How To Be WellnStrong

103: How to Stop Negative Thoughts & Rewire Your Brain with Dr. Caroline Leaf, PhD

• Jacqueline Genova • Episode 103

Share episode

Do you find yourself constantly replaying past events—or feeling like your mind is in a state of chaos?  In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Caroline Leaf, PhD to explore why anxiety, overwhelm, and intrusive thought patterns aren’t signs that something is broken—but signals of how the mind is responding to stress, experiences, and unresolved patterns. We break down what thoughts actually are, how experiences are wired into “thought networks,” and why the mind controls the brain—not the other way around. Dr. Leaf also explains how it’s possible to redesign a memory—not by erasing the past, but by changing how it’s wired and how it shows up in the present.

Suggested Resources:

Send me a text!

This episode is proudly sponsored by: Weddell Water

We focus on the water we drink, but the water you shower with matters too—your skin absorbs more than you think, which is why I use the Weddell Water Duo Shower Filter, the only NSF-certified option that targets chlorine, PFAS, and hard-water buildup. It’s one of the easiest healthy-

This episode is proudly sponsored by: Sizzlefish

Let’s talk about fueling your body with the best nature has to offer. If you’re looking for premium, sustainable seafood delivered straight to your door, you need to check out Sizzlefish! Head to sizzlefish.com and use my code “wellnstrong” at checkout for an exclusive discount on your first order. Trust me, you’re going to taste the difference with Sizzlefish!



Join the WellnStrong mailing list for exclusive content here!

Want more of The How To Be WellnStrong Podcast? Subscribe to the YouTube channel.


Follow Jacqueline:


Jac: [00:00:00] Dr. Leaf first of all, it's so lovely to finally meet you. I know so much about you because I've been following your work for the past decade or so.

Caroline: my gosh, that's amazing.

Jac: Before we kick things off, I just wanted to tell you a bit about myself so you have some context on my background. But I started this platform called Well and Strong.

And it began as a means for me to just share the research I was doing with my mom. , She was diagnosed at stage four breast cancer back in 2 20 18. So I'm a huge advocate of integrative medicine. That has always been my passion. I started this podcast about two years ago and.

Interestingly, Dr. Leaf, the mission has shifted quite a bit from more of like a physical based approach to wellness to now more of a faith-based approach to wellness. And that has been reflected in my podcast conversations. So I've been having a lot more chats with pastors, um folks like yourself in the mental health.

Space, you know, applying scripture and God's word to our daily lives and improving our mental health, and then subsequently our physical health. So conversations like these are truly [00:01:00] why I wake up every morning, and I'm so excited for my podcast. But Like I said, I've been a long time fan of your work, so it's, it's truly an honor to have you on 

Caroline: Thank you so much. Well thank you for that background and I'm sorry about your mom and I hope she's doing okay and um, yeah, so thank you. Thank you for that background. I appreciate that. And yeah. The mind is everything. So we have to understand the mind. It's really important.

Jac: So to kick things off, Dr. Leaf, as I said, I've been following your work for quite some time now, and what I love most about you is how you translate modern brain science into language everyone can understand. But by far my favorite part is how you integrate biblical principles, right?

With neuroscience. And in fact, if I wasn't doing what I'm doing right now, Dr. Leaf, I probably would be following in your footsteps. And as I was prepping for this conversation, I was thinking back on my, my younger days. And I vividly remember at age seven, I was sitting downstairs in my parents' rec room watching open brain surgery, and I was just enamored and fascinated with all things brain.

But all that to say. [00:02:00] Neuroscience, neuroplasticity, you know, how the mind impacts our physical being is a passion of mine. So I'm so excited to pick your brain today.

Caroline: Oh, that's lovely. Well, thank you for such a great introduction and you couldn't be more interested in a, um, more, more important field because the mind is literally 99% of who we are. So, and we need to understand more about it. So it's really important.

Jac: One consistent theme in your work is the idea that, as you said, the mind is the most powerful thing in the universe after God, and that despite what many people believe, our bodies are not in control of our minds, but our minds are in control of our bodies. So I would love to start at a very basic level for listeners.

Could you define a thought and how do thoughts become physical substances in the brain? Because that is certainly something that I didn't know prior to reading your work, and again, was just flabbergasted when I heard about all this new research.

Caroline: I know it's, it's quite, it's quite amazing and it's new research, but it's very ancient research. So for thousands of years, um, [00:03:00] philosophers and scientists and people that are in, in, you know, spiritual research and spiritual teachers have been teaching that the mind and brain are separate but connected.

So we mind, brain and body, not just brain. And I've been in the field 40 years now and, um, 40 years ago when I was at university doing my first degree, and I've done four, they, they actually told. The, the, our teaching was around the mind and the brain being separate, but the, um, the, the concept of the brain being able to change or not being able to change that was very dominant.

So they felt, so we were trained that the brain couldn't change, but we were trained that the mind was separate from the brain. Fast forward to the mid nineties where they actually said the brain and the mind are the same thing, which is not correct at all. Scientifically, there's no science to back that up.

So we transition from the age fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, talking about mind. Brain body. And actually for thousands of years before that, and then from the mid nineties transitioned to talking about mind and brain being the same thing. And I'm coming to your answer on the thoughts, but [00:04:00] we need to understand the mind brain connection first.

So the change happened around the mid nineties where we developed a very neuro centric approach, and I should say not we, because that's not, that's just, that's just one strain of science. One, one branch of science, um, sort of dominating the. The general speak of that, that the average audience lay person is exposed to, and a, a very physicalist dominant type of science took over.

