Reduce Cortisol with Neuroscientist Dr Manish Tomar

The research has found that people who do challenging tasks, it’s not the task that was challenging, that was the attitude towards that. So if they’re at higher level of dopamine, the same challenging task found to be very enjoyable. If the dopamine levels were high, you will see CEOs have a routine of running in the morning, usually, or there’s some kind of activity. For the day, they increase the dopaminergic level. So it’s not the outer world which is challenging, it’s the inner world, inner neurochemicals which are inside my brain.

Welcome to episode 123 of the Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and ADHD Podcast.

I’m your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham. And today’s guest is neuroscientist, Dr Manish Tomar. He’s talking about how tiny little things really make a huge difference when we want to do them, when we do them with intention.

And I loved talking to him. I loved his presentation last week at Trinity College at the IACP International Conference. And I hope you enjoyed the episode as much as I enjoyed making it.

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Welcome Dr Manish Tomar. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you. Thank you very much Eve for the invitation. It’s such a joy.

I’ve met you at a couple of IACP conferences but you were presenting at the one at Trinity College on Tuesday at time of recording and it was just so gorgeous. I was delighted when you said you’d join me.

I was very happy to have the invitation because when we were discussing the nervous systems and how the brain calculates and remember things and when you asked that question that if it has to be an hourly break, I was like OK at least somebody got it. I t0hink somebody actually had the point that they can take home from because that has always been an intention what they could just apply immediately to their life.

Yeah, well I’m really, I’m always trying to integrate what I’m learning. Would you like to start by saying a little bit about your work? You’re a neuroscientist, tell me a bit about what you’re working on at the moment and how you got into it and also how people can find you online.

Well, first of all, thank you again for inviting me over and my work as a neuroscientist started long back when I was still in India. I was still a student doing my bachelor’s in biotechnology and one fine day we had a talk by Professor Birendra Mallick who used to work at Jawaharlal Nehru University in India on dream research. He showed how neurones switch on and switch off and that is the difference between REM sleep and non-REM sleep. I was fascinated by that topic, really, really fascinated.

I said the thing that got me very interested that there are tools and techniques where we could ask these questions, we could find the answers, we could come to a conclusion and see how I can integrate that conclusion from science into my life. So that was the motivation for me. So I was lucky enough to get into the master’s programme in neuroscience in India.

That was the only programme that was offered during that time and I think still I think there’s only one more university does that. I got a full scholarship to pursue my master’s but that was not enough. I wanted to know more and I wanted to know and I wanted to have an exposure which is global. How people around the world think about neuroscience.

I was lucky enough to follow a pathway and my boss gave me the liberty where I could actually see the neurones firing with my own eyes. You could see the impulses going up, you could see the impulses going down and my project was to calculate how much the neurones fire, how much the neurones go down, which impulses are good, which impulses are not so good and this I was doing while I could see a neurone firing and that really fascinated me. During that time, I think a couple of years before that, I discovered meditation and I discovered wow that’s something that really works for me and the more I studied neuroscience the more I started to integrate those.

So what the lecture in Trinity was was years of testing and trying how the two worlds, meditation calming down your nervous system and neuroscience understanding what molecular biology is behind the calming down of the nervous system and that’s how we met.

Yeah and my brain ADHD brain pinging all over the place but thinking I guess things like yoga nidra and the need for good sleep in order to form the memories to consolidate the memories but I like the idea of seeing it. I really want to know about your ideal and actual self-care so I could go off on lots of tangents.

Where can people find you online and we’ll say again I’ll share it in the show notes but I want for people listening in the car or whatever to be able to find you. Currently I’m currently only on LinkedIn.

If they want to add and connect with LinkedIn that would be great. Currently that’s the only social media that I’m using.

I’m on Instagram as well but that’s more of a personal account so LinkedIn is my current professional account. They will get more soon planning a website soon where I could all put all the resources everything together but maybe in a couple of months it will be up and running.

