#1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same

Today, you are getting a step-by-step guide on how to change your brain. Joining Mel is neuroscientist Dr. Lara Boyd, a professor at the University of British Columbia who directs the Brain Behaviour Lab there. This #1 neuroscientist will teach you how to rewire your brain at any age. There's a personal reason she's devoted her life to this work. Before becoming a neuroscientist, Dr. Boyd was a physical therapist. She spent three months unsuccessfully trying to help a man with a brain injury learn to walk again. Frustrated by how little she understood what was happening inside his brain, Dr. Boyd quit her job, got her PhD in neuroscience, and dedicated her career to figuring out how the brain learns and changes. Her message is incredibly hopeful: You are never too old, too late, or too set in your ways to change who you are and what you’re capable of. But becoming who you want to be doesn’t happen by accident. Dr. Boyd reveals what really reshapes your brain, what happens when you challenge yourself to do hard things, and how to make what you practice stick. In this episode, you’ll learn: -How to rewire your brain at any age -How doing challenging things can help your brain learn and change -The #1 driver of change in your brain -The daily habit that Dr. Boyd calls “rocket fuel” for your brain -How to prime your brain for success and the truth about manifestation -How to make lasting change, even if you’ve felt stuck for years Class is in session, because after you listen to this, your brain will not be the same. For more resources related to today’s episode, click here for the podcast episode page. If you liked this episode, listen to this one next: How to Stop Negative Thoughts & Reset Your Mind for Positive Thinking. Mel also wants to tell you: Try the 23g protein shot I drink every single morning Join 2 million readers loving my weekly newsletter - full of tips, tools, and inspiration The Let Them Theory: read the book everyone’s talking about Watch the episodes on YouTube Connect with me on Instagram Follow the show’s Instagram for clips, behind the scenes, and more Find some daily positivity on my TikTok Want zero ads? Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes ad-free Disclaimer

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 0:09Mel Robbins?

  Today's conversation is going to blow your mind because we have one of the world's leading neuroscientists here with scientific proof that you can change. In fact, Dr. Laura Boyd will tell you, by just choosing to hit play on this episode, your brain will never be the same. Dr. Boyd knows what she's talking about because she has spent decades studying the remarkable ways your brain can adapt, recover, and keep learning even after a serious injury. And what she's going to teach you today will change the way you think about your own potential. Dr. Boyd is going to teach you three key ways to set your brain up for success.

• 0:52Mel Robbins?

  She's going to give you a whole new way to think about struggle. And once you understand how your brain works, you can start using your brain to learn better, to make progress that sticks, to push past what you thought were your limits. And through the science of neuroplasticity, you will realize you are capable of so much more.

• 1:19Mel Robbins?

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• 2:01Mel Robbins?

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• 2:46Mel Robbins?

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• 2:54Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I'm so thrilled that you're here today. You're going to love this conversation. It's an honor to be together. I love spending time with you. If you're new here or somebody sent you this episode, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. And what I love about today's episode is our expert says that simply by listening to today's conversation, your brain is going to change. Your brain will not be the same by just listening to this. How cool is that? Dr. Laura Boyd is a world-renowned neuroscientist, physical therapist, and award-winning researcher on neuroplasticity, which is your brain's ability to change throughout your life. Dr. Boyd is a distinguished university scholar and professor at the University of British Columbia.

• 3:39Mel Robbins?

  She also directs the university's Brain Behavior Laboratory, where she studies how the brain learns and adapts after injury and illness. Her TEDx Talk on the remarkable power of your brain to grow and change has been viewed more than 45 million times. Please help me welcome Dr. Laura Boyd to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 4:00Mel Robbins?

  I'm so excited you're here.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  I've been looking forward to this so much.

• 4:03Mel Robbins?

  I love your research. I love this topic.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 4:07Mel Robbins?

  And here's where I want to start.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:10Mel Robbins?

  So there's a person who is listening right now, who has no time, but they've made time because, Dr. Boyd, they really want to learn from you. If they take everything to heart that you're about to teach us about the brain, neuroplasticity, the fact that we can change over time, what could improve about their life?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  I want to start by saying, I listen to the show, and I've heard you say many times that people can change their brains. They have this fundamental capacity for change. I absolutely couldn't agree with you more. I want to take that idea and I want to stretch it. And with that knowledge, it should be very empowering for you to go out and continue to make that change, to understand why sometimes it's hard, why sometimes you struggle, why sometimes you fail. And I hope you walk away knowing that all of those things, failure, struggle, difficulty, are actually very good for the brain, very healthy for the brain. I want to give you an example of the power of that. So did you know that if you take schoolchildren and you teach them their brain changes when they learn, their grades go up? That's remarkable.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Like, you can improve your child's grades just by helping them understand.

• 5:21Mel Robbins?

  That's all I needed to do?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  I know.

• 5:23Mel Robbins?

  Where were you when they were in high school, Dr. Boyd? Really, you just tell children?

• 5:27Speaker 01

  This power of knowing they have the capacity for change shifts their mindset and enables better academic performance. So here's the important key ingredient, if you will. The single largest driver of change in our brain is our experience. There's no drug, there's no magic bullet, it's the experience you engage in. So if you know that, then you can choose experiences that are really positive, that are things you want to learn, places you want to be, people that are healthy and positive for you. And by doing that, you're shaping your brain. And so by engaging with Mel and I today and having this conversation with us, your brain

• 6:12Speaker 01

  will not be the same after this conversation as it is when we began, right now. From here forward, it changes. And I just think that's amazing. And I hope you do too. And I hope you do too, because it's just the most exciting thing.

• 6:26Mel Robbins?

  Dr. Boyd, I'm not sure I've had anyone sit in that chair that's caused me to have goosebumps that quickly into the episode. Often in life, it's easy to feel as if life is coming at you and all you can do is respond. But when you said the word "experiences you engage in," it made me feel empowered and it made me think that maybe I have more control over the way my life feels than I currently do. Could you just kind of broaden what you meant by experiences you choose to engage in?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  So we know experience is what's changing our brain, but we also understand that engagement and motivation are large influencers on those experiences. So we see a larger effect of things that we're paying attention to, we're motivated to learn, we're engaged in, we're working hard at. Those are going to change your brain to a larger capacity, to a greater degree than things that we may be more passively observing, letting come by us in different ways. We can actually see this when we do imaging studies of the brain of people who are engaged versus kind of passive experiencers.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  We see different networks of the brain light up, and we see different long-term effects of those experiences, if you will, of that engagement.

• 7:59Mel Robbins?

  That's super cool to think that based on some of the choices that you're going to talk to us about, we have the ability to actively change our brains and that that can improve our lives. For the person who does not know the term "neuroplasticity," could you just, Dr. Boyd, explain what is neuroplasticity?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Neuroplasticity just means brain change. Your brain is, now we understand, to be incredibly plastic, so malleable, so it's changing and shifting. And it's doing that all the time. It's been doing that from the moment you took your first breath, and it's going to do it until you take your last breath. So this is a lifetime of change in our brain.

• 8:44Mel Robbins?

  Why did you want to become a neuroscientist?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  I'm very interested in learning. I always have been. And my first career was actually as a physical therapist. And my job was to help people with brain injuries and stroke get better. Now, this was in the early 1990s, so a long time ago. And I had a patient that broke me, to be quite honest. A young man, he'd had a bad head injury. He was a wonderful young man, beautiful family, lots of support. And he needed to be able to walk to go home so his family could take care of him. And we worked so hard. I worked with him for three months. We did everything. I asked for help from experts.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  He worked so hard, I worked so hard, and I couldn't help him. And it forced me to come to a decision point. So I realized, I was a car mechanic who didn't know how the engine worked, and you brought me your car, and it was your precious car, and I couldn't fix it. In a moment that could probably be described as a professional tantrum, because this all happened within two weeks, I quit my job and I applied for a doctorate and I went back to school. And I have been trying to understand how the brain works when we learn, and in particular then what happens after it's damaged and we're still learning and relearning ever since.

• 10:08Mel Robbins?

