WATCH: What does it mean to have a healthy Brain?

because acemic loves the PowerPoint slide so this won't be any different I'll just bring that on um so yes I I'm tonight I'm going to just talk a little bit about um understanding the function of brain and the regulation of over overall health now I've only got 30 minutes or so to do this is going to be quite tricky for me as well because I'm very passionate about this subject and I think it sits in really nicely with the talks that have already gone on and this School itself and how we can look at our own mental health so really when I go through this lecture tonight I want you to think about yourself first and foremost you're the aspiring psychologist of tomorrow and you're going to be looking at your own mental health as well as others as well um but just first beautiful brain my interest and passion has always been about brain health it's always been about the the functions of the brain um and I was really interested in eating disorders as a as a student as well and after working in a psychiatric department for a period of time I I was very conflicted about the actual causes of eating disorders and it and it it led me back to the lab and I did some psychopharmacology and I looked at the biological basis of idian disorders so I spent four years studying two areas of the brain that's how complex it is and um looking at feeding regulation and emotional Center so I'll bring up some of that later on tonight so I'm really passionate about this area of regulating brain health but currently I'm actually involved in a te 5dh well project that we launched last September and within this I've been able to work then as uh this the psychologist looking at Behavior change looking at how to bring in brain health and uh emotional regulation into this into this current project because there are five pillars for aging well underneath this and some of the are are fed in then to what my previous research was about which was eating disorders so you can see in nutrition there and hydration physical activity cognitive and social So within those pillars I've been able to build in a little bit of of what it's what the brain's actually doing when we do things and actually Peter bringing in the whole January and dry January and New Year's resolutions um we're going to look at dopamine tonight as well because it's it's the hormone responsib for all that yeah let's go 1 of January and depletes very quickly probably by the fifth or sixth of January even before that um so this leads me on then to a public talk I'm going to do because I'm very interested as I said about the biological based feeding disorders but led has led me on to sort of intuitive eating so in April I'm going to give a talk about ways to look at intuitive eating and and and brain health as well so again I really always think that brain health comes under this big umbrella and then from that you've got lots of different pillars then that can actually work but at the core of it is this beautiful organ that's working really really hard then for you as well so let's just have a little bit of fun you're this you're not going to be tested on this okay so you can actually relax and let us do the work for a change okay so you can sit back and relax I've actually just um a short article there on open learn you can see the link there a hug for the brain so I'm looking at ways of regulating and promoting brain health so there's a link there for that I'm not sure if you get the slides but um uh if you look at open learn a hug for the brain you'll find that article there so just some facts the brain weighs about3 pound I don't know if you can see my brain behind me I also have this brain here um a smaller stress relieving one um it's got 100 billion neurons so let's just think about that just stop there 100 billion neurons okay so that's why it's really complicated um and complex and why I I studied two areas of the brain for four years so it you know it's a very complex and beautiful organ and and there's lots of different parts to it so we're going to get the overview of it tonight the bigger ticket numbers and there's lots of other details in and I have lots of references at the end that you can read up on some of the other work that's been done okay so the brain triples in size um but isn't formally uh formed until about the age of 25 I like this one it's enough electricity going through your brain to you know power a light bulb um and 60% of the brain is made up of fat so anybody who's now in their Whole Health kick which feeds in nicely to my intutive eating thing the brain loves fat it needs fat and it's a really good regulator okay so it's essential for your brain to actually work efficiently so it kind of conflicts and it's very conflicting with the with the information out there about body shape and body size and all of that the brain's actually one of the organs that does need the fat then to actually work efficiently as well okay but let's go back a little bit and this is what I I I'm fascinated by how much we've actually progressed with the brain our technology Etc cognitive psychology for example is a relatively young discipline and so is neuro and so is bioc pychology and psychopharmacology in all these different areas but we have known a lot about the brain and a lot of the times you'll find that psychiatrists have come in and actually looked at areas of this so broadman um was the first in he's a ger he was a German um neuros psych psychiatrist and he looked at anatomical brain mapping which was really useful so he came up with 52 areas of the brain and the reason why I'm showing you this is that because even though it's been widely debated over you know I suppose since then um it's still widely known now and actually used most frequently in the mapping of the cortex now we've got over 200 areas now but again a lot of those areas that he identified have been now split into different parts because we understand that they've different functions even within one area okay so what do we know um we as psychologists know have already known this um that the interplay between