S1.Ep4. Why brain health matters at work.
With guest Naomi Glover.
Naomi Glover, an applied neuroscientist and brain health specialist, shares insights on the importance of cognitive health, especially during pregnancy, menopause, and parental transitions. This episode explores how neuroscience can inform workplace practices to support brain health across different life stages.
We discuss:
Brain health and cognitive health differences from mental health
Impact of pregnancy and menopause on brain structure and function
The importance of neurodiversity awareness in the workplace
The lag between neuroscience research and practical application
Strategies for supporting brain health at work and in life
The role of diet, sleep, and social connection in brain health
The need for inclusive policies for neurodivergent and parental employees
Episode Transcript.
Rachael Jordan (00:01)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Parent Experience podcast with me, Rachael Jordan and the fabulous Dr. Krystal Wilkinson. This is an exciting episode for Krystal and I because we are joined by a long time friend, Naomi Glover. Naomi is an applied neuroscientist and brain health specialist. So she's a fascinating person to talk to.
And Naomi specialises in helping organisations to design brain-healthy workplaces that better support parents and the life changes that happen during our careers. Her work translates neuroscience into practical tools that reduce cognitive overload, protect focus and energy. I could definitely do with all the help there that I can get, and make work more compatible with the realities of family life. Not only that, Naomi is the founding director of Neuro-Informed Limited, and Naomi often advises HR teams, leaders, and clinicians on topics ranging from brain health in the workplace to neurodiversity, women's cognitive health, and the impact of stress and sleep on thinking. She's particularly interested in how pregnancy perimenopause and caring responsibilities interact with work demands and how small evidence-based changes can make a big difference to parents' wellbeing and performance. Naomi, you're also a director of the UK Brain Health Foundation CIC and you lead on national policy change and brain health education to improve brain health across the UK. That's quite a set of things that you are involved with there are all very fascinating. And as we were just talking before we started to record the episode, brain health and cognitive health is an area that does not get much attention. It's not talked about very much, certainly not within kind of mainstream career conversations, parenting conversations, if we think about the context of the parent experience. So today we're going to cover lots of different things as an introduction to this topic and no doubt Naomi we will have you back many times to explore certain things in much more detail. But for today welcome Naomi, thank you so much as always for being such a great supporter of the parent experience and before we do jump in, I just want to thank you again for designing the cognitive health part of the parent experience survey. It was really important to Krystal and I, as we think about how to measure how parents are feeling in the workplace and to understand what is impacting them from a day-to-day basis that cognitive health was definitely covered in that feedback and in that experience, because it is such a big part of that we may not understand, you know, plays out in terms of how we think, how we can focus, how we can concentrate. So I'm very eager for this conversation. So I'm going to hand over to Krystal and let's jump into it. But thank you again for being here today with us.
Naomi Glover (03:08)
Thank you so much. It was a lovely introduction.
Rachael Jordan (03:12)
Well, you're lovely person.
Naomi Glover (03:14)
That's very kind.
Krystal (03:16)
Rachael, thanks. I'm so grateful, so grateful that you joined us. Your work is so important and I can't wait to get into it. So I think it'd be really helpful as a start for any listeners is just to kind of ask you, what do we mean by brain health or cognitive health?
Naomi Glover (03:33)
Thank you again, both of you for inviting me, because it's just so important, the work that you're doing, it really, really matters. And I think there's so little understanding about what's happening to the brain during pregnancy. So I'm really grateful that you've invited me in to talk about it. So brain health is a broader category of health than the mental health. So we all tend to these days know what we mean by mental health and it's about how we feel and our emotions. And when we see poor mental health, we might see people who are experiencing anxiety or depression or another mental health condition. When people have good mental health, then those things are not present and they're more robust. They might be more confident with brain health, it's kind of broader. So it includes those things. It includes mental health, but it also includes things like cognitive health. So that's about how we think, how we make decisions are whether we've got brain fog or not, whether we're able to think and plan and make decisions throughout our lives. And then it also includes our behavioral health. So what are our habits and how we connect with others as well. that's, so our social, emotional health. So that's how we connect with others and the sorts of relationships we build our relational intelligence, if you will.
