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Sometimes it seems like we're having so much fun here in The What If UP Club but it can be easy to forget that there's actually a science to all of this. I am Mendhi Audlin, founder of The What If UP Club Welcome to the what if it all goes right Podcast. Today we are going to go behind the scene, the SCE and behind what we see with Adriana Medina. Adriana is a neuroscientist and a longtime member of The What If UP Club. In this episode, you're going to learn three easy tweaks for optimizing your brain and increasing your productivity. So what have you could intentionally train your brain for greater success and fulfillment? Adriana, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited about it. Well, you know, you are a what if upper so you know our culture, you know, our community. And you also know what's happening in our brain, when we are what if upping together when we are encouraging each other and sharing ideas. First of all, before we get into your tips, what is it that you see as a neuroscientist like, what is your interest in engaging in a community like this? From a scientific perspective, from a scientific perspective, the one thing that makes you not work that day that you're like, Ha is not working? Stress. And being part of a community like this and participating and doing the things that we do what if I being being part of the community receiving the support is the best stress relief that you can get? We switch our perspectives, we reframe things, and suddenly everything seems easy. And that's when your brain is like, Oh, that was not that bad. What was that? thing? Right? That's why I love it so much. Yeah. And I think you know, we can bring that idea that possibility into all kinds of things. Today, we're going to talk about specifically productivity, and how do you optimize your brain so that you can, you know, I've heard you say before your brain is lazy. So it's sort of that that dichotomy of lazy brain and more productive? How do they work together? So share with us what are some of your, your top hacks your brain hacks your tweaks? Well, first of all, what I want to say is that when I say the brain is really lazy. And sometimes I also say the brain is really stupid.
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We tend to think, Oh, my brain is the most important organ in my body shouldn't be so smart. And the truth is, your brain works with whatever you give it, it doesn't have the capacity to come up with anything new, it doesn't have really the capacity to create. And you see this from the science point of view, and you see it from the spiritual point of view. And you know that from spiritual teachers, you hear that you get insights, that you download insights from whatever you believe in from spirit, or God, or whatever you believe in. But also, from the scientific point of view, all your brain is doing is working with whatever you give it. So it's pretty much repeating, shaking, rephrasing and just reusing the information. So whatever you are giving to it, it's the only thing that the brain is going to be able to work with. And that's when it becomes incredibly important to pay attention, what you're feeding your brain, what are the inputs that you're giving to your brain. And when a community like this becomes so great and so important, is because we are in this positive community where everything is possible with everything has a solution, when we actually don't see a lot of problems with most things. When there's a lot of support, then your brain starts going, Oh, that's great. But if you're the opposite, and you get together with your Debbie downer, friends, and everybody's saying, it's, it's a dumpster fire, that door is a dumpster fire because your brain can only work with what you give it. Interesting. That makes total sense that makes total sense because in our community, what I love about it, and this this mastermind principle is that I have my experience all the books, I've read all the classes, I've taken all of my personal experiences that that fit in my my little brain, I can bring that into a community where I don't have to rely just on my experiences, I can tap into the experiences and the wisdom that other people have assimilated as well. But what I hadn't really thought about what you just made me think about is how the opposite happens when we're around people that are complaining is and that are doom and gloom errs because we're going to take on all of their fears and all of their worst case scenarios, and then that multiplies. So it really is important. They don't belong to you. They belong to someone else. But your brain is like, is here must be true. That's what your brain is always going to say
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It's here must be true. So you need to be very careful. What are you showing to your brain? So what do we do? How do we
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take care of those voices in my head that I didn't put there? But sometimes they creep up at inopportune times? Well, in the spirit of the way we do things in The What If UP Club, I came up with a Dr. Seuss type formula. I love it, have three things that we can do at night, sleep tight in the morning, get insight, then sprinkle some delight. Oh, I love it.
