Mindset Neuroscience Podcast

By Stefanie FayeSociety & Culture Health & Fitness Mental Health Education Self-Improvement Relationships

Mindset Neuroscience Podcast episodes

August 18, 2020 Season 2 Episode 3 – Feedback Loops
What do a viral video and a stampede of animals have in common?
It's a mechanism that is also related to 'self-fulfilling prophecies', self-beliefs, anxiety and negative thinking in general.
It has to do with something called 'positive feedback'.
This is not verbal commentary, like 'you're doing a great job!'
Positive feedback is something that enhances or amplifies an effect.
In a stampede of animals, the abrupt movement and running of one animal gets detected by another, and another, and this effect continue to amplify until a stampede occurs.
Something similar can happen to a person in certain cases of anxiety.
In some cases, a person may have hyper-interoceptive awareness.
This means that they are very aware of fluctuations within their body, including their heart rate. their interpretation of these sensations may lead them to think something is wrong, that their body is not 'supposed' to do that.
Having this type of interpretation then creates a feedback loop of anxiety about what is wrong, which can lead to for example, a faster heart beat, which then leads to more anxiety.
Something that can have a balancing or correcting effect on a positive feedback loop is 'negative feedback'.
In the case of someone who may become anxious due to their heart beating fast (as an example), a negative feedback could include introducing thoughts that the body is doing something adaptive or beneficial.
A faster beating heart can also mean we are excited, engaged, alert and feeling alive.
I also talk about this idea of 're-appraising physiological signals' in my Neuroscience of Bravery Video
In this episode, we cover how positive feedback loops might be causing us challenges in our thinking, and what we can do to try to interrupt these feedback loops so we can feel more regulated and resilient.
References
Oliver Cameron - Visceral Sensory Neuroscience
Donella Meadows - Systems Change
Santa Fe Institute - Complexity Podcast
Laurence Gonzales - Surviving Survival
University of Wisconsin Madison study on negative interpretation of stress
34 min
June 15, 2020 Season 2 Episode 2- Your Brain’s Predictions and Paradigms
One of the most complex adaptive systems we know of is the brain*.
When we are trying to understand a complex system, one of the most important things for us to think about is its function.
One of the main functions of the mind-brain-body’s main is to make predictions.
It does this by using our past to make assumptions about what’s happening now. Another word for these ‘assumptions’ are ‘predictive models’.
The mind-brain-body creates predictive models by taking snippets of information and then creating models that it uses to predict lots of things without needing to have all the information of everything it comes across. it would be way less efficient if it had to analyze everything in order to understand it.
These predictive models affect our relationships, behaviors, and even our emotional well-being.
One way these predictive models influence our relationships and how we interact with people is that they prevent you from seeing people as they actually are. Instead, you're seeing them through your model - or paradigm - that's built from your history.
30 min
April 20, 2020 Season 2 Episode 1 – Systems Thinking
Everything you perceive with your senses, you perceive through a filter that was built in your past.
Each one of us has built up neural networks and sensory thresholds that are unique to us, and our mind-brain-body uses our past to create 'predictive models' about how the world works. What people's intentions are, what things and people are appealing or repulsive to us.
Our brain filters information in a way that 'fits' with what it predicts. This can make us become very repetitive, tied to our past and not able to see new opportunities or explanations to things.
These models are influenced by our first encounters with a very small group of people who see over and over again.
And these models are also influenced by our culture and the subcultures we are a part of.
When we try to predict or understand human problems and behaviors without thinking about all of these other systems that influence us, we are distorting the 'lens' we look through. We aren't getting the bigger picture.
This 'lens' we look through is another word for 'paradigm'.
The latin roots of the word paradigm are to 'show beside'. Or 'show side by side'.
Sometimes we don't realize how much we are missing from what we perceive until we are shown a contrast or a new, or higher, wider, bigger perspective.
In Season 2, we are going to look more deeply into the idea of what paradigms or lenses are dominant in our world and in our lives, and how these influence our choices and interactions.
In Episode 1, we'll go into the idea of 'Systems Thinking', which is a paradigm shift from a world view that has dominated science and much of the ways we try to make improvements to things like education or within organizations - often without much success, because we are using a framework that doesn't actually make much sense when we are dealing with something as complex as human beings.
29 min
March 17, 2020 Season 1 Episode 12 – “Relational Minds”
“What matters is not how things are, but how they interact.“ – Carlo Rovelli, theoretical physicist, in his book, Reality is Not What It Seems Relationships are the key to building our most powerful mind. Our relationships with others build...
READ MORE
The post Season 1 Episode 12 – “Relational Minds” appeared first on StefanieFaye.
20 min
February 19, 2020 Season 1 Episode 11 – This is what happens to your brain when you add diversity to your life
No two people are ever experiencing reality in the same way, since our senses and neural architecture are built up by our own lifetime of unique experiences. Our brain and senses are constantly narrowing down our world.
42 min
January 30, 2020 Season 1 Episode 10 – Can you make people ‘willing’ to change their mindset?
Most growth mindset interventions don't work because they focus on:
- changing 'other people's' attitudes rather than on the mindset of the person who is teaching or leading
- catchphrases & posters rather than relationship & trust
- specific results, like improving standardized test scores*
*this is literally the opposite of how mindset shifts create change.
29 min
December 14, 2019 Season 1 Episode 9 – How to be more authentic when you teach growth mindset
In order to teach growth mindset, we need to be sure it’s coming from an authentic place. It seems that much growth mindset teaching is focused on changing the attitudes of others’, rather than looking at how we internalize and...
READ MORE
The post Season 1 Episode 9 – How to be more authentic when you teach growth mindset appeared first on StefanieFaye.
40 min
November 12, 2019 Season 1 Episode 8 – Toxic Media: How social media impairs your brain, nervous system and relationship skills
Have you ever had a misunderstanding over text? Maybe you texted someone and they didn’t reply right away.. or their answer left you feeling rejected or frustrated? Do you know why you feel the urge to put an exclamation mark...
READ MORE
The post Season 1 Episode 8 – Toxic Media: How social media impairs your brain, nervous system and relationship skills appeared first on StefanieFaye.
48 min
October 15, 2019 Season 1 Episode 7 – How fixed mindset leads to bias, stereotype and prejudice
Earlier studies on fixed vs growth mindset reveal how we build bias and stereotypes. The original wording used by Carol Dweck and colleagues before they popularized ‘fixed versus growth mindset’ was ‘entity’ versus ‘incremental’ mindsets. Dweck’s research (included the idea...
READ MORE
The post Season 1 Episode 7 – How fixed mindset leads to bias, stereotype and prejudice appeared first on StefanieFaye.
35 min
September 17, 2019 Season 1 Episode 6 – The importance of sound and how it affects our wellbeing
The human ability to hear 'just noticeable differences' is significantly more powerful than what our eyes are able to detect on the visible wave spectrum.
It's possible that what we hear is more important to our survival and well-being than what we see.
And yet, in our digital age, we have become obsessed with what we look at.
37 min

About Mindset Neuroscience Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Science-based strategies to enhance resilience, self-regulation, learning and innovation by focusing on mindset, relationship, biofeedback and psychological safety.