  You know, Dr. Boyd, this will probably be the only time I actually correct you. In the conversation we are having today, I would not call that a professional tantrum. Oprah Winfrey would call that an aha moment.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Okay. We can reframe it then. I like that. At the time, it felt a little self-indulgent.

• 10:27Mel Robbins?

  Uh huh.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  I think my parents were alarmed.

• 10:29Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  But I just felt I had to make a change. I couldn't continue this way. There had to be more. I had to understand more in order for me to be able to help people.

• 10:38Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  And here we are.

• 10:40Mel Robbins?

  I love that. And you know what else I love about that is that it's easy to think that you are stuck doing what you're currently doing. And your story, both in being a physical therapist and wanting so much to make a difference, and saying, "I have to learn more. I have to figure this out," changed the trajectory of your life. And now, here we are, 30 years later, and you're about to teach us everything that you've learned in your research that will help us use our brains to change our lives. I mean, talk about full circle.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  It's pretty exciting.

• 11:15Mel Robbins?

  Yes. I'll take that kind of professional tantrum.

• 11:20Mel Robbins?

  So what have you discovered, Dr. Boyd, is really happening inside the brain when we learn something new?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  So when we learn, we're changing our brain in three fundamental ways. So we change the brain's chemistry, we change its structure, and then we change its function. And so the first thing that happens when we start to change our brain is this change in brain chemistry. And this is because our brains communicate through the sending of small chemical packets, if you will, they're called neurotransmitters, just little chemical signals that go from brain cell to brain cell. Now, what's exciting about these chemical transmissions is the chemistry of our brain can change quickly, really fast. This is the basis of short-term memory. So we've all done that right away, even in this conversation. We're changing chemistry in our brain.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  We're creating these short-term memories that are going to allow us to maybe make a long-term memory and remember this tomorrow. Maybe not. That depends on a lot of different things.

• 12:21Mel Robbins?

  So give me an example of a short-term memory that just got created.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  So we were talking a little bit ago about my patient, for example, that struggled to recover. And that was now is in your short-term memory.

• 12:33Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  So you may have recalled a certain detail about that or not.

• 12:37Mel Robbins?

  He couldn't walk and he needed to be able to walk in order to go home.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  To go home. So tomorrow, maybe you remember just that he needed to do something to be able to go home, but you can't, you don't get the walk part.

• 12:47Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  And so that would be a short-term memory. Now, if you do recall all of that tomorrow, you've created structural change in your brain.

• 12:54Mel Robbins?

  Ooh.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  So changing brain structure takes time, and critically, it also takes sleep.

• 12:59Mel Robbins?

  The third thing you said was function?

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Function, yes. So our brain operates as this integrated network of regions that are turning on and off together. And these regions are going to shift the way they're functioning together with practice and with learning.

• 13:15Mel Robbins?

  So for the person who's listening right now, because a lot of people listen and take us on a walk, or maybe right now you're listening and you're driving a car, can you explain kind of how you're using even more functions in your brain?

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Driving was the example I was heading for. Actually, you read my mind. Driving is such a complicated task, right? We have things we're doing with our feet, with our hands, we've got vision, we've got this complicated visual environment, and we're probably like listening to music, maybe eating our lunch, doing many, many things all at once. It's a wonderful example. So when you first learn to drive, you're very focused, right? You maybe don't have the radio on, you probably shouldn't have the radio on, and you're just focused on the operation of driving. As we become better and it becomes more automatic, we can pay less attention to the actual physical parts of driving. We're now continually to pay attention to the road, if you will.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  And that is allowing those other parts to be available to do different things, to listen to music, to maybe have a conversation on the phone, maybe to be able to eat or have a conversation in the car, right? And so because you've freed up those brain regions, they can do multiple things at once. And that's a part of learning.

• 14:28Mel Robbins?

  I'm curious, what has patients who have experienced a stroke or traumatic brain injury taught you about our brain's ability to change and grow?

• 14:39Speaker 01

  So firstly, working with people with stroke and head injuries, we now understand that the brain is capable of massive reorganization after that damage occurs. That reorganization has some critical time windows, though. So we know that very early after injury, the brain's neuroplastic capacity is very heightened, and it has this larger ability for reorganization. That capacity doesn't end. We continue to have it, but it does diminish with time. So you know it's really important to intervene early to help people recover. The other thing we've really learned is that we understand that there are areas of the brain that can take over lost functions.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  So things that can no longer be controlled by the area of the brain that's damaged can be taken up elsewhere. However, those functions are never quite as good, they're never quite as able as they were before. So people are going to recover some ability, but it may look different. The other thing that we've learned is that it matters a great deal how healthy the brain is before it's injured. So the story of a younger individual who maybe has an incident to their brain when they're 20 versus someone who has that same incident to their brain when they're 70, they're going to look very different in the outcome.

• 15:59Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  One thing that we understand is that immediately after the injury, the brain is less inhibited, which means it's more excitable. And that excitability seems to lend itself to more neuroplastic change. Now, this window of excitability after stroke, for example, seems to last 30 to 60 days, perhaps?

• 16:21Mel Robbins?

  Let me just make sure I'm tracking, because I think it's super important. So are you saying that the research shows that after somebody has had a stroke, there's a 30 to 60-day window where the brain is ripe for the interventions that help somebody recover from the stroke?

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 16:39Mel Robbins?

  That's cool.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  It's very cool. And it lines up with the timing of our interventions medically. However, at the end of that 60 days, let's say, most people are not fully recovered. This is where we run into trouble, because what happens? They get discharged from the hospital, and they go home, and they're struggling now in their daily life, and they may not have access to much continued therapy. Therapy's very expensive. However, if you can continue to intervene in that timeframe, you can draw out this period of recovery. We talk about it of keeping the window of neuroplasticity open. We can reopen and hold that window open, keep it going longer. But it takes a real important, dedicated effort.

• 17:21Mel Robbins?

  You said failure, struggle, difficulty are very good for the brain. Why?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  We've done studies using magnetic resonance imaging, so an MRI, like you might have on your knee. We can look at the brain, and we can see the brain changing in response to interventions and experiences. And what we found, what we think about, is that there's a sweet zone of difficulty. So I have something to show.

• 17:47Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  That's all right?

• 17:49Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  So I have this nice prop, if you will, to help explain this. So let's talk about difficulty and struggle.

• 17:55Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  We've done work scanning people's brains while they're learning. And what we've discovered is that if something's too easy, if we're over here, well, you don't need to change your brain because you can already do it, right? There's no need. It feels good, but you're not changing your brain. You're just repeating something you can already do. If something's too hard, right, if we're over in this zone?

• 18:20Mel Robbins?

  I'm quitting.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  You give up, right? You just can't accomplish it. And so there's no practice that can take place.

• 18:26Mel Robbins?

  Oh.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  You want to live here. You want to live where something is hard, where you're sometimes failing, but often you're succeeding, and you're struggling with that activity. And that's where actually we can map and show this is where you're changing brain. This is where neuroplasticity is actually taking place.

• 18:47Mel Robbins?

  Give me an example.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  So we have created a game, a computerized game for people with stroke, for example. And in this game, it's a very important game. You're going to use your stroke-affected hand, and you have to catch an asteroid before it hits the earth and blows us all up and we all die.

• 19:04Mel Robbins?

  That is an important game.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  It's an important game. And you get a score of how many lives you've saved. Your hand is a little spaceship, and you reach out and you catch this asteroid, and then you have to throw it into an extractor. And we actually, we do good, we extract minerals from it, and you get these little scores. So it's a motivating game, it's an engaging game, you're having an experience. And what we can do is, based upon the person's ability, make that game easier or harder, and then map their brain. And so we see that when we make that game hard, when they're struggling, when their success rate is right around 50, 60%, so it's hard, this is when we're seeing the most neuroplastic change.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  And specifically, we're seeing them change their brain structure most at that particular time as they're practicing the task. And importantly, for people with stroke, they're also changing their ability to move their stroke-affected arm. Because as they're chasing this asteroid, we are actually slowly moving them farther than they thought they could move. We're pulling them out farther away. And so this is kind of the sweet zone of difficulty that we've found. The important thing about this idea is that your optimal challenge Is going to be different for you, Mel, than it is for me. And it might be different for me from day to day. We have days where we're really good and days where things are just harder than they should be. And that's okay. That's reflecting where your brain is in that day.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  And as long as you're challenging yourself, you're changing your brain.