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Let's see how we do all three of this thing. Very Seussical. Okay, so let's break it down. So first, at night, sleep tight. Sleep is one of the things that in the modern world, we started thinking that is unnecessary, or people simply say I don't sleep, I sleep badly. And that's the way it is. And we actually should take a lot of care of our sleep. That's when we clear up. That's when we rest. It's not about the amount of hours is the it's about the quality of the hours that you do sleep. So there's a few things that you can do. And maybe your doctor has already told you. You need to practice Barrett's sleep hygiene. And you did it for a little bit, but then you forgot about it. It starts with simple things like trying to have the same time to go to bed every night. Sometimes I fall off that wagon, my sleep time is around 10pm. Or that's the time when I declare I'm in bed, right? Even if I've been in the bed before which some people can't. Some people should never go to bed until you're going to sleep. I can I love my bed. I think my bed. The world is Disneyland to me being in my bed and I don't care if I get into bed an hour or two before I will asleep. As long as I'm enjoying the time that I'm in bed. Okay, to sleep tight. Be very careful. What are you doing when you're in bed? If you have a nice bed companion, and you can have some fun, awesome, go for it. But if that's not what's going on, be very careful. Are you watching TV? If you are watching TV, which is not recommended, but let's say that you do it anyways, where you have your your iPad on your face? Yes, they'll do sometimes. Are you watching? I noticed for example, last week, I started watching this show that I used to watch in the early 2000s that I thought it was kind of like a dramedy, and I used to enjoy it a lot. And I started binge watching through now that you can do that. And then I realized, oh, there's a lot of stressful situations in that show. And some really cruel things happen to some of the people in the show. And I was going to bed with that. And my sleep pattern got completely crazy. And I was having all these weird dreams and stressful dreams. And I was waking up with pains and aches and not relaxed, because I was taking on the drama, that was not even real drama. And I was thinking on all of that. And that was what I was going to bet with what's happening in your brain, like what is your brain needing to do? And how are we sabotaging it? Anytime we're doing those types of things. When you fall asleep, what happens is your brain in a way unplugs from the external input, not completely, which is one of the reasons why you should then fall asleep with the TV on because whatever is going on is going to keep going and he's going to be talking to your brain, your your hearing all those sounds and as you know, and I think it was a little bit better when it was what was it Jack? That did remember the infomercials, a toy,
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or whatever, yes, so I believe that was about a juicer or something
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bad. But if you're watching this, let's say law and order, and that's it that keeps going while you are asleep, of course, you're going to be dreaming that there's murderers and their violence. And then there's a lot of things that are going to be coming into your brain, right when you turn off the TV. But that was the last thing you saw. Then in a way there's a switch. So you have this area of your brain that is the the reticular nucleus of the thalamus, for example is one of the things that get active when you go to sleep. So it's like a turn off switch that isolates you from whatever is going outside. But then guess what, the brain doesn't really completely stop. It keeps working with whatever you gave it. So it keeps working and reverberating with the last thing that you were listening to or watching or reading. Then it's going to start doing things creating dreams or patterns with that information. It makes sense. I mean, as a mom I had no I have a
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part of my brain even when I'm sound asleep, there's a part of my brain that's always listening for it. Was the baby crying or is the dog need out? There's always something and I can hear the slightest things. Those inputs are still happening. Even though I may be sound asleep, so yeah, okay, so we need to get a good night's sleep. You need a good leg sleep. So So what was the so first part was sleep tight. Second one is in the morning, getting sites for our members of The What If UP Club, first thing that you do is you put on your headphones, especially if you're not alone in your house, or out loud if you're alone, and listen to something that gives you insight. So either you have a meditation can be guided or silent with music or nature sounds or something like that. It can be an Abraham Hicks talk, for example, if you're into those for a while, that's what I was doing first thing in the morning, before anything, that was the first thing I was listening to? Or we have our own activations? Yes, we do. We love our activations, that the activation has an advantage for somebody who's not used to meditating. Because all you have to do is let a roll, just listen to it without memorizing or learning or following. You're just listening to the sounds and activations that we do are based on our What if up, philosophy, it's all about the what if, what if the day is wonderful? What if everything is easy? What if traffic just rolls today. So that's the first thing that you hear in the morning, your brain goes in that direction, that Oh, everything is going to be so easy. And it's all you need to stay in that state for a really long time during the day, right. And if you're in the what if up community, those activations get posted in our community whenever there's a new one, and you can always go to our YouTube channel, because there's an entire playlist of these activations, you can just go and find one that fits whatever is going on in your life, or you can just roll them
