't really have that experience, you know. I, I didn't live through the wars. Uh, I haven't been around during the time of the pandemic. So it feels so real at the moment. If, I find it hard to believe that we'll forget this. But if we look at history to, to sort of learn some lessons, it looks as though we very much might do. And that's why I think writing down your thoughts at the moment, maybe if you're so inclined, you know, making an action board, some way of reminding you of some of these key lessons that you learnt of what you wanna keep in your life afterwards, I think it's really important. Um-

Dr. Tara Swart 59:22 Yeah. I think it's also important to say, though, that, yeah, I, I do believe that we've forgotten a lot of the lessons that people must have learnt during the wars and the aftermath of that. But if you think about the way that the role of women changed during the war. So, you know, the, the men went off to, to war, and women took up jobs that traditionally weren't seen as jobs that women could do, like factory jobs or farming jobs. And so, you know, that changed forever. So, you know, there are some, some things that have fundamentally changed and never gone back to how they were before. But, you know, you, you talk about awareness, and I talk about intention.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:01 Sorry to interrupt. If you're enjoying this video and you want to learn more, then do check out my free special guide which contains the six crucial steps you need to take in your life to not only build healthy habits, but also to make them stick. If you wanna get a hold of this free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:00:24 Those two words are key here, because if we don't set the intention and maintain our awareness, we won't be choosing what changes fundamentally forever.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:35 A- and, and I think that really is key. And again, some people may go, "You know what? I liked my life before. I want to go back to that." And I don't think any one of us are saying, "Don't do that." We're, we're simply saying, "Be intentional with your choices. Understand that they are choices." I, I certainly hope for most people they're choices. I, I do appreciate that some people have to do things that they don't want to do, or certainly feel as though that's their only option.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:00:59 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:59 But, um, I think that's a really great lesson. Um,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:02 Tara, I wanna, I wanna sort of finish off by something we- We hinted at it a little bit before, and I think it's a topic that's worth exploring. And I've got to be honest, I wasn't that aware of it until... Had a bit of a team meeting on Monday, uh, with various members of my team, people who help me with the podcast and various things. And, you know, we, we, we were just doing this check-in, seeing how everyone's feeling, which is how we always start off, and there was a bit of anxiety. Now, that anxiety was around... You got to remember, Sunday night, as we're recording this conversation, on, you know, five days ago, Sunday night, Boris Johnson made his-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:01:40 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:40 ... speech in the UK-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:01:42 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:42 ... about how we may start to ease lockdown measures. And a lot of my team and a lot of people I spoke to have a bit of anxiety. They're like, "Oh, I've sort of got used to this new normal." The thought of going back to life at 90 miles an hour, it's actually causing a lot of anxiety and fear. And, you know, since, since my awareness got tuned into that because of what they said, it was really interesting that, it's not quite related, but I've, as I say, I've been cycling a lot with the kids. And my daughter's only seven, but I've been taking her on the roads, since we like, there's hardly anyone on the road, so I'm trying to teach her, and my son, th- you know, to the same degree, about road safety and how you cycle on the roads. And this week it has been noticeable how much busier the roads are. Even though not that much-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:02:34 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:34 ... has changed.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:02:35 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:36 Mentally something has changed in society in terms of-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:02:39 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:39 ... what we feel. You know, th- there is this idea, this, this widespread belief now that lockdown sort of, now we're on lockdown light.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:02:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:48 Um, compared to what it was anyway. And I was scared yesterday. I was like, "Oh, man, I used to take them on these roads, but cars are going back, going by fast." Um-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:02:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:58 ... people are looking at their phones whilst they're driving. And I also thought, "Oh no, we're getting back to normal. Things are starting to seep back." So I know a lot of people listening to this will be feeling that. I wonder if you've got any advice for people who are feeling anxious about society returning back to normal and how they can cope with that?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:03:21 Yeah, it's a really good question, and I was asked a different version of that question maybe a month ago, which when it didn't look like it was easing. You know, people were like, "How long are we going to have to stay like this?" And I think that it's the perspective that you apply to it that can be really, really helpful here. So if you were thinking is lockdown gonna end next week, is it gonna be three weeks, when are the children gonna go back to school, is it gonna be half term, is it gonna be, you know, summer holidays, that creates a lot of anxiety. If you set the goalpost a bit further, so if you tell yourself, "I'm not gonna think about this for a month," or, "I think things will only go back to normal in September or October," whatever, you know, whatever you think it is. But if you move the goalpost further, then you don't have to, you're not driven to feel as anxious because it's something that's further away. And what that produces is if you keep thinking, "Can I go back to normal next week?" And then it doesn't happen, you know, and Boris says that's not gonna happen, you'll get disappointed. If you put the goalpost further away, then it's likely that you... more likely that you'll be pleasantly surprised. So it is about giving yourself perspective. And I have a little exercise that I do when, when I feel that I'm either getting into a rut or I'm starting to think about something very short-term, and it can build up some anxiety, is that I either look at the palm of my hand or I go outside and I look at a leaf or a flower very close up for, um, a minute, which I time on my phone, and I look at every detail of it, and, you know, I immerse myself in that for a minute. And then I will time the minute again, and I'll look at a really big tree or a building far away in the distance. And I find it really helps my brain go from that short-term anxious mode into the sort of bigger picture, you know, perspective about this whole situation. Um, so that's, that's my little tip for that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:18 I like that a lot. I love that. I've not heard that, that sort of looking at something in the, in, very close to you, like a leaf, and then suddenly going to that big, wide peripheral view. Uh, that's a really nice... There's a, there's a nice analogy there, isn't there? It's, it's really... Yeah, I'm, I'm definitely gonna try that, for sure. Um, what you said there actually reminds me of a chat I had just a few days ago. A really good friend of mine runs a, a fitness business. Uh, I won't say too much, but she runs a fitness business, and, um, you know, has been going through some hard times, and obviously has not been able to run classes-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:05:55 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:55 ... over the past however many weeks it has been now. And was actually saying to me that actually, "You know what? I know I've needed a break for ages, and actually this has, in some way, this has been really good because it's given me that break."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:11 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:11 Um, "But I keep sort of deferring, I keep saying to people who want me to do online classes, 'I just, I just don't want to at the moment. I wanna-"