the biological the psychological and the social it's actually really really important for us now Engel um actually wrote a paper um you'll come across it if you haven't already as psychology students the bioc psychosocial model the bio being the biological the psycho being the psychological and the social then being that social part of it um and it has widely cited and the World Health Organization use it and it's we know that we need to look at all the interplace between it but in fact the impact of the bioc psychosocial model hasn't made as much of an impact as you would have thought based on the citations and the reason for that is because it's so complicated to be able to do all three it's so complicated to be able to study all three but as our our techniques I suppose expand and increase we are getting um more knowledge and and areas within of each of those then to study and that's why the the five to thrive pledge for aging is quite interesting for me from this side of it because I'm able to look at the biological the psychological and social in terms of a behavioral change type of project too and from that then we'll we'll dig a little bit uh deeper into the biological side of it as well but for now because this Focus tonight is on the brain we're going to focus on the brain from a mental health perspective um and look at it from biological as well so we're going to look at it biologically and what what happens when it comes to the mental health side of it um so I suppose we're looking at the impact on Mental Health the brain can work against you it does it continuously does it it baffles us at times in terms of that in terms of emotional regulation but it also has the ability to recover and respond very positively so we're we're looking at the gap between some of the literature and some of the current research that's known about this as well um so what happened biologically when we reduce our levels of stress and depression improve our happiness so a lot of the research that's been especially when Engel come out with the biopsychosocial was like let's look at all the psychological ways um of all the problems with the biology well in fact Neuroscience is slightly leaning more and I suppose probably in about the last 10 15 years Co is definitely increased that um it's looking about ways of increasing happiness within the brain and you've got the posit positive psychologist to thank for that as well looking at increasing those happiness instead of trying to work out why there's depression levels Etc and anxiety let's look at trying to instill this sort of Happiness idea into the brain it's a lot more complicated than that but this this allows us then to study it in certain ways and in certain areas as well okay so what do what is cortical organization brain anatomy all of these wonderful things Brian as he's known um behind me here what's all these different parts of the brain do but first and it's a very simple model of the brain and I know we're all on computers and we can look up brain images when I first started neuropsychology many years ago I made a paper mashe brain which then um went off after a after a while how to make a new one um now we have lots of Technology but in fact it can be quite simple so I want you to look at what's on the screen which is the hand model of the brain again um Daniel sigle he's actually a psychiatrist and he's looking at a Child Development a lot so he would actually be explaining the brain in terms of of children and and explain it to parents and looking after brain health as well he does a lot of work on ADHD but if we look at it simply and I'm going to do it you can do it with me if you want um but we're going to look at this because it's the perfect sort of it looks it looks like a brain when you turn it sideways um so if I look here and this part of the brain um is the older part of the brain it's the mamillion brain it's the oldest part of our brain but it's really responsible for automatic processing if I take my thumb and I put my thumb here this is where around this is the limic region so you've got your amydala which we're going to talk about in a few minutes and you've got your hippocampus and you may have heard of these brain regions if if you're in uh d120 module but the hampus is memory the amydala is emotions and you've got all of these around this okay so this is this is the oldest part now the newest part of the brain is the fingers okay so this is the prefrontal cortex and this is this is the cortex sorry this is the prefrontal cortex here where my fingernails are and the reason why it's so good is because it shows the the sort of shape of the brain this is the brain step here and right behind here at the back of the head is What's called the pituitary gland and it's the most important gland in the whole body um because it regulates a lot of the hormones well sorry it's the one of the most important so the idea if we have here we have all these systems underneath here but in fact the the common lay persons phrase of flipping your lid is very very very relevant and actually very applicable because cuz when you flip your lid your oldest part of your brain which is sometimes called the monkey part of the brain um is actually then the one that is is in in mode and actually working at that point so when you flip your lid your prefrontal cortex which all your reasoning and your thinking and logic flips out of the way and this older part of of the brain is actually working and I've said this before in other talks I've given I lik in the limic brain kind of to one of my sisters have four um who gives really really bad advice really important member of the family really bad advice all the time so and this limic system again it doesn't think it doesn't logically think however if I'm in a situation where I need to get out of that I'm in immediate danger I don't want my prefrontal cortex doing all the thinking I kind of want the lyic system reacting to get me out of there too so really if you're looking at emotional regulation you're really trying to focus on if this is coming up and these fingers are coming