Mindset Neuroscience Podcast

You were born with a growth mindset. When you were first learning to speak and walk, you fell and fumbled over and over again. But there was a part of you - an algorithm - that understood that this was... READ MORE The post New Podcast! The Science of Mindset, Healing & Resilience – Season 4 Ep 1 appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

"A problem never exists in isolation; it is surrounded by other problems in space and time. The more of the context of a problem that a scientist can comprehend, the greater are his chances of finding a truly adequate solution."... READ MORE The post Season 3 Ep 12 – Safety, Security and Systems Intelligence appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

  “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning... READ MORE The post Season 3 Ep 11: Mission, Endurance and Post-Traumatic Growth – Interview with Two Wolf Foundation appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

  Because of how human brains develop, the only way for maturity to emerge is in the presence of maturity.   Listen on Blubrry Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts   I remember the first time I gave a... READ MORE The post Season 3 Episode 10 – Education, Maturity & Human Potential appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

  A quick episode that covers some insights gained over the course of my career in human communication and psychology, child development, teaching, and neuroscience.   Highlights include the importance of: mindset, purpose and effective teachers anti-disciplinary thinking and teams... READ MORE The post Season 3 Episode 9 – Mindset, Purpose & Neuroplasticity: Career Insights & Perspectives appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

“One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.” ― Shannon L. Alder   Listen on Blubrry Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify   How we distract ourselves... READ MORE The post Season 3 Episode 8 – Warriors Heart: Courage, Connection and Healing appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Danger - and how it is dealt with - is the central theme of attachment - and therefore human interaction. Who we turn to and who we have around us during times of uncertainty and threat affect our abilities for information processing and preparing and responding to future events. The concept of how we regulate ourselves and with others, and how we deal with social danger, rejection, status, comparison, the need for acceptance, and how we diversify our abilities to navigate our neurochemicals are topics we cover in this Episode of the Mindset Neuroscience Podcast, where I interview Loretta Breuning of the Inner Mammal Institute. In our interview, we explore: -The neurochemicals associated with how it feels to have social support - and how this differs from social dominance -The fluctuations of neurochemicals, feelings and behaviors tied to threat, rejection, and constantly seeking external rewards and short-term gratification  -Being more realistic about the ups and downs of all of our neurochemical states, rather than believing we should feel good all the time.  -The biological purposes to the fluctuations and varieties of states we experience and why it's helpful for us to understand this so we can get better a-t making choices that are good for our mental and physical health -The life-threatening feelings people experience when it comes to social rejection, and social comparison -How our brain and body store information about threats, and how this can significantly influence our current reactions to people -The idea of ‘dopamine droop' and our constant urge to seek reward and avoid discomfort "We have inherited a brain that compares itself to others to promote its survival. It creates has a sense of urgency about how it measures up. If you don't know you are creating this feeling yourself, you think the world is doing it to you. You feel bitter, resentful, and victimized. Instead, you can accept that the people around you are mammals, and you are a mammal too." -Loretta Breuning, Inner Mammal Institute The post Season 3 Episode 7 – Danger, Attachment and Navigating our Neurochemicals with Loretta Breuning appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

“Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are.” ― Esther Perel   “And what is true for human beings is true for every living thing: all organisms require alternating periods of growth and equilibrium. Any person... READ MORE The post Season 2 Ep 6: Love, Purpose and Relational Realities appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” * ― Leo Tolstoy   Listen on Blubrry Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts We are in the most interconnected period that humanity has ever experienced. The... READ MORE The post Season 3 Episode 5: Why social rejection is so scary – the science of communication, maturity and purpose appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Learning is a gateway to power and freedom Learning increases our degrees of freedom by giving us new ways to move, communicate and adapt to challenges and capitalize on opportunities.   Listen on Blubrry Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple... READ MORE The post Season 3 Episode 4: Embodied Cognition and Learning: My Interview with Sheila Macrine and Jennifer Fugate appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

“Once again, the world seems to be less about objects than about interactive relationships.” ― Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics   Studying human brains while a person is immobile and alone in an mri machine can only get us so... READ MORE The post Season 3 Ep 3: The socio-biomechanics of resilience, trust and flow appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

