How to Master the Mind Body Connection and Become a Better Leader

Neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart, discusses scientific techniques for more discipline, inner peace, and clarity.

Transcript

00:00 Overhauling your health as a leader to achieve peak mental and physical resilience

00:05 starts with a really deep and different understanding of the mind-body connection

00:10 and how all the systems of our body are interconnected.

00:13 Here's how to overhaul your health to achieve peak mental and physical resilience as a leader.

00:19 We've all heard of the five senses - touch, taste, sight, sound and smell.

00:28 Did you know that there's a sixth sense called interoception?

00:31 And it's the sense that you have of the physiological state of the inside of your body.

00:36 And that includes things like your temperature, pain levels,

00:40 all the way up to things like, are you feeling well?

00:43 And so it's a really good idea to start paying attention to those things and noticing them more

00:48 because that sense has a lot more to it.

00:51 You can really start to use it to understand, am I confident? Am I stressed?

00:56 Am I maybe becoming unwell and do I need to do something to stave that off?

01:00 As a leader, this can be your new superpower.

01:03 So really understanding the brain-body connection and the power that you hold in your brain

01:08 for mind over matter can revolutionise not just your leadership style, but also your health in general.

01:14 So the gut-brain connection is an area of huge research which has exploded with new information recently.

01:21 We always knew that the gut and the brain were connected through the vagus nerve,

01:25 but we now know that the gut and the brain are connected through other nerves,

01:29 through hormones, through chemical messages that go through the blood,

01:33 and the fact that this relationship is bidirectional.

01:36 So if your gut is not in good condition, that can have an effect on your sleep,

01:41 your mood and your stress levels.

01:44 Equally, if you're feeling stressed, then that has an impact on the quality and quantity of your gut microbiome.

01:50 Another such example is the connection between your mental state and your skin.

01:55 It's called psychodermatology and it also goes both ways.

02:00 The skin is essentially the boundary of our bodies physically,

02:04 but it also shows up a lot of psychological issues if we have boundary transgressions.

02:08 So if someone gets into your space or behaves in a certain way,

02:12 that really impacts on how you feel emotionally safe and secure.

02:17 So often when we're feeling threatened in that way, we may come out with a skin rash or eczema

02:23 or other skin issues that manifest because we're actually feeling stressed mentally.

02:29 So those are two examples of how the mind and the body interact,

02:34 but it's becoming increasingly important to understand as a leader that

02:38 there is no cutoff at the neck between psychology and physiology.

02:41 They're intimately connected.

02:43 There are even connections between our gut microbiome and our immunity,

02:47 and this contributes so strongly to our ability to stay resilient against stress.

02:51 So as the world gets more complex,

02:54 it becomes more and more important to understand the power of the brain-body connection.

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