By Lesley Stones

London-based neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart is helping several South African companies improve leadership skills by applying neuroscientific principles

Neuroscience — it sounds like an art best practiced by medics in a hospital, but it is coming out of wards into the workplace to influence practical ways of honing brain power in the canteen, boardroom and bedroom. The physical connection between the brain and the body means mental efficiency can be improved through sleep, nutrition, hydration and exercise. Planning to avoid wasting mental resources on unimportant issues also helps.

“If you do not have these things right, you cannot do brain agility, emotional intelligence and creativity and you will struggle with stress and resilience,” says neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart.

London-based Swart is helping several South African companies improve leadership skills by applying neuroscientific principles. In May, she will run a day-long Neuroscience for Leadership course in Johannesburg, teaching simple ways to boost brain power.

“It is particularly aimed at managers and leaders, but I strongly believe everybody is a leader,” Swart says.

People know the commonsense rules they should follow to look after themselves, but regularly fail to do so. By explaining the neuroscientific reasons for them, she hopes to ensure they are followed. Sleep and healthy eating are the big ones. Swart says the ability to think for the day is like a bucket of water, used up by various tasks until there is nothing left. “During the day, willpower and concentration become lower … even if you have had eight hours of high-quality sleep, you are using up that power,” she says.

“Eating, napping and going for a walk helps the bucket refill a little, but it is sleep that really fills it up every night.”

Research shows the brain takes seven to eight hours to clean out toxins that build up during the day. People who regularly fail to allow that cleansing process are putting themselves at higher risk of getting dementia, she warns.

“You might skimp on sleep to work on a deal, to work across time zones or because you don’t have enough hours in the day, but science says it is not okay to skimp on sleep,” Swart says.

About 30% of what is eaten is used to fuel the brain, so healthy eating is good. “People make food choices because they are on a diet or training for sport, but no one — not even someone who is paid to use his or her brain — wakes up and thinks, ‘What should I eat so I can make better decisions or think flexibly to solve complex problems?’”

The first rule is to eat regularly. Meals should not be skipped because brains cannot store nutrients and will slip into low-power mode. Recommended foods are salmon, avocado, eggs, nuts, olives and coconut oil.

Another hot topic is technology’s effect on the brain. Having calm time before bed is common sense, but the scientific reason makes it more compelling. “The blue light emitted from smartphones, tablets or laptops sends a message to your pineal gland that it is still daytime and it should not release the hormone melatonin that helps you fall asleep. So stop looking at those screens an hour before you want to fall asleep,” Swart says.

Another topic she will deal with is “imposter syndrome”, in which high-powered and successful people feel like frauds. When Swart began covering this in her talks, people would come up afterwards and confess that was how they felt.

“Successful people such as hedge-fund billionaires say they feel like they should not be in that position and they are afraid one day they will be found out as people realise they should not have risen this far,” she says. “It has nothing to do with skills. They are skilled and no one else is thinking they cannot do their job. It is the creeping thought at the back of their mind that one day they will be found out,” Swart says. The answer is to learn positive ways of overwriting those pathways in the brain and increasing people’s resilience and confidence by focusing on past successes.

That relates to her favourite topic of neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to rewire and build new pathways to relearn something or acquire new skills. Many people claim they are too old to learn new tricks or change their ways, but science has shown that is not true.

Neuroscience can also help people make better decisions before taking financial risks. Stress hormones and testosterone change when attempting something risky. Boosting testosterone brings extra confidence. A combination of certain foods and weight-bearing exercise can also achieve that. “Do some weights and eat cabbage afterwards, because there is a chemical compound in cabbage that has an effect on your testosterone levels,” Swart advises.

Stress people feel at work affects their mood, decision-making abilities and capacity to bounce back from adversity.

Because leaders’ skills are affected by their mental state, Swart believes changes must be driven by companies, not individuals. It is happening slowly. Office gyms are being supplemented by yoga or meditation rooms, canteens are serving brain food and water coolers are being installed so people can remain hydrated.

Swart has been visiting SA for almost 20 years, first as a medical student working with HIV-positive babies, then as a doctor and now as a neuroscience coach.

The companies she consults for are mostly in the financial services and legal sectors. She finds South Africans need this advice more than most, because the “boys don’t cry” attitude is so ingrained.

“The culture of organisations has to change. Having a culture of people doing exercise and eating healthily and being able to talk about stress is really important and it has to come from the leadership,” she says.

This article was originally published by BusinessDay.