out of the way and it's going to flip the lid and you're going to flip the lid then you need to start regulating it not when it's here because it's too it's too difficult to actually start regulating it there okay so you need to bring it down so if you're ever trying to visual what's actually the brain itself it's the best one if you don't have a model like I have this is the best one then to think about overall brain health and thinking about these areas underneath here and all these important and this wrapping around of that prefrontal cortex as well okay so what is it there's three parts of the brain we can't get into detail tonight but the hindbrain the midbrain and the forebrain so the hindbrain is responsible for movement um automatic processing the midbrain mediates and blocks the sort of sensory it's kind of the gate keeper if you like and then the forbrain which is the one that we're we're going to look at it contains the cerebral cortex and the subcortical lyic system that we've just talked about there so these are the parts of the brain that psychologist and neuros psychologists tend to look at more because they're looking at it a link to mental health too so that's the important distinction okay so there's what it looks like in a hierarchy so if you think again this brain this wrapping so that's the part then that we did with the with the hand demonstration then as well and we're going to look at the lobes now so whilst we look focus on this four brain sorry I should to put my arrow on the right screen so we're going to look at this four brain um and not so much the midbrain and the hindbrain but the forebrain then is where the center is where we look at the the actual um different sections and these are called lobes in within that so the four brains organized into these different sections called lobes very simplified but each lobe is a different function so the front lobe uh executive functioning and attention the parial lobe is motor motor sensory um the temporal lobe is hearing and oxidable lobe is visual processing so what does that actually look like in terms of the model of the brain then you'll see that this is colorcoded as well and if you look here to the front this is where my fingernails would be which is right here and this is the problem solving emotional traits and all of that the reasoning the logic the newest part of our brain and to the back is the parietal lobe which is knowing um right from left tation reading body orientation the oxidable lobe is right at the back so that's why sometimes if you get a knock to the Head it'll affect your vision because the oxidable lobe then is damaged um and you've got the cerebellum and the brain stem as well which are important in terms of overall balance and coordination for the cerebellum and then the brain stem actually takes in the breathing and the body temperature as well and then the temporal lobe here um and this is where the hippocampus in is within um actual when you talk about lobes themselves as well this distinguishing the parts of the brain and where the loes are can be quite useful for you to understand the different functions however I would say this is it's very complicated when it comes to it we can try to separate them out based on where we see the most active ation but again certain areas of the brain can be activated from say for example um you're looking in the acable loob and you're looking at Vision something could be affected back there but it can actually have an impact then on the frontal loobe because of the problem solving or whatever you're saying so the cognitive psychologist would be looking at all of these areas of the brain and how they interact and that's what we want to understand a little bit more what's the interaction of all these areas the brain and how can we make sense of that in terms of of a psychology Community when it comes to overall mental health all right so this is quite complicated but it's very similar to the slide before slightly different colors okay but if you look at the frontal lobe the parietal lobe oxidable lobe and the temporal lobe they're all there okay but um aolon these are some of the chemicals that are associated with certain area areas um and are associated then with some mental disorders um and actually associated with regulation and overall emotional regulation as well so they do say aolon for example and don't worry you're not going to be tested in any of this um a cocolon too much of that can lead to depression um too little of it in the hippocampus now remember the hippocampus is responsible for memory that can actually cause a Dementia or can be linked to dementia um dopamine there um and dopamine is that driving hormone that we're going to look at in a few minutes um too much of that schizophrenia too little depression serotonin which we're going to look at as well which is your mood stabilizer it really gets in there and helps stabilize moods um so too little of that can cause uh depression and some anxiety and then we've got Gaba as well and too little of that can actually cause anxiety and some of the other ones there so you've got norrine which is uh linked to uh increases that or linked to schizophrenia and decreases of it are linked to depression however kind of putting something like this in a chart um or a graph like this here it's showing the complexity of how these um chemicals within the brain interact with each other and that's the important part so different chemicals have different interactions but you can see here depression's mentioned quite a few times and anxiety as well and so they're interacting and the interplay between them is actually quite important for it so what's the brain all he's trying to do the brain has actually two functions survival which is really good because it needs to Ed your survival and pleasure and reward so whenever there's an imbalance it's always trying to regulate itself it's trying to bring you back to this sort of equal place where it can actually control it um unlike the cat there that's not doing a really good job um your brain then when it sees in has increases and and