And what that means is that it was all about the brain, brain, brain, neuro, neuro reductionism, because we were discovering all these incredible things about the brain and how the brain worked. And, um, so then MRI, technology, being able to see inside the brain and see that, you know, the blood flow and all that kind of thing.

Made people think that, well, the brain is it. So then started a whole field of research looking for the neuro biological correlates of consciousness. And what that big statement means is that that's what, well, the brain is it, so therefore the brain is producing our thoughts, our consciousness, our emotions, whatever you want to [00:05:00] call it.

And so it's all about brain, brain, brain. And that is where we started going very, very wrong in science or where science started going very, very wrong because that avenue started dominating. The, um, the, the research and the funding and that kind of thing, but it was never really, and to this day, it's never really been, you can't prove, you cannot.

There's no science that says the brain produces the mind. There's no formula. There's no, and every research study done that talks about the, this, this, um, your brain is making you do this and your amygdala makes you do that. If you actually look at the research, you'll see that. People are told, um, a story or they're asked about what's going on in their life, or they're doing something with their mind.

They're having a conversation, they're having an experience, so they're using their mind and then they're looking at the results in the brain. So I say all of that to say that the mind and the brain are separate. They're not the same thing. So we shouldn't speak about the mind and the brain as one sentence, but as see it as two separate entities.

The brain is part of the body and the brain and [00:06:00] the body are only around about 1% of who we are. It doesn't mean they're not important. I mean, the brain is extremely important and so is the body because that the, the, the mind needs that physical conduit to be able to, for us to be able to show up physically in this life.

But the mind animates the brain. So when the. When a person dies within 10 seconds of the heart stopping or 20 seconds of the heart stopping, the brain flatlines and every single cell of the brain and the body start to disintegrate. And so when that life force has gone out of you, the physical will not no longer function.

So the life force that makes us physically be able to move and talk and, and experience with everything we do with our bodies. Is the mind. The mind is this energetic, massive, energetic field life force that drives the, the physical brain and the body, almost like a virtual reality type situation where your, your, your brain, your brain and body are like the computer and your mind, your, your, you know, your, your mind is kind of driving it with almost like a headset.

You, it's like a virtual reality type situation, [00:07:00] but the computer that is. The virtual reality is playing into can't do anything on its own. It has to be driven by something. And the headset, it's even, even the headset is driven by something else because the person's gotta put the headset on and start the virtual reality.

So everything physical needs to be run by something and that something is mind. So mind is this huge part of us that drives everything about us and mind. Creates thoughts. So mind is the creator of thoughts and thoughts are the response to life's experiences. So this conversation is an experience people are seeing and hearing us and they're hearing words, and that's auditory sound waves and it's energy and basically breaks down it.

Its most basic form to light energy. And the mind takes this and each of our minds takes this and. Converts and processes this into a thought. And that thought is in like a cluster of, of little energetic particles, like a little cloud. So if you [00:08:00] think of your mind as the sky, and I'm doing this with my arms.

So we have what we call a biofield around and through us, which is seems to be the zone of each of our unique minds. 'cause we each have our own unique mind and then we are all together in this world and we connect it to an ultimate mind. So we've got this mind, and the mind is doing all the work. The mind is brilliant, the mind is.

Processing, receiving a hundred percent of our environment and in different ways. And then it builds this experience into this little cloud of energy and it places that cloud of energy into makes like a copy and puts it into the brain. So here I've got a little model of the brain. So if you can imagine our conversation is becoming a little cloud around around me.

So here's my little cloud, and then I, with my mind, make a copy of this and put it into the brain. And that generates an electromagnetic and quantum and neurochemical risk. And genetic response in the brain and that, that all that happening creates little proteins and those proteins are holding my words.

And that's a thought growing inside the brain, but it doesn't [00:09:00] just grow in the brain. 'cause as I'm speaking, I'm giving words each word. And concept that I'm giving is basically memory and it's clustering together into a thought. So thoughts are made of memory. So all my words, the details of what I'm saying are the memories, but the whole conversation is a thought.

So it's building here, and as it's building here, it's been put into there. So yeah, it's energy here, it's physical proteins, but it not only in your brain, it's also throughout your body. So each part of your body is holding a different perspective of this memory. So it's kind of like the, it's clustered here.

Then there's different angles or perspectives in every part of our body. So it's throughout our body. So memories, even in your fingertips. I mean, it's everywhere. It's across the entire mind, brain, body, network, and it's this. Relationship between mind, brain, and body that enables us to then function. So the thought gets built into the brain and the body, and then we speak from that thought.

So right now my words are going in your brain and doing all through the mind and brain and body. And then as you formulating your, your response, your you, it's because you've actually now your [00:10:00] mind. Processing and adding to this network that's going into your brain and you're creating a question and you already had created a thought in your mind, brain, and body when you prepared for this interview.

So this is what we do all day long. I mean, we do this at 400 billion actions per second,

so. Bottom line is thoughts are real things created by our mind in response to life experiences and in response. And then obviously we've been creating these since in the womb, so we have millions of existing experiences that are thoughts filled with memories.

So as you listening to me now, um, the listeners, viewers, yourself, they not only are you building this, this new thought. It becomes this tree-like network in your brain and your body, but you are, you are from the new, from the words I'm saying, but it's also triggering existing thought networks with their memories, which are helping you to understand and process and make your own decisions around this information.

So it's a very complex thing that's happening, but essentially your mind creates thoughts and thoughts, so then put into the brain and the body, and wired into the [00:11:00] brain and the body, and it's that connection, mind, brain, body and thoughts that enables us to then function in life. So how we show up, what we say, what we do, how we feeling, our perspectives is all based on the thoughts that we've built.