To update our algorithms and enhance our brain functioning, there is one key thing we can do: Intentionally add experiences into our weekly routine that engage our sensory-motor systems in ways that are completely unfamiliar to us. That is the essence of my interview with Jason Knight, director of Alderleaf Wilderness College. In this interview, we discuss: -Jason's journey to becoming a wilderness expert and his desire to connect people more deeply with nature and the types of thinking that come with those experiences; -How people's mindsets get disrupted when they experience a learning environment that challenges what they are used to; -How our awareness expands as we spend time in nature: we begin to see allies, tools and individuated beings; -A truly embodied perspective of empathy: working with natural systems requires us to move out of our self-referential networks and expand into neural territories that recognize how another living organism can perceive the world differently than us; -High-level pattern recognition: how get the best possible solution and sustainable way of achieving a goal by expanding the space-time horizon and creating maps to see multiple systems working together across long periods of time The post Season 3 Episode 2 – Interview with Jason Knight: Natural Intelligence and Embodied Mindsets appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

In this episode, I explore: -the difference between our autonomic and somatic nervous systems and why knowing the difference gives us power to change -biomechanisms we use to protect or defend ourselves that are tied to our past and may not be helpful to us in our current situation (as I am learning, these can be hard habits to break) -how we can experiment with new patterns using skeletal muscles to control our breath, voice, eyes, hands and body within our social interactions -10 key mechanical adjustments we can make to move in this world in ways that optimize our functioning and sense of fulfillment -how our hyper-focus on words & devices makes us lose touch with our bodies, with our environment and with all the non-verbal aspects of life The post Season 3 Episode 1 – Biomechanics of Human Communication and Social Intelligence appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Is it possible to take a painful and negative event from our past, and 're-purpose' it to become an empowering feature of our story, of our identity? The process of re-organizing neural circuits to integrate a negative past event into a more complex and mature perspective is tied to cognitive flexibility.  This flexibility is a major aspect of the healing process for moral injury. What's beautiful about the exploration of moral injury is that it helps us find ways to bring negative events into a new light.  In doing so, it exposes resilient and powerful aspects of the human response to stress.  The processes used to navigate moral injury shed light on how to help help all of us be more empowered and find new ways to contribute to the greater whole. In this episode, we explore the following: - what is moral injury - what is morality and how it can be used to improve energy efficiency and resilience of the human species - how forgiveness and flexibility help us activate highly sophisticated and evolved neural mechanisms - that brain activations that are different in trauma compared with moral injury - how the human species is an interconnected network of nodes that requires social signaling for trust and cooperation The post Season 2 Episode 12 – Moral Injury, Forgiveness and Cognitive Flexibility appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

“The residues of the past and the content of the future tend to be formulated, constructed, and reconstructed in terms of that [traumatic] experience”   (Dowling, 1986)   Every aspect of our cellular design is to solve a problem.  And that... READ MORE The post Moral Injury Part 1: Residue from the Past appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Many of us don't realize how many of our behaviors are automated. We need a certain amount of this automation to free up cognitive processing energy to learn new things, try new behaviors and deal adaptively with new situations.  ... READ MORE The post The science of habit change + my podcast interview with Heidi Sawyer appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Attachment is a way of seeking proximity to an attachment figure.  Attachment is part of our neurophysiological operating system It's a biobehavioral adaptation that helps us regulate ourselves and explore new frontiers. This in turn helps us achieve higher levels... READ MORE The post Season 2 Episode 11 – The Neuroscience of Attachment and Emotion Regulation appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Have you had an argument recently, or an interaction with someone that didn't go as you hoped it would? What was your reaction in this situation?  Was it anger, defensiveness, or shutting down?   Did you say what you truly wanted to say?  Did you hold back?   Or did you say something hurtful? Is there something you feel about this situation that you can't put your finger on why it bothers you so much?  Or do you think you know why, but you don't know how to express it to that person? In this podcast episode, I go into  -brain-body mechanisms that lead to overreactions -connecting the dots between your childhood and anxiety, stress, depression and other challenges you may be facing -A process to help us be less reactive and increase our attentional control during difficult interactions The post Season 2 Episode 11 – How to stop overreacting appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Listen on Spotify Listen on iTunes Listen on Blubrry   Have you ever had the experience of feeling like someone really ‘gets you'?   This can take various forms - like being able to share what's on our mind and... READ MORE The post Season 2 Episode 10 – The Science of Feeling Understood appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Why do systems fall apart or become dysfunctional? A system can be a family, relationship, community, business, organization, society. The human mind-brain-body is also a system. One reason dysfunction can happen is related to hierarchy and ‘signal flow'. Hierarchies exist throughout nature and throughout human society. Hierarchies are best able to serve the system when there is efficient signal flow from subsystems to the higher levels and vice versa. We can see dysfunction happen when the highest levels of a hierarchy are -not serving the goals of the entire system -have communication channels dominated by a specific subgroup/subsystem -are blocking or suppressing efficient communication and signal flow from the subsystems Optimal functioning of a system requires a state of signal flow where all members or nodes feel ‘understood'. This experience of being understood is at the core of optimal system functioning within human systems. When we don't feel understood, it means there is a block of signal flow. This episode covers the idea of hierarchies and signal flow - and what happens when hierarchies don't serve the goals of the entire system. In upcoming articles, I'll be bringing this concept back down to more personal and interpersonal levels. The post Season 2 Episode 9 – Hierarchies and Signal Flow appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