• 20:35Mel Robbins?

  How would you apply this to something like the gym? You know what I'm saying? Like getting yourself in that sweet spot where you don't really want to be doing it. It's very hard. I mean, I think it's kind of cool to think about the fact that the things that you push yourself to do that feel hard are really good, not just in the case of the gym for your muscles, but that the things that you push yourself to do that are really hard are really good for your brain development.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  And any example you take, it's true. So at the gym, you know, you're always pushing. You don't want to quite fail. You don't want to hurt yourself, but you're right on that edge. You lifted this amount, you know, two days ago, and now you're going to bump it up and you're going to bump it up. It's the same principle in your brain as you would with strength training. You're going to make it a bit harder and make it a bit harder. And this is true really for no matter, for whatever we're learning. It doesn't really matter. Struggle is going to be good. And you want to always be working towards this little bit harder level of difficulty.

• 21:34Mel Robbins?

  You are studying somebody who survived a stroke and you are forcing them to learn maybe new movements, whether it's moving an arm that had been impaired due to the stroke. And while they're doing it, you're mapping their brain and measuring chemistry, structure and function?

• 21:55Speaker 01

  We can measure all three of those in the MRI machine now. It's really exciting. So we can measure neurochemistry in certain areas of the brain and look at the chemical neural signal. We can image the structure of the brain in a couple of different ways, actually. We can look at how some brain regions will get larger with practice or smaller with less practice. And we can also then look at how the connections of the brain are changing. So how well connected is one brain region to another? And that's also a structural change. And then lastly, we do, it's called functional MRI, where we can see what areas of the brain are lighting up as people are doing different tasks and learning.

• 22:37Mel Robbins?

  What I love about this is you're not just showing up here going, yes, your brain can change neuroplasticity. So you're like, no, I have imagery. We study this. We can see the chemistry, the structure, the function. We see the changes happening in real time. And if this can happen in somebody's brain who has had a stroke, then I take it it can happen in mine and the person listening.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 23:02Mel Robbins?

  So for somebody that has a learning style, like I do, of dyslexia, or you've got other neurodivergent issues going on in your mind, what excites you, Dr. Boyd, about neuroplasticity and the brain's ability to change?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Whatever your learning style is, if there's a label on it, dyslexia or no, you still are very capable of neuroplasticity. Everyone is. And instead, I think we need to think about people as just learning differently. Maybe at a different scale, maybe at a different timeframe, but they're still learning. They're still making change in their brain. They're still showing neuroplasticity. So we did a study a few years ago where we took individuals who showed below average mathematic scores. And we had a large cohort. We had kids across the third grade and some with better mathematics scores. We actually were able to show that there was an area of the brain that was less well-developed in the children with the lower math scores.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  And so it was really a biological explanation for why they were struggling in math for that time in their life. And it suggests, to me at least, that it may be that these children have capacity to learn. Maybe their brain just isn't matured enough yet for that level of math. So this is a newer field called educational neuroscience, where we're starting to understand how school at least affects the brain. And at what points in different children's lives are they ready to learn certain things?

• 24:39Mel Robbins?

  That's so cool.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  So I really look forward to a time where we understand the brain well enough, where we can precisely prescribe what educational intervention are you ready for now? And what therapy is going to be appropriate for this person with a damaged brain? And really start to have precision around our interventions and our learning outcomes. So it could be that we look like we're learning the same and our brains are doing totally different things. We've done experiments where we find this. So we had a task, we asked a bunch of people, both healthy people and people with stroke to learn. And then we looked at, they all learned it, by the way. They all showed they learned. That was great.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  And then we looked at their brain activity and they were all doing something totally different, but they all learned. And that was kind of my first hint that like, oh, we have a problem here. We were thinking everyone did everything the same way before that. This is one of these things we've learned in our research. So from that forward, the question then becomes, is one of those strategies more effective? Or are they different ways to the same point, different pathways to the same endpoint? Maybe it doesn't matter. So as long as you're learning, you're doing it. Like, that's great.

• 25:52Mel Robbins?

  Well, what I'm learning from you, Dr. Boyd, is that everybody's brain is unique and different. But everybody's brain has this ability to grow, stretch and change based on what you force yourself to engage in, which is super cool.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:09Mel Robbins?

  Can you really change your brain at any age?

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I feel like I should just like throw the mic on the floor and walk out the door, but I won't.

• 26:17Mel Robbins?

  You can.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  No, we can. And that's what's just so astonishing and exciting. So that's really the big learning in the last 30 years, 25 years.

• 26:26Mel Robbins?

  My dad, who's 82.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Your dad, who's 82.

• 26:28Mel Robbins?

  My mother-in-law, who is 89, can change?

• 26:32Speaker 01

  She can absolutely change. I can change, you can change, and our kids are changing. And we will continue to change. The trick here is that you have to pick what you're changing. Because remember, we can change for better. We can also change for worse. And it's going to depend upon our experience and the experiences we're engaged in. If we're continuing to be engaged in things and we're continuing to experience in them deeply and struggle to learn them, our brain is going to change to do that. But if we do nothing or we do very little, then our brain will also change. And it won't be for the better. You will actually lose capacity. So it's just like a muscle. It's a use it or a lose it situation.

• 27:14Mel Robbins?

  I'm going to ask this question because I almost felt the person listening, thinking about somebody in their life, maybe a widower, maybe somebody who has gone through a divorce or lost a job. And you go through these seasons where you withdraw and you're grieving.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:32Mel Robbins?

  But if you are not engaging in life and you're not challenging yourself and you're not pushing yourself to do the hard thing, even if that just means leaving your house today or forcing yourself to apply for that new job, is there a period of time where you lose it?

• 27:50Speaker 01

  You do.

• 27:51Mel Robbins?

  What?

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Your brain is that neuroplastic. So if we're not engaged, what we see is we will see these losses in function. You even see kind of a wholesale reduction in capacity for neuroplasticity. You'll see increased inhibition in the brain, making it harder to actually get out. And so there's actually a neurobiological reason why it's hard. It doesn't just feel hard. It becomes hard to turn parts of your brain on. And there's some interesting examples of this. So people with depression, for example, have a much easier time remembering bad memories than good ones. So neurochemically, they become more inhibited.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  We see that after stroke as well, longer term after stroke. You'll see that part of why it's hard to move that stroke arm is because the corresponding brain region has now become over-inhibited and suppressed. And so it's hard to move it, kind of biomechanically, just the motion and the activity of the muscles. But it's also hard to even activate the brain to get it to move. And that's also neuroplasticity. So it's, it's kind of a promise of you can change if you want, but there's also peril in not changing and not engaging. We have phases in our life where that happens though, right? We become depressed, bad things happen, unfortunately, in the world. I think the important part to take away is that even if you are in one of those low places,

• 29:18Speaker 01

  you can push through it. You can start to take the small steps to reengage, to have different experiences and maybe take on some different activities that will promote you back towards a more excitable brain, a more neuroplastic brain in a positive direction.

• 29:36Mel Robbins?

  I also think it's helpful to know that if you're in a period in your life where you've been withdrawn or you're going through a challenge and everything feels hard, that your brain can still stretch itself. And the hard thing today is relative to the fact that you've been in this kind of withdrawal, grieving mode. And if you can push through and start to do the things that feel hard, that things will start to become easier.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Yes, they will eventually. I don't want to discount that it's hard though, because it's hard. And yeah, and we've all been there, right? It took us phases in our life.

• 30:18Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Right? But I do want to make sure that people understand that you can push through. And as you're pushing, it might feel like, might feel like you're pushing and nothing's moving. Right? But slowly by slowly, you can change back the other direction.

• 30:33Mel Robbins?