So they're not just random. Everything you do and say is coming from these thoughts. So if we look at what we do and what we say, we can track back to the thoughts that we've built and then we can analyze the, the thoughts of those thoughts. Because we don't always build the best thoughts. We sometimes, you know, make, we can build toxic thoughts from toxic experiences or toxic perspectives, or there's things going on in our life that are influencing us that we're not questioning enough and you know, that kind of thing.

And so therefore there's thoughts. Thoughts are real things. So I've 

said a lot. 

Jac: It's so fascinating. No, I, I love it all. And one thing you alluded to that I wanna get into is the concept of epigenetics, right? And how our thoughts can actually impact gene expression. And Dr. Leaf, I'm a huge, um, again, I geeked out when you spoke about this in your book because epigenetics has always been very fascinating to me.

But you talk about [00:12:00] this switch gene called the creb gene, which can be turned on by our thoughts. How does that work, and why is that so important to know for people who I guess could say have negative predispositions in their thinking patterns?

Caroline: Okay, so you'd referring to one of my really, really old books. I've written 19, 

Jac: I have your latest

Dr.

Leaf right here. Help in 

a hurry. And I have, switch on Your brain was my very first book that I

ever read of yours, so I was like, I have to chat about that.

Caroline: Okay. Yeah, that's, and then there's books, there's even older books than that. So there's, there's, yeah, let's see, like nearly 25 books now or something.

But yeah, that's, so the Creb gene is one of the, it's, I spoke about that in one of the very early books, but essentially it doesn't, it's a gene that basically, um, it's one of many nothing ever works in isolation. So I say with caution, yes, the Creb gene is activated. It. Plays a, a very big role in, um, switching on the process of wiring in what you are hearing into thoughts.

So basically, as I mentioned, we have this cloud of energy that our mind, it processes the information into these, the details and into [00:13:00] the. The information, which are the memories into thoughts, and those thoughts make put in the brain as they hit the brain and the body. It then activates this electrochemical neurochemical, um, quantum energy and genetic response.

And one of the clusters of genes activated is the CRE gene. What's important for us is to realize that there's a physical response to our mind. That's what's really important, a physical response and an actual. Building of a physical network, um, of, that's because genes, when a gene is switched on, what that means is that it then sends out the instructions to make an amino acid and an amino acid groups to form a protein.

I mean, proteins placed together, they form a network and those proteins hold information in the form of vibrations. So my words, the details, the memories of vibrations inside of these. Clusters of, um, groups of pro, pro amino acids that are proteins, and the Creb gene basically just plays a role in that.

So we are switching genes on and off with our mind, which [00:14:00] then produces this physical response in the brain and the body. We are also with our mind. Every moment of every day, we are building 800,000, 2 million new cells, literally every

second. And those cells will make up every organ of our body and our organs make up our systems and our systems of our brain and our body or how we function.

And that's that animation aspect that I was speaking about earlier on. So how the quality of a Creb gene and, and just not a, it doesn't work alone. All the genes, the quality of the instruction to the gene, and this is epigenetics. The quality of our mind, those thoughts that we thinking. Provides the, um, epigenetic over and above the gene, the environment that switches the gene on or off, and which cluster and how it switches on and all that kind of stuff, and how the network forms and the kind of information that goes into the network.

All of that is determined by what we are thinking and what we are creating. So we are thinking with our mind, we are creating thoughts and that influences all of this genetic. Process and chemical, neurochemical, [00:15:00] neurohormonal, et cetera, et cetera. And the result is a physical, lots of physical changes inside of our brain and our body.

So if I am, um, constantly negative or worrying about something and, um, and it's, and I, and, and I have a sort of mindset that is negative. So I'm worrying that this is gonna go wrong or that's gonna go wrong. And seeing that viewpoint is going to be how, um, is gonna be the filter through which I build that little cloud.

And instead of seeing all the possibilities, I get stuck in the conscious mind. I get stuck in a conscious mind viewpoint. And the conscious mind is great, but it's a workhorse and it needs advice. It needs to be guided by the subconscious and the non-conscious, not the unconscious. That's when you're asleep.

It's a brain. So I'm talking about conscious, subconscious, and non-conscious. Now, non-conscious is our deepest level, our spiritual level, our wise level, our intuitive level. What we see from research is that if your conscious mind works alone, it's logical, but the logic is not always very good. You, it makes decisions, things feels and chooses, but it's [00:16:00] not always very effective.

So our, our conscious mind needs to always be connecting with the. The subconscious and the non-conscious. And non-conscious is where wisdom resides, where our perfect knowledge is, where all, um, problems plus the solutions to those problems lie. Everything lies there. The problem is that when we get very busy with life and we get stuck in certain patterns, it means that we've kind of switched off that.

Pathway. We've closed the door to the non-conscious, then we don't think clearly, and we are thinking, you're never not thinking, you're thinking you're creating, but you're now working in a very sort of, um, basic way. Conscious mind brain loops. And so that will just activate patterns in the brain that are familiar and you, and, and then you start predicting and operating in the same pattern.

That's why people get stuck and do the same thing and keep worrying and keep getting stuck in the same negative pathway or keep thinking like if they've never dealt with like a body image issue or they've never dealt with a. An issue from childhood or they've never dealt with a, whatever those, those patterns.

