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The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Ultimate Guide to the Female Brain: Neuroscientist Reveals How to Boost Mood, Energy, & Focus
01:17:15
This episode will change how you understand your brain – and yourself. If you’ve ever felt like your brain is working against you – think brain fog, mood swings, and exhaustion – you’re not crazy, you’re not broken, and it’s not your fault. Today, world-renowned neuroscientist Dr. Sarah McKay joins Mel for a groundbreaking conversation that will completely transform how you understand your brain. Dr. McKay has spent 30 years studying the brain. She holds a Doctorate in neuroscience from Oxford University and flew over 10,000 miles from Australia to sit down with Mel for this conversation. In this episode, she reveals the 3 factors that influence how your brain develops. She also tells you how you can use that information to reset your brain for a better mood, more energy, and greater mental clarity. Whether you’re a woman looking for answers about why your brain is freaking out during PMS, or you are forgetting things during pregnancy or menopause, this is a must listen....
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- [00:00]
Mel Robbins
Hey, it's your friend Mel. And welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so glad you're here today, because everything you think you know about your brain is about to change. After listening to this episode, your brain will not be the same. You're about to learn the truth about how the female brain works from one of the most respected neuroscientists and in the world. And if you're a man listening, great. I am thrilled that you're here. Because what you're gonna learn today will help you better understand the women in your life and how to support them in a way that no one has ever taught you. And by the way, you're gonna learn a lot about your brain, too, because our expert today is gonna tell you that brains structurally work the same way. But it turns out that there are three factors that shape the male versus the female brain. And what she's about to share with you is. Is gonna blow your mind. If you've been told for years that your brain is just too emotional or too sensitive, or you're just being hormonal, that you're forgetful, disorganized, anxious, or somehow it's your fault. It's not. Your brain is not broken. It's brilliant. You've just never been taught how it works or how to work with it. That changes today. This is not about fixing your brain. This is about understanding it and learning how to unlock its full power. There's nothing better than feeling like things are going to get done without you even having to ask. Like your kid remembering to walk the dog without a reminder. Well, AT&T's new guarantee is all about having your back. When you're with AT&T, if there's a network interruption, they'll proactively make it right with a credit for a full day of service, guaranteed. AT&T connecting changes everything. Credit for fiber downtime lasting 20 minutes or more, or for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers. Restrictions and exclusions apply. See att.com guarantee for details. Today's episode is sponsored by Vital Proteins. You know, if you've ever wondered, I wonder what Mel has. Every morning for breakfast, I just make a huge smoothie. Lots of strawberries, veggies, spinach, and, of course, Vital proteins. It's a collagen peptide supplement, and it supports healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. And since adding this to my smoothie, my skin and hair never look better. Vital Proteins keeps my skin feeling silky smooth, extra hydrated, and super glowy. Get 20% off by going to www.vitalproteins.com and entering promo code Mel at checkout. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Hey, it's your friend Mel. And welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so excited that you're here. I am excited to be here with you and to learn together. It's always an honor to be with you and to spend. But today's episode. Holy cow, is this gonna be a good one. And if you're new to the podcast, I just wanted to personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. I am so glad that you're here because you made the time to listen to this particular episode. Here's what I know about you. You're the kind of person who not only values your time, you also value your mind. And today, you're gonna learn how to unlock the power of your mind from a neuroscientist who has been studying the br. And if you're here right now because somebody shared this episode with you, well, that's pretty cool. I want to point out that you have people in your life who care about you, and they want you to understand the truth and the science about how your brain works and how to work with it. Or they may have sent this to you to validate some of the experiences that you've had or that you may be dealing with now and to give you some tangible things that you could change in order to make your life better. From one of the leading neuroscientists in the world. Isn't that pretty cool? So thanks for hitting play. Dr. Sarah MacKay is a brilliant neuroscientist and author who has flown over 10,000 miles all the way from Australia to be here in our Boston studios for one reason. She's here for you. Dr. MacKay has spent 30 years studying the brain, with a specific focus on how three factors impact the development of the female brain and the male brain. She got her master's of science and doctorate in neuroscience at the University of Oxford, which is the number one ranked university in the world. Mm. The entire world. Dr. MacKay is an expert in how the female brain works in every stage of life, from utero to puberty, periods, sex, pregnancy, menopause, hormone replacement therapy, and dementia. We are gonna walk through every single one of these stages. You're gonna learn what's happening in the female brain each and every one of those stages today. And if you're a Guy who's listening. I'm so thrilled you're here because you're gonna learn a lot about your brain, too. Dr. MacKay is the author of three bestselling books on brain health, including the Women's Brain book. And here's what she's gonna tell you. Your brain is not broken. It is powerful beyond what you can believe. It is adaptable. In fact, it's always adapting. And once you understand this and you understand the three factors she's going to teach you about, you need to know that impact how your brain adapts, you're never gonna look at yourself or what's possible the same way again. So please help me welcome Dr. Makai to the Mel Robbins podcast. Dr. Sarah MacKay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for jumping on a plane, flying 10,000 miles to be here in our Boston studios. I am so excited to meet you, to learn from you. Thank you.
- [06:01]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Thank you for the invite. I'm so excited to be here.
- [06:04]
Mel Robbins
Well, we have so much to learn from you. Now, you have been a neuroscientist for 30 years. You have written three books about the female brain. You speak and teach about the female brain to audiences around the world. Could you speak to the person who is with us right now and share with them how might life be different if they take everything that you're about to teach us today to heart and they apply it to their own life?
- [06:33]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I would like them to know that their brains are not broken. There's a real focus, it seems, on things like brain fog and baby brain and burnout and, you know, we're forgetful, and there's always a focus on what goes wrong. But when we think about the course of our lives and what neuroscience is actually showing us, it's teaching us that our brains aren't broken. They're adaptable and resilient, and that's the main message.
- [07:01]
Mel Robbins
Is it fair to say, just for the person listening, that when you talk about male, female brain, you're talking from neuroscience and a biology standpoint?
- [07:09]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, that's.
- [07:09]
Mel Robbins
We're not having a conversation about gender.
- [07:11]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
No.
- [07:11]
Mel Robbins
Okay.
- [07:12]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah. And we can talk about gendered experiences, the experiences of being a person in the world who is a girl, who is a boy, or perhaps the identity that you have. But typically where neuroscience is focused as looking at brain biology.
- [07:30]
Mel Robbins
Dr. MacKay, I wanna give you some of the common things people say about the female brain. And can you tell us if these are fact or fiction?
- [07:37]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Okay.
- [07:37]
Mel Robbins
Is it true that female brains are, quote, wired for emotion and that the male brain is More logical.
- [07:44]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
False, false, false, false. That there's a male brain that's wired like this and a female brain that's wired like that. I mean, men feel emotions and I'm quite logical. I'm sure you are too, Mel. So false.
- [07:58]
Mel Robbins
And that female brains are wired for intuition and the mother instinct. Is that a thing that we're hardwired for?
- [08:06]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I think intuition is a human phenomenon. It's not male or female. And that's really based on experience and wisdom and that's not the sex based difference.
- [08:19]
Mel Robbins
How about women make rash decisions? We're very emotional decision makers.
- [08:24]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
That's really feeding into that stereotypical myth that because women have a menstrual cycle or our hormones change and fluctuate, that that's kind of what's driving us. And I don't think that's the case. I mean, I feel like quite a logical rational being.
- [08:40]
Mel Robbins
I feel the same way, but I can get really pissed off and emotional too.
- [08:43]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, but I mean, you know, I think all males can too. I think perhaps we've been socialised perhaps to experience express those in different ways. But the idea that women are so emotional and irrational and that somehow emerges from our female pink brains from Venus is just false.
- [09:01]
Mel Robbins
Let's talk about math.