Krystal (04:54)
Such a comprehensive and wonderful introduction and I think, know, coming from working, liaising with lots of different organisations, isn't that language, that terminology isn't there in the way that you perhaps would expect it to be for something that is so universal to all of us. But that leads me on to ask really, can you tell us a bit more about what you've done in this area or, you know, why you think it's such an important issue for employers to acknowledge?
Naomi Glover (05:21)
I can, thank you. Yeah, you're right. Brain health is not really well understood, particularly in the UK, but even abroad. There has been more of a push on it in recent years. And part of that reason is because neuroscience is quite new. Neuroscience is a very young field compared to other areas of science. And it's only quite recent years that we've had the technology to be able to see what's going on in a living, behaving brain. Whereas historically that just wasn't the case. So the brain was a bit of a black box that we had to guess what was going on. And we could really only tell after somebody had died and then somebody would do, you know, do some research on what their brain looked like after they died and try to work backwards from there, which is kind of impossible really.
Now we have such amazing technology, we can actually see how the brain is behaving in everyday life. have technology that's small enough that people can wear on their head and be scanned as they're walking around in everyday life. We have machines where we can view the sorts of areas of the brain that are lighting up when we're doing different things. So we have so much more insight about what's going on in the brain during our everyday lives and during different times in our lives. But even so, there's been very little research on women's health and that is finally changing. so I think that the thing that really excites me about this is that we're finally now getting some really good research on women and women's health and what happens to us throughout our lifespan that is different. Women's brains were treated like men's brains, women's bodies were treated like men's bodies in the research, as you'll know. And now we see that their brains behave very differently because we have this huge, these huge kind of hormonal changes like pregnancy, for example, that happen.
Krystal (07:22)
It's so insightful to hear you talk about these different things. And I remember a conversation we had way back when about sort of your mission in this area is that we have all this science. It's an emerging field, but we have all this science. But I think you mentioned the massive time lag between, you know, what the actual science, where science has got, and then like where people know what science has got and where people are playing what science has got. And that's kind of
Naomi Glover (07:45)
Yes!
Krystal (07:46)
your, your USP really isn't it? Is like this bridge between, you know, there is all this information. But nobody knows about it, so kind of translating that.
Naomi Glover (07:54)
Absolutely. I mean, on average, we know it takes about 17 years to get research into practice. So the sort of research now that we're getting about how women's brains change during pregnancy, for example, typically that research wouldn't reach people in the real world for another 17 years or, you know, 17 years from when it was discovered. And a lot of it, it's just in the last two or three years that it started to come out.
We can't wait that long and we shouldn't need to wait that long. So it's really important now that we can translate research much more quickly and turn it into something that's actually useful for people in the real world. So that when people are experiencing brain changes at work or when they're experiencing brain fog, instead of it being all stigmatized and nobody talks about it, all of a sudden we can say, well, that's because of these brain changes that are happening. This is why they're happening. And that's okay, that's accepted. That's as much a part of pregnancy as, you know, suddenly being noticeably pregnant physically.
Rachael Jordan (08:56)
Mm-hmm.
Krystal (08:57)
Yeah, and so it's trying to evaluate as well, kind of if there are any things that workplaces can be doing to help, know, what are those and how do they land and how can we keep improving? So interesting. OK, so going back to what you were saying about, you know, there are some unique things that might be going on in pregnancy and our interest on the parent experience is sort of parental transitions a bit more broadly. So, you know, through people sort of trying to get to the point of pregnancy and then after that, you know, and kind of dance as well as mums transitioning to to becoming parents and non-birthing partners. What can you tell us about brain health and all of this complexity?
Rachael Jordan (09:32)
Explain Matresence and Patresence in 10 words.
Naomi Glover (09:36)
I mean, it's such a massive, massive area, obviously, there's such a lot going on. But so briefly to, I suppose, sum up the main thing that people are going to be interested in is that women's brains, you know, our brains change when we're pregnant. And it's only just recently we've been able to see that in practice, see that on brain scans, but brains change enormously during our pregnancy to the extent that they can now tell the difference in scans between somebody who's been pregnant and somebody who's not been pregnant. So this is a vast change in how we think about the brain. So pregnancy shouldn't just be thought about as a sort of reproductive transition, but also as a neurological transition.
