Dr. Tara Swart
speaker
511 appearances
9 recordings
7 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 24 May
Dr. Tara Swart’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
positive things that are in line with my goals yeah I mean what's the harm in imagining yourself more muscular or more youthful alongside eating the dark foods and getting enough sleep you know it's like it's part of the package do you want to know what you should eat so that you can please what is this dark skinned foods
So basically, at the basic level, we want people to have a healthy balanced diet, mostly plant-based. But where you can choose a darker version of a food, the pigment in the skin of that food has higher levels of antioxidants called anthocyanins, and they also contribute to neurogenesis.
So it's basically like eating black beans instead of white beans or eating blueberries instead of strawberries. Dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. Purple sprouting broccoli instead of green broccoli. And good quality coffee counts as well. Yeah, so, you know, I try to vary what I eat, but also always choose the darker option if I can.
So the accountability piece, which we discussed, but also creating the conditions in your body for your brain to be able to do all of that stuff. And so, you know, this is a bit of repetition, but sleeping roughly eight hours a night, having regular sleep and wake times seems to have an additional benefit. We don't know why. So within an hour. So go to sleep between 10 and 11, wake up whenever.
Not being sedentary. So being physically active doesn't necessarily mean you have to pound it at the gym. To be honest, in terms of neuroplasticity, you don't want to do too much high intensity exercise because it spikes your cortisol levels. So it's better to do kind of quite gentle exercise. Eating 30 different plant products a week and varying the color as much as possible.
you know, managing your stress, whether it's through meditation or just like removing the causes of stress. If you're doing and being hydrated, if you are doing all of those things and you want to play at level two of the game, you could start doing time-restricted eating. So only eating between, I only eat between 12 noon and 8 p.m., but you could do 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
So that kind of fasting is very beneficial for your brain as well, but only if you've got the foundations right. It's not going to help you if you don't.
Well, it helps to regulate your blood sugar levels. So, you know, spiking blood sugar levels aren't good for your body or your brain. And fasting and calorie restriction, they do have like brain health and longevity benefits, but that only if your foundations are right.
Somebody who's stressed or eats badly or doesn't sleep enough will not benefit from time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting because it is a form of stress on your body, but it's a form of stress that your body can take and use to build resilience if the baseline level of stuff is good.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's great.
Absolutely.
It will get to that, but there's actually a little bit of a jumpstart to that, which is really helpful, particularly in terms of confidence and self-esteem, which is that usually there's a particular recurring negative thought that's associated with feelings of lack of confidence.
Um, so if you can identify what that is and create a positive affirmation that's like the opposite of it or something that counteracts it, then that can be a great way to get started. My phrase would have been, it has to be perfect and it's not going to be perfect.
I wouldn't have been able to say this last year, but now I would I would probably be able to say it is going to be better than perfect. It is going to be amazing. Like I know it. But to get myself there, I could have said it doesn't have to be perfect, but it's going to be great. Or I could have said maybe it will be perfect.
Sometimes a question I ask myself is what's the best possible outcome that could happen here? So it's changing your language in your mind about the things that you think. So that's basically metacognition, which is that you can understand your own thinking. And then reversing that narrative quite strongly, even if it doesn't feel like it's totally true.
And just repeating that so much that you start to wear down that other pathway.
Yeah, yeah, it really matters. Yeah, how we speak about ourselves.
I mean, it's neuroplasticity. If you're repeating something in your mind or out loud, then if that's being repeated more than another statement, it's the one that your brain's going to believe.
Mm-hmm.
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