S3E3 - Interview with Sylvie Lahaie

In this powerful episode of Moms, Mats, and Manuscripts, we sit down with neuroscientist and yoga teacher Sylvie Lahaie (aka Synaptic Sylvie) to unpack her journey through burnout, mental health struggles, and finding healing through yoga and mindfulness. Sylvie opens up about the toxic work culture in academia, overworking herself into collapse during her Master’s degree, and how a simple YouTube yoga video became a turning point in her life.

We explore the intersection of neuroscience and self-care, the impact of stress on the brain, the systemic pressures that push young scientists beyond their limits, and balancing many passions and creative productivity solutions that help with it. Whether you're in academia, struggling with burnout, or simply curious about how yoga can help rewire your brain - this is a must-listen.

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Sylvie's links:
Instagram page - https://www.instagram.com/synaptic.sylvie/

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@synaptic.sylvie

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@synaptic.sylvie5584

Spotify -https://open.spotify.com/show/7g60ql7RkYIMdi0OFMnN7W?si=16daff1750d44e44

Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/building-your-best-brain/id1729617809

Website - https://yoga-with-synapticsylvie.square.site

InsightTimer - https://insighttimer.com/synaptic.sylvie

Don't forget to like, follow, and share our podcast! We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions, and if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line.

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Reach out: moms.mats.manuscripts@gmail.com

Transcript

Ksenia: 0:04

Hey and welcome to this episode of Mums, Maths and Manuscripts. Today you're in for a treat. I'm interviewing another guest. I'm interviewing Sylvie Lahaye, also known as Synaptic Sylvie on Instagram. She is a neuroscientist and a yoga teacher and we talked about all the things ranging from her academic journey, her experiences in academia, experiences with burnout, her journey towards finding yoga and becoming a yoga teacher and all the things at the junction of these two topics. So yoga and meditation for your brain, brain facts, brain rewiring, gentle productivity. I hope that you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. You are going to walk away from it with some practical tools and tips and techniques and also just I love a lot of inspiration. Enjoy, and let's welcome Sylvie in. All right, so welcome, welcome. I am so excited to be here and to introduce my new guest, Sylvie Lehey, or Synaptic Sylvie. And today we're chatting about her story. Sylvie is a neuroscientist, yoga and meditation teacher, expert in stress management, burnout prevention, and brain rewiring for greater productivity and ease. She's a content creator. She is an educator, workshop facilitator who helps people experience real and lasting relief from stressor. I'm just glancing at the bio so that I don't miss anything. She leverages her background in neuroscience, her master of science, her personal experience with chronic burnout and over four years of teaching yoga and meditation. She is currently pursuing her PhD in neuroscience and teaches yoga in Montreal. So welcome, Sylvie. So excited to have you here with us. Yeah, thank you for having me. So I am curious about so many things. I'm curious about so many aspects of your story. And in the bio, I think it was put perfectly, how many hats you're wearing. And I'm curious about how you're managing this all and how you're doing it with so much grace and not burning out in the process. So as an expert in burnout prevention, tell me your story.