And when I say never dealt with, until we connect with a non-conscious and we do the work of [00:17:00] rewiring, deconstructing, and reconstructing, we will get stuck in that conscious mind brain loop until we stand back and rewire the correct version of that loop. So that's essentially what's happening

Jac: Yeah. So interesting. There's certainly a lot of overlap, between these two books, and I'm sure among all your books too, but. Going back to switch your brain before we jump into help in a hurry. You talk about this neuro cycle concept, and you'll be proud of me. I am on day two of my 21 day neuro cycle, um, in attempting to redesign an old memory

Caroline: Are you doing the, the app or you doing the actual Brandy Detox course 

that you run 

at the most? 

Jac: The

Caroline: Wonderful. The one that we are running currently for 

the, um, the Brandy Challenge. Fantastic. 

Jac: link that in the podcast, but I think it's so empowering, and I'm sure listeners would agree to know that just because your parents or your grandparents, right, you spoke about thoughts being passed down to the third and fourth generations.

Just because you may have that predisposition right in your family in terms of a certain thinking pattern, it doesn't mean that you are, um, ultimately going to go that same route and. One, the thing that [00:18:00] you said that was very, very powerful, like I mentioned before, is you can actually redesign a memory and that I'm sure has played a significant role in patients, I'm sure, who you've dealt with, with PTSD and all the like, but I'm really excited to, to kickstart that.

Um, and again going back to help in a hurry now, chaotic mind and Dr. Leaf, I left my full-time job last year to pursue well and strong full-time. And I share that with you because I feel like within the past year. Chaos is the perfect word to describe what has been going on in my mind, just because as I'm sure you resonate with, you know, you wear all the hats when you run a business, and

I feel like I'm being pulled in so many different directions, which is why help in a hurry, um, was such a blessing for me.

But for listeners out there who also are, you know, whether they're a mom, a full-time mom, or an entrepreneur who just feel like their mind is utter chaos, where would you, where would you tell them to start? Right. In unpacking of that.

Caroline: Well, that's really great that you, thank you. That's a great question and, and the book that you're [00:19:00] referring to is This One, help in a Hurry, which came out just. Few months ago. Um, so to just to come back to your, the, your, your question that you sort of, um, entered into the question with, you commented that we can, you love the fact that we can rewire our brain, and that's literally what we are doing.

So to summarize everything that we said, to lead into this question, I have an image over here. For those of you that are listening, I've holding up a wiry looking toxic tree that if you've ever watched me before, you would've seen it. And this represents a toxic thought. So any experience that we've had, whether it's a.

Trauma, which is severe things that have happened to us that we have no control over, like abuse, et cetera, or whether we've just developed a bad habit, like just got into the habit of worrying because we just didn't control it. Or we just got so caught up in social media that we kept comparing ourself to others, or we got caught up into hustle culture or whatever habit.

You know, 'cause we've all got them. We've all got a bunch of trauma, we've all got a bunch of bad habits. All of those, when we talk about rewiring those, this is a thought, this would be a thought. And all the branches are, are the memories. So when we talk about rewiring memories, you're actually rewiring a whole thought and [00:20:00] changing what those memories look.

Like inside of you. So you can't change what's happened to you, the thing that caused the ptsd, Ts d response and so on. But we can change 'cause your story's always part of you, but you can change what it looks like inside of you. So the whole point of the neuro cycle, which is the formula that I've developed for helping you to identify, um, the, it's the, all the neuroscience, the complex neuroscience and psycho neurobiology of helping you to stand back and observe, you know, how are you showing up in the chaos, for example.

To use the example that you, um, that you had, what is, what does that chaos look like? How can I track it back to the thought or the thoughts and how can I, um, because the, the branches of the tree would be how it's manifesting in your life. The tree trunk is, what was the processing? What were you thinking?

How did you process it? And was it, you know, through the correct processing or incorrect way of processing? And what was the source, the roots? Now, as I said, you can't change it, but. When you look at it, you can weaken this. And when you weaken this, you can reconstruct it. You can't pull it out, but you can [00:21:00] reconstruct it.

So eventually it shrinks and becomes really small, and that takes about 63 days to do that. And it becomes, and I've got a healthy one over here just to, I'm holding up a healthy green plant, just as a, as a representation. So this would be a healthy thought, the roots being the source, memories and the branches.

All the other memories. So this would represent chaos, the toxic looking one, and this would represent managing the chaos and whatever caused the chaos never goes away, but it shrinks and becomes weak and has no power. So just a teeny little hint inside the green healthy plant. And that takes time, that takes a regular applying your mind, doing mind work daily, and the mind work that you do is called the neuro cycle.

So the 21 day detox course that you're referring to now. A basic introduction into this idea of the 20, the neuro cycle, how to use it and train you. And then I have an app called the Neuro Cycle app, which I'm sure you've seen in this book as well, which helps you, um, then take that over 63 days. So there's just, you know, the different components in terms of where to start is [00:22:00] with that understanding, realizing that, okay, so the way I'm showing up.

Chaos is a behavior. It's one of the behaviors that we have manifesting. We, it's a behavioral signal, so we've gotta look. What we see from science is that there are four signals that work together, four categories of signals. They never work alone. So behaviors would be one. Behavioral signals and chaos would be that.

Behavioral signal. Now, along with that, you, there would be emotions. So there's emotional signals. So if you think of it, chaos can make you feel worried, can make you feel anxious. It can make you feel edgy, it can make you feel kinds of things. So what are the emotions linked with that chaos, um, that behavior of the behavior of chaos.