And that makes sense because our whole, the job of our brains is to adapt. That's what they do. The job of your brain is to keep you healthy and safe and alive throughout, you know, so that you can meet people, you know, eat and drink and stay alive. And ideally we produce that's, that's kind of what our, what our brains are designed for. So, so it makes sense that they would adapt throughout life as we're, as we're trying to accomplish things.
It also means that we need to consider our lives and our workplaces are very different and have changed a lot in the last few hundred years compared to the way that it would have been before that. And so what I see the biggest challenge is being that people are having to do more with less time. There are more overlaps.
And so when we're thinking about how a woman's brain is changing during pregnancy, it's she's not just dealing with pregnancy. She's also dealing with all of the other things that are going on at the same time. And so our lives are very different. So I've kind of got, I've got overexcited and started talking about other things, but if you think about the maternal brain,
Typically it's thought of as something that's not doing very well during pregnancy. We see lots of brain fog. We see people struggling to concentrate and focus and people start talking about mum brain. And that is a thing. mean, our brains do change. There are parts of the brain that shrink, but there are also parts of the brain which develop during pregnancy. there's...
And now some science to show that there's significant increases in the white matter integrity during pregnancy. So those are these kind of tracks that speed up our thinking and that those changes actually support maternal behavior. They support our ability to connect with our baby when they're born, to be better at empathy, to have better emotional connections. And also better cognitive flexibility. So we can think differently. We can think more adaptively during with as a result of these changes. And so I think that's what we really need to realize and for people to think about is that the changes we see in pregnancy are not negative. It's not a negative change. it's not a lot of people end up feeling less competent as a result and actually what we see is that it's building resilience, it's building adaptability and it's actually enhancing our skill set so our brains become stronger as a result.
Krystal (13:09)
that's so, so important. So fascinating that when we think about, know, quite a lot of, employers approach to, you know, managing maternity, you know, is just making sure that people are informed about what their leave rights are, what that pay rights are. And then, you you come back and it's just, you return to work, you know, and it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, we probably need to be a bit more aware of the, the, these huge changes that are going on and kind of factoring in that, that, you know, people might be less confident about things. People might have and change priorities, change perspectives, but it's not, it's not a bad thing, you know, and it's natural, it's supposed to happen this way, you know,
Naomi Glover (13:42)
hugely.
Krystal (13:42)
for everybody to be alive in the workforce to develop in the future and stuff.
Rachael Jordan (13:49)
We spoke about this in previous episodes as well, haven't we? That
Krystal (13:52)
Yeah.
Rachael Jordan (13:52)
kind of general expectation that when you step back into work, you're pretty much exactly the same person as when you left and you just expected to pick things up, you know, just like you left them. Whereas, as you've just explained, Naomi, you have gone through this huge process of change. And especially if, you know, there have been things that have been unexpected that have happened along the course of being pregnant or being on maternity leave. But there's still this kind of blanket expectation that you just come back the same person. And I think there's a lot more empathy that can be given there or a different expectation that employers can have to think, right, let's work with this person to reintegrate them based on how they're coming back to work, not necessarily how I remember or how I used to experience working with this person.
Krystal (14:46)
normalizing that as well, you know, that this is to be expected. There's nothing wrong with you if you struggle a little bit, you know, with that transition back because it's to be expected.
Naomi Glover (14:57)
Yeah. absolutely. And I think it's really important as well to recognise it's not just mothers that change, it's not just birthing mothers that change as a result of this transition. You know, the research shows that dads do too. So they don't change, they're not changing during pregnancy in the same way because they're not having the same hormonal changes. But when dads spend time with children, with young, with their babies, when they actually have that opportunity to have a paternity leave, their brains adapt too. And so we see similar changes, similar changes in the grey matter, similar changes in the brain rewiring to be better able to look after a baby. So they get better at empathy. They get better at emotional skills. They get better at being able to recognize those really subtle changes in, in their baby. and that, so that's not, again, it's, it's makes sense from a, from a neuroscience, from a brain perspective. Our brain is constantly adapting. It's changing the whole way throughout our lives. And every time we're trying to learn new things, every time we're trying to learn new skills, it's, it's adapting in response. And so the more time you spend around your baby, the more your brain will adapt to be better at doing that. And it's just, it's one of the very big reasons for making sure that fathers really do get parental leave. They genuinely do get that time with their babies.