Sylvie: 2:25

I'd love to. And You know, maybe this goes without saying, but we also have a whole podcast to say and talk about it. The reason why I feel comfortable saying that, you know, I have a lot of expertise in burning out and how to prevent cycles of it is because of my lack of being able to prevent cycles of it in the past. So I think maybe a good place to start is the start of my academic journey and we'll flow through and see what... what we get through together. But that being said, that I am a neuroscientist first. Well, I mean, I'm a human first. But that was my main focus. So I did my undergrad. I'm from Canada in Carleton University in Ottawa. It was a neuroscience undergrad. And that's when I started to get my hand into research, right? I was at the time applying to medical school. And, you know, I was doing a research project in your fourth year. And, you know, there I discovered how fun it is to be able to research a question that we don't know the answer to yet, right? And kind of that sort of field. And, you know, the medical school application did not work out, which is a very common story. And instead of applying to medical school the following year, I was like, you know what, let me try a master's, like, you know, what's two years I can pick a topic, do some research and take it from there. Of course, this goes back without saying what I will share will be throughout my master's. But of course, you can ask me about past things. I don't want it to make it seem like that my life was absolutely burnout free. And I went to my master's and it all changed. Of course, that's not how the brain works. That's not how patterns form. But I would say that during my master's, there were some key things that happened that brought a different light to my pattern and basically brought me in a way to my knees with my pattern to the point where you know i kind of recognized that the things that i was doing was not working and i wanted meaningful change and often we want meaningful change because we're in a lot of pain you know like if we're comfortable there is truly not a big motivation to change right we're human feelings we thrive off of our feelings and all that being said um there were certainly patterns that led up to this moment but there was a lot of pain and discomfort in this time that led me to what I do now and so in my master's I there was a few there was a few things so when I picked you know my supervisor and the lab environment um You know, there was certainly, I was not experienced, right? I was very excited to get into a lab and to starting research. And knowing that it was two years too, it was kind of like, well, you know what, if it doesn't go well, like it's okay, right? I'm not committing so much time. But, you know, I had kind of enough supervision in the beginning from my supervisor and then a PhD student at the time, right? And then after a few months, I was kind of left a little bit on my own to my own devices to figure out the rest. And every master's program is a bit different, right? And every lab you're in is a bit different. Sometimes you get a lot of supervision where it's almost like you're being micromanaged for everything. And other times you're just kind of like, ah, figure it out. And at the master's level, when you're quite inexperienced, it's a bit tough to be in that category. But I was fortunate enough to have enough supervision. And then I was quite tenacious. And I loved working, loved being productive. And this kind of exemplified throughout my master's in a few different behaviors in a way that I would call unhealthy. And it's a very tricky one. It's a very tricky one to tease apart because being productive is so celebrated. And, you know, achievements and success is so celebrated. But often there's an underlying, you know, theme or question that can be looked at. So for me, a lot of the behaviors that were coming out were related to me wanting to feel smart and me wanting to be successful. And that kind of took on an extreme throughout the Masters. So, yeah. Again, I was lucky enough to have enough supervision, enough tools to start working on the project. And then I was lucky enough that I was able to find something interesting throughout this project, which anybody in the science field knows, Like it's a hard thing to predict, right? We're discovering things. There's no roadmap. And so I took it up a bunch of levels to be able to get a paper out of my master's, which I was able to, but at a quite high cost. So what ended up happening was I was working increasingly more and more and more to the point where I would say, And we can go into this a bit more too. It was considered pathological. So I would have been working in the lab for towards the end. There was a few months towards the end where it was between like 14 to 18 hours, going home to sleep for a few hours, coming back, you know, not eating. regularly lots of coffee I was smoking cigarettes at the time which people who just know me like post cigarettes like it just blows their minds and I was able to almost like override all of my like biology biological systems to be able to get this done because my desire was so high But it wasn't so much the desire for the paper, it was the desire to feel smart and successful. And I do have a family history of mental health disorders and challenges And I did go to a psychiatrist throughout that time who did give me a diagnosis of bipolar type 2 and did put me on some medication to help stabilize my mood. But essentially, towards the end, it was really extreme cycles of overworking to the point where people were nervous that I was going to collapse somewhere. to crashing, having to be in bed for days because I hadn't been sleeping, hadn't been eating, hadn't been drinking my water. And eventually I got to the end of my master's. And unfortunately that ending was not a nice ending with me and my supervisor, which is also unfortunate that that's a bit of a common theme when you're finishing up your degree in grad school. You know, I told him that I was, you know, I was submitting my thesis. I had a few months left or a few months of kind of grace that I'd given them to wrap up the paper and to submit it. And he wanted me to stay for a PhD and I did not. And there was a bit of a threat of a reference letter not being written in a nice way. And that's kind of a whole other side tangent, but yeah. I did end up leaving regardless of that threat. And we have a good relationship today. Like you mentioned, I'm doing my PhD now and I needed reference letters to get into this program and he was able to give it no problems. So time does heal. But when I went back home and I was figuring out what PhD program do I go to or what work program program do I go to? I was in therapy, which I had been in the whole time during my master's. So during that time, I mean, I did cancel on my therapist quite a bit, but I was in therapy throughout that time, seeing a psychiatrist towards the end on medication. But when I got home, I was like, you know what, maybe I should try yoga because in the lab, partially because I wasn't sleeping and I wasn't eating, I was constantly bumping into things. And I was like, you know what? Yoga would be really good for like some mind-body awareness so that I'm not like showing up with bruises that I don't remember where I'm getting them from. And that's where there was a real turning point for me. And it was a simple, super popular like yoga with Adrian, like 15-minute video video And I was in my final shavasana, bawling my eyes out, just feeling like my body wasn't so anxious and vibrating so hard and just so tense. I was able to achieve this glimpse of a parasympathetic state. And then from there, it didn't take me long to go, okay, well, I need to teach this to other people yesterday. And then through my yoga teacher training, that's where I really learned so much about breath work and meditation. And my love of neuroscience and seeing how they all intersect really dove me into what I teach now to other people. And I was doing this while I was working in biotech industry, learning these things, getting my teacher training. And then After a little over two years in biotech, I decided to go back and do my PhD because there was a big, you know, pro-con list as to why. And honestly, they're both quite equal, the pros and the cons. But it was honestly a calling at the end of the day. Like when I looked at the pros and the cons, I was like, you know, I think I'm going to regret not trying to go get my PhD at this point in my life. It's been a wildly different experience than the experience I've had in my master's. And I'm happy to share more about that too. You know, a big part is the supervisor in the lab. And I also give myself a lot of credit for it because I took a lot of time to figure out, well, if I'm going to go back, what am I going to go back for, right? Like what's important to me? The tools that I have now make it so that the PhD is a lot easier It's just a lot easier. It's hard work. And some days it feels like a lot of work. And some days it's really frustrating and confusing. But there's been a lot of gifts and learning. And overall, my sentiment has been that I feel good doing my PhD, which is also, I think, too rare sometimes. for people to feel.

