What Mindfulness Actually Does To Your Brain — Ruby Wax

0:00I really know how to teach it, and I know how to explain without being heavy what happens in your brain when you do practice it. I don't mean the coloring book. I mean the real thing. And if mindfulness wasn't as potent as it is, that you could see the results in a scanner, because I don't believe in anything woo-woo. I had to go to Oxford and look at what the results are of practicing mindfulness. It's just like looking at a six-pack. You clearly did something to get that six-pack. So when you look at a scanner and you see certain areas that are more buff than they would normally be, the amygdala is, you know, deactivated.

0:39You know, the insula is more buff. I don't know buff. There's more neurons in it. So you could only say more muscle if people don't know what, you know, more neuron mass. The ACC, antinual to cingulate cortex, is also, there's more neural connections, and that's in charge of, we're making it simple. but your attention to be able to pull focus away from distraction. Now, if that isn't the million dollar gift in this century, to be able to control your attention, then I don't know what is. To take your eye off what's dragging you away, because there's engineers that are geniuses. That's their whole job is to take your attention.

1:18And then you spend money on it. So if you can take your attention and put it like on your kids or on your holiday, you won the lottery. So what is it then? Is it meditation or is it very different to meditation? It is meditation. It's the same thing, but it's not got the religious connotation. But when you're in your body or in a sense, sight, sight, taste, touch, smell, you're activating. I'm making it simple. The insula, which is interception, it's feeling of the body. You're in the body. And the amygdala, the yappering up here, the constant chatter, deactivates. Now, when you're in constant chatter mode, you're back in fight and flight, and the instantly deactivates.

2:01So it's one or the other. You're either in sense mode or you're in gabbling thinking mode. Doesn't mean the thinking stops. It just gets a little quieter. You can't be focused in both areas. Try it. You can't sense your feet and also think at the same time. It's one or another. And that back and forth, it's not like you're going to stop thinking. That back and forth of noticing where the thoughts go, appreciating them, because that's what we do for a living, then taking it to, let's say, your breath, losing your track, go back to the thinking, come back to the breath. Thoughts come in. You need those thoughts.

2:39And you come back to the breath. It's like lifting a weight. and so more and more neural connections happen in the insula and the other areas so when the hits the fan and you're with somebody shouting at you it's easier to bring focus into the body so that you don't get caught you don't disassociate basically or you get caught in that argument like you become vicious because they're vicious you really learn to go these are just thoughts they come and go I have a very you know now buffed up part of my body that while you're shouting at me I can bring my attention to my breath. You can't do this unless you practice.

3:15Or feeling my feet on the ground. When I'm on stage sometimes, I used to lose my lines. But now, and the audience turn on you like animals because they don't like seeing a comedian dying. So maybe they think, well, now we have the watering hole, so let her die. But I send my focus to my feet on the ground and immediately the cortisol comes down. Immediately because my my attention is now in my feet and then I can tell it's working because the audience start laughing again and their eyes lighten up so I'm in control of my stress I don't know if I'm explaining it but I do go into deeper here's what happens scientifically and that's what makes me love it and you become present because if you're in your body let's say I'm breathing you can't breathes tomorrow or last week.

4:03I'm breathing right now. If you go, if you say I'm in the present, you're wrong. Sorry, I'm on medication. So my mouth dries up. That's why. See, I think the thing that is about that, even when you're talking about it, I feel quite calm because you're kind of bringing everything back inwards, which you said today, everything is pulled outwards. There's like... Everything is pulled inwards. That's exactly it. You're back in your body and your body doesn't have words. It only has sensation and sensation can't kill you. Words can. I mean, I think the thing about this, you sat down and you said, you know, look, my brain goes everywhere and it's, you kind of use it in a negative connotation.

4:47I saw it a bit as like a superpower because you're just processing so much, which is why you've got so many different neuron connections happening. But a lot of people might feel like this, right? And then they go, well that sounds great Ruby but I struggle to do that I struggle to sit still yeah then you know if it's really bad if it's really awful don't do it it's like forcing you to go to yoga you know there's a point where you're doing damage because you're forcing your body so don't do it but everything you learn from walking to playing tennis to you know sitting up was always a struggle in the beginning it will always be a struggle but I don't like going to the gym either but if I want my stomach to be back in the ranch rather than hanging over the chair.