Then what is the, where do you feel that in your body? Maybe there's tension in your shoulders. Maybe this. A gut wrenching ache or whatever. And then the other thing is, how's this affecting your perspective? In other words, your outlook, your view, your attitude. And what one can do is you look at those four categories and then you, you, you reflect on those, basically you reflect on, [00:23:00] you know, why am I feeling this chaos in this moment?

And, um, then you would go deeper and see what else is related. Around this chaos. So you start peeling the onion, like you go deep and deep and deeper, and then you start thinking, okay, well can I see this differently? And then, what action can I take in this moment? And that's a a five step process that you do daily where you gather awareness of the signals you reflect on, the signals you bring up, and mindstorm, whatever the signals come to mind, you then reconceptualize those or look at them differently.

This has happened. What can I do in this moment? Not for the next week, just for today, for this moment. What action can I take? So in, when you're in that chaotic moment, it's to get your mind under control. As you go through those five steps, you immediately open the door to what I mentioned earlier, which is your non-conscious inner end.

Your non-conscious is the deepest spiritual level of you. It's where your intelligence, which is unlimited, is activated. It's where your imagination and creativity. Are just perfect. It's where your intuition and insight [00:24:00] is phenomenal. So we, we, your logic is, is, is operating phenomenally. So we always wanna tap into that level, but we only tap into that level when we stand back and observe ourself.

And you can do that in a 63 second moment. You can literally train yourself to stand back and observe and say, okay, let me look at these, the lemme quickly do run through these five steps in these 63 seconds. Then. You can start. That teaches you to start opening the door to the unconscious. Then the unconscious starts pouring wisdom, and you can use that same formula, the neuro cycle formula, to observe yourself over the next five days, seven days, five to seven days, to see the patterns.

Once you find the pattern, then the pattern is a habit. That's a habit. That's an actual established thought. Pattern that's become a habit. And now you can put that into a 63 day neuro cycle because it takes 63 days to deconstruct this, versus is made of proteins and chemicals. And so it takes time to weaken it and rewire it into something that's healthy.[00:25:00] 

And so this book help in a hurry. Gives you lots of examples of specific things. Like we, we did a survey of the top 18 areas that people feel create chaos in their life, and that's feeling under pressure. You know, we, in the hustle culture, productivity, culture, things like, um, black and white thinking, which just, it's this or that.

Nothing's ever black or white. It's, there's always an and, or, you know, an example of black and white thinking would be something like, um, I can't be feeling, um, love for my children and guilt at the same time because I'm doing so much. Uh, you know. Guilty will dominate. I'm, I'm guilty, I'm wrong. But you can, you can be frustrated with your kids and love them at the same time.

You can hold both and you're frustrated because you're trying to do a lot. So you, so we don't have enough compassion for ourself. We don't. Black and white thinking makes us very, very hard on ourself. At least another area that, like self-critical thinking and all of these, so the, the 18 top areas that identified in, in this book through research and so on. The combination of those, and we are not all operating [00:26:00] all of them, but most of us operate in people pleasing, imposter syndrome, self-critical thought at different levels, at different times, and those create this feeling of chaos. So first, first in summary, first step is to have a lot of compassion for yourself and to.

Stand back and observe yourself. Stand back and say, okay, this is not me. I'm not chaos. Chaos is not my name. Chaos is a, is a state that I'm in at the moment because of stuff going on in my life. Now I know there's stuff going on, but I'm now gonna now start refining that and getting more specific and analyzing that and going through and very specific formula to do that.

Follow through. You know, do, do the 63 second neuro cycle, and I say 63 seconds because it's five steps and you do each step in about five to 10 seconds. And what we see from science is that if you can capture something in that one minute, you can completely alter and ready. You radically alter the, the experience of your life for the rest of the next hour, then the 

next 

day, 

then the 

Jac: interesting. 

Is there a certain time of day where that's most beneficial to do [00:27:00] so? For example, I heard that within the first like five to 10 minutes upon waking, that's when your subconscious is most impressionable. Is there any research to that?

Caroline: Well, basically your subconscious is the part of your mind. It's part of your mind, the. That is between the non-conscious that is infinite in space and speed and so on, and the conscious mind, which is awake when you're awake and is very limited. The subconscious is like a bridge between the two. And what the non-conscious does is 'cause it's so fast and the, it's too fast for the conscious mind, the conscious mind would explode.

And so with the brain, so it has to be filtered. So it filters through the subconscious and in the subconscious. Basically catches your attention with those four signals and the four signals being your emotions, your body, sensations that are mentioned, behaviors and perspectives. So when you wake up first thing in the morning, your brain has been in an unconscious state, which is not the a mind level, it's a state physically that your brain goes into when you.

Um, and so your none. When you're in an unconscious state, your non-conscious is still working, but your conscious mind and your subconscious mind are [00:28:00] also asleep. So as you wake up, your brain physically wakes up, your unconscious wakes up, your brain wakes up, your subconscious wakes up your conscious, and in that waking up, which happens in.

In the morning when you wake up or any summer of the day when you wake up. Um, it's, that's, there's a, there's a whole change in your physiology and so on, and cortisol levels and all that sort of thing. So that is a very good time for you to set, to check your mindset in that moment. Um, and so it's, it's great to, when you master the neuro cycle, it's great to do a very quick neuro cycle to say, okay, how am I, what's my mood meter at this moment?

You know, what are my emotions? What am I, and you can do this. 10 seconds once you get the hang of it. And it's really important to catch it at that moment because the tone of your mindset for that moment sets the tone for the day. And we all know this, getting out of bed on the wrong side of the day has a viral effect on the rest of the day.