it's trying to regulate your mood and that's why sometimes you may not feel good in certain ways you're um it can affect your stomach and things like that it can affect your heart rate all these things um and if I were to ask you now if you were on mic and camera what emotions do students experience I'm sure the first one that you come up with would be pleasure reward your dopamine because you know you're just loving life as a student and and experiencing all these great modules but the other one you might come up with that certain times is stress so stress then is a is an it can be positive or negative but stress is something that we talk about a lot and and the public groups that I've worked with too talk about stress and it's very frequent mentioned in the literature you know we talk about it between ourselves and how we're feeling stressed and some amounts of stress are quite good but when it comes to higher levels of stress it becomes distress and that's when the body and that's when the cat if you think about that image is trying your your brain is trying to equalize or bring it back to some sort of equilibrium and that can be quite quite difficult as well so the stress response increases but it's not only just when you're feeling stressed or something's happening it can actually be when the body's trying to fight an infection and it can also be when it's a enjoyable um you can find a little bit of stress in the body too emotions you know such as Joy anger fear are potent stressors as well um and expectations can also trigger the stress response you don't even have to experience anything stressful it's the anticipation and the expectation the brain doesn't know whether it's an an you're expecting it or it's actually really happening if you're thinking about it and feeling it then it's going to respond because that's what it's there to do is to Aid your survival too and that's not just me saying this we know this we know this through uh the resp the biological response in the body too so we've got this hypothalmic pituitary adrenal axes the HPA axes and remember what I said to you about the pituitary gland which is at the back of the head which is one of the most important glands and responsible for that and it actually releases this corot tropen releasing factor or hormone and it's widely believed that it will mediate the stress induced behaviors so it's actually implying this sort of a broader integrative role for the hormone in psychological stress response so your body and brain are very intuitive and very clever and they're responding and reacting a lot to different um I suppose different situations in the environment different thoughts that you're having any physical stresses so there's a lot of things happening a lot of things happening continuously within your body and this is why when you say you're feeling stressed I'm going to show you now it involves so many areas of the brain stress doesn't just be a feeling of a feeling oh I'm feeling a little bit stress it actually involves the amydala which is uh responsible for emotions it involves the hypothalamus which is emotions and feeling Behavior now the hypothalamus was was the area of the brain I studied for for a few years because it's got part of that area is called a power ventricular nucleus and it's associated with feeding regulation and of course then when you're looking at eaten disorders that would be an area you're looking at it's got the pituitary gland then secretes this hormone okay so it's it's the main one that you you need to be looking at in terms of Regulation as well and then you've got the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus what's left so stress doesn't just have this emotional response in your body where you're feeling a little bit uneasy you've got all these different areas within the brain that are affected by that you got the amydala which is your fear I'm just looking at time now so I'm going to go through these quite quickly so you've got the migdala the almond shaped the side two sides of the brain there are two amydala one on each side of the brain so it's your fight your flight remember this lyic system your amydala is there you want the amydala working sometimes if you're in a situation where you need to leave it quickly the problem is our thoughts can cause a reaction in the amydala as well remember I talked about the hypothalamus so if you're stressed what happens to your gut you start to fail it in your gut okay and that the serotonin which is a mood stabilizer 90% of that's made in your gut and there's a reason for that because it's trying to stabilize things so if you're feeling a little bit stressed you're going to feel it there and again uh this comes through from the pituitary gland as well it's the one saying okay there's might be um um a threat here we need to activate and then in comes the hippocampus it's going I going to remember that the next time because I know that was a stressful situation or stressful thought so every time then it's stored and the hippocampus ends affected and then a key in the prefrontal cortex and this is where it's working um and organizing behavior and this is where the frontmost region of the frontal cortex so it's planning and organizing Behavior as well so stress biology I'm going to get to the good part now in a few minutes about what you can actually do with this all of this information about your lovely brain uh and what what can you do then to increase that so there's this constant barrage of glucocorticoids during chronic stress we're not built for chronic stress chronic stress is longterm stress we're built for acute Okay so we're we're built then if we see something very stressful in the environment we're actually built um to um you know I suppose the amigdala and the lyic system coming in and getting us out of that situation we're not built for chronic stress over long periods of time so it could actually affect our memories it can affect our judgments our decisions how so again it's overarching across that and then we look at some of the brain Imaging data and the volume of the hippocampus and the