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:18 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:18 ... "just rest.'" And I said, "Are you okay financially?" She said, "Yeah, I'm, I'm fine financially. I've... You know, my partner is able to work through this, and so we're okay." And she said, "Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna defer the decision. In a couple of weeks I'll decide or, or maybe in three weeks I'll decide again." And I said, "Hey, you know what? If you really know you need this time, and financially you're okay, what would the world look like if you said, 'You know what? I'm not gonna restart till September,' and then you're not constantly deferring that decision for two weeks?"

Dr. Tara Swart 1:06:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:48 So that stress is building, oh, then it goes off. Stress is building, then it eases off again. Why not, you know, really take that opportunity to go, if you can, to go, "Yeah, you know what? I'm not working for the next two months."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:01 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:01 "I'm gonna recuperate. I'm gonna enjoy my time, walk in some nature." Um, and again, to really bring it back to something that happened in my life yesterday, um, so my wife, she produces this podcast-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:13 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:13 ... and she works very, very hard on it. And yesterday, you know, she was homeschooling the kids a lot. She was, you know, she was, she was super busy, and she was getting- You know, mid-afternoon it was like sort of frustration in some ways that she hadn't managed to get her work done.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:28 And it was building up there. And I said, "Hey, babe, listen, you know, it, it, maybe just embrace the fact that actually you're not working today, and actually, you know, that it's a day off." And she goes, "Yeah, I should've done that, but all morning and all afternoon-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:42 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:42 ... I've been getting frustrated." So-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:07:44 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:44 ... it- it's sometimes it's about... And I- I know it's easy with hindsight, but it's sometimes better to go, "Hey, you know what? I'm having today off," and embrace the fact and don't constantly think about your emails or your workload. It's, you know, I'm- I'm hoping those two stories I shared there may be of some value to somebody listening to this right now.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:08:03 Yeah, because actually, you know, often we say, "Oh, well, the benefit of hindsight, it's too late," kind of thing. But actually, at the moment, it's not too late, because you can have that day off.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:11 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:08:11 You can defer something. I mean, I think your friend in the fitness industry, if they say, "Okay, I'm not gonna work till September," if they change their mind in the meantime, great, fine. But if they don't, they've given themselves permission. Um, and, you know, l- like we've said repeatedly throughout this, you know, if, in whichever way you're privileged to make certain choices, now is the time to make them. And even if it's, you do it a day, a day too late, 'cause it's hindsight, but you can still do it. You know, I have, one of my favorite phrases is, "The best time to plant an oak tree was 200 years ago. The second best time is today."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:46 I love science, right? But science does not explain everything about life. In fact, you can argue that that's the job of science, is to try and understand the reality of life.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:08:56 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:56 And it's a best guess based-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:08:57 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:57 ... upon the data you have at that time.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:08:59 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:00 It's not fact. It's not like a proven truth that can never be questioned.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:09:06 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:06 And it often is put out like that these days. It's like, well, sometimes we don't have science to prove something. It's like, yeah, it doesn't mean it's not true. It just means we, we don't know yet how to explain that. Do you know what I mean?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:09:19 Yeah, totally. I mean, you know, 20 th- 20, 25 years ago, we didn't know about neuroplasticity.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:27 Yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:09:28 So, you know, that's... But what we knew at the time was the truth at the time, but science is continually evolving.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:35 Just give us a one-liner on neuroplasticity.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:09:38 So, so we used to believe that by the time you stopped physically growing, that your brain was then fixed and that it never changed, so that your personality, your IQ, your creativity, those things couldn't change throughout your life. But now we know that the brain actively grows and changes till we're 25, about 25, and that if you, you know, take on new experiences, you learn new things, then you can keep, you know, changing your brain. So the b- the fact that the brain is flexible, what, what we in science terms call plastic. Um, I mean, I remember when I was at medical school, which was a bit before you, um, there was a, a discovery about the pancreas that we'd never known before. [laughs] And I remember thinking, we've all, humans have had a pancreas for, like, thousand, you know, tens of thousands of years and, but we never knew this, these particular cells existed in the pancreas.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:28 Yeah. I don't know if you heard this at medical school. We were told in first year by one of our professors that 50% of what you learn is going to be shown to be untrue.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:10:40 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:40 The problem is, we don't know which 50%.