Yeah and I told you that I ask guests about their ideal and actual self-care so I have three different types in terms of the FEEL. LOVE. HEAL. framework I developed. So the FEEL. bit is the kind of regulatory self-care things we can do when we have the bandwidth. I work mostly with people with trauma and ADHD and sometimes it’s easy to say go for a swim that’s one of my top regulatory things.

Other times it’s like even like kind of brushing your teeth or having a shower is feeling impossible or getting dressed. So kind of helping people discern on any given day the things that really help them and then the actual essentials and then the LOVE. part is more that I guess connecting with that part of us that knows we’re part of nature, part of the divine and that you don’t have to do a thing, you are already fine, you’re already whole, you’re already like so much more than the trauma, the ADHD that anything else we’re struggling with. And then the HEAL. bit is the turning what hurts your heart into action so like the community care, the collective care, the co-regulation, so the communities you’re part of that support you and also the communities where you’re holding space for others.

So if we start with the like lowercase self-care the FEEL. bit what are your ideal practices like in an ideal world if you had all the time, money, energy resources in the world, what would you love to be doing every day, every week?

Well when I have all the time and the money everything is an ideal place but there still will be challenges and every brain is different, every nervous system is different. What I respond to self-care would not be the same that you will respond to self-care or somebody else would respond to self-care.

I have a workout routine in the morning that gets me going, even if I could not complete the entire workout, I just do a bit of it so that I’m in a routine. That is something that keeps me grounded.

So what is it? Like it is I do Surya Namaskar which is a yoga practice.

Yeah Sun Salutations.

Yeah so I started with one one day went to two three four five currently and moving up to 20.

Fantastic.

My aim is to go higher but yeah this is actually what I what I do and that I knew worked for me. Yeah I know it gives me that kind of grounding it gives that kind of circulation to the body and then I feel good throughout the day yeah even if I do four even if I do even if I do like sometimes the day was so tiring just one or two just to have a routine that the brain will think yes you are more than the work you are doing you’re more than the output that you are producing this is where your worth lies this is where you are doing it for yourself yeah and that we think that it’s a small thing yes I go for. OK I shock myself or I do something for myself. These are small things but actually these are not small at the neurological level. Even if you cross Sahara desert to prove yourself you’re worthy of something, you can take challenge, the same neurone are going to fire. When you do something really small for yourself, if you just go walk in the park, the same neurone. The brain does not distinguish the magnitude it distinguish the intention.

I love it so it could be as simple as someone using something they’ve bought for best or for bought for guests but deciding they are worthy of using that mug or that plate or that whatever it might be very interesting yeah because we used to do the same in our family something for the guest but one day just take the cup yeah I’m worth it than this these little things yeah these little things throughout the day what do they do.

Suppose for example we discussed a lot about how the cortisol response during the presentation yeah so when we are running on that cortisol system so cortisol goes up high during the day especially in the morning when people are just getting up yeah it around 11 it is the highest and then it started to stabilise in the evening ideally it should go down yeah but it doesn’t and then it stretches all throughout the night so if someone is running on that cortisolic dose throughout the day yeah that becomes a thing that brain wants to create that situation again and again so because for our brain the main priority is that you survive.

If you find yourself in any challenging situation if somebody find myself then there will be a push of cortisol and cortisol comes in impulses every it is it has been seen 60 to 90 minutes hour to hour to hour and a half but it comes in a pulse so when that pulse happens it goes to the next pulse and the next pulse and the next pulse every hour but when we give it a break by doing something really small that just I’m going to have that coffee that I always wanted yeah it goes down because it knows there is no danger.

You can have a coffee you can have something really good for yourself and the cortisol level goes down so the brain does not create vacuum if something goes down something goes up so your oxytocin levels are going to go up especially when you take care of yourself the oxytocin level starts to go up yeah the dopaminergic neurone starts firing because you are doing something.

It has to be an intention not because someone else has said to asked me I really want to do it for myself not to prove to someone not to put on your socials that I’m doing hashtag coffee hashtag self-care yeah it doesn’t really work because then you’re in an endless loop of proving yourself again yeah it has to be an intentional effort and then it goes up.