areas of the prefrontal cortex is lower in people with depression and activity in the prefrontal cortex is reduced as well okay so neurons so again I've talked about all these brain areas I've talked about these lobes I've talked about these function but what is actually happening in within these areas of the brain 100 billion neurons and they send messages to each other and some of these neurotransmitters and we're going to look at some of these are glutamate Gaba adrenaline serotonin dopamine oxytocin endorphin and aolin they're all really good and useful hormones a neurotransmitter sorry only if they're in the amount their correct amounts and the cor you're regulating them correctly too because we saw with that other image slide that increases and decreases can actually have an impact then as well so the neuron sends messages it's like a little um Courier that goes along and their copses and the neurotransmitters then are transmitted from accents to dendrites and then if you look here the syapse is actually what locks in and sends these as well and the action potentials in or these um I suppose electric energy then and they can c can reach a speed of 150 m/ second so it's all happening so fast so how do you regulate that as well and then anything is carried by action potential Taste of music or taste of chocolate sorry Sound of Music smoothness of the pebble all of these lovely things that come in and increase that brain activity is really really good okay so happy hormones let's get to how we can regulate some of these things so what I said to you before was this increase um in happiness without in the brain can actually help that so if we look at a neurotransmitter it's not usually it's the chemical that will want to make you feel better okay your body can't function without these and remember if you look at those acts and potentials across it's trying to carry chemical signals from one neuro to the other and I four here dopamine which is your drive hormone oxytocin which is your closeness and your Oneness probably depleted quite a lot during Co because we couldn't have those connections that we need you've got serotonin which is your mood stabilizer comes in and helps regulate that and then endorphins which is for ease and that helps ease the body and it's actually uh analgesic as well so how do you get them um this dopamine gives you motivation oxytocin gives you the feelings of trust it's also called The Love or Co cuddle hormone which I quite like it's very plays a role in bonding as well and then you've got serotonin which is what you would look at if you're looking at stabilizing those moods and accepting yourself and others as well so it's a very mood stabilizer if you're in different situations as well and then you've got endorphins which release these and you're forward to Max I suppose Mass the physical pain as well and this response to pain and stress alleviates that anxiety and depression so whilst we're looking at all these different areas of the brain and the chemicals and how they build and all of this here we can also look at then ways of increasing this happiness so let's just look very quickly at deficiency so there there what you would be feeling then if you are deficient in dopamine procrastination because remember it's the drive hormone and then you look at oxytocin if you're feeling lonely or disconnected it can actually affect your sleep as well serotonin low self-esteem as well mood swings and all of that can actually have an impact and then you've got endorphin which is your anxiety and your depression and mood swings as well and aches and pains so the the four them have a connection between each other because they can be linked in certain ways as well but if you're looking to know which one that you could actually in increase and improve and alongside of that looking at some of these could actually reduce the stress levels as well because you're looking at overall brain regulation in terms of that okay so how to increase them meditation doing daily um I suppose to-do lists Etc exercising regular for dopamine uh physical touch massage acupuncture listening to music for that one serotonin which would be exercise as well and sunlight massage and then you've got endorphins there's different strategies for it um laughter and crying for the endorphins is great too so what you're trying to do is I suppose in terms of knowledge of the brain is trying to work out where it is that I feel I have a deficiency and trying to increase that now if you look at that chart there there's one that falls into each of them and one that people will probably be engaging right now because of the time of year that we're in and that is exercise because everybody loves to exercise okay and most people will say no to that um there are a group of people that will say yes um but what I think as well and I'm going to show you this next slide is movement is very powerful for the body and the movement part of the body so I'm I'm suggesting that if you can't do all of these things or you're not sure what hormone you need to increase start moving your body because moving will allow you to tap into your body tap into that wisdom too if you're not moving your body you're not connecting with it and that can be actually a difficulty then in knowing what you need to regulate too now I have exercise stroked out because I I've asked this before to people you know how many people in the in the room um do triathlons or do yoga or do this and then you can see the hands raised up and there is a stigma associated with all of and what I would say to you as well is movement and exercise don't need to be the same thing for you movement can be just a meditation as well movement Can Be You meditating and and and figuring out what what your body actually needs at that um one of the best ways I do sometimes sitting on my desk is is working out where the the tongue is on in in my mouth if it's up to the top of my mou and I know I'm feeling a bit stressed but I only know that because I'm feeling the rest of my body too and my shoulders as well so those little charts will say to you and