The Science of Success Podcast

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The Simple 20 Minute Exercise That Rewires Your Brain For Happiness with Dr. Dan Siegel

Lace Gilger
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In this episode we look at how to live a healthy, happy, successful life - from the inside out. We explore what it means to have an “integrated” brain, look at lessons across vastly different scientific disciplines, and share the accessible, simple strategy you can use in 20 minutes to integrate the most important learnings from scientific research to create an integrated brain, body, and mind - to improve your health, happiness, wellbeing and success with our guest Dr. Dan Siegel. 

Dr. Dan Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. He is a multi-best-selling author and award-winning educator and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. His work has taken him across the globe to work with individuals such as the King of Thailand, Pope John Paul II, and The Dalai Lama.

  • What is integration? What does it mean to live a fully connected life?

  • Different parts can be honored for their differences and then linked and connected and allowed to communicate with one another

  • The linking of different integrated parts - is the fundamental way a complex system optimizes functioning - the way it “self organizes” 

  • An optimally integrated organism or organization is in a state of harmony, a state of flow, a state of health

  • A healthy life, a successful life, a happy life comes from being integrated

  • The opposite of integration is either Chaos or Rigidity 

  • “The harmonious flow of integration” 

  • Dan comes at the questions of happiness and successful lives from a wholistic integrated perspective across any and all scientific fields  “interpersonal neurobiology”

  • A healthy mind is both integrated within - inside your body - and integration between - integration between other people and the planet 

  • Even if academic disciplines silo themselves - reality is 

  • Reality is one giant interconnected whole

  • What is the mind? 

  • When you really look at the science and the data - it’s impossible to separate any one aspect of reality from any other aspect - including you! 

  • How do we merge the critical ideas across a wide array of academic disciplines to form a coherent view of reality and solve our toughest problems?

  • The common ground across any field or discipline is the flow of energy and information 

  • Information.. IN FORMATION - information is just energy in a certain configuration that gives it context and meaning - information is meaning embedded via energy patterns 

  • How is the MIND part of the system of energy and information flow in reality and the world as a whole?

  • “Emergence” - the essence of a complex system is that it interacts with itself and self organizes 

  • How complex systems unfold over time 

  • Over 3000 studies supporting the notion that health emerges from having your brain, body, and relationships be “integrated systems” - and unearth manifests as chaos and rigidity

  • Huge amounts of research support the idea that integration in the brain is the best predictor of wellbeing 

  • 3 Pillar Training - how to integrate the brain to be healthier and happier - how to live in harmony instead of chaos 

  • How a journey to Namibia completely redefined Dan’s relationship to success and happiness 

  • “My people are happy because we belong, we belong to one another and our community and we belong to earth."

  • Do you feel like you belong? Does our society today foster a sense of belonging? 

  • This powerful story about a sense of belonging ties into the science of the mind and the brain - the “embodied brain” and the “relational” mind 

  • What is the self? What is the mind? Does the mind exist, as the source of your self, inside your skin encased body? Is that it?

  • You also have a relational self that is equally as important as your individualized self 

  • “From Me to We” is wrong - it’s Me AND We! Its “Mwe"

  • An integrated self is like a candle - its the wax and the light - the wax of the body and the light of your relationships 

  • Skull and Skin don’t limit the flow of energy from the mind - its more than that - it’s beyond that. The system of the mind is energy and information flow inside your body AND outside your body - in the world, in the energy and information you share with others, with the world, and beyond. 

  • The 3 Pillar Training is what research tells us - from studies across the last 15 years - that if you train your mind with 3 fundamentally practical steps 

  • Focused attention, sustained on something, and letting go of distraction 

    1. Open awareness - letting the mind unfold

    2. Kindness, compassion, loving kindness - honor your interconnected nature with kind regard - “Kind Intention” 

  • By cultivating the 3 pillars you develop neuroplastic changes in your brain - changes in the physical structure of your brain - to create meaningful integration for the brain 

  • The five things that 3 Pillar Training does for your body and your healthspan

  • Reducing tress and reducing cortisol

    1. Improves immune funciton 

    2. Optimizes cardiovascular factors (enhanced vagal tone)

    3. Reduces inflammation by changing the epigenetic regulators of your genes 

    4. Optimization of your Telomeres that slows your aging process and extends your health span 

    5. Plus.. integrating the brain

  • This science has been established in some of the most rigorous peer reviewed journals in the world 

  • Results from study on over 10,000 people using the “Wheel of Awareness” training and how it can create massive positive impact on your life 

  • Integration is the basis of wellbeing in your body, mind, and relationships 

  • The accessible, simple strategy you can use in 20 minutes to integrate the most important learnings from scientific research to create an integrated brain, body, and mind - to improve your health, happiness, wellbeing and success.

  • Homework: Take the Wheel of Awareness on Dan’s website (linked in the show notes) - most efficient, effective, science based, multi-disciplinary thing you can bring into your life . It’s wholly grounded in science and its accessible for you to do anywhere. 

Thank you so much for listening!

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