- [09:03]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, I think math or maths, as I say, I add the S on this is one of these stereotypes which is pervasive. It's all around. It's all around the world. It starts quite young and it extends right through this idea that males are more brilliant. It's this real stereotype. And males are also very confident about their brilliance or their apparent brilliance versus women who are a whole lot more humble. And I think even this idea that boys are brilliant and girls are perhaps less brilliant, but they're hard working starts really young. And so this is another piece of research that I always like to discuss. It came from a research group in New York and we can put it in the show notes. So the researchers went in and they were looking at children in those first few years of elementary school. So they went in and talked to kids who are about 5 and 6 and said, hey, who do you think out of these two people in these images here are gonna grow up, are super smart. There's a picture of a male and a picture of a female and they ask them 5 and 6 year olds and the girls pick the woman and the boys pick the man, right? And then they say, who wants to play the game for super smart children? And all of the girls put their hands up and Say me. And all the boys put their hands up and say, me. Then they go back a couple of years later and the kids are 7 and 8 and they say, who of these people is smart? The man or the woman? And all the boys go, the man. And all the girls go, the man. And then they say, who wants to play the game for the super smart kids? And all the boys go, me. Some of the girls still go, me. But lots of the girls go, oh, that's a game for the boys. Because the boys are the smart, brilliant ones. And that starts to emerge and they've gone and they've looked at this in different parts of the world that kind of. By about ages 7, boys have, you know, think that they're brilliant and the girls have started to recognise, well, it's the boys that are brilliant. Being clever and good at maths is a boy thing.
- [10:58]
Mel Robbins
So how do you explain that as a neuroscientist? Is that because of the images you see in the media and the people that are in elected office and just the world reflecting back to you? And so subconsciously your brain is recognizing a pattern and it starts to go, oh, people who look like that do things like this. I look like this, which means I don't do things like that. Is that kind of what's happening?
- [11:23]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I think it's all of the things. It's everything from TV to books to. Even the way we talk about it. And I think we can be incredibly well intentioned as well and perhaps give a bit of implicit messaging. And there's some phrases I think people use and I always try and pull them up on it, they might go, oh, well, girls can do maths too, or girls are just as good at maths as boys. And that's kind of implying that boys are the reference point and then girls can also do that, or boys are the maths people, but girls can be maths people too. So I think we, not we, we almost need to be really careful about the implicit messaging we're inadvertently sending little girls by saying girls can too. Perhaps we should be saying there is no difference in ability to do maths between boys and girls. Start talking about what the science actually shows.
- [12:14]
Mel Robbins
Is that what the science shows, there's no difference between a boy or a girl's ability to do that.
- [12:18]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
We've got any boy and any girl. Just randomly pick them. We couldn't see differences in math scores. Some studies, some of the time I feel like we were to look at like 10,000 boys age 9 and 10,000 girls age 9. There might be a few extra boys scoring right at that sort of the top, top, top, top marks, but like a teeny, tiny amount. And that's perhaps where that gendered stereotype comes from, but what no one's ever saying, although perhaps people might have kind of come across that if we were to do the same, perhaps with verbal ability or reading ability, there might be a few girls kind of right at the top there as well. And there's this other crazy study, I believe this was published in the New York Times, where they looked at Google searches and they found there were twice as many Google searches for is my son a genius than is my daughter a genius? But people are more likely to search for is my daughter fat or is my daughter ugly than is my boy?
- [13:15]
Mel Robbins
Now, if you dial down, though, Dr. Mackay, to the neuroscience implications of this, if you're seeing by the age of seven or eight, a belief system and patterns that get reflected back to little boys that say, you're smarter or you're this, and then the pattern that gets reflected back to the female brain, referring to the experience and the development of a brain inside the little girl's body, how does that messaging change the wiring and the firing and the connections that happen in the brain? Do you see what I mean? Because the beliefs and the patterning start to create patterns of beliefs and behavior that then lock in and change the development of your brain.
- [14:03]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, I mean, you've said it. That's precisely what happens. And once children start to believe something about themselves, then they will choose to opt in or opt out of certain activities and behaviours, or perhaps not try. We do start to see little girls start opting out. I used to do some work on one of my. I've got two sons who are now teenagers. When they were at primary school, I used to go and help out in their classroom and I remember one little girl asking me what I did as a job and I said, oh, I'm a scientist. She says, oh, well, I really love dolphins, but I can't be a scientist because I'm no good at maths. And I was like, oh, I nearly cried. I was like, we need to sort of stop these messages because as soon as you start believing about that yourself, even when you're a tiny child, you're going to start opting out and you're not going to have the enriched experiences, which is what a little brain needs. And we see this all around the world and we see this permeating all the way through the lifespan.
- [14:57]
Mel Robbins
That is amazing. And so I think it's really important that as you're listening that you actually take away. There is no difference. Boys and girls are both good at math, they're both capable of being good at math, they're both capable of developing the skill of math. But this is an important thing to hover on because what you're putting pointing to is that the messaging and your life experiences start to shape the way that your brain wires up and the beliefs that you have, which then impact how you move through the world. I wanna back up and ask you a question because I'm just curious. If you open up somebody's head and you take a brain out, would you be able to tell whether it was male or female?
- [15:41]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
No. Just by looking at that. If you were blinded to the brain, the human that you took it out of, and a brain surgeon wouldn't be able to open it up and look at it and go, well, that's male and that's female. On average, male brains are maybe like 5 to 10% larger than female brains. But part of that is accounted for by body size and skull size. That brain is kind of driving a bigger body around the world. But even then, you're not going to be able to look at a single brain and go, that's male or that's female.
- [16:08]
Mel Robbins
The reason why I'm asking this question is because I think people already. What I'm realizing is the mistake that you make when you hear female and male brain is thinking that structurally the brain itself is completely different. And what you're here to say is, no, but because of neuroscience and because of neuroplasticity, the brain is constantly changing, adapting and rewiring. And so when you say the word female brain, you are basically saying that the female brain adapts and changes differently than the male brain based on the fact that the experience of being female and the hormones that you have and the way that your body changes impacts the development of the brain. Is that what you're basically saying? And is that the right way to think about it?
- [16:56]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, that's one way to think about it. Another way I think about it is often we think that biological sex is the biggest difference between two people. Right? So I've got this. The study I can tell you about that. I think kind of helps explain what I'm trying to say here. So this study was published in 2023, and they had nearly 8,000 MRI scans of healthy young humans who are like in their 20s and 30s. And an MRI scan is when you put a human in their brain in a brain scanner, and you like, kind of take a photo of the brain structure, okay. And then they gathered them from 29 different countries in the world. And then they ranked those countries based on gender equality. So they looked at things like access to education or work opportunities, et cetera. And so countries that would score really high in gender equality would be like the Scandinavian countries, like, say, you know, Denmark and Sweden. And countries that scored lower in this study were places like Brazil and Turkey and India. And it turned out when they compared male and female brains in these countries with more equality, the brains were more similar. In countries with greater gender inequality, male and female brains were more different, and the male brains everywhere were the same. It was the women's brains, the female brains in countries with gender inequality that were more different. And so the researchers think it was something to do with access to education and the stress of the whole living in this kind of society with structural sexism, et cetera. So we've got biological sex there determining this particular metric that they measured in the MRI scan, But you've also got the gendered experiences of people living in those countries.
- [18:37]
Mel Robbins
Dr. MacKay, based on the study, I just want to try to give something back to you to see if I'm interpreting what you just shared correctly, what that study suggests, especially given that the male brains didn't change a lot, but the female brains did, based on the inequity, the stress, the access to education, the messaging to women in various parts of the world, that the differences that emerge between the male brain and the female brain have a lot to do with the external factors and social conditioning and the stress and trauma and whatever else that the human being with the brain is experiencing?
- [19:22]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I couldn't have said it better.
- [19:24]
Mel Robbins
What are some of the things that really impact the development of the female brain and the experience of the female brain that maybe a lot of people don't even stop and consider are impacting brain development?
- [19:41]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I think this study in particular, the researchers are very careful. Cause we're scientists, we always like to be very careful to say they couldn't tell exactly what to attribute those differences to. But one overarching idea that we often talk about in this field is the idea of enriched experiences or enriched environments. So this is living somewhere obviously safe where they can explore when children can be educated, when there are opportunities to be able to sort of explore the environment and learn and be shaped by it. And it seems that in the case where there is greater gender inequality, the little girls in those parts of the world don't have as many enriched opportunities as the little boys do.