a common one across them is about exercise but you know I would look at it in terms of movement and seeing what you could do then to improve that overall regulation as well and looking at ways to tapping into your own inate body wisdom because you have it because your brain is very clever and it's trying to work for you as well um so just to finish off then I just want to show you a few of these uh brain scans because again if I if you were you know this is where regulation of brain health is quite important and I've got extra reading for you there uh in in that area is that you have to look at your own brain and its own health then to understand what way you could increase it or improve it so if you look there yoga boosts brain function okay which is great but also if you look at this brain after sitting quietly and then the brain after 20 20 minute walk I would say if this brain I'm looking at it is lacking in dopamine and drive and motivation and actually the walk has helped us but I would say this brain here is actually over stimulated it might be a little bit anxious so in fact a meditation would be really good for this this person in this brain here to actually go and do an exercise or a head class might not be the best thing for them so it's tapping in to what your brain's actually telling you and the only way to do that is through short meditation sitting quietly or doing some movement as well it doesn't have to be very very long like there's this idea about meditating that you must do an hour you must empty everything thing from your mind if you're not meditating at all a couple of minutes meditation could actually really improve your overall mental health too okay so I just want to this is a lovely article it because it looks at these discret positive emotions that I'm talking about because it's going to increase all of these as well so you look at the duper energic system which we looked at damine okay and this is this then comes out to all these positive traits and actually you can see some of the hormones that and neurotransmitters that we looked at that tonight oxytocin's there oh opioids is there and endogenous one serotonin as well and actually can cause some of these and result in some of these lovely nurturing positive discret sort of attitudes and promotion of brain health then comes into play really really nicely when it comes to all of that okay so I tried to summarize that really quickly um again what I'd like to say to you now is that you've got this really powerful wonderful brain working for you okay and it is is so important in the regulation of your own health but it's very individual and back to that bioc psychosocial model of Health that's maybe where the complexity comes in and why we can't look at it overall that in fact it's so complex because it's based on an individual um person and we're not maybe getting into the individual core of it so the brain is powerful organ um but it can also be the distress uh cause of distress and low mood um if you know from the charts some of the hormones can help you increase your feelings of happiness you just need to decide in what hormone you're lacking and and how you can actually increase it be careful with dopamine really powerful hormone but it's also responsible for addiction it's very eager it's the one on the 1 of January going yay let's go let's go and then by the sixth of January it's depleted very very quickly so you're going to take it slow and connect with your own body and think about how you feel and start with small steps and this is why I'm so interested in this side of research now that I'm doing especially with the current project we're working on um because it's tapping into that sort of innate body wisdom that you have and then looking individually at it as well so preventative measures are key and increasing happiness and there's this idea that the brain doesn't know how to multi multitask it shifts really really quickly so if it's if it's you're working on happiness then it could actually then decrease then the others because it of this Focus as well on it um so some uh the references there looking at hip aample and suffering from depression mood disorders there's lots of good research in terms of looking at the applying of the learnings uh from Neuroscience to stay in workplace happiness as well um and there's lots of different ways of looking at how we um look at the brain mapping as well and how we understand this the regulation of of the hormones within the overall brain and the overarching Brain as well so just to finish on this what's new Neuroscience got so remember I said to you about serotonin 90% of it is made in the gut so I'm looking especially my intuitive eating part I'm looking more gut feelings and how these are linked to emotions and emotion regulation too and this one here love builds brains and looking at attachment and child brain development and then resilience training as well like this uh counselors would talk a lot about resilience in in clinical practice but what does that mean in terms of changing the brain what does actually resilience do and that's a really good article showing you actually what it's doing to the brain as well and this doesn't mean anything it's not relevant to this but it's just makes me happy because it's all my favorite things but your dogs as well it's usually cats or dogs with the showes so thank you so much and sorry Peter I've probably gone over little bit of time there as well that's occas I was gried I have to say and not just when the dogs came up I'm glad the dogs came up um because I'm I'm gonna I'm going to overshare now and but I got I'm one of the 8,527 billion people who got a dog in Co um oh yeah and I do think my dog was a very very major oxytocin releaser for me um and I think that's you know and I when you said you know we probably needed that in Co I thought oh I bet that's why we all got dogs far from anything else and there's no better there's no better way to actually um alleviate those was is get a dog that's the you you know in terms of that uh closeness and connection that's why pets work really really