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:10:42 Oh, no. [laughs] No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:44 But I, I actually love that, because actually you can either, and as a young, you know, as 18, young, as a young 18-year-old, you know, you probably don't want that uncertainty. You wanna believe that you are-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:00 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:00 ... being told everything, and everything you're being told is the truth.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:02 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:03 But I actually think that pattern misserves our profession. I think there's a lot of doctors out there who still believe that everything they learnt at medical school is absolutely true.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:15 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:16 And things have moved on.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:17 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:17 Some of it is, some of it's partially true, some of it is not quite true in the way we learnt it. We've evolved our understanding.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:23 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:23 So you have to be okay with not knowing. You have to be okay with thinking, "Well, there's something more here."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:31 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:31 I mean,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:31 let's just, let's just go back to death for a minute-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:33 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:33 ... Tara, right? Because I think what you said's really interesting. My first real experience with death was when my dad died-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:44 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:44 ... just over 10 years ago now.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:46 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:47 And, and I was a mess for a long time, because looking after Dad was my identity, so it was a-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:52 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:52 ... huge hole for me. It was the first time I'd ever really-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:55 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:55 ... had to deal with death.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:57 Yeah. Personally.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:58 Personally.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:11:59 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:59 Yeah. Now, the last year has been incredibly challenging for me, um, for a number of reasons.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:12:11 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:14 As we record this, you know, 12 months ago today, Mom was actually pretty good.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:12:23 Oh, no.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:28 And on Christmas Day last year, everything went r- took a, took a turn for the worse.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:12:33 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:37 She went into hospital for three weeks, and since she's come out, she's not the same as she was. And it's interesting, as we come up to that one-year point-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:12:45 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:45 ... um, I was reflecting yesterday of how different my life was 12 months ago, 'cause I live very near to Mom and I see her most days.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:12:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:56 And when she was in hospital, she had delirium.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:02 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:03 So she, she was in A&E for three days. Um, the hospitals were slammed, and it was, it was such a traumatic experience to see someone, you know, be... You know, if people have seen delirium, I've seen it in patients-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:18 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:18 ... it's clearly a different matter when you see it with your mother.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:23 And then since Mom's come home, which she's been home for ages now- I've really been questioning my, myself this year as to, as to what is the human experience, right? Because mum's still there, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:42 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:42 So I can see her.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:44 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:44 I can hold her. I can hold her hand.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:46 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:47 I can't talk to her in quite the same way as I used to be able to.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:50 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:52 But actually, for the last few months, there's a stability there-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:57 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:57 ... and mum seems really calm to me.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:13:59 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:00 Right? So she's, she, she's pretty dependent on help for, for most things.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:05 Well, for everything, frankly. But I've been questioning what the hell is the human experience, right? Because now, when I go and see mum, it's variable from day to day-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:20 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:20 ... but there's a calmness. There's a really beautiful calmness and warm energy.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:26 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:27 I thank God for much of mum's life she's been busy. She had dad to look after, me and my brothers to look after.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:33 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:33 Go, go, go, go, go.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:34 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:35 There's a real calm, and I'm experiencing that not through words-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:40 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:43 ... through just sitting there and trying to connect with what am I feeling here.