Dr Norman Farb Wants You to Test Drive Your Senses by "Sense Foraging"

11/19/24 • 57 min

This is Verla Fortier of your Outside Mindset show. This podcast is about taking back your outside mindset by exploring and practicing new ways of noticing when you are outside close to nature whether you live in the city or country.

Two podcast episodes ago I did a solo podcast on a great book “Better In Every Sense: How the New Science of Sensation Can Help You Reclaim Your Life.” This is the link to that podcast episode is titled Get Intentional About Using Your Senses.

Today I have the author of this book with me. This is his bio.

Norman Farb, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, where he directs the Regulatory and Affective Dynamics laboratory. He studies the cognitive neuroscience of well-being, focusing on mental habits, such as how we think about ourselves and interpret our emotions. Together with Prof. Zindel Segal, he wrote Better in Every Sense, a book that describes the surprising role of sensation in mental health. His current research explores online interventions to support wellbeing, and neuroimaging of interoception, our sense of the body's internal state.
Tanscript of interview is on [email protected]

For peer reviewed research on how your time spent in green space can change your mindset, balance your nervous system and your heart rate please go to verlafortier.substack.com and check out my books Take Back Your Outside Mindset: Live Longer, Stress Less, and Control Your Chronic Illness and Optimize Your Heart Rate: Balance Your Mind and Body With Green Space

Previous Episode

Natural Navigator Tristan Gooley: Develop Your Tree Reading Skills

Tristan Gooley is a New York Times best selling author of How to Read Water, How To Read Nature, The Natural Navigator, The Lost Art of |Reading Nature’s signs, and The Secret World of Weather. Today we are going to talk to Tristan about his latest book How to Read a Tree.
Tristan Gooley is a leading expert on natural navigation, and his passion for the subject stems from his hands on experience. He has led expeditions in 5 continents, climbed mountains in Europe, Africa, and Asia: sailed boats across oceans; piloted small aircrafts across Africa and the Artic. He is the only living person to both fly and sail single-handedly across the Atlantic, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and The Royal Geographical Society.
2:47: In my 20s I went on big adventures finding my own way with bits of kit. After that I decided that instead of doing thousand mile expeditions , I would do very small journeys just using nature to find my way.

Transcript [email protected]
natural navigator.com. IG thenaturalnavigator.

Next Episode

Dr Jim Doty Tells You to Balance Your Nervous System to Manifest Your Goals

Dr James Doty says Balance Your Nervous System To Manifest Your Desired Goals

The word manifest may put you off, but I like James Doty (MD)’s definition of manifesting. He says “once the body and the mind are in a state of balance, we have the power of manifestation, we can start thinking clearly about what we want to manifest.” Renown Stanford neurosurgeon and neuroscientist Dr James Doty says we all have goals and intentions. When your nervous system is balanced you can begin to manifest.Studies show that as little as 5 minutes outside in nature or even looking at an image of nature balances your nervous system. When you are outside in nature your autonomic nervous system shifts to the parasympathetic (PNS) and you become less self focused, calm, and more connected to others and your world around you. You experience joy and awe. The relaxed PNS state (that can also be achieved by breathing and just thinking about the joy and awe in the world) is what Dr James Doty’s recent book “Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything” (link: https://www.amazon.ca/Mind-Magic-Neuroscience-Manifestation-Everything/dp/1399710966/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title) teaches. The book is well worth the read and fits beautifully with your practice of spending time in nature or green spaces.

The ability to manifest is based in Neuroscience

Doty’s idea of manifestation is not the self-serving get rich quick scheme, tarot cards, crystals, or pseudoscience. Doty’s view is based in “significant developments in brain imaging that allows us to watch the brain transform on a cellular, genetic, and even molecular level. We can now speak about manifestation in terms of cognitive neuroscience......and the brain’s extraordinary ability to change, heal, and remake itself, known as neuroplasticity.”

Manifesting according to Dr. Doty is the process of intentionally embedding thoughts and desires into your subconscious. For this he suggests visualization and picturing powerful positive emotions of your desired goal. Why? Because your brain will not know the difference between the real and the imagined. Dr Doty says this is manifestation is not magic – it is neuroscience.