Rachael Jordan (16:30)
Yep, so important.
Krystal (16:34)
I love that so much and it's so timely with quite a lot of active campaigning at the moment for dads getting at least six weeks on 90 % of the pay because there's a government review of parental leave and pay at the moment and we've seen some of the campaign in there from Dad Shift and Mother Pucker and others also to talking about just how important this is for myriad reasons. I really like that framing of kind of the strengths, the benefits the growth in brain from this. It's not just about time off. It's not just about supporting the mom. You know, it's actually
Naomi Glover (17:05)
Yes.
Krystal (17:06)
my brain will grow in those six weeks. Wonderful.
Naomi Glover (17:09)
Yeah, absolutely. You grow, you're gaining new skills, you gain a new sort of resilience and brain resilience as well. But I think as well, it's important to consider the impact that all of those things have on your brain. So without the hormones necessarily, for example, anyone who's had a baby or been around a baby knows that sleep is impacted.
Sleep is so impactful for our brains and how we function for our mental health and our cognitive health. And so it's not just the hormones that are causing women to have this kind of mom brain thing. Dads get dad brain. And again, it's because we have this, all of a sudden you're getting less sleep, you're focused on other things. And it's much harder to focus on the things that you were finding it easier to focus on before, like your work.
Krystal (17:59)
Yeah, I was gonna come on to sleep so much. So while we're on this, people might be interested in just knowing a bit more about some of the brain health interactions with other kind of key life stages or health issues. I know you've done quite a bit around the menopause transition and no doubt there are others.
Naomi Glover (18:15)
yeah. So our brains are, you know, as I've, as I've said, and I do talk about this a lot, there's still a lot of people who still think that the brain stops changing in childhood. And there is a kind of neuro myth about this, that somehow your brain pretty much stops changing in childhood. And after that, there's not a lot of change. And the research that has come out in the last 10, 20 years has completely debunked that. So we know that the brain keeps changing. And it can change for the better and it can change for the worse. But it changes more in response to certain times of our lives. So it changes a lot during childhood and then it changes a lot during adolescence. And by adolescence, when we talk about the brain, we're talking about up to about 29, 30 even, sometimes people say 32.
Rachael Jordan (19:05)
Wow.
Naomi Glover (19:06)
So that's still considered adolescence. Your brain is still changing very rapidly up to that point. And then it slows down. then there's less adapting. The brain has kind of gone, you have stayed alive to this point, probably. Hundreds and thousands of years ago, you'd have been past your prime by now. And at 30, you're pretty much, it's bye-bye time. You don't need to be around anymore.
You've had a child, you might even have had grandchildren and you've probably done your bit. But of course our life spans have expanded, but our brains haven't really. So our brain span hasn't expanded as much as our lifespan has. So we don't tend to do the same sorts of things to look after our brains as we have historically to look after our bodies and keep our bodies lasting longer. So we now, it's the time to sort of focus more on that. But yeah, so we see changes in childhood, adolescence, pregnancy, in perimenopause, which is typically from around mid-40s, but can be earlier, early 40s, even late 30s. People experiencing those kind of hormonal changes that are related to our you know, sort of preparation for the menopause, but it can easily last for 10 years before menopause. And so we see a lot of brain changes during that time, increasingly brain fog. So it, for me, a lot of the, biggest questions that I tend to get from people are around brain fog, because it's so impactful for so many people. And it's been historically associated more with, menopause, menopause, brain fog, yes, they're sort of losing it. But now what we're seeing is brain fog, yes, it seems to be affecting about 86 % of women in perimenopause, but it's also affecting women in pregnancy, it's affecting men during pregnancy and parenting, it's affecting people in long COVID and it's affecting people in adolescence.
I saw a study the other day that cognitive health has plummeted in 18 to 39 year olds in the last 10 years. Absolutely, their memory and their focus has plummeted. So we're seeing a lot more challenges with people with things that are not mental health related, but that are brain health related right the way throughout their lives.