So yes, the morning is very important to set the tone for the day. If you don't get it right then you can always do it later in the day, but it's always best to pay attention to those signals when When is a good time to [00:29:00] actively work on rewiring a network Over 63 days. Program that I have, it's recommended in the morning, but you know what, sometimes the mornings are just too busy.

Sometimes you can only do it at lunchtime, so I'm not, I don't like to get too strict on that because I think it's very important that you can adjust it to your lifestyle. If you can do it first thing in the morning, I would definitely recommend that because your cortisol levels are different. You're waking up, you're preparing for the day, but sometimes that's you.

You, some people are just too sleepy at that point, and you've got kids and you've got life, and you've got to, and you've got, you've gotta, whatever. You've got your exercise routine or something, then just make sure you find a 15 to 30 minute time in the day where you can do a neuro cycle. The other thing about the neuro cycle is those 63 second ones, it's the same system but used quicker in the mo.

You can use that all day long like you can be now in this interview. And you can be, um, maybe I'm activating some kind of response in you from the words I'm saying. You can quickly use the neuro cycle in a mo well while staring at me to work out, you know, how do you manage that moment and what to [00:30:00] say in the next question.

So that's just kind of the different, you know, levels that you can use it on.

Jac: So interesting. Dr. Leaf, you mentioned before, MRI scans. If the otherwise, like for example, if I myself wanted to go get a brain scan to see what's actually going on in terms of like different regions being activated, am I able to do that and what tests like would that be? I've heard of an EEG in a functional MRI.

Are those easily accessible or not

Caroline: No, they're very expensive and you can't just go and get one done. We use in our neuroscience research with myself, my team, we use QEEG, which is a computerized version, quantitative version of eeg, EEGs. When they put the cap on your head and it looks at the electrical signals, MRI. If you go into a big tube and they basically look at the blood flow and it's all magnetic resonance and so on.

And then spec scan is another way of looking at physically and then CT scans. But they, they, they're not things you just go and get done. They're very expensive and they're done for medical reasons. Also. You can't look in your brain. What you're seeing is a response. You're not seeing thoughts, you can't read thoughts in your brain.

So like, for example, um, [00:31:00] MRIs, lots of different slices that they put together. So it's not like, okay, that. Parts more active, therefore there's something wrong. Or if in, in an EEG, we are looking at electrical activity, we're looking at brainwaves, and you can have someone who's, um, who's very depressed and who, but, and, uh, and uh, someone else who is in a highly meditative state where they just getting like.

Tremendous insight into like, sort of a spiritual level, and their brains will have a similar sort of response. So we can't, you're not looking at a thought, you're looking at a pattern. Um, it's kind of like standing on a 20 foot, standing on a like 40 floor up in a building, um, and looking down. Below in the street or beach or wherever you are.

And you can see kids playing and you can hear the laughter 'cause some sounds, sounds will rise, but you can't hear, you might see a cluster of kids or adults talking, you don't know if they're arguing. You dunno what they're saying. You just know these activity, but you don't know if it's positive or negative activity, you know, that kind of thing.

So yeah, so it's not something, [00:32:00] you know, Q the most accessible is your QEEG where you can go for bio, you know, you can have a Q EEG done. It's um, you can have. Biofeedback sessions and so on. And, and you know, we, we use, we are developing within our app, uh, eventually, not now, so I shouldn't even really say it, but where you can get heads, you, I mean, even now, commercially available headsets are available that people 

can get and yeah, and they, they measure basic and they give you a basic idea.

So it's very interesting. Um, but you're not reading your thoughts. It's very much just looking at, at the response. And it's great to help, you know, to. The, the, the basic headsets that are three or $400, those are basic things that just help. They're not reading your mind though, nothing can read your mind.

Jac: No, that makes sense. I'm so curious. What other daily interventions do you recommend to help manage a chaotic mind? And I've heard you talk about this in your other podcast episodes and I've heard other people say as well, but I think there's a fine line, right, between the benefits of music and then over stimulus.

And I'm [00:33:00] just curious what your thoughts are in terms of what is a healthy balance for that. And I, I share that because I feel like sometimes. I'm constantly overstimulating my brain in the sense of I'm always listening to a podcast, or I'll always have music playing in the background and I don't necessarily know.

Um, I guess, yeah, like what, what is a healthy balance, right? Between creating time for silence, um, and also, you know, creating stimulus. So your brain is always learning as well. L.

Caroline: Very good question. So remember, your brain and body work together to learn and your, and they're not actually learning, they're just coding, being coded, I should say. Your mind is doing all the work, so your mind and your conscious, you've got the three levels, conscious, subconscious, and non-conscious. And your non-conscious mind can handle everything, but your conscious mind can't.

Because it's not designed to handle everything. So it is important to find a balance because whatever your conscious mind does mimic first mind, and then it puts it into the brain and the body mind 99%. So when we feel the chaos, we feeling it in our mind first. And if our [00:34:00] mind is not listening to the non-conscious, it'll get more chaotic.

Then it'll put a chaotic, um, coding instruction into the brain, and then the brain will respond. Chemically and genetically, and our hormones will change, and our hypothalamic pituitary axis, which controls the stress response, we'll start responding. We'll start feeding it in our, a lot of stuff in our body.

So yes, balance is important. Bioindividuality is very important. Like there's no one diet, there's no one exercise, there's no one rule. There's been a massive amount of, um, emphasis in the last few years, especially with the whole wellness trend on everyone. Everyone should meditate. Meditation is the only way.

There's a lot of. In spiritual circles. Now, I'm not anti meditation, but it's not the only way that you can actually get access to your deep spiritual level. You can have your eyes open and you can, and I've shown it with my research. You can get into deep meditative states with your eyes open in 63 seconds using the neuro cycle.