Ksenia: 14:11

Yeah, definitely. That's my thinking right now. I'm almost surprised that your experience with your master's didn't deter you from doing a PhD, in a good way. I think it's rare. I think after we go through such dramatic maybe challenge and burnout and have health consequences I don't think it's very common to want to go back and it's showing how much work you actually did and how much you figured out in that time in between and I would like to get a bit more into that and also the differences between environments. Like do you think so first coming back to your master's lab master's environment and maybe supervision a little bit. Yes, of course. Do you think it was mainly the environment and the outside pressure or your own patterns or both that led to kind of exploding at the end?

Sylvie: 15:19

I would have to say that it was more me. I do have to take ownership, but what I will say, and the reason I say that is because I got a bit of supervision at the beginning and then I was kind of left to my own. And the way that I read that now is that there were no expectations for me to discover anything throughout my masters that would lead to a publication and that they kind of just accepted it and almost like put me out to pasture. So there's a lot of internal drive, again, with healthy elements, but with unhealthy elements. They say that a lot, right, about your attributes that, you know, they're neither good or bad. There's always kind of like a mix of both. But towards the end, it was very visibly evident that I was not doing well. Like basically anybody that was working in the lab or around the lab could see visually that I was not doing well. Like my skin was, honestly, my skin was a bit of a different color, like breaking out. I was losing weight rapidly. Like it was very obvious that I wasn't doing well. And my supervisor at no point mentioned anything about it or me slowing down or anything. In a way, I felt like maybe he was being encouraging of this. And you know, it's hard to know what his role, quote unquote, should have been. But I know there are supervisors that, like I'm thinking the supervisor I have now, if that were to present itself, he would maybe ask some, he would come to me about it or he would ask somebody in the lab about it if they noticed anything. And it also speaks to my other supervisor's own fears and insecurities about publishing. I think that at the time, my project was the one that was closest to being published. And with, you know, competing for grants and funding, he probably really wanted me to keep my fire going to push it through to the end. But that didn't end up working out so well.