In this podcast episode, I talk about something called ‘shifting the burden'. It's about the topic of what we depend on ourselves for, and what we look to others to help us with. The balance of our dependence on ourselves and others - whether in adaptive maladaptive ways - is based on our first experiences with depending on someone. Many of us simply don't know how deeply emotional of a subject this is. It is one of our most primitive, primal CORE-to-the-CORE experiences of being human… a battle between wanting to be independent and self-sufficient, and yet also knowing that one of our deepest desires is to connect in authentic ways with others. My reflection questions at the end of the episode are about your doubts, desires and dependencies - how they interplay on each other and how they've been formed over time - through your experiences with others.. and what they've doubted, desired and depended on in their own lives. I hope you find something in this episode helpful. The post Season 2 Episode 8 – Shifting the Burden appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Normal is based on historical data. It's based on what has happened the most often in the past. Our past ‘normal' can make it easy to not question if there is more that's possible in terms of wellbeing and a deeper sense of meaning for our life. But what we really, truly, deeply need to understand is that the ‘normal mode' of consuming and doing the same combination of movements day after day without challenging our brain-body to higher and higher levels of creation and exploration is not NATURAL. We are: COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS. Our NATURE is to adapt to ever-changing, increasingly difficult and complex situations that involve other complex systems so that our adaptive problem-solving faculties become more honed and finely tuned.  Many of our behaviors and patterns are blocking us from tapping into our most natural abilities. The post Season 2 Episode 7 – Normal versus Natural appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

The problem I often see when we talk about mental health is that we put a lot of focus just on one individual without widening the view of all the other interacting systems that are coming into play. When we focus on an individual’s anxiety or dysregulation without acknowledging how it emerged, we are conveying the message that there’s ‘just something neurochemically wrong’ with that person. That somehow the anxiety or overreaction just ‘appeared’ because of an imbalance in their brain and that their distress, dysregulation and anxiety is an isolated problem about that individual. I think this a really big problem. It's also scientifically inaccurate. The post Season 2 Episode 6: Why are humans so anxious? and the dark side of mindfulness appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Listen on Spotify Listen on iTunes Listen on Blubrry   Where does anxiety come from?   Why is it a part of the human experience?   In a quantitative EEG, we can see anxious-type of thinking reflected in high frequency... READ MORE The post Season 2 Episode 6: Why are humans so anxious? and the dark side of mindfulness appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

The formation of self-identity and group identity through the lens of hyper-coherent networks, key features of what makes a system resilient.    (remember - your brain, your relationships and human society are all systems).   To help systems become more flexible and innovative, we need to understand the mechanisms of change. A mindset or paradigm shift is one of those mechanisms.   A level higher than that: being able to rise above paradigms altogether*.   This is what can free our mind to experiment with perspectives that are guided by our values - rather than only confirming a narrow field of vision based on our past, which is largely driven by our tribal identity. The post Season 2 Ep 5 – Resilience, Stability and Hyper-Coherent Networks appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

The formation of self-identity and group identity through the lens of hyper-coherent networks, key features of what makes a system resilient.    (remember - your brain, your relationships and human society are all systems).   To help systems become more flexible and innovative, we need to understand the mechanisms of change. A mindset or paradigm shift is one of those mechanisms.   A level higher than that: being able to rise above paradigms altogether*.   This is what can free our mind to experiment with perspectives that are guided by our values - rather than only confirming a narrow field of vision based on our past, which is largely driven by our tribal identity. The post Season 2 Ep 5 – Resilience, Stability and Hyper-Coherent Networks appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

The human species has some pretty spectacular systems built into us to achieve mental, emotional and physiological states that most of us are not even really aware of.  We also have systems and features within us that make us very vulnerable to being influenced and 'programmed' into behavior that is not reflective of our most evolved neural circuitry. Technology is interfering with and manipulating those systems.  And the more we get to know how technology is interfering with those systems, the more we can get control over our internal state rather than let the tech companies (who do not have the best interests of the human brain and nervous system in mind) hack into our vulnerabilities.   The post Season 2 Episode 4 – Tech Addiction and the Social Dilemna appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