Krystal (21:40)
It's huge. The complexity of this and just how many people are affected. Just going to come back to something you said there about, we don't pay enough attention to our cognitive health the way we do with our physical health. So just wondering kind of any listeners who might be interested in better supporting their own brain health, you know, what are some things that we could all be doing to...
Naomi Glover (22:00)
there's so there's lots. I mean, we know now that one of the questions that people often ask me when they're when they're at this sort of pregnancy or midlife, often they're asking me about dementia. And that's because they've had some brain fog moments which have worried them. And, and sometimes it's that they've got a parent that they're looking after an auntie or an uncle or a grandparent who've who've got dementia. And so they're seeing these symptoms and they're really worried about them. But what we do know now is that right the way throughout our lives, there are things that we can be doing to strengthen our brain and protect it against, against those sort of cognitive declines that happen later on in life, but also protect your, your thinking right now so that you're less likely to struggle with brain fog, for example. And those are really varied, but the things, you know, there was a study done a couple of years ago and they found about 50 % of dementia is preventable. And they found 14 factors that are, that are responsible for those, for that risk. And some of it is really obvious things like smoking. don't, you know, don't smoke, eating healthy diets, not eating ultra processed foods, but eating more of a Mediterranean diet. There's a diet called the mind diet which is particularly good, seemingly for brain health, for helping people to think. And when people have the right sorts of food, when people move more towards a Mediterranean diet, we see changes really quite quickly in not just how they think, but also how they feel. people who've had treatment resistant depression, for example, suddenly start to see that relieving and and quite a large proportion of them. And it, and really quite quickly in a, in a few months. So there was a fascinating study, which people can look at. could put a link called the SMILES trial, which was done by a wonderful woman in Australia, Felice Jarker. And she's done subsequently lots and lots of work now around that. And there's an area now called nutritional psychiatry, which focuses completely on how does food change our brain? How does it change the way that we function? So there's a huge amount of work being done in that. Again, people will have heard about probably the microbiome work being done at ZOE. But then, what you eat really matters. It really, really, matters. And it matters what you feed your baby will also similarly, it's making their brains. So it really matters what you eat. It matters how much sleep you get. That's really impactful. It matters who you spend time with and what you spend that time doing. So being isolated is very bad for your brain. It increases the risk of mental health and cognitive health problems. But spending good quality time connecting with other people is brilliant and spending time in nature is also brilliant and eating good food is brilliant. And so what I tend to recommend is that people try to bring those things together and make life as easy as possible for themselves to be doing the things that help their brain. instead of sitting at home and watching TV with somebody, perhaps you get up and you go for a walk together. And maybe ideally you go for a walk somewhere where there's some green.
And if you're going to go and have a bite to eat, know, maybe you take a healthy picnic with you or you pick up something, you know, a piece of fruit or something. So it's, it's about trying to make changes that will, that will feel fun, feel like nice things to do, but will also be good for your brain rather than just trying to make it a complete mission that if it just then feels overwhelming and unpleasant.
Krystal (26:00)
What employers then? what role do our employers have in better supporting employee brain health?
Naomi Glover (26:07)
Vast, vast, because as I said, everything is affecting your brain and that means the environment you're in as an individual, you know, what environments you choose to be in as an individual and what you choose to do and eat and things that matters. But you spend so much time at work and many people have very little say over the sort of environment they're in. again, your connections at work matter, that's going to impact on your brain. So if you were in an environment, a working environment where you feel threatened, where you feel belittled or where there is stigma around brain health or around cognitive health, for example. If you imagine somebody who's returning to the workplace into that sort of environment, your brain is adapting. It's more plastic than ever. So it's more at risk of then struggling in an environment that's making it feel even more vulnerable. The counter to that, of course, is that if you have a really welcoming, nurturing environment where people are connecting and they feel safe and there's trust, that sort of organizational trust, and you feel like people are looking out for you and you have a sense of autonomy and there's workplace flexibility, then that's going to be very good, very nurturing, very supportive for our brains. And that means that mental health will be supported, but also cognitive health. So we feel better, we think better, we're better able to choose good habits, we're better able to connect with other people.