well for for overall mental health as well yeah and I I I was reading that you do when you bond with your dog and you do the eye contact and everything it is you know it's it's it's like a baby you know and you you do you you spike each other oxy toen like crazy um that's great is uh there is a range of really interesting questions in the chat um and and yeah we don't have a huge amount of time for questions but I think everybody was gripped and and very active throughout that um I think one one question that I think is is is not surprising is there's sort of a few questions about the extent to which different forms of psychological stress you think schizophrenia anxiety depression were all to what extent can those be addressed by drugs um and to what extent are they are they something else and I think a view expressed in the chat is that sort of I think maybe counters that is that are some of those kinds of things normal reaction to very very adverse unusual kinds of circumstances are are they are they in effec of that so I just wonder if you want to refund that General team for a little bit okay so I suppose when you're looking at um we look at sort of psychopharmacology and that side of it in to uh and this is the thing when I talk about equilibrium of the brain so if something's happening organically like biologically in the brain it's trying to shift that or something's happening environmentally and that's why the bioc psychosocial model is so complex because we we don't have a handle on all of them that well and that's why you see psychiatrists will go more into the Neuroscience of it and you have psychologists then in the other side of it so it's like bridging these two together I it's it's it's really complicated because it's kind kind of like if you look at um nature nurture and that big debate that's going on and the whole idea which one comes first I I you know I what the way I would look at it always was and even as a as a young student in this area and listening to lots of talks and it was just like about promotion of your own brain health and preventative and that's why the resilience part's actually quite interesting and because it's looking at what bra what what way does the neuroplasticity of the brain actually work in in prevention of some of these too so it's like the old thing of of needing a psychologist well a lot of a lot of people will turn to psychologist counselor once they're in a traumatic state or something has happened to them whereas in fact then it's way before that in terms of education and psycho education in terms of overall so yeah I I think it's getting in at a younger age that's why a lot of the sort of Developmental psychologists are looking at uh risk behaviors in terms of mental health too I I don't know if I've really answered your question there you have you have and I think you know it kind of touches on I think something else I think was definitely mentioned in the chat maybe maybe not the top theme but there was a few people I think kind of like thinking about this question around brain flexibility you know um neuro flexibility it's very interesting isn't it because I think you know when Neuroscience really started to make a big dent in Psychology around 30 years ago when I was buad you know the narrative were very much around fixity do you know what I mean this is the brain part that does this this is the brain part that does this is the brain part that makes you this way this is the brain part that makes you that way and I think over time Neuroscience has has has come to talk much much more about the flexibility of the brain um and and much less about the brain as as something that kind of leads to sort of fixed determinance and behavior so it was interesting to you talk about that I really heard that when you said you know your brain is not fully developed till you're 25 I mean that's quite an age really for you good that's that's a good proportional ipan right there you know um but the good news is the good news about the 25 is that it can still it develops by 25 but it can the plasticity of the brain is always changing always changing yeah yeah so you know you know and and again if you look at just see those are four simple basic hormones that you would look at in terms of it like dose and it's a good acronym to remember but again what the underlying factors about getting in actually increasing them and getting this in your tool belt to begin with and looking at overway o overall ways of increasing it rather than coming to a point where you need to go okay it's like meditation nobody is going to meditate effectively when they're in a crisis point because they're already in that crisis point it's like somebody sends you calm down have has anybody ever calmed down by being totally calm down it's the brain is is constantly grappling with this here and again is trying to equalize it and provide this sort of balance for you as well yeah yeah um one of the questions on the chat early on was questioning um the link between serotonin and depression are there two sides to that argument about s was that first part I was just looking at the chat questioning that yeah early on the link between serotonin and depression oh yeah yeah so serotonin if you like um if you look at ssris right that's an anti-depressant so what they've done is serotonin and this is a this is actually a really good and you know I think could have been more time I could have went into that and into this so your brain your brain actually makes serotone and the drug doesn't make the serotonin what the serotonin what the ssris which is also known as anti-depressants do it gets into it it's called a selective serotonin reuptake Inhibitors so it gets into your brain and actually takes the serotonin that already is made in your brain and it reup takes it and reup takes it and reup takes it so you remember I showed you about the Locking key of the the signups and and the dendrites it almost does that so it's it's something that's already made it's something that's made in your brain it's just dormant for whatever reason for your mood Etc so it's getting