- [20:31]
Mel Robbins
That makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense because, you know, I remember Gabor Mate was on the show and he was talking about health outcomes for women and was pointing to the rise in autoimmune diseases that are impacting women. And Basic said, obviously there's biological factors, there's factors where people are more predisposed from a gene perspective, but that it is irrefutable that women experience more stress, they're the victims of more violence, they experience more trauma, and in parts of the world are also discriminated against. And that those adverse life experiences which are not your fault, certainly impact your immune system, it impacts your nervous system, which in your research certainly also has an impact on the way that the brain develops. And so that's just super helpful to kind of have as a backdrop. Only because when you talk about the male and female brain, a dummy like me is like, oh, she's talking about the difference between the male and the female brain. And the structure must be different. Like a woman has a vagina, a man has a penis. They're different. You are basically saying, no, the experience of being is different. And that can have an impact on the way things develop. So you've developed this three part framework that can really help us better understand the brain and how it works and how it's programmed and what impacts it. Can you walk us through that?
- [22:04]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Well, it's inspired by the biopsychosocial framework, which is a really boring way to talk about things. So I like to talk about biology as being the bottom up. So our brain is receiving information from our bottom up body. So that is everything from our hormones to the food we've eaten, to muscle tension, to sensations we can feel in our body, to all of the signals that we wouldn't have. You wouldn't have a clue what your gut ph is at any moment in time. So your brain is receiving all of that data. Data is also streaming in from the outside world through our senses, through what we see, what we hear. And if something's close enough to us, we could smell it or taste it or touch it. And that includes everything from the rising and setting of the sun, to other people and our interactions with them, to our lived environments, to what is streaming in on that phone that we're holding in our hand. And that's become a really big outside influence within the last decade or two. And the brain is then making meaning of what's happening in our body in the context of the outside world. But we've also got what I call top down and that could be our thoughts, our expectations, our past experiences, all of which is kind of mixing up with the bottom up, the outside in and the top down. And each of these factors can influence others. So we know that perhaps an outside in influences could shape a top down experience. So perhaps loneliness could shape the experience of depression. Or we know that something bottom up can shape something going on in our brain. So we know during pregnancy, for example, the hormones during pregnancy shape and sculpt our brain so that we interact with the outside in a baby in a particular way. So that's just how I like to simplify the complexity of all of the information that the brain is making meaning of at any one moment in time.
- [24:07]
Mel Robbins
Let me see if I can give that back to you. So you have a three part framework and the first one was bottom up. Which basically the way I would put it is every single physical input, data point that is happening in your body is messaging up to the brain. And that's one thing that shapes your brain, it's one thing that impacts your brain. Second thing is you're getting flooded from the outside world through your senses, all kinds, from the headlines to people's moods to all that stuff. And all of that actually also is input into your brain that changes and shapes your brain, how it functions, all of it. And then you said top down, which is the thoughts, the messaging, the things that you're thinking about, that you're trying to make sense of is also impacting and you're talking about like the physical structure, the neuro connections, like all of.
- [25:01]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
That, and the brain is kind of processing all of that information and then going, well, what should I do next?
- [25:07]
Mel Robbins
Well, what I love about this, because it's very encouraging and empowering is that if all of these three inputs, the physical body, the outside world, the things that you say to yourself are actively shaping your brain, then if you get more intentional about all three of those things, then you can actively shape your brain in a positive way. Particularly if you understand the developmental cycle that your brain is in and sort of the objective that it's trying to achieve. I would love to take a moment and really understand how the brain continues to develop throughout a woman's life. So let's start at the beginning. Were there any other differences in terms of the way the brain develops between a baby boy and a baby girl?
- [25:52]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Not really. Typically when we're looking at that developmental trajectory of the brain, from kind of birth through to puberty, little children's Brains kind of develop along a pretty predictable trajectory. And there will be more differences in how children are raised or their life experiences they have, or, heaven forbid, adverse experiences they have than there would be between males and females. And so during that sort of first year of life, there's this explosive brain growth. We've got new neurons being born which are a type of brain cell. And the development in that first year of life is like five times faster than the next five years. That preschool development is faster than the entire rest of your life. So by the time you start seeing your brain is at like an 80 to 90% of where it will be for the entire rest of its life.
- [26:45]
Mel Robbins
Wait, hold on a second. By the time you're in preschool, you're at primary school. Primary school.
- [26:50]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
So elementary school, you would say. So by the time you're about five, your brain contains almost all of the neurons it will ever have. And what you start to see from then on is the connections between the neurons, or synapses we call them. We start to sort of see them forming circuits, making connections, pruning and tuning. And most of the development we see through sort of mid and late childhood up to puberty is not so much adding new neurons and getting bigger and bigger, but kind of refining the connections and streamlining the circuits in the brain so the brain can kind of get on with the business of learning how to be a little human.
- [27:30]
Mel Robbins
That is so fascinating, Dr. Mackay. Let's take a quick pause. Cause what you're saying is blowing my mind. I'm sure as you're listening to Dr. MacKay today, blowing your mind too. I can think of seven people I want to send this to right now. And so I'm going to give you a chance to share this episode with people that you care about. I'm going to do the same while we listen to our amazing sponsors. Do not go anywhere. Because when we come back, you're going to hear more from the amazing Dr. Sarah MacKay, including the one thing that will do the most to improve your brain health, whether you have a female brain or a male brain. And the crazy explanation of what's happening inside a female brain when you're having a hot flash. Stay with me. You don't want to miss this. You ever stop and think about how much you pack into a single day? You're getting kids out the door, racing to work, wiping up spills, picking up after the dog, tackling dishes, laundry, all of it. It never ends. If you're already doing all that, shouldn't you get something back for it. Of course you should. With PG Good every day you can earn cash back and savings for buying the products that keep you going from morning routines to midnight messes. They got you covered. It's totally free to join and you'll unlock exclusive coupons, cash back rebates and awesome prizes. Save big on over 60 PG brands with the new Brand Saver digital coupon program, all from your phone right now. Enter for a chance to win their biggest prize bundle ever, a P and G Prize Pack with Tide Gain, Cascade, Olay and more, valued at over $1,000. Enter as many times as you want for your chance to win through June 30th. No purchase necessary. Adults 18 plus. Start saving hundreds of dollars on your favorite brands today. Sign up for free@pgcoupons.com Mel I'm all about a balanced science back approach to food because you need fuel that supports your brain, your body and your life. And that's why I love RXBar. RXBar gets it. They've said no to BS like artificial junk and yes to simple ingredients that serve a purpose. Protein, fiber, the good stuff you can actually pronounce. And when I'm running out the door or heading into back to back meetings, I always grab a chocolate sea salt RX bar protein bar. Mm. It tastes as good as it sounds. It hits like a meal and keeps me full without the crash. I keep one with me wherever I am. I feel good eating it and I feel good after I eat it. Whether you're into their 12 gram bars, the nut butter and oat bars, or their cute little minis, they've got options that fit your life. Use code MEL on RXBar.com for 25% off. RXBar proud sponsor of no BS. Subject to full terms and conditions and to change. Valid until September 30, 2025 and may not be combined with other offers. See rxbar.com for full details and limitations. You know what I've got beef with? I've got beef with bras. And I know you do too. Not just any bra. Push up bras. You know, the kind of bra that you usually want to just rip off in the car before you even get home. Yeah, those. But the Skims Ultimate Push up Bra. This one's different. Like really different. I tried it. Yep, Mel Robbins put on a push up bra and I said wait a minute, this is how it's supposed to feel because it lifts and shapes but it's not loud about it. It's like that friend who hypes you up behind the scenes. Just pure support, no drama. And if you've had trouble finding a push up bra that's actually wearable and comfortable, you're not alone. So many of them are bulky, heavy, twisty, metal y ridiculous. But the Skims ultimate push up Bra is smooth under whatever you wear and it works without pinching, moving around, leaving any weird lines or feeling like you got on some sort of contortion device. Just comfort, confidence and one less thing you gotta think about. Shop the Skims Ultimate Bra Collection and more@skims.com and Skims stores. After you place your order, be sure to let them select podcasts in the survey and be sure to select my show, the Mel Robbins Podcast in the dropdown menu that follows. Welcome back, it's your buddy Mel Robbins. And today you and I are learning from the super smart and Great at math, Dr. Sarah MacKay. Dr. MacKay. Let's get back into it after kind of the primary school when we get into puberty. What is going on in our brains when puberty hits? And why does it feel so crazy intense and confusing?
- [32:04]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
So I always like to say brains go through puberty too.
- [32:07]
Mel Robbins
Oh, I love that.