  You know what I love about how you teach, Dr. Boyd? You have this mix of science and encouragement that just feels very empowering. And I love that you're reminding us that it's important to keep going, especially when it's hard. This feels like a really good moment to just take a pause so we can give our amazing sponsors a chance to share a few words. But don't go anywhere, because when we come back, Dr. Boyd is going to share three simple things you can do based on the research to help you rewire your brain to learn better, remember more and better handle stress. So stay with me. We'll be right back after this short break.

• 31:15Mel Robbins?

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• 31:57Mel Robbins?

  Play championship golf courses surrounded by stunning Sonoran desert landscapes. And top it all off with beautiful desert scenery that instantly helps you disconnect. We spend so much time taking care of everyone else. Scottsdale is where you can finally take care of yourself. Visit unwindinsscottsdale.com to plan your trip this fall. Okay, what do you think I'm wearing right now? I know that sounds like an intimate question, doesn't it? No, just, just close your eyes. What do you think Mel Robbins is wearing? I am wearing a cashmere sweater. Mm-hmm. It's black, of course. I don't know, I always wear black. But you want to know where I get my cashmere sweaters? Our sponsor, Quince. And here's why I love Quince cashmere sweaters.

• 32:39Mel Robbins?

  First of all, they're warm, they're responsibly sourced, and the price point? Can you look this up right now, Cameron and Matt? They're going to look this up, just so I know. What, what is the price point for the Quince cashmere sweater? Yeah, look it up. The one I'm wearing is $50. You heard it here. And it's going to look like you spent $500 on it. Find the fall pieces you reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the Mel Robbins Podcast. It's the best way to support the show.

• 33:20Mel Robbins?

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• 34:03Mel Robbins?

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• 34:25Speaker 01

  Bad things happen, unfortunately, in the world. I think the important part to take away is that even if you are in one of those low places, you can push through it. You can start to take those small steps.

• 34:38Mel Robbins?

  That was Dr. Laura Boyd, a renowned professor at the University of British Columbia. And she says that just by listening to today's conversation, your brain will not be the same. That's one of the reasons why we love you, Dr. Boyd. You are making this easy for us. So here's another question I have. What are three things you can do to rewire your brain?

• 35:03Speaker 01

  The easiest three things would be sleep, exercise, and engage in activities that reduce your stress and in doing so, reduce your stress hormone cortisol.

• 35:14Mel Robbins?

  I want to dig into each one. So let's start with sleep and what happens in your brain and what happens with neuroplasticity and learning when you prioritize getting a good night's sleep?

• 35:26Speaker 01

  So when we're sleeping, we're taking those memories that were made in the short term by the changes in chemistry. And we're allowing the brain to consolidate them into a long-term memory. So this is actually the process of learning. Is you have to have sleep in the middle of practice and then practice again, and practice again, if you will, because that is where that chemical change is being transformed into a structural change in the brain. So I tell my students, I'm a professor at a big university, and I say, "You can't cram for the exam." I mean, you can. You could come in here, could stay up all night and form all these short-term memories and then write my exam as fast as possible, but you won't have learned it.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  So I hope you won't need that information later on. And since I teach in the med school, we're hoping they'll remember.

• 36:18Mel Robbins?

  What is happening in the brain when you sleep?

• 36:21Speaker 01

  So this is when we see structure actually changing in the brain. It's hard to map in a human brain because it's happening on such a small scale. But there's an idea that what we've done the day before is actually being replayed in our brains as we're sleeping. And so there's experiments done by people who need less sleep than I do because they stay up all night studying sleep. It's very ironic. But we're actually having people sleep all night long in an MRI scanner. And they can see that if they have someone practicing a task during the day and then they scan them all night, they'll actually see those same brain regions reactivated, almost as if we're practicing offline. Maybe we're replaying the memory as we're sleeping.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  That's one idea. There's some other ideas around different phases of sleep and how they may affect learnings. You know, we have these times in the night where we're deeply asleep, times in the night where our eyes are actually moving under our eyelids, called rapid eye movement. They may be supporting different types of memories. I think that the jury is still out scientifically as to exactly what is happening in sleep that is so essential. But certainly, we are very clear that if you don't sleep, you don't learn.

• 37:37Mel Robbins?

  Dr. Boyd, what are the brain-changing benefits of exercise?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Exercise is rocket fuel in the brain. And it can be many different forms of exercise. So any exercise helps. You don't have to sign up for the Boston Marathon. Okay, we're not going to get too crazy. You can if you want to. It's wonderful, very fun. You can walk, you can garden, you can dance. That's exercise. If you're tighter on time, the exercise that we study in my lab is called high-intensity interval training, so HIT.

• 38:07Mel Robbins?

  That sounds horrible.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Well, the good news is it only takes nine minutes.

• 38:11Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  So for the busy person, this might be for you. What, what we do in the lab is we pair these short bouts of very intense exercise. So people do three minutes at 85% of their maximal capacity, hard as they can. And I have stroke patients doing this. I have 85-year-olds doing this in my lab. They do that three times, and then they practice a task they're trying to learn. And we see significant increases in the amount that they learn in that task by pairing it with that exercise. And then we can map and see all the changes that exercise is inducing in the brain. So we did this amazing experiment in my lab. It's one of the best and most exciting ones we've ever done.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  My graduate student had people exercise and then practice a task. And we looked to see was there an effect of exercise versus no exercise on their learning? And we saw nothing. The not exercise and the exercise group look exactly the same. So they slept. And the exercise group had significantly improved from where they were the night before. They got better overnight with exercise, paired with the practice the day before. The rest group that didn't exercise, they just practiced the task. They look exactly the same. So it suggests to us, and we think that this is one of the things exercise is really doing, is that it's helping that consolidation process.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  So it's helping that overnight learning, if you will.

• 39:40Mel Robbins?

  So what exercises? Because now, now that you've told me that stroke patients are doing this, now I feel like I can't be complaining about it.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  So in my lab, we use a cycle, a bicycle that people can ride because it's in a tight lab environment. But any kind of high-intensity exercise or these interval trainings seem to be very powerful on the brain and actually also powerful on our metabolic system. So work from my colleague at the University of British Columbia, her name is Teresa Luis Ambrose. She's looked at strength training, this bouts of this very intense strength training, and shown that it is particularly powerful for women. And that what we find is that they are not falling as much. Their bone density and bone muscle mass goes up. That's all great. But what she found, that she didn't train at all, is their cognition, their thinking improved.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  And this seems to be a very particular advantage of the strength training in older women in particular. So that's another way. The other kind of benefit of all these exercise interventions, do you know what they do? They help you sleep. And so you see this kind of cycle go together, right? So you exercise, you sleep better, you're less depressed. And you might exercise, and you start to spin up what we call a positive feedback loop. So one positive behavior leverages the next and the next.

• 40:57Mel Robbins?

  So I want to talk about how I can do this at home. Because it sounds like if I push myself for three minutes on a bike or I lift some heavy stuff and do some strength training, I'm going to get some, some like brain juice that makes me remember things or learn faster or just think clearer? Or is that what's going on? Like, how do we apply this?

• 41:17Speaker 01

  How do you apply it?

• 41:17Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  So if you engage in any exercise, what you're actually doing is releasing a neurochemical that makes your brain more neuroplastic. It's called brain-derived neurotrophic factor. And what it does is it allows our neurons to reorganize more easily. And so it's a byproduct of exercise specifically in both our muscles and our brain.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  What type of exercise you engage in? It depends on what you enjoy. Remember, we came back to engagement and enjoyment. So what is it that you like to do? I like to cycle and run, and I love to ski. Those are my three favorites. Maybe you really enjoy walking or rock climbing. It really could be anything.

• 42:02Mel Robbins?

  And do I have to do it for a certain period of time? Or is just literally getting your rear end out the door for a lousy walk around the block and moving your body will start to activate, not a technical term, my term, brain juice?

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:16Mel Robbins?

  To help you think more clearly?

• 42:17Speaker 01

  It will.

• 42:19Mel Robbins?