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:46 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:47 I feel a calmness from my mum who isn't as... She's not the same person, I would say, in some ways-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:53 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:53 ... as she was 12 months ago. But what does that mean, not the same person?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:14:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:57 Well, it still looks like mum. She's still in the same room. I'm still able to go and be with her and enjoy my time with her.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:03 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:04 So I don't know. Help me through all that. What does that mean? What, what can we learn from these experiences?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:10 I mean, this is exactly the reason that I'm looking into the stuff that I'm doing, because, you know, clearly this is, like, very upsetting for you. And please don't underestimate how traumatic it is for a doctor to see their own family really sick in hospital. It is, I think, actually worse than if you're not a doctor. Um, and I'm not, you know, belittling anyone else's experience, but when you've been used to being a doctor and caring for people and seeing all sorts of things, there's something extra traumatic about-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:42 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:42 ... that being one of your loved ones. And, you know, you really need to, um, acknowledge that, because I think that will help you to heal-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:50 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 1:15:50 ... you know, better than if you didn't, if you didn't think about it like that. So yeah. So this, you know, the... Like I said, there are s- there isn't really anyone I know that didn't, hasn't lost someone in the last... You know, or, you know, lost in a way. Like you said, your mum is still here, but it's not the same. Um, you know, and then, then there are people who physically aren't here, um, anymore. The, uh... W- as I've looked into death and grief, there, there does seem to be a period, a sort of a peaceful period, um, that can be for, you know, very varying lengths of time. Um, you know, for some people it's a matter of days, but it can also go on, you know, for a very long time. Um, and you know what I was thinking? And, and this is probably something you're gonna say like, "R- really? You said that on a mic?" But as you were speaking about your mum, and, like, not necessarily being able to communi- communicate verbally, remember, like, you were physically inside her body at one point. You shared her immune system for the first, uh, probably six months minimum of your life. You and her can communicate with each other without words. I'm, I'm so sure of that. I can't prove it, but that, that is why I'm doing the research that I'm doing, because I think we are capable of so much more with our consciousness than we, than we know. And I think, I think we've actually forgotten stuff that we knew, and I hope, and please tell me if this is true, that, uh, you know, later today or tomorrow when you ne- next go and see your mum, that you might feel that there is some other kind of communication that's possible.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:36 I mean, I'll definitely let you know.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:38 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:38 I think what this encourages me to do is next time I'm with mum is to just sit there. Like, it's really interesting what I've learnt, um... And it's interesting. Like, you can learn through science and knowledge or you can learn through experience.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:17:55 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:56 Right? And they're not always the same thing. So I know the science of touch and-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:02 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:02 ... how powerful, you know, safe, affectionate human touch is-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:09 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:09 ... and how these CT afferent nerve fibers go all the way into our limbic system and our-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:14 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:14 ... emotional brain and help lower cortisol. I wrote a chapter on it in my book on stress, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:17 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:17 So I, I know the science of it, but I think you, you could look at this and go, we default to verbal communication because that's what we're trained in. That's what's easier.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:28 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:29 So this is really interesting. I've not really thought about it like this before. Because that is no longer where it used to be-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:38 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:38 ... and I can't change that-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:41 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:42 ... my only option is, if I want that deep connection, I can't do it with words.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:18:50 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:52 So I've made a, um, a real effort to not be rushed around mum. When she was more able than she is now-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:01 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:01 ... and was walking around and doing her stuff-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:04 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:04 ... you know, I was busy and rushing around, and I'd pop in to see mum and do a few things, but I was always rushing to get out and all this kind of stuff, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:12 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:12 But I never do that. Like, I literally never do that anymore.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:16 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:17 Because I'm like, "No." You know, in fact, last week I was working from home on one day and I was out for a walk. I thought I'd just drop in and see mum for 10 minutes, but I've got to get back. I've got work to do.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:25 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:28 And mum was having a good day, and she said, "Oh, are you going?"