- [32:09]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah. Cause we think about it as being something that our body does. Yeah, but our brains are going through puberty too. So if we just let's just focus on female puberty. But male puberty happens too. And in fact, male and female brains follow a similar trajectory, but kind of almost kick started by sex hormones. So it doesn't matter whether it's the estrogen in the girls brains or the testosterone in the boys brains, they kind of follow a similar trajectory. In fact, just to kind of clarify that, we often you might have heard this idea that girls brains are more mature than boys brains when they're going through the teenage years. But that's because girls on average tend to go through puberty about a year or so earlier than boys. And what we know is that brains are more likely to track along pubertal stage than chronological age. Oh yeah. Cause you think about, you know, all of the kids that you've ever known when they start going through puberty. And you could get a boy who's going through puberty quite young. Like perhaps, you know, he's six foot tall, his voice is dropped and he's got hair Everywhere and he's 12. Whereas you could have a little girl who's 16 who hasn't started her periods yet. Well, his brain would perhaps be at a later stage of development than hers would be. That's so cool. Yeah, but we typically think that girls brains are more developed than boys, but that's just cause on average girls hit puberty a year, a year earlier.
- [33:38]
Mel Robbins
No wonder middle school is so confusing because you basically may be sitting next to somebody who's got like a 19 year old brain, but you yourself have like the 12 year old pubertal stage in your brain. Wow, that makes a lot of sense.
- [33:51]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, so there's these. There's sort of like a biological clock sort of switches over in your brain saying, hey, it's time to start puberty. And then that sends a message down to your ovaries and then the ovaries sort of start that monthly cycle. It takes a while for ovulation to kind of set in as we're going in through puberty, but then we start to see the ovaries releasing pubertal hormones, or sex hormones, primarily estrogen and progesterone. And what we see in brains then is a lot of the growth that happens during childhood in the brain, particularly the gray matter, which is kind of the wrinkly outer kind of covering of the brain, and also some little subcortical structures we see that sort of start to refine and streamline. So I said we've got all of the neurons, all the brain cells that we're ever going to have, but what we see is the connections between them kind of pruning and tuning. So we see the ones that we don't need almost being kind of pruned away. And the ones that we want to be, they kind of become tuned.
- [34:52]
Mel Robbins
What ones do we not need?
- [34:54]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Well, what determines what ones stay and what ones go are the experiences that we have. So the brain kind of goes into this sort of new phase of sensitivity to experiences.
- [35:07]
Mel Robbins
Really?
- [35:07]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, very similar to what we see when a little child's like learning to talk. So the language centres of their brain go into this critical period and those little people will seek out experiences of language. They're constantly pointing and asking why? And wanting to get your attention. They're constantly wanting you to converse with them, because the language centres in their brain need conversation to wire up. When you're going through puberty in adolescence, a large part of that reorganization and pruning and tuning is in the social brain. And that's when we start to see those parts of the brain reorganize and shape. And what is kind of required, I think fundamentally to go from the family nest out into the world and, you know, build a new tribe of your own is courage. And one thing that we See, as the flip side of courage is bravado. So we've also got layered on top of all of the social brain development, we've also got a lot of sensation seeking, like wanting to kind of go out and have all of these experiences, because that's kind of what courage to leave the family nest is kind of resulting in as well. It's like, I need to go out and I need to try all these new things and I need to have these experiences and I need to do all of these things with all of these different people, because the brain requires all of that to one, rewire and reorganize to become an adult, but two, to be brave enough to become an adult.
- [36:33]
Mel Robbins
This is so cool because basically the brain has all of this programming ready to come online and it's the hormones during puberty that are like, all right, it's go time. You hate your parents, your friends are important, you need a significant other. Your town that you grew up in sucks and it's time to go explore the world. You hate everybody and everything. You think you know it all. Yes, that's basically the wiring in the brain.
- [36:59]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
100%. 100%.
- [37:01]
Mel Robbins
And is there a difference between the way that puberty for the male brain brings that online, or the way that boys tend to respond to that change, versus the way that the puberty hormones and all of that coming up and lighting up in the brain is different for girls?
- [37:20]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I mean, we do start to see some of the sex differences that we see in adulthood do start to emerge around puberty. And we can talk a little bit about perhaps mental health in a moment, but in terms of that developmental trajectory from a child's brain to an adult's brain, we all go through that. But the experiences that we're kind of seeking out the same types of experiences and often they're with each other. Of course, we see these behaviours sometimes play out differently, and part of that may be, particularly in young males, testosterone does drive a tendency towards some types of behaviours that sensation seeking in particular, which looks to adults like really dumb decision making or risky behaviour. Girls might be less likely to do the same kinds of reckless activities, but there are some things that, you know, girls can do that might not necessarily be to their benefit. We might need to encourage them a little bit more, even if it's just to do something that might feel to them risky, like, I don't know, putting your hand up in the classroom and asking a crazy question. You know, there's different types of risks that people take depending on what kind of peer approval they're going to be getting. So it's very hard to separate out the risk taking behaviour there from that social aspect of peer approval.
- [38:41]
Mel Robbins
What I find fascinating is just that this is all in the brain, ready to activate. And you can get very frustrated if you're a parent or if you're the older sibling. And we roll our eyes at those years without this recognition that actually this is part of what the brain goes through that is developmentally accurate and normal for somebody that age. And you and I are gonna dig deeper into this topic of the female brain because your insights, Dr. MacKay, are incredible. So give me a second. I want to pick my job off the floor. I want to have this kind of marinate. This is kind of that top down thing you were talking about. And let's take a break. When we come back, you and I are digging into pms. So stay with us. And while you're listening to our amazing sponsors, make sure you share this with everybody in your life. The women in your life need to understand the science of the female brain. The men in your life need to understand the science of the female brain so that they can understand and support you. We all need to understand this. So don't go anywhere. Dr. Makai and I will be waiting for you after this short break. You know, I don't know if you know this about me, but I am a huge hiker. Actually, it's probably my favorite form of exercise. I love it because I love getting outside and it always gives back so much more than it takes. One of the reasons why I also like hiking is you don't have to train for it. You don't need fancy gear. You don't have to look a certain way or be in perfect shape. You just need to put one foot in front of the other and head right outside. Hiking calms your mind. It strengthens your body. It's a habit that clears your head and recharges your spirit. Whether you're climbing a mountain or just walking in your local park. If you like hiking or you're looking to start, Oboz Footwear makes it easier. Their hiking boots are built for everyone and every kind of hike. They're comfortable, supportive, and they're made to last. If you're ready to build a habit that pays you back every time, lace up and get outside. You'll be glad you did. Oboz footwear built for you. Visit obozfootwear.com and use code MEL10 for 10% off a new pair of hiking boots. Obozfootwear.com that's obozfootwear.com and code MEL10. Who doesn't love a vacation? I mean a chance to unplug, explore and just have some fun. And when it comes to doing vacations, right, Celebrity Cruises knows because they take every detail to the next level. Spacious rooms, incredible entertainment, and more restaurants and bars than you could possibly try in one trip. And not only that, let's talk about their destinations. Alaska, the Caribbean, Bermuda, Europe, Hawaii, the Galapagos, Australia and New Zealand, South America. See glaciers up close in Alaska. Looking for total relaxation. The Caribbean is calling. Craving history and culture. Say hello to Europe. And the best part, with so much happening on board, the ships are just as amazing as the places they take you to. Book now with Celebrity Cruises and make your dream vacation a reality. When you choose Celebrity Cruises, it's how you get there that counts. Has your kid asked for help with homework? Or maybe your child's ahead of the curve and getting bored in class? Whether your kid is struggling or soaring, IXL can make a real difference. IXL is an award winning online learning platform that helps kids really understand what they're learning. It covers math, language arts, science and social studies from pre K all the way through 12th grade. It's designed to be engaging, personalized and yes, actually fun with encouraging feedback that keeps kids motivated. Don't miss out. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. one in four students in the U.S. are learning with IXL. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now and the Mel Robbins podcast listeners. That's you can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.commel Visit ixl.commel to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. And today you and I are learning all about the female brain and the three factors that shape the brain and the brain development with Dr. Sarah MacKay. So Dr. MacKay, let's keep going. Why are teenage girls more prone to anxiety and depression all through childhood?
