107 - Why Small Changes Are the Key to Changing Your Brain (feat. Dr. Alex Korb)

It’s our last interview of Season 4! We’re glad to be joined by Dr. Alex Korb, a neuroscientist and author of The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time. We talk about what motivates us, why small changes are the way to changing your brain, and what’s wrong with the common idea that depression or anxiety is simply “something wrong with our brains.”

Things we mention in this episode/other resources:
- the feelings wheel we mention in the intro
- the CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall on racism
- please check out last week’s show notes for a list of ways to learn & help regarding systemic racism

Connect with Alex on his website, Facebook, or Twitter. Buy The Upward Spiral, The Upward Spiral Workbook, or The Upward Spiral Card Deck on Amazon.

Quotes:
- “Even our positive qualities sometimes get in the way of our well-being.” (tweet)
- “You can’t always ‘fix’ your moment-to-moment feelings, but if you give your brain the things that it needs to work at it’s best, then over time you can start to shift things.” (tweet)
- “The way you know you’ve convinced yourself of something, that you’ve accepted your limitations, is that if someone points them out you don’t care.” (tweet)
- “Our motivations for doing things are often unclear to us.” (tweet)
- “If one of the main reasons you’re doing something is because you feel like you need to to fill some need, it’s often hard to find it fulfilling or be happy in that.” (tweet)
- “Yes, depression is rooted in your biology. But your biology isn’t fixed. It’s malleable and can be reshaped.” (tweet)
- “It’s not something wrong with your brain, it’s just the way that your brain is working right now is not adaptive to the specific situation you’re in.” (tweet)
- “It’s much easier to avoid temptation than to resist the temptation once it’s triggered.” (tweet)
- “Sometimes it’s changes in your actions, small changes in your thinking, or small changes in your environment that can work together.” (tweet)

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Intro/Outro music for this episode is ‘Fall Down’ by Rivers & Robots.