I’m aware I forgot I said to you before we started recording that I want to adopt starting the podcast episodes with a quick breath practice inspired by Anita Rani’s and Sisters of Defiance podcast and you’re talking and I’m like I asked if you’d be happy to take a breath and I forgot something as simple as taking a breath would you be happy to guide us through a breath now just a moment yeah yeah yeah so I learned this at the at the conference which is called Box Breathing because this somebody could do anytime during during the day.

We start with it like taking four count one two three four breaths up hold for four exhale for four and I’ll stay for four and then inhale again yeah and as with any breath practise best results like five ten twenty minutes but even one breath one one minute even yeah yeah that sigh yeah yeah I’ve done enough that really regulates the nervous system.

One of the key thing is it regulates the autonomic nervous system you would you would see the rhythmic breathing is usually when we’re singing when we’re dancing. When there’s, celebrations. This has been associated with rhythm when the when the child is in the womb. It hears the rhythm of the mother which means it’s safe. The mother is still alive. And this is the reason people sleep very quickly on trains and planes yes the rhythm so when we in a rhythm it creates a sense of safety yeah you might look like you’re running throughout the day you are being very productive but people are usually running away or running towards something and there’s no rhythm in that rhythm creates that safety.

I love what you’re saying even with that rhythm of like every hour every 90 minutes like what kind of things do you do you were talking about like even a kind of very mindful sip of water at the conference but what other things do you build into your day during these little micro breaks. What I’ve recently discovered that works for me is having my own movement along.

I have a movement suppose if I really don’t know what to do I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life yeah so I just release all the stress yeah from from my hands you could do it or you could stand up somebody could stand up or you could do it one could do it sitting on the chair release all the stress from the hands and then yeah I have a circular motion because when the stress is gone uh-huh. I have a circular motion from my hands that starts giving me ideas what should I do next and then the next time a circular motion and once I’m in that zone I do this yeah and then I say okay now I’m ready I do the fist yeah and now I’m ready yeah and then I release the fist and then it goes I was doing this is a very important I was doing a workshop with Cavan County Council and people were early stage entrepreneurs yeah people living in Cavan and they think yeah and they responded really well yeah some people had the vision had the movement of a superman that stood like a superman.

Power Posing?

Yeah yeah power posing.

I said the first instinct that tells you yeah what will keep you ready for the next hour one guy stood like a power pose one of the guys started playing piano yeah air piano air piano one one one of the girls she’s she did this she was a butterfly yeah so this little movement because the trick here is we can take a breath but with movement we activate dopamine as well. You relax and you activate dopamine so you are motivated for the next hour not out of cortisol, not out of threat or fear.

I love it.

Out of increased level of dopamine.

The research have found that people who do challenging tasks it’s not the task that was challenging it that was the attitude towards them so if they’re at higher level of dopamine the same challenging task found to be very enjoyable yeah if the dopamine levels were high you will see CEOs having have a routine of running in the morning yeah usually or there’s some kind of activity for the day they increase the dopaminergic level.

So it’s not the outer world which is challenging it inner world inner neurochemicals which are inside my brain and I’ve heard that exercise in the morning is as effective as medication for ADHD and like just but I’m also thinking I’ve got my piano I got on freecycle a few years ago behind me and I just play by ear but even like for a minute or two I play way more than I did as a child when I was forced into piano lessons for years and years and forgotten everything I learned but I just love it as a break but thinking those tiny little things that are enjoyable and that are for ourselves or like standing outside barefoot in the grass or that’s something I do looking up at the mountain or what about the things that help you remember that you are part of the divine part of nature and you don’t need to do a thing like what’s your ideal and an essential.

That’s very interesting because especially when I look at the sea and I look at the vastness of the water in the sea and the force of the tide of the tidal waves that really relaxes and soothes my nervous system that I’m a part of that that’s a part of nature I’m extended to yeah and and just the feeling that oh look at the sky the universe is so divine powerful big yeah and and the raw power of of the nature one could not really get fathom of it you know it’s very hard absolutely yeah but we could dip our toe every now and then yeah in remembrance you know this is what I’m a part of yeah yeah this is what contains all of me yeah so sea I think sea and and the coast I live beside the sea and every time every time I see the sea from the train station it just takes all the tiredness away.