The human species has some pretty spectacular systems built into us to achieve mental, emotional and physiological states that most of us are not even really aware of.  We also have systems and features within us that make us very vulnerable to being influenced and 'programmed' into behavior that is not reflective of our most evolved neural circuitry. Technology is interfering with and manipulating those systems.  And the more we get to know how technology is interfering with those systems, the more we can get control over our internal state rather than let the tech companies (who do not have the best interests of the human brain and nervous system in mind) hack into our vulnerabilities.   The post Season 2 Episode 4 – Tech Addiction and the Social Dilemna appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

  Listen on Blubrry Listen on Spotify Listen on iTunes 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.... READ MORE The post Season 2 Episode 3 Feedback Loops appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

  Listen on Spotify Listen on iTunes Listen on Blubrry     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... READ MORE The post Season 2 Episode 3 Feedback Loops appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

  Listen on Spotify Listen on iTunes Listen on Blubrry     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... READ MORE The post Season 2 Episode 2- Your Brain’s Predictions and Paradigms appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

  Listen on Spotify Listen on iTunes Listen on Blubrry   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... READ MORE The post Season 2 Episode 2- Your Brain’s Predictions and Paradigms appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

This episode focuses on the idea of systems thinking, and how we can use this 'lens' or paradigm as a way of expanding our thinking so we can see new ideas for solving challenges in our life and in our... READ MORE The post Season 2 Episode 1 – Systems Thinking appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Listen on Spotify Listen on iTunes Listen on Blubrry This episode focuses on the idea of systems thinking, and how we can use this 'lens' or paradigm as a way of expanding our thinking so we can see new ideas... READ MORE The post Season 2 Episode 1 – Systems Thinking appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

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 Stefanie Faye.

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 Why toxic media is bad for your brain – MNT 008 appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

“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 Stefanie Faye.

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... READ MORE The post “Relational Minds” appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

There's a lot of 'old science' out there. Stuff we humans used to believe that has been de-bunked. Things like...   'humans are more complex than other species, which means we have more genes.' Before the Human Genome Project was completed... READ MORE The post Season 1 Episode 3 – The science most people keep using is wrong appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

There's a lot of 'old science' out there. Stuff we humans used to believe that has been de-bunked. Things like...   'humans are more complex than other species, which means we have more genes.' Before the Human Genome Project was completed... READ MORE The post New Episode 3! The science most people keep using is wrong appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

"It's not merely that we can't be loving or creative when we're scared; we can't heal." -Stephen Porges   In order for us to access our most evolved neural and behavioral resources, we must be in a state of physiological... READ MORE The post Season 1 Episode 2 – Psychological Safety, Resilience and the Vagus Nerve appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

"It's not merely that we can't be loving or creative when we're scared; we can't heal." -Stephen Porges   In order for us to access our most evolved neural and behavioral resources, we must be in a state of physiological... READ MORE The post New Episode 2! Psychological Safety, Resilience and the Vagus Nerve appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Listen on iTunes   Old, outdated science said that the human brain basically stopped developing in childhood and there wasn't much we could do to change it.  What we got was what we got.   But we now know that that... READ MORE The post Season 1 Episode 1 – Neuroscience of Growth Mindset appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

Listen on iTunes   Old, outdated science said that the human brain basically stopped developing in childhood and there wasn't much we could do to change it.  What we got was what we got.   But we now know that that... READ MORE The post New Episode 1! Neuroscience of Growth Mindset appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

    Sound may be the most important sense we have for learning as well as for detecting others emotions. The human ability to hear ‘just noticeable differences’ is significantly more powerful than what our eyes are able to detect... READ MORE The post Season 1 Episode 6 – The importance of sound: Our ears may be more powerful than our eyes appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

    Sound may be the most important sense we have for learning as well as for detecting others emotions. The human ability to hear ‘just noticeable differences’ is significantly more powerful than what our eyes are able to detect... READ MORE The post The importance of sound: Our ears may be more powerful than our eyes – MNT 006 appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

No two people ever experience reality in the same way: 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. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: if... READ MORE The post Season 1 Episode 11 – This is what happens to your brain when you add diversity to your life appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

No two people ever experience reality in the same way: 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. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing: if... READ MORE The post This is what happens to your brain when you add diversity to your life – MNT 011 appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

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... READ MORE The post Season 1 Episode 10 – Can you make people ‘willing’ to change their mindset? appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

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... READ MORE The post Can you make people ‘willing’ to change their mindset? – MNT 010 appeared first on Stefanie Faye.

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 Stefanie Faye.