- [43:09]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
If we were to have diagnosed anxiety depression, boys and girls are pretty similar and we do start to see a divergence of puberty. Boys of course can experience anxiety and of course experience depression, but we do see a higher incidence in girls and I think then the next question to ask is, well, what causes something like depression or what causes something like anxiety? And I always say depression comes in many shades of blue and there's as many shades of Blue, as there are causes of those shades of blue. And this is when I like to get back to my basic model of we've got this brain sort of sitting in a universe, right? It's sitting in our body. So there's all of this information that it's receiving from our body, you know, everything from hormones. And we tend to just blame the hormones, but there's a lot going on in our biological bodies that we can do to take care of our brains. Sleep, exercise, food, all of the things that we as mothers tell ourselves to do. So we've got a bottom up biology which we could tweak and shape and shift to influence depression outcomes. We've got a lot of outside influences, you know, education, family, do you have stable loving relationships? So we've got all of that in the outside world. And if, you know, we're breaking friendships or we're lonely or we're stressed by social media, you know, our brain is making meaning of that information, the outside in as well as the bottom up. And then we've got top down because we're humans. So we're constantly telling ourselves stories and making meaning of what's going on. So perhaps we're ruminating or perhaps we haven't learned to reframe into a more healthier way of thinking. And all of these pieces of information from the bottom up, the outside and the top down, our brain is making meaning of all of them. And there's gonna be differences there between boys and girls.
- [45:04]
Mel Robbins
And by meaning you basically mean the brain is changing the way it's wired. Creating new connections, ending old connections, locking in beliefs based on this kind of three part framework of the bottom up, which is like the physical environment that the body's in, the outside world. And you use the word flooded, which I freaking love, cause that's how it feels, feels.
- [45:27]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
It comes in through our senses, through our eyes and our ears.
- [45:30]
Mel Robbins
Yes. And then the top down, which is the things that you're saying to yourself as you're trying to make sense of all of this, all of which impacts the way your development operates and develops.
- [45:40]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
And if something's not quite right, and many, many, many, many of those different kind of data inputs, any one of them could influence mood and depression and anxiety. So as I say, there's many shades of blue. So it could be someone's more depressed because maybe a girl is, might say hormone sensitive. So we like to talk about hormones as being the cause for depression and the cause for anxiety. And that's why we start giving girls that message. From puberty, and it's really damaging. But we do know that there are some girls and women who are what we might call hormone sensitive. It's not like they've got bigger highs and lower lows of hormones. It's that there's something about their body which makes them a little bit more sensitive or vulnerable to those shifts. Shifts.
- [46:27]
Mel Robbins
Dr. Mackay, I should say that one of the reasons why I'm jumping on this term hormone sensitivity is because in the past, I have absolutely blamed bad period cramps, menopausal symptoms, all kinds of stuff on just being sensitive to hormones. And what I'm learning from you and what I've learned as the mother to two daughters in their 20s that have had issues with hormones, is that we reach for the label. But you're teaching us that this is much more complicated than just a label. Because if you think about the three factors, there are things within your control. Whether you're talking about, are you eating healthy, are you getting sleep, are you not drinking alcohol, are you moving your body, are you connected to positive friends? Look at some of these things in your control. Get a good night's sleep for a couple weeks, stop drinking alcohol, reconnect with your friends, take better care of yourself, and see if you're able to manage the ups and downs of life and your hormones a little bit better. I love that. And I love that you're making us smarter about the things that we can do. You mentioned sleep. Can you explain? You just kind of casually was like, well, sleep is the number one thing. Why is sleep and getting more sleep, other than social connection for the male and female brain? Why is sleep so critical for the female brain?
- [47:48]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
And I think for the brain for babies, teenagers, everyone, if we miss one night's sleep, everything is harder. It is so much harder to do all of the other things that we need to do, you know, both on our to do list, but also to look after ourselves. So we all know how bad we feel after one night's sleep being disrupted.
- [48:06]
Mel Robbins
What are the repercussions? Like what's happening when you sleep? That's important for your brain health.
- [48:12]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
So there's a whole host of different things that kind of go on. So we know that that's when our memories get consolidated during the day, our brain's kind of sifting through and reshaping and kind of moving our memories and our experiences and what we've learned from short term storage into long term storage. And we know that, again, poor sleep is a risk factor for poor mental health, for poor Brain health increases your risk for almost every health condition. You know, people who consistently have bad sleep have higher rates of mortality. So, you know, it permeates every aspect of kind of our physiology and our psychology makes sense.
- [48:52]
Mel Robbins
One of the things that I read in your book is that a woman gets her period about 450 times in her lifetime, and yet, you know, you still don't quite understand how to deal with the fluctuating moods and the brain fog and all the other mental and emotional symptoms of pms. What is happening in the female brain when you're going through your menstrual cycle?
- [49:17]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Oh, gosh, this is like, we could do hours, hours and hours on this one, Mel. So we have this brain and ovarian conversation that sort of starts at puberty, and it goes maybe 450 times through your life, depending on how many pregnancies you have. And if you're on the pill, you can flatline it until menopause. In the last couple of years, there are these epic studies that have been done by women scientists who have started experimenting on themselves. They're like the Marie Curie of neuroscience. And so they are doing all. Instead of waiting around for someone else to do the study, they're like, let's just do it on ourselves. So there's a couple of scientists who have said, right, I'm going to put myself in a brain scan every day to see what happens across the course of my menstrual cycle. And they're being very meticulous and very careful in taking blood samples. So they know exactly which day they're on, what their different hormone levels are doing. And then they'll lie on the brain scanner and just lie there for a couple of hours. And what you can do is just look to see how the brain is just reacting when you're lying there doing nothing. So we see as you go into ovulation, when your estrogen kind of peaks, and a couple of days later, because the brain networks take a kind of. They kind of lag a little bit behind the hormone. Because the way the hormone works on the cell is it interacts with your chromosomes and your DNA. It's not like this immediate, like, millisecond response takes a couple of days. We see that those brain networks become far more kind of integrated and specialized when there's high estrogen. And then as estrogen kind of drops off and then progesterone starts to rise in the days before your period, different brain networks sort of start to interact more with each other. And for some women, that just might feel like. It might feel like nothing. But for other women, it might feel like an absolute emotional rollercoaster. Right. So the ebb and flow and everyone is going to be the same. The levels of hormones in everyone are gonna be the same. But for some reason, in some people, that can feel like a rollercoaster. Others, it barely feels like a gentle ripple.
- [51:21]
Mel Robbins
What happens? What does the pill do to your brain? Like, what's happening in your brain?
- [51:27]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
So the same scientists that have laying in the brain scanner every day over the course of the month, they gave the study a very cute name. They called it 28andMe. And then they did a study of the oral contraceptive pill and called it 28 and OC. The oral contraceptive. Very epic science that's being done by these women. And then they went on the Pill. And so we know that when you go on the oral contraceptive pill, which is an excellent form of contraception, that it flatlines your natural levels of hormones and then you kind of get this high level of hormones from the pill and it kind of depends on which formulation that you're taking.
- [52:04]
Mel Robbins
Does it hurt your brain?
- [52:05]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
No, it's what we would see if we're looking at these networks, is that the networks then flatline instead of ebbing and flowing with your natural levels of hormones. Your natural levels of hormones are flat. The levels of hormones from the pill are flat. And so your brain waves just kind of go flat. And for some women, that might feel like stable mood. So we know some women go on the pill and they find it stabilises their mood, particularly women that have extreme PMS or the extreme form of that pmdd. Some women find that going on the pill makes their hormones, stabilises their hormones and makes their emotions feel stable. Other women might feel it, maybe their emotions are flattened. Cause we've all got very, very different sort of responses and sensitivities to how hormones are interacting with our. And there does appear to be sort of a subset of women who are hormone sensitive.
- [53:01]
Mel Robbins
And by hormone sensitive, what exactly do you mean, as a neuroscientist?
- [53:04]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah. So there it's. And we don't know. I mean, we're still kind of at the very, very early stages of starting to understand what is going on in a brain that's responding to hormones, let alone what is going on the brains of all these different people who have different types of experience, experiences and different types of emotions. And it's particularly emotions that we're interested in across the course of the menstrual cycle. So there are plenty of women who will say, yeah, look, I have PMS symptoms. I experience, you know, I feel angry and irritable and grumpy and weepy, et cetera, before their period. There are also a subset of women who might feel particularly energised and maybe even a little bit frisky with the onloading of oestrogen. So around ovulation, we've all got these different sorts of. Appears to be this different kind of baseline sensitivity to these hormone fluctuations. And it's not that the levels of hormones are any different. There's something in the way that we're responding to those hormones that are changing, but we don't really kind of know what it is. We do see these hints back to, like, girls who go through early puberty and perhaps even girls who've experienced early childhood trauma.