in there and trying to increas in that too I'm not saying that don't take anti-depressants that that's not my my position on any of that I'm doing I'm saying alongside of that there's so many other things that you could be doing then to increase that overall as well yeah great um the questions are now coming in quite thick and fast uh towards the end here um there was one earlier somebody posted a question cuz uh sexual desire was one of the happy emotions that you had and so said what would you think about somebody who doesn't experience sexual desire yeah you're talking about the libido and and a lack of that again some of the studies I've read is about looking at what you were before and the comparison to that okay so sexual drive can be a Nate as well and then you can have a low lbo for many different reasons okay so it might just me necessary as a reaction to a mental health issue it's about a comp it's about not comparing to other people but looking at overall what's your Continuum of mental health too is and and the only reason why you know you look at sexual desire is that has that changed for you has that decreased as it would have been normally and that's an indicator then that something else is going on then for you and sometimes you need to actually plug yourself into those areas and see what you can then uh promote or regulate in terms of that so again it's not about this is why group and looking at people as groups doesn't work so well with brain health because it's so complicated and it's all about you and what you're feeling but if you're not paying attention to it like you know the way I said about the tongue up to the top of my roof of my mouth I that's my own personal indicator that I'm feeling stressed okay my shoulders are here the only time a tongue needs to be up the top of the roof and my if you if you're weightlifting right I'm at my desk I'm not weightlifting okay so then I know okay I need to actually take a break all right and that's it and there's there's the snobbery in in everything in social media and I love social media and I think it's great but there's a snobbery about mindfulness and meditation and and all of this if you're not meditating for five hours and what else should what else are you doing so it's like it's it's taking it small increment steps and just in looking at your own health what it was the day before and tapping into that inate body wisdom because it's there the brain is is really help trying to do that it's just we're not listening most of the time yeah yeah it's very interesting it's very interesting and then I think just recently a question has has dropped into the chat as well um is there I've seen a couple of studies about the problems of EDS eting disorders and ASD uh with the data showing an increase among those diagn on the Spectrum could that possibly be related to neuros psychology do you know anything about that the Eden disord is one that I could only talk to that one um not the ASD but yes it's it's it's it's it's it's really really complicated because the Eating Disorders a research in terms of the biology of it and again I said that I studied it for four years and it's so super complicated and what the outcomes are for we do know that um there are issues within the sort of hypothalmic pituitary and amydala re regions the paraventricular nucleus as well that that regulation isn't actually happening and ASD has shown the same that the the under arching regulation is is disrupted by something again this goes back to the bioy what's where's the disruption coming from is it organically is it situational is it genetics it's what what what what's actually happening to cause the disruption so as you said we're really good at studying the brain when things go wrong but we're now trying to turn towards with positive psychology is looking at increasing the overall brain health and in the hope that that'll help us understand the the other areas now they have been doing that but in terms of Neuroscience and looking at the brain Imaging brain imaging has done more so when it's depression anxiety and that and schizophrenia and that but not the other side when it's actually trying to promote regulation of what you would call typically normal healthy brains and looking at increasing hormones overall in that one great um and lastly sh there very practical question a few people have asked can we circulate your slides at the end of this talk yes yes absolutely there's L and okay brilant research on that and absolutely I'm happy for any of that to be shared as well okay okay F so if you can ping them over to me I'll get them over to everybody who signed up for this talk whether they're here or not um that's great brilliant um does anybody have a last question question for chenade before we thank everyone last time I'm just looking at the chat now lots of thank you that was really interesting you see I told you folks I told you you'd walk away feeling kind of like optimistic and upbeat after an hour of chenade it works every time but you see I I've I've built a career in talking for long periods of time and that was a bit of a shorter one so you know um I i' i' built that career about expanding on things and I had to be so um sort of limited on some of the things but yeah there's some of those references will let you dig a little bit deeper into some of the areas that I was talking about as well and happy to have this discussion as well so it's it's a brilliant one to talk about too brilliant brilliant I love it I mean I think it's so interesting you think that when you get to the Natural Science end of things you're going to you're going to get away from the way that psychology is reflective but actually you've given us like 10 new ways to be reflective about our experiences tonight so that's just fantastic chenet thank you so much for being our first Speaker of 2024 thank you everybody for for showing up um next month is Katrina Havard I haven't put the link up for that yet on Sona but we'll do that very shortly H take care everybody have a good night see you soon thank you thanks very much guys thank you bye bye