Krystal (27:42)
fascinating. It makes me think of quite a lot of research on work extensification and work intensification where getting more more and more work and extensification sort of is creeping the longer. So you know if people are nine to five in the office they may well be then logging on at home doing more you know all of this kind of stuff. I can't imagine any of that's particularly good for our brain health.
Naomi Glover (28:02)
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think it's not even necessarily that people will be logging in at home, but they're thinking about it at home.
Naomi Glover (28:12)
so people talk about having a work-life balance, and it's really a myth. You can't have a work-life balance because they're not separate. That sort of assumes that you're to have work on the one hand and life on the other hand, and that somehow you're going to try to balance the two. But your life you're thinking about your life when you're at work, when you're at work and your child hasn't slept or you're worried about them being ill. All of those things are impacting on how you are at work. And when you get home, when you're, when you're trying to look after your baby, but you're thinking about all of the emails that you haven't done, that's impacting on you at home. So it's, I think we have to kind of stop thinking about the mental, the work life balance and start thinking about it being very integrated and what can we do to support both.
Krystal (29:03)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more on that one.
Rachael Jordan (29:06)
I'd love to just touch back on, we haven't spoke about it too much yet, but neurodiversity. And I'm thinking here specifically around, 44. I feel like quite a lot of friends and peers around my age are now being diagnosed with ADHD or are now being diagnosed with some neurodiversity. how does that fold in to kind of this stage of life where our, know, mattresses and changes that we've just talked about and your brain being so pliable, kind of getting to grips with understanding possible neurodiversity in the midst of all of this and the stigma still attached to that in the workplace too. It's got to make all of this feel so much more difficult to the individual, you know, trying to get to grips with day-to-day life.
Naomi Glover (29:55)
Yeah, absolutely. we know that that people, women with neurodivergent conditions experience more symptoms during more brain symptoms during pregnancy, they're more at risk of postnatal depression. They're more at risk of more of the cognitive symptoms that are troubling during perimenopause. You know, it's one of those things where, you know, they're more likely to have PMDD. So all of these things are more likely if you have neurodivergent conditions. But so often, particularly with women, it's really underdiagnosed. we don't often, we don't display our symptoms in the same way that boys do. Most the research was done on boys and so most of the symptoms that they identified were boy related symptoms like throwing chairs out of windows or that must be ADHD. The girl didn't throw the chair out of the window, therefore she doesn't have ADHD or there's nothing wrong with her, but she is a dolly daydream looking out the window the whole time. And so you get labels differently and those things have a massive impact and can be can be really quite traumatizing. And, and then they go through life managing and then all of a sudden the hormonal changes that happen often during pregnancy or during perimenopause, these are where we see the spikes in diagnoses now for, for ADHD, for example. And on the one hand, it's brilliant that it's being identified at those points because then all of a sudden you can start putting things in place to support that. And you can recognise that people have different sorts of challenges and therefore you might need to put different supports into place. It's a shame that the diagnosis doesn't happen earlier because you could do so much more preventatively and that would be really valuable.
And hopefully that will be more the case as we go forward. yeah, having any sort of diagnosis is, it's impactful, isn't it?
Rachael Jordan (32:07)
Yeah.
Krystal (32:07)
I think it's really important when we're discussing what workplaces can do throughout my parental journeys and stuff as well is that it's not a uniform journey and we talked last week about you know there's quite a lot of changes that can go on through those journeys and variations but just you know the people involved so you know whether it's due to neurodiversity whether it's due to LGBTQ identities whether it's to do with ethnicity whether it's to do with cultural things, whether it's to do with the fact that some of them might have several overlapping long-term health conditions that are also playing in this mix. But we need to be thinking creatively, actually asking our people what they need rather than assuming what anybody might need.