I’m so happy just to just look at it yeah I think that’s how I have a very I think very strong connection of course sea.

Yeah yeah I’m seven and a half years in Westport now and I’m still pinching myself that I get to live here with the sea and the mountains and everything and it’s just and I swim at least once a week even through winter but like you’re then you’re seeing the seaweeds you’re seeing the mountain you’re seeing the sky you’re remembering you yeah it resets me for a few days it helps but you’re connecting it with that awe as well that like yes exactly and the sheer force of water around you.

Yeah it’s carrying you with it yeah that’s very important because we forget that universe carries us yeah and the tendency to let go yeah I’m being carried with the universe that is yeah very very important we have lived throughout centuries as human beings relying solely on on the power of nature yeah the entire Ayurvedic tradition in India was born just you are in sync with the universal nature yeah and not only in in that the South Korean system of temple food because I was watching a documentary the lady doesn’t use she’s a very renowned chef in a temple food in South Korea she deliberately uses her fingers yeah to put energy to the food yeah she said she doesn’t use chopsticks to make yeah she uses her her life force to put energy to the food before people consume it yeah so we forget that we are connected to the life inside us is living live dynamic real we are exchanging it currently we are extending that life force with each other don’t forget that but like for me that’s coast and the sea is the remembrance that I’m a father of that life yeah but with somebody it could be their pet yeah their kids their family something they really love love love to do something that helps them create something yeah so it could be something else for everyone our system is different with their grandparents.

I’m thinking I’ve got two loved ones in hospital at the moment different hospitals and in the past few weeks I’ve spent more time I’ll always swim and then I let myself float but like when it’s warm enough like this time of year in Ireland I’m floating for longer and really letting myself be held by the ocean or even by the pool and noticing I’ve been swimming for decades and I’ve done that I’ve done like quick meditations but where the weather is warm enough like yesterday swam across the Shannon and just like looking up at the clouds being held by the water feeling that connection to the entire world and it’s oh it just yeah absolutely and I’m sure it helps with everything like trying to be there for my loved ones and get everything done.

Yeah because we have a tendency to sync our neural systems with someone who is regulated like kids when they are small yeah like they’re playing in the playground they have a fight with a friend yeah whom do they go to they go to their parents because their nervous system is more regulated during that yeah it takes three to four minutes to pamper the child and it goes back yeah so when we are stable yeah as much as we can be it really really affects the people around us you will see they will start syncing the responses nervous system with you co-regulation and that moves us into the HEAL. bit of the framework the co-regulation the community care the collective care.

What groups are you part of that you feel held by and how do you hold that for others like in an ideal world and essential actual very interesting like you held it for all of us last week with the presentation things like that and I know a lot of your work is around that yeah my work is around that actually it’s quite interesting question because I have I had done a lot of work with IACP in the last three years a lot of workshops.

And before I start a workshop just a couple of weeks before I started connecting with the people who would be at the workshop mentally yeah so that everyone at least get that universal force yeah it could be anywhere they could help they could be minded they could be relaxed so as a neuroscientist with a different concept yeah but I found a synchronicity how science and the universe works together yeah that that was that kept me very calm during PhD because like my boss used to say you’re very calm and the more I took care of myself yeah the better were the results started coming results so my way of holding would be to take care as much as of emotional health of myself as possible yeah that it naturally flows yeah without any you just share it you don’t have to flow it you don’t have to force it yeah because because there were like 30 40 people what we want either around 50 people in that room and that if even one person is regulated yeah it had it could have an effect on 50 people yeah wonderful one person is regulated yeah it could people start sinking because once you found your safety yeah it very easily safety is the most common instinct in communities when one person found their own safety people just go around them.