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:31 Aw.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:31 I said, "Oh, Mum, you know, it's, it's kind of Tuesday. I've got, I've got a bit of work to do."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:35 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:36 Said, "Oh," you know. I said, "Oh, do you want me to stay?" "Oh, yeah, 'cause sometimes I'm just, I'm just by myself." And do you know what? I just thought, "You know what? Screw it. I'm staying here."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:49 And, yes, on that day, I was able to make that decision.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:53 I recognize, as I say that, that some people are in jobs-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:56 ... or they have s- days in the week where they can't do that.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:19:58 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:59 But I could.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:00 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:00 And I could have made the case to myself, "Now you've gotta get this work done."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:04 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:05 And would it have been better to get that work done?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:07 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:07 Well-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:08 Absolutely not

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:08 ... for my work it probably would've done, but for me and my mum, and I'm, I'm so aware that there's not many more days like this left.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:18 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:19 And so I wanna be present for them all.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:22 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:23 And just finishing the loop of what I was saying before is, um, I'll just sit there, and I'll hold, and I'll stroke, because you can have a, a deep level of communication through touch.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:37 You absolutely can.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:39 And you can suddenly see Mum smiling.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:41 Right? And it's lovely. But I never would've done that in that way if she was speaking. So I like to look at everything in life as an opportunity.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:48 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:48 But then, well, the opportunity of verbal communication is not what it was.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:54 So what's the opportunity? The opportunity is, well, I can get better at communication through skin.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:20:59 Yeah. But also you can talk to her, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:03 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which, I'm, you know, she would like, even if it's a bit of a monologue sometimes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:11 It's interesting, isn't it?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:12 Yeah. I think, you know, I imagine that in that, you know, in that state, just things like silly things that the kids did, or like, you know, what you had, what you cooked for dinner last night. You know, it's, if, if she said, "Because sometimes I'm on my own," then basically she's probably a bit bored and just wants to hear about normal life and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:31 Yeah

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:31 ... yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:33 Yeah. I mean, there's some deep rabbit holes to go down on death, for sure.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:37 And, and I think maybe it's a reflection of getting older and coming across death that makes us actually think about it more, right?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:21:45 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:47 On your last season of your podcast, when you went down this rabbit hole, is there one moment, is there one person, one guest where you heard something where you thought, "I, I didn't know that. I didn't think that was possible, but now you're making me think"?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:22:10 Yeah. It was, it started with, with Alexander Batthyány, the, um, Austrian psychologist. And actually, I recorded him quite late on, but I brought him up into the number two slot because I was so excited about that. And it was, and a, a similar message was kind of repeated by Dr. Bruce Greyson. But, you know, I really pushed him on this point of can the consciousness exist after physical death? And he said, "You know, even my friends and family are like, 'It's okay, Alex. You can tell us. We won't tell anyone.'" And he, and you know, he again said, "It can't be proven, but I have a strong impression." And then he talked for a while, and I said, "Yeah, you've just said quite a lot without really saying anything." And he said, "Tara, no one has ever pushed me this hard [laughs] to actually answer this question." And, and I said, "From what... I'm, I'm not gonna put words into your mouth, but from what you have just said, I am gonna say that the answer to that is yes."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:08 Let's look at this a different way. Does it actually matter? And where I'm coming from with that question-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:19 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:21 ... is, let's say that this is all nonsense.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:25 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:25 Right?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:26 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:26 And it's not real.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:26 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:27 Okay? And again, to reiterate, you have said on many times this can't be proven.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:32 Right? Or you don't have the proof for it.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:34 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:34 This is just-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:34 No one does

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:35 ... your-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:36 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:36 ... investigation and research and, and your-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:38 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:38 ... your passion or-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:39 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:39 ... whatever it might be. If we think about what you said earlier about the brain, and we were talking about the brain and how it's, um, logging all of our experiences.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:51 Right? So w- it may not be conscious, but within our subconscious we have all this experience-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:23:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:58 ... and therefore, at an appropriate time in my life-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:01 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:02 ... maybe it's just all internal and not anything external.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:07 You could say that, couldn't you?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:08 You could absolutely say that. What I'm trying to say is, because currently we don't believe that it's possible to have any communication with a, a lost loved one, right? What if it is possible, but because we don't think it's true, we're not doing it? That, that's the question that I'm posing.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:28 That's a whole nother podcast in itself, Tara. [laughs]