Naomi Glover (32:48)
Yeah. And I think I really agree with you. And I also think that some of the work that I'm doing is around trying to create more brain healthy workplaces. So what can we do to design places that are genuinely neuro inclusive? And I don't just mean for often when we talk about neuro inclusion, we're talking about, you know, how can we make it safe for people who've got ADHD and autism and dyslexia? And I'm talking about instead, what can we do to make a workplace or a public space or whatever that is actually healthier for everybody's brains so that everybody's brains will work better. And that's particularly important with things like neurodivergence because, and other conditions, but particularly neurodivergence because it's so often underdiagnosed and people don't realize that it's an issue. If you have some policies for people who are neurodivergent, then they've got to know or suspect that that's a problem before they can go and access that support. If, if, if you have, things in place for, for people, for, people during pregnancy, they have to A, no, which, know, typically that happens sooner rather than later. but B, be prepared to disclose to you that that that's what's going on for them. And the same in perimenopause. People have got to be A, aware and B, happy to talk about it in order to access the help. And that's really challenging and it's particularly challenging when people don't realize that it's an issue for them. So if you're neurodivergent and you're having symptoms and maybe you're pregnant, you might go and ask for help or seek extra support for pregnancy but not be aware of the neurodivergent things. If we do things that help everybody's brain to think better and feel better, things where people feel included, where people feel safe, where there is a sense of autonomy, where there is as much flexibility as possible, because our brains work better when there's some flexibility and we feel safe and we feel able to have ideas and we're able to connect with people.
We don't feel threat and we don't feel blame. Those are the things that will help our brains think better. And that works whether we're pregnant or whether we've got ADHD or whether we're perimenopausal or all of those things often, know, sort of overlapping. Because people, again, people forget that often you can still get pregnant when you're perimenopausal and people do.
And so you can be starting to get those symptoms, those perimenopausal symptoms, and then get pregnant. And then when you've had the baby, you're straight into perimenopause and menopause. that, again, your brain is working very differently. It's having to adapt to all sorts of things. And if ADHD also happens at the same time, then it's all added into the mix. And if you've also got chronic pain,
Rachael Jordan (35:49)
Yeah, not to mention age and parents.
Naomi Glover (35:53)
Absolutely. And then you're the sandwich generation. So then you're caring for, and that increases stress, which is harder for your brain, increases the risk of brain fog and mental health conditions. so all of these things overlap and people often, they'll have separate, workplaces have separate categories and separate policies for separate things. They've got their menopause policy and their pregnancy policy and their neurodiversity policy and they're all in different places. But there is a lack of recognition that so many of those things overlap and the people can be experiencing many of those things all at the same time. so what can we be doing that would make a workplace so that as many of those policies that are helpful as possible are just available to everybody all the time? Because if you're going to benefit from some strategies to improve how you think at work. Because you've got ADHD or brain fog from long COVID or pregnancy or whatever. Everybody's brain actually functions better that way as well with those conditions.
It's just that they'll be less sensitive to it. So, you you won't hear them shout in the same way. You won't see them struggle in the same way. But if you put things into place where everybody can focus better and everybody can think better and everybody can feel better, everybody will function better at work as well.
Rachael Jordan (37:09)
Mm-hmm
Krystal (37:11)
Yeah, I love that thinking beyond policies. So absolutely have your policies, you know, with the specific information, the signposts and the support for managers, but just do as much as we can in terms of culture, in terms of work environment, in terms of job design, and you know, things like job crafting, where people have some autonomy over where they work, how they work, when they work, which particular tasks ordering and all of that. You know, if these are the standards and flexibility where we can, rather than it being, well, you've got a right to request flexible working, but you can only do it two times a year. And then it's a permanent adjustment.
You know, just kind of these things that make people not have to, as you say, you know, put their hand, head out of the parapet and say, I'm going through fertility treatment or, you know, I've got this group of symptoms, but I don't know what they are. They could be ADHD, they could be menopause, know, I'm just struggling.
Naomi Glover (37:57)
Yeah.
Krystal (37:58)
I think that's a really, really key takeaway there, isn't it?
Rachael Jordan (38:01)
This feels like we're brewing up a policy revolution, doesn't it? Let's just start
Naomi Glover (38:06)
yes please that would be great that would be great.
Rachael Jordan (38:10)
from scratch and redesign everything. I love that.
Krystal (38:13)
Keep signaling, going back to that conversation a couple of weeks ago that we had about the signals that an organization sends, that it is really, clear
Rachael Jordan (38:20)
Yep. Yep.