- [54:14]
Mel Robbins
I can't believe you just said that, because I just wrote down on this piece of paper, I wonder if hormone sensitivity is correlated to adverse childhood experiences or sexual abuse.
- [54:26]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
It is, it is. And that's not inevitable. If you experience that you will be hormone sensitive, or if you are hormone sensitive, it is only due to that. But we see a tendency. And so there are some clinicians and researchers, particularly those working in the menopause space, who are starting to recognise the sensitivity and then kind of going all the way back to early childhood and asking women, well, you're in perimenopause, you've got depression or you had postnatal depression. What was your early childhood like? It's not a direct causation in everyone all of the time.
- [55:00]
Mel Robbins
It's a risk factor.
- [55:01]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
It is a risk factor. So we're starting to see that kind of emerge.
- [55:05]
Mel Robbins
Well, it makes sense because what you're teaching us is that you basically have taught us that you have all neurons in place, right? That 80% of the brain is developed by the age of five, that every experience both in your body and flooding you from the outside and the way that you process it from the top down fashions the way that the brain is shaped, how it operates, what synapses come on, which ones disconnect. And so if you have adverse experiences and those adverse experiences flood you with hormones or neurochemicals, something is happening with the receptors in your body. And so it would make perfect logical sense that that would be a risk factor in terms of the way that your body processes those exact same hormones later in life or those neurochemicals.
- [56:02]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I mean, it's logical and it kind of becomes cumulative as well. And that's why one researcher I spoke to says puberty's like an emotional blueprint for how we're going to respond to reproductive effects experiences later in life, because it's almost sort of setting that in place. So particularly, I think parents or, you know, caring adults around girls who are going through puberty early, we know that we can provide those kind of protective experiences and do the best we can to help those girls go through that kind of, you know, entering puberty before their friends, that experience, kind of helping them through that. And there have been studies done, like, kind of looking at those as interventions. And so it's a really. It's like a really important time to kind of intervene for want of a better way, because we will see, you know, the kind of the repercussions. And one of the risk factors for depression at any point in life is, have you had a previous experience of depression?
- [56:58]
Mel Robbins
How does pregnancy and motherhood change the brain?
- [57:01]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
One of my favourite topics, Mel, I've written a whole book on this. So an overarching statement I would make would be that pregnancy prepares the brain and mind for motherhood. And some studies have been done, and this was. Pretty much nothing was published on how women's brains changed during pregnancy and motherhood until sort of around 2017. So it was 2017, we knew what was happening in animals. There was a group in Spain and. And again, there's some really great researchers out there working in women's health, and they're all women, and it's because they're the ones asking the questions. So it was back in 2009, these kind of three women were having this conversation and said, well, what would happen if we became pregnant? Let's go look at the research. There is no research. Let's do the study ourselves. Let's get pregnant and scan our own brains and try and find some friends to join in. And so that has like. Like this field of sort of the maternal brain, or the neurobiology of matrescence, you could call it, has sort of exploded. And so they've scanned women's brains before their first pregnancy and after their first pregnancy. And more recently, another epic study done by a woman who's experimented on herself, scanned her brain all the way through pregnancy. And we see this enormous structural reorganization, really, and rewiring of the brain through the course of. Of a pregnancy.
- [58:23]
Mel Robbins
What happens? Oh, my God, you're literally like making another human being. So it's the brain, like, figuring out how to talk to the mechanics of the baby.
- [58:32]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, yeah. So the biggest. So they see. And this when I first. The way. I don't like to say this. Cause people immediately think that something has gone wrong. But we say we see a 4% volume loss in the brain during the course of a pregnancy. But we also see this in teenagers brains and adolescent brains, Right. They get slightly thinner as the brain is streamlining and refining and pruning and tuning its synapses. And we see this throughout the brain during the course, particularly of a first pregnancy. And it's primarily in those parts of the brain which are involved in social cognition.
- [59:05]
Mel Robbins
What does that mean?
- [59:06]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
What is someone else thinking? What is someone else feeling? How do I read the needs of somebody else and how do I deploy the right behaviours to look after them?
- [59:15]
Mel Robbins
Meaning you care more about it.
- [59:17]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Who was the other person that you're going to be looking after at the end of a pregnancy? It's the little baby.
- [59:21]
Mel Robbins
Yes.
- [59:22]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
So your brain is being reorganised to deploy the right types of behaviours to look after your baby. And that sounds very kind of like I'm describing what happens in an animal, but we've got very. A whole lot of data from, you know, many other animals in the mammalian kingdom looking to see how their brains reshape and reorganize so they deploy the right types of maternal behaviors.
- [59:44]
Mel Robbins
Well, if you don't, the baby's gonna die.
- [59:46]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Well, exactly the same thing happens to us. So we become very, very tuned in. This new baby comes into the world and you can't really sort of think about anything else. All of your attention, particularly with your first baby, is solely focused in on that little baby. You almost can't think of anything else. No wonder you can't remember about the bananas or the keys or your husband's lunch. Yeah.
- [60:08]
Mel Robbins
What is happening with your brain where you forget the pain of.
- [60:13]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I think Mother Nature has made that so that we just keep on having more babies. I remember my first childbirth and being really annoyed with my sister because she is one of those people that said it was good pain, it wasn't that bad. And I remember a few hours in when I started screaming for the epidural, she said it was gonna be good pain and it's not. It really hurts. And then I remember the first contraction with my second son. I was like, oh, that's right. It's all coming back to me now. Second birth was easier. Actually, the second time around. Motherhood is a whole lot easier because your brain has already gone through that process of reorganizing, reshaping and Then learning how to become a mother. So what happens when the baby's born? Your brain has gone into another sensitive phase of learning by experience because of all of the pregnancy hormones you've experienced. Experienced. It's a little bit like puberty. And that is why sometimes we talk about matrescence as like adolescence as this journey of becoming, of becoming a mother. So through pregnancy, your brain is reshaping and reorganizing so you can become a mother. And it makes that learning curve perhaps a little less steep. You still need to figure your baby out and learn how to take care of it. But your brain is kind of primed to react and respond and almost to focus solely in on that new little baby and take care of it.
- [61:42]
Mel Robbins
Is there anything that's happening in the male brain while the female brain is undergoing all this?
- [61:48]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah. So the woman in Spain, this is the first study that was ever done looking at this. They. Cause they were clever and smart women. They said, let's look at the fathers. So these were heterosexual couples. Let's look at the fathers of these babies as well. Scan their brains before and after their partner's pregnancy and look to see if their brains change. And in comparison to the mother's brains, their brains did not change at all. At all. However, if you just look just at the males and you kind of increase the like, get more men involved who have just had babies, their partners have just had babies, and just scan their brains. We do see some tiny little changes, not at all in comparison to the women, but tiny changes within those men's brains, which are based on how involved they are with childcare. And, you know, some men are there for the act of conception only some fathers and are never seen again. And other fathers are the primary caregiver. So you would expect if a dad is the primary caregiver, his brain is gonna change a whole lot more than the dad that was just there for conception only.
- [62:54]
Mel Robbins
So let's talk about menopause, because I would imagine that we're not gonna talk.
- [62:58]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
About baby brain and forgetfulness.
- [63:00]
Mel Robbins
Oh, sure, I forgot I'm not even pregnant, for crying out loud.
- [63:05]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Only. Cause that's.
- [63:06]
Mel Robbins
Wait a minute. Why is there forgetfulness when you have a baby?
- [63:08]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Well, lots of people talk about, like, mummy brain and baby brain, and you become forgetful and so' cause we're exhausted. Well, yeah, well. So four out of five women during pregnancy and early motherhood will say yes, and I didn't experience it, which is why I wanted to write the book, because I thought I didn't know, it was a thing, okay? It wasn't a story I'd ever heard, and I didn't experience it. And I was like, I wonder if there's something in that.
- [63:30]
Mel Robbins
Is there a neurological thing?