Um, you can. Do, um, breathing exercise. You can do, you know, your prayer time, whatever. It's, it, it's important to, to find what works for [00:35:00] you, but to, you don't have to follow a trend. You need to play around with things to see what works for you. Periods of silence are important. Um, it is good to stimulate.

The brain does is hungry for knowledge, but the brain. And the body's hungry for coding. They're hungry. They are designed for coding, so they need coding. And the conscious mind is very hungry to learn. It's like a toddler, and the non-conscious mind is very happy to help the conscious mind learn. So there's a beautiful symphony going on, but it requires balance.

That's why we sleep. 

That's why we need to have rest. That's why we need to restore. And so, um, the brain and body get very, very tired. Kind of like if you have all your apps open on your cell phone, your cell phone battery dies. So the, the balance is to have periods of silence, to have periods of restoration, um, and to maybe have periods of time where you don't have the podcast playing.

I mean, that's nothing wrong with having the podcast playing, but maybe to just allocate periods in your day. One of the first signs when people have overstimulated the conscious mind, brain, body, you'll get a [00:36:00] message from the unconscious, and that message very often is a hovering anxiety and a bit of depression.

And so that's not something wrong with you that's that's your unconscious mind saying, Hey, your brain and body are just tired. You just literally need to switch everything off and just have some silence around you and maybe go for a walk or maybe just sit still and stare out the window or just even. I talk about thinker moments.

If you can train yourself to have a thinker moment, which is switch off to the external, switch onto the internal, allow your mind just to thought, just to wander and daydream, stare at a beautiful picture, whatever, or close your eyes and imagine something beautiful and just let your mind wander. If you can do that for around 10 to 30 seconds every hour, and then for around 10 minutes.

Every sort of few hours, few, you can keep the brain in a very restorative state when, um, the mind, brain, body connection with psycho neurobiology. When you're in that state, you can recognize when you've stretched yourself. When you, it's kind of like if, if you eat too much junk food, you don't know when to stop, but if, if you eat.

Nutritious, [00:37:00] healthy grass food, et cetera, et cetera, you, your body knows, your body gets full quickly. It's the same thing if you don't manage your mind properly, which means if you don't let your unconscious drive, your conscious mind just keeps looking for the wrong kind of stimulation. 

So you have to teach it, you have to train it to find the right balance.

Jac: Yeah. And everything you just said that reminds me of something else I wanted to, to say thank you for, for emphasizing in your book is the fact that anxiety, depression, OCD, you say that those are responses, right, not illnesses. And again, I think that is one of the most empowering things. Someone who is struggling with those or any of those can hear.

Um, because if it's a response, that means you can retrain yourself, right?

Caroline: Absolutely, absolutely. You are not depression. You are not anxiety. You don't have a mental illness. They're very overwhelming and they're very consuming because of, of the nature of them and 'cause of the chaos they create. The chaos you spoke about earlier on. I mean, this kind of thing. If this thing is whatever you think about the most grows, and if it's, if something's not dealt with, then you're just focusing on this.

Only [00:38:00] it grows and, and it's very overwhelming, but it, and it, and it will impact and change your brain because you are, this, this kind of thing will damage the brain, but it's not the brain causing it or the body causing it, it's the mind causing it in response to life experiences. So it's a way we process something which then changes the brain and, but the, and then that feeds back into the mind and then this.

Conscious mind, brain feedback loop is set up. The big thing is, it's not is, is to honor that and to recognize that this is very, it's very hard if you don't wanna minimize, you wanna maximize, but you wanna maximize your control. When you just label it, you actually don't pay on you. You kind of siloing something so big into just a label.

Or blaming the brain, and that's just not the case. The brain's being coded by the mind. So therefore, what we need to do stand back into our wisdom and into our, into our solutions, which is the non-conscious and then rewire. And it sounds easier than what it is, but I mean, 40 years of research in this game, I have showed that you can improve anxiety, managing anxiety and depression.

Seeing it as a [00:39:00] signal, not as an illness by 35 to 80 by 81%. You can say this in a more simple way. You can get 81% control over anxiety and depression and make it work for you, not against you When you understand how to manage your mind.

Jac: Right. No, that's so fascinating. I am curious too, Dr. Leaf, what does meditation look like for you in your daily routine? And I've heard, yeah, I've heard a lot of different takes on this because the traditional definition, right, of meditation is the concept of like emptying your mind. But from a biblical perspective, it's actually filling your mind, right?

The filling your mind with God's word. So what does it, what does it look like for you?

Caroline: Well, I, I reach an audience of, I'm, I'm spiritual, so I'm not necessarily one particular faith. So there's, and I think what's very important is that we need to honor everyone's. Beliefs. Okay. So that's, that's very important. So meditation is gonna look different for everyone, but you can never empty your mind.

Um, so that's just a phrase that we've used. We don't have the language to really fully [00:40:00] explain that ex, that that experience when you go into a deep spiritual state and going into a deep spiritual state means that you're tapping into your non-conscious level. And your non-conscious level is your spirit level.

And the spirit level is where all your life experiences, plus all your wisdom, um, is connect, is, is. And that's connected to the source of wisdom, which. God, godness, whatever you, you know, want to call it. And from a biblical standpoint, it would be God, um, from, from another spiritual view. It may be the source, whatever it may be, but you are connected to that source.