  That's pretty cool.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  I think it's amazing.

• 42:21Mel Robbins?

  And the third thing that you said that is really good for brain health and neuroplasticity is anything that you do that lowers your stress.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  So when we're stressed, we release a stress hormone cortisol. And cortisol has this negative effect of blocking the growth factors that allow the brain to be more neuroplastic. So they compete. So I sometimes describe this as imagine you've got just a few parking spots in your brain. And if cortisol is parked in them, we can't get our trophic factors that allow brain change into that same spot. It's full. So if the parking lot's full flooded with cortisol, we're not nearly as capable of learning as if we can reverse those cortisol cars out and allow our trophic factors to come in

• 43:13Speaker 01

  and now allow the brain to be more capable of neuroplasticity. We actually did a study in my lab some years ago, and we were looking at people who practice yoga versus runners. My student brought me this study. And I will tell you, I'm a runner. And I was like, oh, the runners are going to be better than the yoga people. I live in Vancouver, so everyone does yoga. So I have great disdain because I don't do yoga because I'm very inflexible. So.

• 43:37Mel Robbins?

  Well, you know, you can change, Dr. Boyd.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  I know I can.

• 43:40Mel Robbins?

  If you do hard things to get on that mat, your brain and your flexibility will change.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  It would be so much better. And I really should. And when I tell you the findings of this study, am I going to feel silly? Because what we looked at was how people responded to a stressful environment, a stressful situation. We had people in the MRI machine. We're imaging their brains as we're putting them into happy, fearful and stressful situations. And we're looking at how the amygdala reacts. And in those runners, that amygdala lit up like a fireball. And I felt kind of silly because in our participants who practiced yoga, and these were not people who did a million hours a week, did three recreational classes a week, maybe, maybe two. What we saw was the amygdala turned on, but then other memory structures turned on.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  And so our inference and from our interviews with these folks, we took away, they were able to see that environment, that stressful environment, and observe it and judge it, but they weren't taken over by it. And so there maybe is something to these practices of meditation, mindfulness, maybe that's a part of yoga, that may give people an ability to more easily deal with a stressful situation when they see it. We, right now, are running a study of meditation or a mindfulness intervention called loving kindness meditation. And so what we've done is we've taken teachers, we've looked at their burnout rates, their rates of depression and anxiety.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  They've engaged in this loving kindness intervention, meditation intervention. And they practice it on their own for 30 days. They have one class, they practice it, they come back, and we see significant change in their levels of burnout and in their brain.

• 45:25Mel Robbins?

  So your hypothesis, so to speak, because you're in the middle of this study, so this particular form of meditation. And can you explain for the person, just briefly, who does not know?

• 45:37Speaker 01

  What that is.

• 45:37Mel Robbins?

  Because I only recently figured out what this was.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Sure. It's a form of practicing self compassion. So just giving yourself a break. And I don't know if there's anything special about this form of meditation. I think the practice that you can find or the environment you can put yourself in to reduce your cortisol, to be more mindful, to be compassionate with yourself. All of those things are incredibly helpful. And we can see their impact on the brain.

• 46:06Mel Robbins?

  That's so cool.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 46:08Mel Robbins?

  Dr. Boyd, how long does it take to rewire your brain?

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Well, we just did it.

• 46:14Mel Robbins?

  What do you mean?

• 46:15Speaker 01

  So we've done it today. We've done it in the time we've been speaking. So this is such an interesting question. I think it was Malcolm Gladwell who popularized this idea that we need 10,000 hours of practice to learn something well, to become a master. So I can tell you that you changed your brain in the first hour of practice in that 10,000. And if you did 10,001, you're still changing your brain, right? I don't think there's a magic number. It's happening. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of practice, but you're incrementally changing it with every trial of practice, every hour of practice, every day of practice. That may also be different from person to person. So in my research, we call this the dose problem. So what's the right dose of practice to change the brain?

• 46:59Speaker 01

  And we really don't know. And one of the reasons we struggle with this is because it's different for every person. So as a scientist, we try to run a big study and then have some statistics and come to one single answer. But I don't know that there's a single answer. I think that maybe is very simplistic. And it depends on the learner, what you're trying to learn and how well you're trying to learn it. But I think what we can take away from all of that is that every time you're practicing, you are changing your brain a little bit more, a little bit more. And the accumulation of practice across time is what's going to really lead to a lasting change.

• 47:40Mel Robbins?

  Your point is when you actively engage in certain types of activities, particularly ones that are kind of hard for you to do, that's an example of your brain rewiring itself.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Rewiring itself in real time. The other part of that dose issue is you can't just practice at the same difficulty over and over again, right? It needs to get harder as you go.

• 48:02Mel Robbins?

  Oh, wait, so hold on, wait a minute. It has to get harder as you do it for it to force a structural change in your brain?

• 48:09Speaker 01

  To keep changing it, right.

• 48:10Mel Robbins?

  Can you give me an example?

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, let's say you want to learn to play piano. So the only thing I can play on the piano is chopsticks, right?

• 48:17Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  And so if I just keep playing chopsticks forever, I'm not changing my brain. I can already do it. So continuing to practice that is not helpful. So if I really wanted to be able to play the piano, I really wanted to change my brain to allow that, I would have to move on to a more, a somewhat more difficult piece, and then a somewhat more difficult and somewhat more difficult.

• 48:39Mel Robbins?

  Well, what I love is you can reframe the fact that it's hard as evidence that you're changing your brain.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 48:47Mel Robbins?

  And that you're growing. I would love to talk about visualization. Dr. Boyd, what's happening in your brain when you are intentionally visualizing something? Whether it's a race that you're going to run or it's a date that you're going to go on or it is you working hard on something that you care about? What's happening when you imagine something?

• 49:12Speaker 01

  So when you're imagining something, you're mentally rehearsing it?

• 49:15Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  And do you remember I said that our brain is functioning with these networks of activity?

• 49:21Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  So different brain regions are lighting up together. When we mentally rehearse, those same brain regions are lighting up. If you're mentally rehearsing a movement, for example, every brain region lights up except for the motor area. So it's as if we get all ready for the movement and we just don't issue the go command, if you will.

• 49:40Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  And so this is why most elite athletes engage in mental rehearsal. This is how the race is going to go. Exactly. It's a great way to get more practice without it being physically exhaustive. So you think about maybe the stroke patients that I work with. This is a way for them to go home and practice moving. It's safe. They're not going to fall. They're not going to need help. And they can continue to get a high dose of practice. Now, the type of visualization actually matters, it turns out. You could imagine being on the ceiling and looking down at your body. Or you could imagine you're in your body and you're engaged in it. And it turns out that if you're in your body, you're more first person engagement, that mental rehearsal is going to have

• 50:25Speaker 01

  a better effect on learning and on brain change than if you're a kind of observer from the outside.

• 50:32Mel Robbins?

  So if I have like a big sales meeting, you're saying, Dr. Boyd, don't imagine a scene where you're seeing yourself

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:42Mel Robbins?

  doing the presentation. Imagine a scene where you're looking out at the audience or the people around the conference room table. Because what happens when you imagine it from inside your own body?

• 50:57Speaker 01

  So when you're imagining from inside your own body, you're generating predictions of what it's going to feel like. So you're almost pre predicting the sensory experience that you're going to have. And so it makes it a more realistic form of practice. There's a part of your brain called the cerebellum that's very good at these predictions, predicting errors and correcting for errors. And so you're letting it engage in that preparation with you. And that's why it's probably a more effective approach.

• 51:24Mel Robbins?

  That's super cool.

• 51:25Speaker 01

  Isn't it neat?

• 51:26Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, really neat. Dr. Boyd, as a neuroscientist, what is your opinion on manifesting?