That’s why they have leaders who have found their own bit of safety in their ideas emotional wealth and people just follow that safety line yeah so that’s that’s my thing would be I feel I have good friends as well family friends and spending time time with them especially when I feel recharged yeah when you recharge yourself with them and then you share with them and you keep on meeting yeah with them yeah regularly even if for a walk even if even if just just for a coffee once a day because you know you are going there yeah and you know you will feel good so one trusted person or two just a person my partner itself is a quite self-regulated person yeah so that really helps the harmony in the house yeah yeah so so that’s very interesting.

How do you know the Indian tradition of Thali we call it Thali no I’m half Indian but colonised my mum’s family’s from Goa but she was born and raised in Kenya and then moved to Scotland then London in her early 20s but I’m afraid I don’t sorry I’m shame spiralling there no it’s it’s okay so in Thali when you present someone like a guest comes you have different dishes in little bowls a small serving of everything.

For me, small little things so many little things help it’s not one thing one thing that that really is the biggest thing that that I do go for self-regulation and probably for most of the people’s life yeah and the one thing is not going to work all the time yeah exactly you have find your own ways to settle yourself yeah so for me little little different things sometimes I go dish number one work for me sometimes dish number two work for me sometimes dish number three will work work for me I see my life as a little bit of mixture of of everything I do have a meditation group which is based in India and they also have a centre so every now and then I I dip into there and we meditate regularly so that has been a one of the very big source yeah of self-regulation because if you go with people who are already there or even further further down the line from from you and really stable it nervous system is like I’m OK here yeah feel safe.

The funny thing with the brain is once it gets the taste what it feels like to be sick what it feels like when I said take care of myself what it feels like to be worthy the brain thinks oh you are still alive yeah and can feel worthy at the same time it wants to go there again yeah again so it’s a mixture of several things that’s how we float the boat.

I love it and if you could go back I know you said at the conference about how you grew up hearing like Bhramari from your parents and you were like oh I want to stay in bed like it was a wake-up thing but like if you were to think of kind of any time when you were younger sending some love some compassion some wisdom whatever it might be back to a younger version of yourself what might that be.

Back to a younger version of myself I would say just if I had to talk to my younger version then when my parents were doing Bhramari and I was like I just want to sleep in the bed we did do because yeah in school we had to do it yeah it was a yoga class again like you had to do it I grew up I was raised Catholic most of the Catholic schools many many schools but as an adult like doing the yoga therapy training learning say Bhramari learning the other breath practises thinking oh my god all those hours I spent in my head excruciating things throughout childhood if I’d only known how to meditate if I’d only known these breath practises my life would have been so different and you’re having grown up but having had to do them at school and just like oh and appreciating them as an adult.

Yes exactly because when understanding is not there yeah probably won’t have an effect and the intention was not there it might have had an effect at some point especially when I intentionally did meditation I did I started doing very well in studies because the nervousness started to get calm yeah so but especially just like self-care when you have to do it yeah it works with understanding and realisation yeah no it doesn’t work if you have to do it intentionally intentionally having that you know the mindful chocolate that we ate intentionally that I’m doing this to take care of myself yeah so that intention matters but the youngest as I would say just go with the flow you will be grand you’ll be kind of go with the flow keep on doing things and enjoy it whatever time you have.

Well thanks a million really appreciate your time and yeah just thank you for all you do and let me know when you have the website and I’ll add it like kind of retrospectively to the show notes but thank you thank you thank you thank you very much very very interesting before you go please take a moment to ground the episode by just pausing and scanning your parts all your parts from the soles of your feet to your soul so you may want to keep your eyes open you may want to close them but planting your feet firmly on the ground lengthening through the spine if that feels comfortable for you letting yourself feel held by the chair or whatever it is you’re sitting or lying or standing on and taking just a moment to scan your whole self your whole body your whole energy field and ask yourself what you’re gonna do for yourself right now it might be as a result of listening to the episode it might be something else it might be a nap it might be something to eat it might be some kind of movement but let yourself ground let yourself get into the habit of connecting with your inner wisdom and notice what you need and give yourself what you need thanks for listening to this episode if you haven’t already and would like to please like subscribe comment engage across the platforms wherever you may be accessing this and you can also email me eve at solestosoul.ie thank you for listening I look forward to sharing more next week