Ksenia: 17:43

Yeah. Yeah. this is yeah this is always such a challenge like how do we also understand them because they are in this publish or perish loop where they have to produce something but and then they have to motivate their students their the people working under them but at what cost

Sylvie: 18:09

yeah

Ksenia: 18:09

now how do also how do they decide what how bad the situation is and yeah I understand that it can be also really awkward to bring this up and talk about it for them but yeah at the end of the day we I guess we all just have to show maybe a little bit more humanity and think about other people as humans first and not just little lab monkeys that just are doing things and so yeah it's it's a shame that he was put in this situation but maybe also he should have or could have reacted differently and

Sylvie: 18:52

yeah it's a very hard role i will say um to be a supervisor but just because it's a hard role that doesn't mean that um you know everybody should you know should's not my favorite word but like should be in it at the end of the day something that i think about a lot because of course I'm in the fourth year of my PhD, so I'm gearing up to start to write my thesis. I'm wrapping up experiments and thinking about my next steps after this. And when you're a supervisor, your students are not, this might sound silly, but they're not really your employees. They're your trainees. A big part of your role is to train them. They're coming in you know not experienced and it's like a very almost tender age that you get right because you're like finishing your your undergrad and kind of 20s through to mid-30s right like a lot of big things in life happen right so having that in mind when you're deciding to be a supervisor that that's kind of like the the group you're working with I think is important and not not pushed enough right just like you said it's it's publish or perish that is like the big thing

Ksenia: 20:13

but I guess it's I mean it's also to an extent a personal choice of how you're going to approach it whether you're going to see that as you are bringing up the next generation of scientists and you are supposed to train them to be good scientists first and foremost or you're approaching them as your hands that are going to do your experiments and get your publications and get your grants and yeah pay your salary after all so it is it is a struggle and it's a lot to be said i guess about the culture overall the academic culture and the publisher parish the magazine the scientific journals and all that it's probably a huge topic that let's not get into it today but i also want to ask you like your colleagues at the time so you said that it was visibly noticeable and obvious that something is not going well but so nobody talked about it nobody tried to ask you if you're doing okay or

Sylvie: 21:17

yeah yeah yeah so they did they did um my colleagues did i had um a partner at the time he was overseas for the the last part of my masters he was doing a postdoc um he was concerned um my family who was in Ottawa at the time I did my master's in Montreal it's like two hours away they were concerned friends were concerned I was no shortage of being concerned but in my mind of course keeping in mind that the behavior was um in a category that would be considered non-functional, right? That like required medication at the time to dim everything down. In my mind, all my behavior was justified because it was temporary. It was to just get the paper out. And everything was kind of justified under that lens. And it was the classic, and I... am all over myself with this one, which really, really helps. The if I do this, then I can have this. The if I get this, then I can feel like this. And that is just such a killer. But that's something that I really couldn't even at that point, at that point, that stage, I couldn't even entertain those things. That happened quite a bit, quite a bit later. which has helped my PhD a lot because, I mean, that still certainly happens, right? I mean, like I am writing papers, publishing papers, you know, sometimes you get grants, sometimes you don't get grants. Like that's still very much something that I can slip into if I'm not paying attention.

Ksenia: 23:08

So what are the red flags for you that you are... you know that, okay, if I see this, if I see this little details or if I see this little behaviors, I know that I have to stop in my tracks and kind of reevaluate, reassess my behavior or,