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Manifesting is really interesting. It's a way of visualizing as well, but kind of projecting that visualization or that mental rehearsal. There's some evidence that as we're doing mental rehearsal, we're visualizing or manifesting how we think something's going to go, that we actually are generating activity in one of the, what we call reward circuits of the brain. So another one of these chemicals in our brain, this one dopamine, which is a very positive, it's our reward chemical. We did something good. It's like our little brain gold star, like you did it. That when you're thinking about manifesting something, visualizing, you may be getting these dopamine releases that are highly reinforcing towards that goal that you have,

• 52:18Speaker 01

  towards what you're working towards. And so that is one of the kind of theories, if you will, for why this may be an effective tool. The other thing that's really interesting about manifesting is we think that it's a way of preparing the brain for what's to come. The word we use would be priming the brain for change. So getting the brain to a state where it's ready to take on that new information, that new task. And so it's almost like a practice or a preparatory phase so that then when you do have the physical engagement, your brain is actually ready to take the most out of it. Manifesting is a tricky one, but there certainly is evidence to suggest that it has these strong effects within the brain.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  And we think that's why it can be a positive.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  I guess a habit, if you will, to engage in.

• 53:10Mel Robbins?

  Can you explain, Dr. Boyd, why starting the day with a statement, "Today is going to be a good day," how that works in your brain?

• 53:20Speaker 01

  I love that, and I want to agree. I think this is a wonderful way to start your day. When you start your day off with some kind of a positive affirmation, you again are priming your brain for what's to come. You're preparing your brain. You're setting the brain table. This is going to be a good day. So in that process, you've pushed down your stress hormone, cortisol's going down. You're releasing dopamine because you're predicting something positive, right? So you're getting, you're happy, if you will, neurotransmitter out. And if you take that forward, there's really good evidence that people who are optimistic, who demonstrate this optimism across their life, they actually have better brain health.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  And they have better outcomes after their brain is hurt. And so the overall idea around kind of this optimistic projection is you're changing the neurochemistry of your brain, and you're setting your intention, if you will, and then you're much more likely to follow through on that as you move through the course of your day.

• 54:23Mel Robbins?

  Are there other things you could say to yourself or sentences that could have that kind of positive upward spiral effect on your brain?

• 54:34Speaker 01

  I think it doesn't probably matter the content of the sentence. Whatever it is you can pull out that's going to push you towards that optimistic state, that's what's going to work best for your brain. So "today's going to be a great day," or "this is amazing. I feel so lucky to be here in Boston with you." Really just expressing, and we know that the expression of gratitude can be a very, very healthy thing on the brain for all these reasons that we've talked about. It's probably falls into these cortisol, this bin of what I call cortisol reducers. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I have this opportunity, that I had a family that allowed me to go back to school and get a PhD in my mid-20s. How lucky am I? Many people would have loved to do that and maybe couldn't.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  And I don't take that for granted. I take that forward with me. In my day, I remind myself of that often, and that then how lucky I am to be able to be here and basically get to learn things for a living.

• 55:32Mel Robbins?

  An active practice of gratitude is forcing yourself to notice what's going well instead of stressing about the things that aren't. And based on everything that you're teaching us, I can only imagine that when you force yourself to notice what's going well, there must be a positive wave happening through all three of the things that you talked about, the chemical, structural, and functional part of the brain.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  That is indeed the case. So we see that it's, again, bringing that engagement and that priming to the act of learning. People who practice gratitude, again, have better neurochemistry in their brain, less rates of depression. And again, you're spinning down these negative things, spinning down your cortisol, reducing your depression, probably sleeping better, and so on.

• 56:28Mel Robbins?

  Dr. Boyd, I love that image of spinning down. Don't you, as you hear Dr. Boyd talking about this? And you keep coming back to the same message. You have more control than you think. And I love knowing that, and I love these simple things that you're teaching us. Let's take a quick break. I want that to all sink in. And I also want to give our amazing sponsors a chance to share a few words. But I want you to stay with us because when we come back, Dr. Boyd is going to explain what makes learning stick and how to figure out exactly how your brain learns best, because your brain learns differently than mine does. And Dr. Boyd is going to unpack that after this short break. So stay with us.

• 57:13Mel Robbins?

  What's your favorite kind of vacation? Do you like to do physical stuff and see a bunch of sights? Or do you just, oh, my God, just let me lounge by a pool and don't talk to me? Scottsdale, Arizona, will let you do it all. And fall is one of the most beautiful times to visit Scottsdale with warm days, cool desert evenings, and endless sunshine. Here are just some of the things you can do in Scottsdale. Visit legendary Old Town Scottsdale with over 100 restaurants, dozens of art galleries, and boutique shopping. Stay at award-winning luxury resorts designed for relaxation. Spend a day at one of Scottsdale's world-class spas. Eat at an award-winning restaurant with unmatched sunsets.

• 57:55Mel Robbins?

  Play championship golf courses surrounded by stunning Sonoran desert landscapes. And top it all off with beautiful desert scenery that instantly helps you disconnect. We spend so much time taking care of everyone else. Scottsdale is where you can finally take care of yourself. Visit unwindinsscottsdale.com to plan your trip this fall. The Mel Robbins Podcast is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance, our exclusive insurance partner. Every podcast listener has a story. The milestones you'll always remember, the traditions that have been passed down over the generations, the moments that make being a part of your family mean something. At Amica, they know the things that matter are worth protecting.

• 58:38Mel Robbins?

  And showing up for those moments year after year is how trust is earned. That's why customers stay with Amica three times longer. Visit amica.com and get a quote today. You know, we all need a good outlet once in a while. And finding your outlet starts with making room for the things that help you bloom. Maybe it's tending to your plants or getting lost in a book. I love that. Or sometimes it's just taking a quiet moment for yourself. Mrs. Meyer's Plug-In Scented Oil Diffuser fills your home with amazing garden-inspired scents made with essential oils and other thoughtfully chosen ingredients. Just plug it in and reset your senses. Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day. Find your outlet.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  There's really good evidence that people who are optimistic, who demonstrate this optimism across their life, they actually have better brain health.

• 59:31Mel Robbins?

  That was Dr. Laura Boyd. She's a world-leading neuroscientist and a renowned professor at the University of British Columbia. And one of the things I love about her is she is saying that just by being here, listening and learning, your brain will not be the same. It is growing. It is excited. You are changing and learning. How cool is that? So, Dr. Boyd, I'd love to have you explain an example that I think has happened to all of us. And it's that phenomenon that happens when you either decide you're going to buy a new car or you see a car and you're just like, oh, I love that car. And then suddenly you see the green Rivian pickup everywhere.

• 1:00:15Mel Robbins?

  And the day before, you didn't see it. What's actually happening in your mind when you suddenly see the cars or you hear the song that you just said?

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  It's really an awareness building that's come to you. Like, of course, there aren't more of those cars. They were already all there. That is a marvelous car, by the way. They were already all there, and now you've just brought your attention to it. So attention is another really interesting thing within our brain. We know that attention plays very importantly into our ability to learn, and it also plays very importantly into neuroplasticity. So the things we pay attention to, we're better able to change our brain around. So whether that be a task you're trying to learn, whether or not you're looking for a particular car, or you've noticed a song.

• 1:01:07Mel Robbins?

  We were talking about learning styles and how basically everybody's brain learns a little bit differently. How do you figure out how your brain learns?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  It takes a bit of self-experimentation to find it. In terms of what's your style, what's going to help you be the best learner? I think that that comes to just practice. Be okay if it fails. That's okay. Failure's great. I've had lots of failures. I've had many experiments not work, many grants not funded. I mean, the life of an academic is mostly failure, to be quite honest. But they're all instructional. Like, this didn't work? Okay, well, let's do that. Like, that's really important and interesting. Next. And so that's what you have to do as you're learning for yourself. What is your style? What's your environment that's going to work the best? You can help yourself by doing these other things we've talked about.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Reduce your cortisol, exercise, sleep, be engaged. Try to learn something you really love. Like, I will tell you, if we were talking about calculus, I would be decidedly less passionate. So one of the treats I get to have is I'm learning about what I'm obsessed in already. It's not hard, right? Because I think about it. I wake up in the night thinking about it. I think about it on my run. It's kind of what I do and what I'm really, really interested in. And then the last thought there is that's going to change throughout your lifespan, what you're interested in, how you're learning, and in what environment you're learning best. It shifts with time.

