Name: Dr. Tara Swart | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #532
Uploaded: 2024-09-19T15:59:03.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dr. Tara Swart | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #532' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-09-19. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Dr. Tara Swart | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #532' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-09-19. Transcript available.

Dr. Tara Swart | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #532

Today's guest is a woman I've been intrigued with for a while.
She is a neuroscientist.
She's an author, and she's an advisor who focuses on how to get peak mental
performance.
She wrote a best-selling book called The Source,
which is all about things you can do to be your best self.
She's a fascinating woman, and I'm grateful for our chat.
Today's guest is Dr. Tara Swart.
Just so you know, all this air conditioning and ice is really playing havoc
with my throat.
Really?
Yeah, because I'm not used to it.
Yeah, they don't have it in the UK, huh?
Yeah, sometimes, you know, I wonder.
You know, I find sometimes there will be, I'll go on vacation,
and I'll stay in a place that doesn't have air con, you know,
and it's kind of cool because at first I'm like, this sucks.
But then, like, you feel a lot more connected to Nate, like, just the, I don't
know what it is.
The environment at the minimum, yeah.
You feel way more connected to the environment when you don't have air
conditioning,
you don't have all these kind of little comforts, you know.
Because you're always kind of trying to balance everything for the perfect
amount of comfort.
That's what I feel like I'm trying to do these days.
It's like, I'm always trying to, like, okay, the air conditioner, am I laying
the right,
like, when I go to sleep specifically, it's like, am I laying the right way?
Do I, it's like I have to have so many little things kind of perfectly lined up
or everything's not going to be okay, you know.
But do you do that thing where you blast the air conditioning,
but you sleep under loads of blankets and.
Yeah.
Why? I don't get that.
Why not just have the bedding that's correct for the temperature that it
naturally is?
Yeah, I think because people have just gone rogue.
People don't know how to just beat, just, people are just crazy like that.
Really, they're really sleeper paths, I call them.
Because it's kind of crazy.
Yeah, you're right.
Like, I'm going to put it at 65 degrees and I'm going to bundle up like it's,
like I'm in Antarctica.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And then the craziest stuff is sometimes you'll see, like,
some people have, like, a rainforest, they have an eye mask on.
It literally seems like they're being, it's kind of the same thing
as if you were being tortured in a country, like in a, you know,
it's like they've got eye masks, there's, like, water dripping in the back.
It just, you're like, this is crazy.
Like, this is, this is what they used to do to prisoners, it seems like, you
know?
Theo, I knew I was going to laugh with you,
but I can't believe I've got the giggles, like, already.
Do you really?
Yeah.
Oh, well, dang.
I like, I like an eye mask, personally, because I don't, can't tolerate any
light when I'm sleeping.
But when you said I have to be in the right position, do you actually know what
the right
position is, according to a neuroscientist?
Uh-uh.
For sleeping?
And I'm here with neuroscientist Tara Swart, and you're that brain babe.
Yeah, you're the lady that knows about the brain.
I am.
Yeah.
And we're happy to hear about it today, and we're happy to have you.
Do I know the right position?
No, I don't.
Uh-uh.
I sleep.
Yeah.
Tell me how you sleep.
Well, I sleep on my side, I guess, and pillow between my legs, holding a pillow,
and just
kind of hoping for the best, usually.
What do you, what is the, what do you suggest?
So, sleeping on your side is actually the best position.
So, sleeping on your side is good.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, left or right.
Probably when, so, I like to connect everything back to evolution.
So, when we slept in the cave, we co-slept, so we huddled together for warmth,
and we probably
slept on our left side to protect our heart and have our dominant hand.
ready for an attack.
Okay.
But now, it doesn't matter which side, but a side is better than back or front,
and the
reason is that we're cleaning out our brain very actively overnight, and if
your neck is
stretched like this, then it helps the waste products to, like, get moved out
through the
lymphatic and lymphatic systems, and, you know, excreted from your body.
Oh, nice.
So, yeah.
So, I'm doing okay.
No wonder you've got such a sharp wit.
Yeah, maybe.
You know, it used to be better.
I used to, I had so much stress over the past few years that a lot of my wit
has started
has kind of dis, has eroded, to be honest with you.
I feel like it, you know, I feel, I just know it.
I used, my brain used to have more fun, and now it feels like it has more
responsibility,
and so it doesn't have the ability to have as much fun, I guess.
And some of that could be growing up.
Some of that could be actually having more responsibility.
But I think there's just a lot of stress in the world, it feels like,
especially here in
the States.
I feel like everybody's stressed out.
Do you notice, is that something that you're noticing in you guys' field, or is
that even
something that you guys look at?
So I changed career actually around the time of the global financial crisis,
and I went from
being a psychiatrist in the National Health Service in the UK, to becoming a
stress expert
and advisor for very senior leadership people in financial services.
At that time, we were seeing a lot of high-profile suicides and heart attacks
that were caused
by stress, even if you weren't overweight or, you know, had high blood pressure
or smoked or
something like that.
So that was a time where a former psychiatrist kind of could really find a
niche in a new career
to help, you know, highly stressed people.
