Neuroscientist Dr. Sarah McKay on "High-Performing Brain Health Strategies That We Should All Know About and Implement"

Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning podcast, episode #85 with Dr. Sarah McKay, an Australian neuroscientist, speaker, author, media personality and founder and director of Think Brain and the Neuroscience Academy suite of training programs whose purpose is to explain the brain so you can apply neurobiology to your life and work, which is exactly what we are focused on with this podcast. You can watch the YouTube interview here.  My name is Andrea Samadi, and if you are new here, I’m a former educator who created this podcast to bring the most current neuroscience research, along with high performing experts who have risen to the top of their field with specific strategies or ideas that you can implement immediately, to take your results to the next level. I encourage everyone who wants to learn more about the brain to go to Dr. McKay’s website www.drsarahmckay.com[i] and learn more about her books, online courses, workshops, writing, teaching and online training programs that she has created so you can easily access, understand and implement evidence-based neuroscience strategies into your everyday life and work.  But here is where things get exciting. You’ve GOT to watch Dr. Sarah McKay’s TEDx on “Indulging Your Neurobiology[ii]” that has over 27,000 views. I’ve seen Sarah speak many times over the years, and most recently just last week, as she was a speaker in Helen Maffini’s Preschool Neuroscience Summit[iii] where I also spoke, so I watched her session to get some ideas for how I would connect her knowledge, to the topics of the podcast, to help those listening understand her knowledge and insight as she is an expert on “explaining the brain” and then applying brain strategies to your life. You’ll learn more about Dr. McKay’s TEDx, her most recent book, The Women’s Brain Book, and some important brain strategies that I have picked out that I think we all should be aware of. Welcome Sarah, it’s wonderful to speak with you in person after following your work since I first heard you speak on John Assaraf’s Brain-a-Thon in 2017. I just had no idea until I was preparing my questions for you, that your work would tie directly into what I am working on right now. Before we get to the questions, I’ve got to tell you that the first minute of your TEDx Talk, I almost dropped my pen as I was taking notes, as it is all about the importance of sleep, or taking naps, and our brain health. The last 3 podcast episodes I’ve done, were about the importance of getting a spect image brain scan, if you want to optimize your results by looking at your brain, and in EPISODE #84, I share the results of my brain scan from Dr. Amen’s Clinics that revealed my brain might be showing areas of cognitive weakness due to not enough sleep. We can hear strategies to improve our brain over and over again, but unless we actually begin to implement them, we will not have the opportunities that comes along with enhancing the brain. Intro question: I know we’ve heard it over and over again, but coming from an expert on explaining the brain, can you explain, why is sleep so important for our neurobiology? Q1: Sarah, I just love your work, but I also love the story behind you that you can see on your website “about[iv]” section.  I relate to it, partly because I would love to live on the beaches of Australia, but also, it was a book that changed the direction of my life. How exactly did Oliver Sack’s book impact you so profoundly that you became fascinated with the human brain that launched you into the work you do today “explaining the brain” with your books, presentations and courses? Q2: I was reading your book this weekend, The Women’s Brain Book: The Neuroscience of Health, Hormones, and Happiness[v] and it caught my eye in chapter 2 on childhood, the question “Are resilient children born or made?” especially since resiliency was a part of my spect image brain scan results (Dr Amen measures resiliency as a part o