• 1:02:37Mel Robbins?

  I love the counsel to really just think about the environment or the ways in which you best learn. Like, my husband loves working in a coffee shop because I don't know what it is about the noise and the activity. He just is able to focus.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  So interesting.

• 1:02:56Mel Robbins?

  I can barely pay attention to the cup of coffee I'm drinking because there's so much distraction going on. So that would be an example for me of going, can't work in a crowded environment like that. The other thing that I've learned about myself in terms of the way my brain works is if you hand me a piece of paper and expect me to read something and retain it, I can read that thing probably faster than anybody, but I don't remember it. But if you tell it to me.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:26Mel Robbins?

  And I've also learned that I am better if I am responding to something versus having to start it. And another thing that I've learned is I'm obviously a talker. And so it may be helpful as you're listening to this podcast to know that the books that I write, I typically talk out. And then it's really easy with all the tech today. You just record yourself and then you can transcribe it. And once you see what your words look like on paper, it's so easy to respond and edit to it.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  For me, my first degree is in English literature. I was going to be an English professor. Life intervened and I went another way. But I love to think of things as stories. So I actually think of my science just as a story. That's why I love talking about it. I'm just telling you the story of my science. And so for me, that's how I learn. That's how I engage is, okay, what story are these data telling us? That's why I say to my graduate students all the time, we might not like this story they're telling us. Maybe it's not the story we expected, but just a story.

• 1:04:34Mel Robbins?

  Dr. Boyd, I'm going to put myself on the spot. And I'm going to ask you to coach me.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:39Mel Robbins?

  I have always wanted to learn conversational Spanish. And I have a gigantic story that I am incapable of learning languages. I took seven years of French and cannot remember a damn word of it. I am dyslexic. Did you hear the story's coming? I've always struggled with this.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:03Mel Robbins?

  And I've always wanted to do it, but I have a story that I can't. Can even I learn Spanish?

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  You can. It's hard, though. And languages, it's interesting you chose language because language is a, is kind of a special, more special category.

• 1:05:21Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  So I'm going to get to use this and I've been so looking forward to it. But I have a brain model.

• 1:05:26Mel Robbins?

  Fabulous.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  So this is a, a human brain and we're just looking at two sides. So this would be the front. Your eyes would be up here and you'd have your ears on the side.

• 1:05:33Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Here. And so this is the back. And so humans very uniquely have this front part, this pink area.

• 1:05:41Mel Robbins?

  So your forehead, yes.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  Your forehead, yeah. It's called the prefrontal cortex. We have this big piece of brain that we developed that pushes out forward that no other animal really has. This area of the brain is really important for paying attention, what we call executive functions and then judgment. So is that a good idea? What could happen if I, and then fill in the blank? This is the part of the brain that is wired up very last. So early on.

• 1:06:13Mel Robbins?

  Especially for boys.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Especially for boys. Explain so much about our twenties, doesn't it? And our children, it's all coming clear now. And so what we find is that our brain is kind of maturing according to what we need. So we get our, our motor and sensory area first, vision. And then it slowly kind of works forward in its development. And so coming back to kind of our language coaching, these areas on the side, this would be your, your areas where language is especially specialized on our left.

• 1:06:44Mel Robbins?

  Oh, it's like right over by my temple.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, if you stuck your fingers in your ears, you'd hit it more or less.

• 1:06:49Mel Robbins?

  Got it. Okay.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  I don't, but it's there. And so it's on the left side in particular language in most humans. Occasionally it gets flipped, but most of us, it's on the left. This is wired up relatively early and it becomes difficult to change, which is why it's hard for you and I. I only heard English as a child. I'm assuming you did too.

• 1:07:08Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  And so it becomes harder for us as adults.

• 1:07:11Mel Robbins?

  This will be another thing I blame my parents for. I'm just kidding. That was a joke.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  Right. We can, we can blame them as well. But you told me earlier that you're a very auditory learner.

• 1:07:20Mel Robbins?

  Very much so.

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  My suspicion would be my, my prescription, the experiment we could do on you, which would be fun, is you need a Spanish immersion. So you need to just go, in fact, this is your excuse. You need to just go to Spain, pick a great city.

• 1:07:37Mel Robbins?

  My husband and I are talking about doing the Camino.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  There you go. You're an auditory learner. So you need to go and as you do the Camino, no English. None.

• 1:07:48Mel Robbins?

  Then I'm going to be practicing before I go because I want to talk to Chris while we're on it.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  Only, only Spanish. So you have to immerse and you're going to have to force your brain to rewire.

• 1:07:59Mel Robbins?

  You know what this sounds like, Dr. Boyd? It sounds very hard.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  It sounds really hard, right? It's exhausting.

• 1:08:04Mel Robbins?

  Is what we need to do.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  It's exhausting. It really is exhausting. So when my daughter entered into this late French immersion in elementary school, the teacher said, I will speak English to them the first week of school and then never again. And she said, by Christmas they'll be responding. And I thought, oh, my gosh. And my daughter came home multiple nights in tears. She was so frustrated. They did math, they did science, they did everything. By Christmas, they were speaking in French. It was truly remarkable. In fact, I kicked myself. I'm like, I should have been scanning her brain the whole time. Like, what was I, I missed it. I had a twin in French immersion and a twin not. We could have done the perfect twin study.

• 1:08:40Mel Robbins?

  You could have done a twin study?

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Right. I'm a terrible scientist.

• 1:08:43Mel Robbins?

  But you're an amazing mother.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  I was trying to just dry tears and yes. But I do suspect that for you to just immerse in auditory language would be the key.

• 1:08:56Mel Robbins?

  I also realize the auditory and the speaking of it is what I need to do. Yeah.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Mel Robbins?

  I don't care about reading it. I just want to be able to speak it.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  I think that once you were there and you were fully immersed, the reading would come very naturally. But that's a prediction. That's a hypothesis.

• 1:09:13Mel Robbins?

  I, I am going to, this is going to be the thing that I'm going to learn and I'm going to start practicing. What are the best things that I can do to help what I'm learning stick?

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  So repetition is a big one.

• 1:09:28Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:09:29Speaker 01

  Of just again, again, looking at it in different ways. So not just rote repetition, but let's turn it on its side. Let's look at it upside down. Let's repeat it back. So that would be one, because again, our brain does require this dose of practice in order to show that it's learned. And then remembering that you have to sleep to have that memory be consolidated. So you're going to have to practice it and then come back later and see, did you actually learn it? That's a test. It really is the next day. How much did we learn? And then practice it again and then come back the next day.

• 1:10:08Mel Robbins?

  Dr. Boyd, could you take us through kind of from waking up through the end of the day? What are the habits and routines that really support neuroplasticity and better brain health?

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  Well, first you're going to have slept. I think starting the day with something positive is really important. Could be gratitude, could be this is going to be a great day. And here's why. Give yourself some ideas. Exercise is certainly going to be in there. By the way, and I haven't said this, doesn't matter when you exercise. It could be right before you practice something. It could be right after, it could be a little bit later. It seems to not really matter a great deal when that occurs. Thinking about how you can keep your stress low or your cortisol down. And you could be in a stressful environment and still think about being mindful, letting it go, being compassionate.

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  If you can't keep it all up, you're not perfect and that's okay. Pushing yourself to learn something hard. Being socially engaged seems to be very important for brain health and brain plasticity. And always trying to learn something new. So what is it you're trying to learn? And let's practice that today.

• 1:11:25Mel Robbins?

  You know what I love about that? Is that you just proved the statement that you said at the very beginning of our conversation, which is that simply by listening, you're going to grow and stretch your brain. And one of the reasons why I love this podcast so much is because I learned something from every single person that comes on this show.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:49Mel Robbins?

  And I almost feel like my brain is getting bigger in my head because of your brilliance. And now I'm like, oh, this is so cool. She's in a lab and she's researching the brain and studying all this stuff and doing all these cool things. And now she's teaching me. And now I feel like I have a big brain. It's like the elastic pants, only it's the elasticity in my mind to learn new things. Talk to me about being social.