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:31 [laughs] I know. And I don't, I'm still looking into it. I don't have the answers yet.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:35 And when you do, I, I look forward to that conversation.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:24:38 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:39 Um, just changing direction slightly at the end of our conversation, a lot of people listen to this show because they want help at... They want help in leading more meaningful, happier, healthier lives.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:06 Right? We've covered a lot. I think there's been lots of practical guidance woven in throughout our conversation.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:13 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:13 I certainly hope so.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:14 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:15 To finish off, though, I wanna talk about why people struggle to make changes in their life.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:23 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:25 Let's take New Year's resolutions as an example.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:27 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:27 They are notoriously unsuccessful.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:31 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:32 Right? What is it? Is it 80% of people who s- who make them, by the first week in February are no longer doing them?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:38 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:38 Something like that.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:39 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:40 Right? In your opinion, what is the biggest obstacle in people's lives that stops them from moving forward?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:25:52 Um, that the goal that they've set is too big, and so it's not achievable. So it's not so much to do with h- the sustainability of it, it's the fact that it's too big in the first place, and therefore, the effort that is required for that big a change is, is so much effort that you're more likely to give up quickly. So the year that was a game changer for me was the year that I decided to add in two or three micro habits per quarter. So I started the year, and I identified three things that I was going to do. And also knowing that some quarters, one of those was just gonna fall by the wayside and not actually get incorporated. But what it meant was, 'cause they were such easy things, that by the end of, you know, by the end of March, I was like, "Okay, uh, like what else can I do?" So another three. Um, and it meant that by the end of the year, I looked back, and I had 10 things that I was now doing without question that had not been habits the year before. But, you know, when I've set something bigger than that, I don't come to the end of the year and say, "Oh, I've, you know, achieved that New Year's resolution."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:02 So on a, on a kind of rational conscious mind, practical, through that kind of lens, that is very consistent with what I've found in clinical practice. That's very consistent with, let's say, Professor BJ Fogg's research-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:27:18 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:18 ... on behavior change-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:27:19 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:19 ... from Stanford. This idea that it's tiny habits, it's small changes-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:27:24 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:24 ... that actually are the ones that we manage to introduce into our life and make sustainable.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:27:29 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:29 Yeah? There's also the subconscious patterning within us though as well.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:27:34 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:36 I believe, and this was definitely true for me, that the reason why a lot of behavior change fails, I completely agree about the small habits, but I think one of the reasons, for example, why New Year's resolutions fail is because I think they come from an energy of lack-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:27:55 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:55 ... rather than an energy of abundance.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:27:57 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:58 Right? So what can I do to punish myself? I'm not good enough at the moment. There's, you know, my life isn't going the way. I need to make this big, yes.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:07 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:08 But also, I'm not doing it because I like who I am, and I like the person that I am-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:15 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:15 ... being in the world.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:16 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:16 I'm doing it in some way to punish myself.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:19 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:20 And I used to do that. I used to be damn good for 21 days on meditation for 20 minutes a day. I'd be like, "Yeah, this year, I'm rocking it. I'm doing it."

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:28 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:29 And then I'd miss it one day.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:30 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:31 This is a few years back. Oh my God, the self-talk about what a failure I was-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:36 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:36 ... and how I couldn't even stick to it that year, right? That, that I've realized was the issue.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:45 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:45 The issue wasn't the meditation. It wasn't the wrong habit. The issue was the energy behind that decision, whereas now I don't make them. I actually really like who I am, you know?

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:55 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:55 I know that sounds ridiculous, but I don't think I did-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:57 That's good

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:57 ... 10 years ago. I like-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:28:58 That's good

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:59 ... I like the person I am. I had to do a lot of work to get to that point.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:29:02 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:03 So now I don't beat myself up.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:29:04 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:04 And now the changes I choose to make, whether it be in January or July-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:29:09 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:09 ... or November tend to be sustainable-

Dr. Tara Swart 1:29:12 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:13 ... because of the energy behind them.

Dr. Tara Swart 1:29:15 Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Um, the, the lack and abundance point is a really, really good one. And very commonly in my coaching practice, I will see people, you know, miss a day or, you know, miss a whatever it... M- Miss the regularity of the habit and then say, "Oh, that's it. I've, you know, I've, I've messed that up now." And I'm always like, "Don't put any energy into beating yourself up. Just start again." You know, 'cause next time it'll be 31 days, and then maybe you'll miss a day, and then, you know, next time it'll be 41. But I think the point is that when we start, we're like, "If I'm doing this, I've got to do it every day." Why do you have to do it every day? Like when you said to me at the start, oh, your daily journaling practice, I thought, "I'm not gonna lie about that. I don't do it every day." [laughs] But it is a practice in my life-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:06 Mm

Dr. Tara Swart 1:30:06 ... you know? Um, and that's okay.

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