Then things seemed to sort of calm down a bit, but I think the new normal was
just that we're
kind of chronically stressed all the time.
And then the pandemic happened.
So unprecedented levels of stress, health anxiety, actual illness, and, you
know, potentially
people dealing with death.
So just took things to the next level and meant that all of us, we're more
stressed than we
should be all the time.
And the brain is constantly monitoring out like our stress levels.
There's a hormone called cortisol.
Yeah.
When that's high all the time, the body literally goes into survival mode.
And I just feel like that's how so many of us, if not all of us, are at the
moment.
Yeah, it feels like that.
It feels like everybody's in survival mode.
It feels like, why are we like this right now?
What's going on?
Is it really happening that people are more stressed or is there just so much
more awareness
around it that we're also taking it on as like a placebo type of thing?
I really don't agree with the latter because remember, I've been a psychiatrist
for seven
years before I even started coaching in this field.
So, you know, there were reasons for people to be stressed and us to know about
it for a
long time.
I think what's really changed at the start of the pandemic, I actually
predicted this was
going to be a mental health crisis.
I also said it could be an opportunity for some kind of spiritual revolution.
And I think that's happening for some people, people who are deep into that are
really kind
of getting a lot out of it.
But for most people, the pandemic happened, we came out of it and we thought,
okay, everything
will just go back to normal.
But actually, everyone's social circle shrank.
We're more lost, lonely and disconnected than I think ever before in the
history of humanity.
I think the genders have become very polarized in a way that's not good for
either gender.
And I think that people are really struggling with what to do about that and
often doing
exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.
So using your devices more when actually you should be connecting with people
face to face
more, for example.
Kind of also because of devices and, you know, let's say dating apps, for
example, just using
people as pieces of garbage that you can get through really quickly instead of
forming actual,
deep, meaningful relationships that could nurture both parties.
Well, it makes sense.
I mean, say if you're looking on Amazon and you see different items, you're
like, I don't
want this one, not this one, maybe this one, let me read up on it.
Nah, yes.
And then you are looking on the same thing and it's people.
It would make sense that you start to treat them the same way in a way without
even realizing
it maybe, you know, especially because of that, you know, some of that phone
access.
What effects do we see when we're really stressed out that people may not
notice?
I had an experience years ago where I was extremely stressed.
Some people I couldn't even talk to, some of my close friends, just because of
the volume
or the speed they communicated at.
I just, I was like, it's too, I just couldn't handle it.
I was so burnt out.
And I thought though that I just wasn't working hard enough.
That was my first thought.
I was like, I got to do better.
I'm not doing well enough.
And that just burnt me even more.
What's the best way to recognize when you're somebody that's at the brink, kind
of, before
you get there, I guess.
I always said that one of the most cruel aspects of any kind of mental health
issue is that the
first symptom is loss of insight.
So that means that the first thing that happens to you is you actually lose the
clarity that
something is going wrong.
So being aware is really important.
And sometimes this will come from your friends and family saying, Theo, what's
going on?
Like you're working like a maniac and you don't really seem well.
Or it could come from if you've had previous experiences.
So maybe if you ever got into that place again now, you might recognize it
quicker because
you've been through it before.
For sure.
And something like journaling can really help with that as well for you to kind
of have a
tangible thing that you can read saying, I'm not sleeping well.
And that's usually a sign that I'm getting burnt out or, you know, I've
withdrawn from
my social circle.
So yeah, some kind of reflection of yourself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Once you know what that is, I used to have in my journal a list of things to do
when I'm
stressed, because I would find that when I get to the point of realizing that I'm
stressed,
I don't really have the higher mental functions of working my way out of it.
But now I don't need to look at that list.
I kind of, and it's very simple things.
Talk to a friend, have a square of dark chocolate, take a nap, go for a walk.
You know, nothing kind of too extreme.
So once you've started doing those things a little bit, then it's obviously
also important
to address the cause of your stress.
So if for you it was working excessive hours, then trying to do whatever you
can to, you
know, minimize that in the near future.
Or if you possibly could like take a quick digital detox break over a long
weekend or
something, you might feel a lot better.
One of the things I learned is that if I just take two days of kind of, you
know, drinking
lemon water in the morning and just kind of, you know, slowing down and eating
really clean,
that it can make a big difference in just two days.
If you say, you know, I can't take proper time off for two months, but I can do
this two
days, you might be able to reset yourself.
And I try to share a lot of information about resetting your nervous system.
So there are two modes we can be in, um, fright, flight, fight, or rest.
Is that three modes or no?
Fright, flight, fight.
That's one of them.
That's one of the modes.
That's one mode.
Okay.
That's one mode.
It has three parts.
Yeah.
It's like, you know, you get a shock, you want to run away or you have to
attack a predator
kind of thing.
And the other mode is rest and digest.
And that's the nice feeling you get after you've had a nice meal and you just
feel a bit
lazy and really calm.
And so we want to be in, in the rest and digest mode more of the time, but we
tend to find
that we're hypervigilant, like looking out for the next threat.
Um, and actually, if you were willing to share, I have some research to share
about the way
that you grew up in that kind of envi