- [63:31]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Well, we know our brain is completely reorganised to attend and focus on the baby. And memory depends on attention, right? So what information you take in and what you filter out. And so when you're entirely focused in on your new baby, you're not going to remember all of the other things. But because we have been told that if you've got a female brain, you add some hormones in and you add motherhood to the mix, you're kind of dysfunctional and you're on the decline and, you know, all of the potential things that can go wrong. And of course, we could experience postnatal depression. Of course we could experience postnatal anxiety. But we know from the research that women who are experiencing less overall wellbeing over that amount of time have less social support. I mean, no one's getting sleep, right. They are much more likely to describe their experience as what we would call baby brain than women who are, well, socially supported, don't have postnatal depression, are kind of doing okay. So it's not women's brains that are letting them down. It's the social support that they're not receiving to parent that is letting them down. But we have persisted with this story that there's something neurologically wrong with us when we become mothers, so we shouldn't.
- [64:52]
Mel Robbins
Call it that anymore, right?
- [64:53]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
No, it's not.
- [64:54]
Mel Robbins
Because that's actually the wrong term. Because if you call it baby brain, you're basically blaming your brain. And what you're saying is, no, no, no. First of all, your brain's working, right? Because any energy you have, your brain is being ordered to focus on this human being whose survival is dependent on you. So the fact that you are focused on the caregiving is what you're designed to do. It's working correctly. The problem isn't baby brain. The problem is you don't have support.
- [65:21]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah. And you will have heard of, like the emotional labor or the cognitive load of motherhood, or just being a woman and having to do all of the things. And people love talking about a super mum, right? Cause she can kind of do everything, give it to her. She can do it all. And if she drops a ball or something goes wrong, well, it's okay. Cause she can just blame her baby brain. And then everyone goes, oh, well, it's your brain's Fault.
- [65:43]
Mel Robbins
Yeah. You can still cook dinner and do the night feeding. And I'm gonna sleep for 12 hours while you do all that. And it's your baby brain. You'll be fine in nine months.
- [65:51]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
It's not her brain. And we've got this amazing research looking again, like I talked earlier about imaging brain networks, and we look at mothers brains and their brains are more flexible and efficient and responsive.
- [66:03]
Mel Robbins
Wow.
- [66:03]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
But we persist on always telling the dysfunctional story instead of. Of looking at the strengths.
- [66:10]
Mel Robbins
And what is the best intervention? Is it getting support and sleep? Is it prior? The second you start saying, I've got baby brain, say, nope, look where you need support.
- [66:19]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, well, I mean, it shouldn't have to be up to the mom to like, be told to look for support, should it?
- [66:25]
Mel Robbins
That's true. That's true. So let's talk about menopause, because another period in a woman's life where we tend to talk about brain fog is when we're going through menopause. What is happening to the female brain when we dry up like a raisin?
- [66:45]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Well, that brain, ovarian conversation that's been going on, we've talked about puberty, we've talked about menstrual cycle, we've talked about pregnancy. It kind of starts to falter a little bit. And it's been, you know, kind of going on really nicely for many years. And then. And what happens is menopause actually starts in our ovaries, right? We run out of eggs, ovaries start to give up. Sometimes they ovulate, sometimes they don't. The brain is up there listening, going, you didn't ovulate? Ovulate. The ovaries go, okay. There's huge amounts of estrogen. The brain goes, not that much. The ovaries go, okay, sorry. So, you know, we kind of get this roller coastering, and that's what we would call perimenopause. And then our brain is starting to respond, respond to that massive rollercoastering. We know kind of what happens with our bodies. We get irregular periods, we can get really heavy periods, we can get none. And then they come back and it lasts for two weeks. And all of the things that are going on, and our brain is kind of in the middle, trying to adapt and respond and flex and kind of make the most of this sort of situation that it's in. Brain fog is one of the words that we use. It's kind of umbrella word that we would use to just describe this kind of constellation of symptoms. Perhaps not dissimilar to baby brain again. But this time there's probably a little bit more of a biological cause behind it. But we're not sure exactly what is this kind of nice, neat biological pathway. And I love a biological mechanism. We know that estrogen's kind of roller coastering, and then after menopause it's flatlining. We're pretty sure we know how the brain causes hot flashes and how that estrogen is involved there.
- [68:26]
Mel Robbins
How does that, how does estrogen cause hot flashes?
- [68:29]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
So we've got the hypothalamus, that part of the brain that's receiving all the data from our body. So it's also. It regulates our body temperature. And the thermostat in the hypothalamus is almost set by estrogen. For some reason, the brain evolved to be had that thermostat to be set by estrogen. When the estrogen starts doing its crazy thing, the thermostat gets really narrow. So the top goes. So it gets much narrower. So your body temperature only needs to rise a tiny bit to kind of hit the upper level. And your brain goes, it's hot in here. It's hot in here. And it sends two signals out to your body to cool down. Physiological signals, like you go really red and you sweat because it's in an emergency situation. And then also for you to go, oh, I'm hot. And therefore I will behave in a way to cool myself down and take my jumper off. When you are asleep at night, your body's like doing the whole sweating thing. But sometimes you've got the covers on, but you're asleep. And so then your brain needs to wake you up. And some women describe it, in my experience, being 50, it feels a little bit like you've had a fright. Like you wake up and you've gone. It's not like just waking up normally. You can almost feel the adrenaline going through your body. Cause your brain has had to wake you up, wake you up to behave in a way to also cool you down. Cause the sweating wasn't quite doing enough.
- [69:50]
Mel Robbins
Yes. By that point, it's like a puddle on my side of the bed.
- [69:54]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yes.
- [69:55]
Mel Robbins
And then I'm like, how was I asleep when these sheets are so wet? And why am I so warm? Yes.
- [70:00]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah. And we know a couple of things. We know if we put oestrogen back in with menopause hormone therapy, or hrt, whatever you're gonna call it, we know that that can kind of reset that thermostat. And we know that that's putting the Estrogen back in is one of the best treatments for vasomotor symptoms. What we're seeing, and some of the ideas are that body temperature and sleep are really intimately entwined. And every menopausal woman knows that, right? You might not know that if you're a young teenage fella, right. You might not have figured that out. But we all know that about 70% of the hot flashes that we have overnight, and so the studies have found about 70% of the hot flashes will wake us up. You might not remember waking up, but your sleep's being disrupted. But even if you're not waking up, that nice sort of. You know those sleep studies that you see where you got into deep sleep and then up into REM and down again, that just gets all that nice, neat architecture just gets disrupted. So if that happened for one night, you would feel a bit rubbish. If that happens for a week and a month and for years on end, well, what's the inevitable consequence of sleep disruption?
- [71:04]
Mel Robbins
Memory.
- [71:05]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
You just feel terrible. You feel terrible. You're more vulnerable to depression. You're more vulnerable to memory problems. That's perhaps one of the reasons why we are seeing problems with what we would call brain fog.
- [71:19]
Mel Robbins
Well, Dr. Mackay, here's what I'm getting from you. Ready?
- [71:21]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Okay.
- [71:22]
Mel Robbins
What I love about the way that you're teaching us and the rigor with which you're explaining the research and the science is that for somebody like me, who's just a person going through this, and then I go, I blame it on menopause, I blame it on my hormones, I blame it on estrogen, you basically are saying that's part of the issue. However, if you look at the female brain and you look at what's happening when your body is going from this bottom up biological change, and the hormones are changing, your brain is responding. And one of the big things that happens is it's interrupting your sleep because you're basically overcooking yourself as you're sleeping. And because that's happening over and over and over again, whether or not you remember waking up. The brain fog isn't, quote, necessarily because you're lacking estrogen. The brain fog is what's accumulating.
- [72:22]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
It's like a domino. Yes, it's like a domino effect. And with that constant sympathetic activation multiple times a night, that's gonna have a couple of different consequences. We see consequences for cardiovascular health, and the same we would see with sleep apnoea. If someone, like their sympathetic activation goes off to wake them up so they start breathing Again, and we know that that's really bad for cardiovascular health. And cardiovascular health is not great. Bad cardiovascular health means bad brain health. So we've got that kind of consequence. And we also see with repeated sympathetic activation, for perhaps no reason that we, you know, it's not like something out there was giving us a fright. But repeated sympathetic activation makes you more hyper vigilant. And when you're more hyper vigilant on top of sleep deprivation, you're much more vulnerable to anxiety. And it's almost like your sympathetic nervous system's been activated multiple, multiple, multiple times. And so it becomes more hyper vigilant. So you feel anxious, even though there's not necessarily anything that has changed a lot. So there's a whole lot of different consequences there. So that could kind of feed in to the brain fog.