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So being social seems to be one of these things that helps to reduce depression, to increase engagement, to cause you to have to practice our interactions, the complexity of the thought and the cues, the social, the verbal, the nonverbal cues. All of those things together seem to be really important for brain health. I think we're just built to be a social species. We want to be in a group and we want to be in a group that values us and loves us and cares for us. And those things together seem to be quite important for healthy aging.

• 1:12:51Mel Robbins?

  I can see that. And I got to ask you, Dr. Boyd, is there something in particular as a neuroscientist that you do as your evening routine that is supporting brain health and neuroplasticity?

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  When you get paid, you're told from a small age, like pay yourself first. Take the money you're putting in your savings and do that before you do anything else with your money, right? So I always think about for me, my days are so busy and I travel so much. I always pay myself first. I actually do it in the morning. I'm going to flip your question. Before anything gets in my way, every day I exercise, I always say I'm paying myself first. In the evening where I'm really trying to position myself is trying to be able to get to sleep. So I'm a woman, I'm getting a bit older and my sleep is not as nice as it used to be. Actually, I can go to sleep, I just can't stay asleep. This is my challenge of the last few years.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  And so I've been really working hard on actually my sleep hygiene. So a good dinner, less alcohol, sadly. And then moving towards, right? Then moving towards what do I need to do to be able to sleep? And so. In the world right now, one thing I've learned that I need to do to be able to sleep is not to watch the evening news. It just spins me up. So again, just thinking about what is going to raise my cortisol in the evening. And I know that-

• 1:14:16Mel Robbins?

  And don't do it.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  And don't do it. Right? Whatever that may be. And usually that's involving looking at what's happening in the world. And the last thing I do is I treat myself to just a little bit of reading. And that's a habit I lost for many years when my kids were home and I just didn't have time. And my children are both at university right now. And to just settle with a good book in the evening is, gosh, I'm boring and old, but it really is helpful to me. And in those periods in the night when I wake up, and I don't know if this is helping my brain health or not, but laying and thinking I need to go back to sleep doesn't help. I've done that experiment. So my new experiment is I just give myself a break and I get up and I read for a little while. And then I try to go back to sleep. And we see how it goes.

• 1:14:59Mel Robbins?

  I love how normal you are as a neuroscientist, running a huge research lab and teaching at a medical school. And it makes it very, very relatable and accessible. Dr. Boyd, if the person listening takes one thing away from this conversation, what do you think the most important thing to do is?

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  I think the most important thing is to engage in something that's hard. Learn something new. Acknowledge that it's hard. Acknowledge that struggle is going to be good for your brain. But we should always be pushing ourselves to learn something new, to do something that's hard, and to do something that's challenging.

• 1:15:43Mel Robbins?

  And it doesn't matter. It could be the guitar, or needlepoint, or bocce, or how to make sourdough. Like, any of it works?

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  Any of it works. So it's just that engagement and that push of what it is that you're trying to do that you can't do now. So what are we stretching ourselves to learn? Whatever it might be. Now I'm gonna have to go do yoga, darn you. But whatever it may be that we are not able to do now that we'd like to be able to do. So always pushing and expanding those horizons, that's really setting us up. And I think that if you can just take away one thing in all that, because it will be hard, is that just remember that that is changing your brain, that you're engaging in these processes of neuroplasticity, changing your chemistry, your brain structure and your brain function, kind of continually throughout that process.

• 1:16:34Mel Robbins?

  Dr. Boyd, what are your parting words?

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  There's a saying, and forgive me if this is a bit geeky, that I love in Latin. It's "tu est." And it means it is yours. So it is up to you. And I think about it often for a couple of reasons. One, coincidentally, it's the motto of the university I work at, UVC. But two, I love this idea that it is up to us. And it feeds so nicely into this idea of neuroplasticity. We've had a wonderful conversation and gone a lot of places, but I really want people to take away from it this, that your brain is shaped by the experiences around you.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  And it's up to you to choose wisely what those experiences are. What is it you want to engage in? What is it you want to learn? What is it you want to avoid? Because you know they're not healthy on your brain. Maybe that's social media. Maybe it's the influence of someone who's not positive in your life. So you have the opportunity to shape your brain by the experience that you provide to it. It's going to be hard. You're gonna struggle. You're gonna fail. And remember that all of those are incredibly good things as you're learning and you're changing your brain. And so I think if you put all of that together, my idea for you would be you can build the brain you want to have. Build the brain you want.

• 1:18:03Mel Robbins?

  Dr. Boyd, I loved talking to you. I loved learning. I loved hearing all about your research and how we can use experiences to shape our brain. I cannot wait to see how this ripples through the world and really empowers people as they share it with the people that they love. So on behalf of the person who's listening, and everyone in their life that they're gonna share this remarkable episode with, I just want to say thank you.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  Well, I want to thank you so much for having me. I'm clearly a bit obsessed. I'm so excited to get to share this information.

• 1:18:43Mel Robbins?

  Well, I'm thrilled to have you here. And you absolutely killed it. I'm so excited about this. And what I loved that Dr. Boyd just says is this sentence, "it is yours." That you can take everything that she shared with you and taught you today and use it to shape your brain. And the way that you shape your brain shapes your entire experience of life. How cool is it that your brain can change and grow and learn new things all the way until the day you die? And now you know exactly what to do so that your brain will never be the same again. It can be better, and that'll make your life better.

• 1:19:28Mel Robbins?

  And in case nobody else tells you this, I wanted to be sure to tell you as your friend that I love you and I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to create a better life. And Dr. Boyd sure convinced me, and I know she convinced you, that the more you take care of your brain, the more you do hard things, the more you are committed to being a lifelong learner, the better you and your life get. So go do it. Alrighty, I'll see you in the very next episode. I'll welcome you in the moment you hit play. Just things that I offer up that have helped me understand the conditions under which I am best able- Whoops, there goes Trace. Thank God that didn't hit you on the head. That was an iPad that fell off the wall there.

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:20:12Mel Robbins?

  Camera's okay?

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, camera's really fine. We can map their brain with an MRI machine, a magnetic resonance spec-

• 1:20:19Mel Robbins?

  I'm sorry.

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  That was perfect. A magnetic resonance machine. Nope, it's not right either. An MRI, a magnetic resonance imaging machine as they're making these changes.

• 1:20:32Mel Robbins?

  We're pulling up what you said to just pull you right back.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  I'm like, I don't know what I said. It's all, I've lost it.

• 1:20:37Mel Robbins?

  Well, you know what? That happens when I walk out of this room.

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, what just happened? And you have to promise-

• 1:20:42Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  That you're gonna tell me if it works.

• 1:20:44Mel Robbins?

  Only if you go to yoga.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  Okay. Deal. Okay. Okay, but you'll hear me just, oh, ouch, ouch. But you are right, and I need to. So, deal.

• 1:21:01Mel Robbins?

  Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.

• 1:21:36Speaker 02

  Sirius XM Podcasts.

• 1:21:43Mel Robbins?

  I have an invitation. I want you to come with me to Vegas to experience something extraordinary with Oprah Winfrey.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  Yes, it's the ultimate aha moment.

• 1:21:52Mel Robbins?

  This is at Sphere.

• 1:21:54Speaker 02

  I want people to come along and experience consistent aha moments of awe, wonder, and joy.

• 1:22:00Mel Robbins?

  Aha, April 2nd through the 4th, live at Sphere. A call to wonder, to joy, and the ultimate aha. Visit ahaalive.com for pre-sale signup and travel packages. Your mind is gonna be blown. Today, I'm partnering with Gold Bond, whose trusted skincare now comes in three elevated scents with clinically shown 24-hour hydration. Try Cherry Crush Hydrating Gel Cream, Vanilla Dream Softening Cashmere Cream, or Island Peach Smoothing Silk Cream, all designed to help skin feel nourished and moisturized while smelling incredible. Feel the hydration, love the scent.

• 1:22:42Mel Robbins?

  Discover new Gold Bond-scented body creams online and at a retailer near you. Use as directed.