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out to the other. Because it does it it will lift your energy and it requires zero conscious effort, you can just like open yourself and allow those positive ideas to flow. Remember that we say, once I explained to you that it was the same principle of the jingles that they put in commercials, you know, you hear they hear any hear until it becomes a near warm. And if it's positive thing becomes a near warm for you, then your brain gets tricked into thinking, Oh, everything is so easy that I can do anything. And that changes everything, doesn't it? I mean, that really does change everything. Yes. And then third, sprinkle some delight, sprinkle some delight. Okay, what is so what does that mean from a scientific perspective, it means ideally, early in the morning, you know, you hear your, whatever it is your meditation, your activation, or whatever you're going to do, and then take some time to enjoy. Don't start the day by running or rushing, if you need to wake up a little bit earlier. And this, I want to combine this with the sleep part. And the way sleep works is that it works in cycles that take about 90 minutes to complete a cycle where you have more superficial deeper sleep, and then you start coming out of it. And what's bad is if you haven't, please don't have an awful alarm, you know, one of those that go away,
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right? Like, what's your rupt wake up and if it goes off at a time that is like in between your cycles, you're going to be tired, no matter if you slept seven hours or eight, you're going to be equally tired. So when I say spring, some delight, sometimes you need a little bit more time for yourself, and you may want to wake up a little bit earlier, but it doesn't mean that you're resting less because if you wake up at a moment when you are not in deep sleep when you're like closer to waken then you're gonna feel fine anyways. You can have an extra 15 minutes 20 minutes 30 minutes or whatever for me is two hours. I'd like to wake up two hours before I can I have to do anything because I love having my coffee into my activations or meditations listening to the book that I fell asleep and I didn't know what happened with the romance that was going on and I guess again, what happened with them you know where's like you ever after so I take about two hours every day have nothing but light before I start my day and make well and I love that and I love you know what I what I know sometimes we see that nothing and we think it's nothing but the nothing is something not active. It's the most productive part of the day because it makes you feel that you can accomplish anything you feel so good after it that is actually extremely important. So what makes you the most productive person is not how
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Long your to do list is that's definitely the worst part. And trying to check out and trying to start really early to check out things. Now what makes you more productive is to have that time where you can just chill, relax. I call it putting your brain on ice, you put your brain on eyes with all this, and the silliest, the better. I like my delights to be really silly with my silly stories, or my delicious coffee or trying a new flavor to it. I'm sorry to add to the coffee or something like that. That's what I prefer, and love, it changes my day. What I'm hearing is, it's really a self care, intentional self care way to start the day. I love that. So why and why is that important? Do you think in terms of being productive throughout the day, the things that we do in that first couple hours of the day, because that's what is clearing you up. So stress level goes down, your cortisol levels go down, suddenly, your brain can breathe, can think can find possibilities and adapt moment, even though you're doing no work. You're just enjoying the moment doing whatever is the lightest, silliest thing you can think of. That's when the idea comes like whatever you had the day before, then you thought it was so complicated. It's gonna like da that's, that's when the good ideas download. Yes, do it on purpose. You don't sit to think about the No, you distract yourself. You let yourself be distracted and silly and enjoying and childlike. And that's when the creativity gets activated. And when your brain starts just downloading everything that you needed to make everything else work in a smooth way. I love it. Okay, so to recap, we're going to sleep tight, and then we're going to the morning getting morning insight and then sprinkle some delights sprinkles on delight I love that I love that. So here's a reminder to take care of yourself and to take care of your brain so that your brain can give you the answers. Yeah, every day right not as a discipline. Sunday care not we smell I'll catch up with it. No, this is everyday love yourself every day and you're going to be so much more productive if you love yourself every day. Yes, part of that can be coming into our waterfall club. Part of that can be coming into our community and just seeing what are people posting in there. What a great way to start the day by creating possibilities for other people sharing your what ifs getting your brain revved up into possibility. And of course Adriana you have our activation meditations those are available as well if you're not in The What If UP Club, what are you waiting for? Go to What if up.org and join us it's free and it's fabulous and you get to connect with extraordinary people like Adriana here. Adriana, thank you so much for being part of the what if it all goes right podcast today. Thank you so much. As always I have so much fun
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rains down to chase your dream
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