- [73:32]
Mel Robbins
So how can women protect or strengthen their cognitive health as they age?
- [73:37]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, so there's some pretty clear data which has come out. I believe I wrote it down earlier. So there's some pretty clear data that has come out. And the entire pool of data that we've gathered from all over the world looking at Alzheimer's disease risk is kind of analysed and put together every year by this Lancet Commission and Alzheimer's disease. And they put this information out and what they're saying currently, based on the data to date, is about 45% of cases of dementia and Alzheimer's disease could be prevented by intervening with various types of lifestyle factors. And this is like for males and females. So that's quite High. Right. 55% are probably biological things we can't necessarily do much about.
- [74:22]
Mel Robbins
Okay, but 45%.
- [74:23]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah. And so 5% of that is early childhood education. And that's quite a lot. Right. So the more years you stay in education and the more enriched childhood experiences you have, the more protected you are. And that's perhaps where we see some of that gender inequality in some parts of the world. And that could almost explain that incidence, that inflow differing between males and females in countries where there's the gender inequality in childhood. And bearing in mind, we could be looking at people in their 90s, so we're having to look at what their lives were like 90, 80 years ago. Midlife is really interesting because we know there is this factor which is responsible for about 7% of cases of Alzheimer's globally, and no one talks about it. Cause it's deeply unsexy and it is hearing loss.
- [75:11]
Mel Robbins
Wait, what? Hearing loss?
- [75:14]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah. Untreated hearing loss in midlife.
- [75:17]
Mel Robbins
Huh.
- [75:18]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
So we know the causes of hearing loss, like listening to too loud music and you know, industrial hearing loss, et cetera. And then perhaps, you know, you're just getting older. But what is it about hearing loss that is causing Alzheimer's disease? And we think partly it's around. Well, what happens when someone loses their hearing? They can't kind of interact with other people. They withdraw socially, they might withdraw from work, they kind of shut down. And remember, like, we're constantly receiving information about the world through our senses, through our eyes and our ears, primarily as humans. And so it's just kind of cutting off one of these kind of sensory inputs that our brain is receiving. So that's. And no one's talking about that because it's not very like kind of fun and sexy to say, you know, go and get a hearing aid.
- [76:02]
Mel Robbins
It makes sense though.
- [76:03]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
There are people that are out there saying that, but I don't think they're getting the kind of attention they deserve.
- [76:08]
Mel Robbins
Dr. Mackay, what is the next frontier of research in women's brain health that excites you the most?
- [76:14]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Well, now women's. I mean, I always say women's brain health is no longer a niche. And so I'm looking forward to seeing what, you know, comes out of that, like para numbers, data. It's very nerdy, but I think that that's what's gonna give us the answers.
- [76:29]
Mel Robbins
Well, you are proving that women are in fact good at math and science. If you could give the person listening one science backed recommendation for caring for the female brain, what would it be? What's the most important thing besides sleep?
- [76:50]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
If you can get that sorted, you're halfway there. I think when I first sort of started moving into women's brain health research, you know, I've been doing neuroscience for a long time. I thought it was all going to be about hormones, Hormones, hormones, hormones. That was going to be what it's about. But I think it doesn't matter at which life stage you are considering whether you're looking at infancy, childhood. We talked about girls going through puberty. We know what teenagers need. New mothers. You know, as we are aging, it's really about other people. And we have these. Our brain is like a social organ. And what it needs at every age and every life stage is social interactions with other people. And I think we tend to forget how important relationships are as determinants of health. And we have that real tendency, as I said, from puberty to just blame the hormones and to only look about, look for what's going wrong and not looking at how I think social infrastructure or architecture can protect and promote that resilience and that adaptability. So I think other people are the key to a healthy brain.
- [78:00]
Mel Robbins
You know, one of the things that I think is also damaging that is out in the zeitgeist, is that women are better at relationships than men, and women are more social than men, and men do not have support structures. And while that may be true, the presumption is it's because they're not capable of creating it. And is that recommendation also true of the male brain?
- [78:24]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah, that's true for humans. I mean, I've got teenage sons and, oh, I've got to feel like I'll cry thinking about them being sad and lonely.
- [78:33]
Mel Robbins
Yeah.
- [78:34]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
So, yeah, that's just what. That's what humans need. But I think we do tend to, particularly with girls and women, zoom in on the hormones. And we can't necessarily always do a lot about that. And that kind of removes the agency or the ability to kind of look beyond that to other people. And we just have so much research that often the strongest determinant of health outcome is other people.
- [78:59]
Mel Robbins
Dr. MacKay, what's your parting words?
- [79:03]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I was thinking about this because all of the work that I talk about in all my books and teach and I write about, that's not research that I've done. It is me talking about the work that other researchers have done. Because, you know, I don't work as an academic neuroscientist anymore. I'm a science communicator. And I just have so much to thank all of those researchers out there doing the work, like, so many of them. Like, some of them are like women of steel who are asking these hard questions, battling for the funding, and then seeking the answers. And it takes a really long time to do good science well. It takes time and money, and you have to be meticulous. And sometimes it's nuanced and sometimes it's mixed, and sometimes the answer is still we don't know. And so I think my parting word is I just want to, like, acknowledge them and thank them and cheerlead them because I couldn't do what I do. I'm just talking about the work that they've done. So, yeah, my parting word to them is just to say thank you.
- [80:04]
Mel Robbins
I love that I'm gonna say thank you too. And is there any final thing you wanna say to the person who has just spent all this time learning from you that you want them to know about their brain or the future that's possible for Them.
- [80:19]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
I think we have been told for centuries the story that women's brains are unstable and chaotic and dysfunctional and other than male. And our brains are actually, like, resilient and adaptable. And that's not just me saying that, because it's a nice thing to say. It's really and truly what the neuroscience is showing. And so I know that there's gaps. I know that, you know, not everyone has, you know, the best life experiences. But the research is sort of showing us that there is a really good news story. And if we look for the strengths and we also tell ourselves the good stories, then we may be able to influence some more positive health outcomes along the way.
- [81:08]
Mel Robbins
Amazing. Thank you for being here. Thank you for learning so much from you today. No, seriously, like, I feel. My brain feels like popcorn is popping all over the place because you challenged me to think about this topic completely differently. It's very empowering to think that between your ears and on top of your neck is this incredible organ that is constantly adapting and has this crazy intelligent design. And when you understand the fact that it's only just responding to the input physically and from the world, you actually hand us the keys to think more critically about how to add positive input, how to stop buying the lies that we're being told about the way that women are, or girls are, or men are, or boys are, and to understand that it can always adapt and change. And that's a very positive and encouraging thing. I just feel so much smarter. And I really appreciate you hopping on a plane, you coming all this way, you pouring into us. Thank you for the work that you're doing. This has been amazing. And I also wanna thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to something that is gonna help you understand your mind and unlock the power of it. And in case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to not only create a better life, but with a better understanding of the way that your mind works. I think you can unlock the power of it. And I can't wait to see what you do with everything that you learn today. So thanks for being here and I will see you in the very next episode. I'll be waiting to welcome you in the moment you hit play. I'll see you there. We're gonna. This is gonna be fantastic.
- [83:05]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Thanks.
- [83:05]
Mel Robbins
Of course.
- [83:06]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Thanks for having me.
- [83:07]
Mel Robbins
Of course.
- [83:07]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Thanks for coming to my 50th birthday party tour. I came to see my friend. Mal.
- [83:12]
Mel Robbins
Yes, you did. Yes, you did.
- [83:14]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
So, yeah, you're part of the birthday party.
- [83:15]
Mel Robbins
Well, thank you for including. When is your birthday? In January.
- [83:17]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
It was in January. 7th. 7th.
- [83:19]
Mel Robbins
That's my mother's birthday.
- [83:20]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Was it?
- [83:21]
Mel Robbins
My husband is the sixth.
- [83:22]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Oh, really?
- [83:23]
Mel Robbins
Yes. Lots of Capricorns. Happy 50th.
- [83:25]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Yeah. Thanks very much.
- [83:26]
Mel Robbins
Is that what you're doing? We're leaning into it. Right. Okay. Wow. Holy cow. I need to pick my jaw up off the floor. Great job. My.
- [83:35]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
That was fun. Good. That was awesome.
- [83:38]
Mel Robbins
You were awesome, everybody. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.
- [84:24]
Dr. Sarah MacKay
Stitcher.
- [84:28]
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