So when you meditate, it is tapping into that intuition, that wisdom that. So it might look like a deeply insightful moment. It might look like you just. Staring at your computer and you suddenly look away and there's this quietness that comes on you and there's this aha. Or it might be that you close your eyes and you are doing an act of prayer or you, um, do some breathing and you calm yourself down.

'cause when you breathe, you. In you signaling to your physiology, your brain and body, [00:41:00] that it's going to be okay. As you breathe out, you're telling your brain and your body it is okay. And as you do that, it calms down your neurochemistry and so on and your hormones. And then that might lead to maybe you say something like a little prayer or a me, some sort of meditative ritual, and that calms you down.

The words will calm you down more, and then that opens your mind to start. Sort of almost that daydreaming that I spoke about earlier on. And so that helps you to get to a state and you can start seeing maybe these intrusive thoughts that popping up. And now in that particular moment, instead of reacting to the intrusive thought, that's creating the chaos, you observe you, it's called the multiple perspective advantage.

You put yourself in a state where you stand back and you're observing as opposed to, so it's not emptying your mind, it's observing. Okay, well this seems to be coming up a lot. This is now something and it's like you're talking to yourself. This is okay. This is not who you are. This is something we can work on.

So for this moment, thank you that I found this. Maybe you open your eyes and write that [00:42:00] down, and then you go back and just say, okay, this is something I can work through. So it's like a little exercise that you. Would, would move through. So you're not emptying your mind for sure. Um, but what they're trying to teach the, the people that teach meditation and so on of all different faiths and belief systems, is to not be totally reactive in that moment to everything that's going on around you, to calm down that neurophysiology and to get yourself into that multiple perspective advantage state, and then to find those.

Pattern that are, have become habits and then not react to them in the moment, but put them aside, activate your resilience and then slowly but surely come back and work on one at a time. That's kind of how what, how I understand the 

of meditation.

Jac: Dr. Leaf, I know we're coming up on time. One more quick question. I, I did wanna ask you on the same wavelength as as meditation, right? We hear mindfulness, right? Mindfulness is this phrase that's just thrown out there. And I thought it was so interesting that you said our brain is actually not ever.

Truly capable of being [00:43:00] present in the moment because it always time travels. And that kind of helped me because I, again, like I'm the type of person where I feel like I'm always living in the future. I'm never fully present. But to recognize that our brains don't have the power to be a hundred percent present, kind of took this weight off my shoulders, meaning like, you know, there's nothing actually wrong with me, it's just how our brain functions.

Caroline: Yeah, that's, no, that's amazing that you picked that up. So, good, good job for actually getting that insight. So that's, that's that insight, that understanding you have, that's, that's an example of your unconscious mind, leading your conscious mind. So just that I wanted to say that as an aside. Yes. So your really, your brain doesn't think, your brain can't do anything.

Your brain is a, um. A very sophisticated machine that responds. It's computational, it's it's algorithmic, and it's got, it's coded by the mind. So, um, but that the mind, the non-conscious mind is beyond space and time. It operates in the present, past, and future all at once. And that's driving you 100%. Your conscious mind is stuck in time.

It's stuck in the now, and it's the now leading to the next moment. [00:44:00] To the next moment. So we operate on those. Different levels. Now all of that gets put into the brain. And so when we have an experience of, of feeling like we are not really present, that is the non-conscious filtering through your conscious and coding that in the brain, and then you become aware of that in your psycho neurobiology.

Can. You know, makes it all works together and you become aware of that. So the more one is aware of that, um, that that's you, it shows the depth of you tuning into a non-conscious mind. So we are not stuck in space, you know, space time is not fundamental space time. There's a, there's a deeper level that goes beyond space and time that is fundamental and that's mind, that is not, that is not bound by present, past, and future.

And we all have that sense, especially when we do things like meditation. Think deeply or we, we really, you know, just think about the moments that we in immediately, the past and the future comes into that moment. So we always operating in, in those levels and then the brain just does what the mind tells it to do, codes that, 

and helps to [00:45:00] experience that physically.

Jac: right. Yeah. We're always drawing from our experiences, as you said. Well, Dr. Leaf, we have covered so much, but I still feel like there's so much more I wanna ask you, so I can't wait to do a round two. But with 

Caroline: you. 

Jac: where can listeners find you? Where can they pick up a copy of your latest book, help in a Hurry?

Caroline: Well, thank you for that. Um, the books available wherever books are sold. My website's dr leaf.com. I've got a podcast, the Dr. Leaf Show. Um, currently we running, a brain detox challenge.

Um, and that's basically, it's, it's a, every day I put a post on social media, so obviously you can find me on all this. I'm on every platform. And that, that this challenge is basically, we do it every year in different ways and I've released a course and this course teaches you these principles we've been talking about.

I walk you through this daily, that's what you mentioned, you on day two. And then they, there's also the app. There's 19 books in 24 languages. My older books aren't available anymore, but that, that's plenty. There's plenty of stuff. So easiest places to go to dr leaf.com and you'll find it all. And if you go to my social media pages, go to Instagram, Facebook, whatever, you can see the challenge and join [00:46:00] the challenge.

Jac: So many incredible resources. I will link all of them in the show notes. And my very last question for you, Dr. Leaf, this 

Caroline: Sure. 

Jac: my favorite one to ask, and that is, what does being well and strong mean to you?

Caroline: It means that I'm managing my mind for sure. 'cause the mind drives everything else. So if my mind is managed, I'm well and strong.

Jac: Wonderful. Well, Dr. Leaf, thank you so much for your time. I'm so excited to share this and I can't wait for round two.

Caroline: Thank you so much. Enjoyed it. Thank you. 

Head Shot

Jacqueline Genova

Host