5:29I have to go to the gym. I don't like it. So with mindfulness, I want to live longer and I want to, I don't want to be at the mercy of my thoughts all day long telling me, don't go see Esther because she's going to scare you. Don't go to Norwich because you don't, everybody's going to think you're an idiot. that I don't want to obey my thoughts, because they're grueling. So I have to sit and do mindfulness every day, but not in a gluten-free cushion situation. Let's say I'll be on the train this afternoon, I'll do 20 minutes on the train. That's a great idea, actually. Yeah, you do it in situ, like you do it on the tube, which is great because when you tune into listening to sound,

6:15you can hear the pitch and the volume, That's mindfulness. You're focused on a sense. And then you watch your thoughts going, this is ridiculous. I'm on a tube. Everybody's looking. Back to listening. Then the thoughts go. And then back to, if you do that for five minutes a day, you're already buffing up those areas. You're getting a six pack in your brain. And so you won't get a hot date, but you're going to live longer. You might get a hot date. You might get a hot date. You might be more aware. You might be more present. Yeah, but does that get you a hot date? It would for me. I'd go with somebody who's present.

6:53Of course. Yeah, Jon Kabat-Zinn is my god. He created mindfulness. Tell me more about him. I was just with him. Why? I did a retreat with him. Okay. What have you learned from him? Well, he wrote the book, Full Catastrophe Living, and he brought it from the east to the west because he was a molecular biologist at Massachusetts Hospital, and they gave up on certain people who had cancer or chronic pain, and he said, let me take them. So he created mindfulness-based stress reduction where they focus in on where the pain is, which sounds counterintuitive. But if you focus in and really sense where the pain is, what's the outline, what's the color, what's the sensation, the rest of their body is okay.

7:46And this starts moving. If you really focus in on an area that hurts, it starts shifting. So you're not in pain, you're watching pain. And then my professor at Oxford, Mark Williams, took it for depression. So that was why I went to Oxford is because he was teaching that. And not just depression, but for psychological problems. So you zoom in on where the agony is, the emotional pain. You're in your body. And you notice you're not heartbroken. You're heartbroken for a second, but in a minute, if you don't obey the thoughts, oh, I'm doing this because she's looking at me funny. I'm heartbroken because my mother did this when I was three.

8:28If you just go to the heartbreak, the body heartbreak, it starts to shift. Your thoughts are going to go crazy because they want to go, this is why, this is why. But if you stay in the body, you're liberated. It moves all the time. I talk about being in the body a lot. Sir Ken Richardson, Do School Skilled Creativity is one of my favorite TED Talks of all time. Oh, Ken Roberts. Yeah. I just met his wife. Have you seen his TED Talk? Yeah. Everybody has. Where it says, you know, we disconnect from the head up to the body down when we get to school. And I couldn't agree with it. I mean, we completely treat the mind and the body in two separate scenarios.

9:08Oh, it's like an irritating piece of meat you have to drag around under your neck. I know, exactly. Yeah, it's so, you know, because I'm so good in the head. Why do I drag this thing that's just getting older and older? But when you connect, so I, you know, I came across the word somatic about five years ago. I had no idea what that meant when I first came across it. But it's basically like the feelings within your body. Interception is one of my favorite words that you just mentioned. and interception awareness. But I didn't realize how much I was disassociated from my body before I started practicing more somatic experiences and more being embodied experiences, which to me just felt - Do you think because you were a model?

9:46Because everybody's looking at all of you and so - Do you know what I say? I mean, I ended up in hospital the first time because when I was modeling, but I actually don't think it was anything to do with modeling. I think modeling actually saved me. I think it was being undiagnosed as neurodivergent at school that I felt my entire life that I wasn't smart. Oh, really? And finally, someone told me I was good at something, which was modeling. And hey, hey, that's what I look like. So all I felt that I had was what I look like. Right. And so the pressure to think this is the only thing that's going to get me success.

10:20Right. It's debilitating. And you basically do everything until your body just shuts down and it says, I can't do anymore. Because you're always thinking at any moment that could be taken away from you. Yeah. It's such a short span, right? So you kind of go to these highs. And then every day you're looking at every beautiful person comparing yourself to them. Everyone's having a mental health crisis around you, but that's totally normal. Yeah. Like you're just in the subset where everyone's the same. So you don't know any different. And so you're like, I can't lose this because I know I'm not smart.

10:49Right. And then your entire body just collapses. So I think it was actually not understanding my own brain at school that was my insecurity. still my insecurity today right you'll never understand it completely but either will a shrink you'll understand it more than they will if you know the right tools