Krystal (38:21)
that we understand that people have lives, people have bodies, the things that are going on that can detract from your ability to perform at work. But if we do all of these things around our environment, around our jobs, around our culture, that facilitate people being able to do the job. It doesn't really matter where you do it or how you do it or when you do it or in what order you do it a lot of the time. Some jobs obviously, that is not the case, but you know that where we can we just help people to work alongside of these things rather than you know trying to pretend they're not there, which is lot of organisations historically. You turn up, you do your job with very little recognition that there's a lot of stuff going on in the background.
Naomi Glover (39:07)
Yeah, yeah, hugely. I think that's exactly it. And just anything that we can do to help bring businesses, workplaces, leaders, awareness to the fact that, you know, people's brains are changing. They can change for the better, they can change for the worse. And your workplace and the way that you arrange work and the way you lead them and the way you manage them that will change the way that their brain is changing. again, it will influence it to be more anxious and more frazzled and more distracted or more focused, more confident, more at ease, more innovative, more curious, more creative. And surely every business wants their people to be more of that latter, know, thinking, feeling, functioning better.
And the evidence is now really good. There are ways that you can do that. It's just we need workplaces to be aware of what they are and start putting them into place.
Rachael Jordan (40:05)
So there's the challenge for our listeners. If you are working in an organization who's happy to take up this challenge, get in touch, work with us and Naomi will revolutionize.
Naomi Glover (40:17)
Definitely, be delighted to.
Krystal (40:20)
Thank you so much for that.
Rachael Jordan (40:23)
Well, I'm already looking forward to the next episode with you Naomi, but yes, let's, let's, let's summarize today's episode and we'll, we'll pick up on many different things that you've said in the future one, but seriously, if you are listening and thinking this, this sounds exciting and it sounds important and I'm in the mood to disrupt my organization, please do get in touch with us. But yeah.
Over to you, Krystal.
Krystal (40:51)
Key takeaway message then Naomi for our listeners. might be one for if it's it's kind of from the employee perspective, it might be one from an employer perspective or just for everyone.
Naomi Glover (41:04)
I think whether you're an employer or an employee, it's really important to know your brain is changing, the brains around you are changing, they're changing constantly at every stage. They're changing more during things like pregnancy or menopause. And there are things that you can do at every age and every stage that can help your brain to function better and the brains around you to function better.
And that means that people will feel better and they'll be able to think better and they'll be able to engage better, connect better, do better work, be better at home. And I think that's what we want for everybody's brains. So, you if we could just work together to create a more brain healthy culture, a more brain healthy workplace, more brain healthy society, that would be, that would be great.
Krystal (41:56)
What a fantastic sound. I love that.
Rachael Jordan (41:58)
Yeah, that's a great way to end it. I will ask you Naomi to share any resources that you can with me that people, especially around helping people understand brain health and how and what they can do. You've mentioned so many great things in terms of diet and nature and relationships get our heads together and put as many resources and links for people as we can in the show notes so that there's more reading there. people can find you on LinkedIn, Naomi, right, Naomi Glover? I will add the link
Naomi Glover (42:32)
Yes, yes they can.
Rachael Jordan (42:34)
into the show notes as well. Feel free to reach out to Naomi if this is something that you'd like her to come and speak about at your organization. For sure, we'll be doing more episodes with Naomi.
But thank you so much. And again, as I mentioned at the start, thank you for helping us make sure that the parent experience survey and score includes brain health. It's such an important area. as you've so eloquently said, affects every corner of our lives, not just work. So thank you again for that. And we look forward to seeing you on our next episode together. Thank you.
Naomi Glover (43:11)
Thank you so much.
Krystal (43:11)
Just a chip in. I've seen Naomi presenting and she's such an amazing presenter and I would absolutely recommend any, any employer who wanted, you know, a session on brain health and bringing your technology along. You know, it's just, it's really is like the engagement that I've seen with your sessions is, is, is phenomenal. So a little plug in there.
Naomi Glover (43:30)
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Krystal (43:35)
And yeah, for me personally as well, thank you so much for coming along and sharing so much of your an introduction to this vast field. Really, really interesting.
Naomi Glover (43:44)
Thank you very much. Thank you both so much for having me.
Rachael Jordan (43:47)
No problem.
Bye for now.
Naomi Glover (43:50)
Bye.