Sylvie: 23:25

yeah. Oh, this is such a good question. Yes. So one thing is me overscheduling myself is a big one. And the reason why I say this, and when I mean overscheduling, I mean, you know, certainly putting a lot in my day, but even just the things like putting in too much detail, like, hey, I have to go to the gym and it has to be at this time and I have to do this. Even like little things like that, if I'm starting to get into that space. And of course, if you let it build like that, it just tends to keep building a bit more. It's almost like a feed forward thing. And it's because I see it as a red flag because I need to do all those things to feel a certain way. And ultimately I can feel that way already. That hasn't gone anywhere. I don't have to do anything to feel whatever it is, right? Whether it's me wanting to feel proud of myself or me wanting to feel like I've had a productive day. I've put something out into the world that, you know, I'm happy about. So overscheduling is one, um, rushing. Like if I'm, if I'm doing tasks and I'm like trying to cut corners or I'm rushing, it's kind of like, well, what's so urgent? Is there really anything that urgent? Um, And it gets you into almost that burnout energy because then your stress response is activated. And then if things that nourish me are starting to fall away, then that's also something that I pay attention to. And that is things like movement. That is things like taking time to make a good meal for myself or having a bath before I go to bed. And that's because now I'm starting to take away things that put energy back in, which is something that I really, once I start to do that, because of course life happens and we can't fit everything in. And like I said, if you're overscheduling and try to fit everything in, that's a red flag already. And so if I, I guess maybe the last thing I'll say is, around this, which kind of goes with the, if you're rushing, is just general impatience or not being flexible. If I'm getting into a space where I'm getting impatient with others, if I'm getting impatient with myself, if I'm not very flexible with myself, like for example, kind of the vein I was going down of, you know, not letting my self-care things fall off, but let's say it does one day. because life happens and I was on the call with my sister for an hour and didn't get to do my little yoga practice before bed. If I'm getting all worked up about it, then I'm either, yeah, either making it mean something about myself or I'm getting into old thought patterns and scripts that are not serving me. And those were the thought patterns and scripts that led me to burning out at that time you know the the feeling like i'm not doing enough or the feeling like i'm what whatever you fill in the blank enough when really you know you just being you like you have all those things already it's a very um it's certainly a dance You know, you definitely do like a few steps forward, a few steps back, a few steps to the side. But I would say those four things are things that I watch out for. So that is over scheduling, rushing through things, self-care, normal self-care, nourishing things, falling off, and then impatience or not feeling flexible.

Ksenia: 27:49

Yeah. I really love the point about lack of flexibility that you brought up because I feel like it's maybe part of the, I don't know, perfectionist tendencies that you have to do everything and you have to do everything perfectly, be it in work or in your self-care, tending to yourself, moving and everything. So everything has to be perfect. And we... tend to get upset when life happens and some things don't go as we plan, right? But this is a good reminder. I think that this rigidity is not going to serve us because if something happens and we don't do a self-care routine, whatever that might look like for us, it's not... the time to beat ourselves up and just drop everything all self-care completely because we missed that one day or one thing and the same with work and also I do feel like we yeah we tend to view it as as kind of all or nothing and it is for me I think for me personally it's going to be a good reminder to catch myself when I'm being very inflexible and very like okay I have to do all of this by the book I have a checklist of work I have a checklist of self-care I need to take everything off no it's especially I'm in a very chaotic stage right now so life throws things at me and sometimes things don't work out the important part I guess here is that when we drop some self-care activities off that it's not a constant, right? It can happen that we work too much for a day or for a certain maybe short period of time, not like months and months or years and then like you said in your masters, but it might happen occasionally that we need to do this for a certain deadline, for a certain important thing, and we might drop certain activities that fail fuel us and refill our cup but then we don't do it all the time because then it's becoming a problem and a pattern that is unsustainable right

Sylvie: 30:15

yeah exactly and I'm so with you with the with the work checklist and the self-care checklist and it's you know it's great to to have those and it's great to have those systems to help guide us, but they're to guide us. They're not a stick to then come and like, you know, beat us with if we don't hit every single thing that day. And really the saying that I say like all the time on my channel is the cells that, you know, fire together, wire together. And it's this element of what you're choosing to focus on, you strengthen, right? So if I put my 110% every single day, yet I'm focusing on the one or two things I didn't get to, then that's what's going to grow and that's the circuit that's going to strengthen versus looking at everything I did do or all the attempts I had or... not even necessarily all the actions I did, but maybe how I did those actions. And seeing that from a different way, that's the circuit that's going to strengthen and grow, which is a much more productive circuit, especially for people that are in this camp all the time. I think we're under the impression that criticism does help us grow, and it does. But there is definitely a scale, right? And you beating yourself up all the time, your brain's not gonna learn something different if you're telling it that to yourself all the time. So yeah, a bit of grace, a bit of compassion, trying to redirect to a different perspective. But I think what I'll say is that it takes time. Just going back to the impatience thing, especially when we're changing things in the brain, you know, you need a lot of stimulation. You need a lot of practice. And that's what I thought or what I think meditation does really well is that it's... practice right that you do every day depending of course on which style you pick in a way it is that high frequency stimulation if you're taking five ten minutes a day setting an intention for your meditation or doing a style that is designed to give you the outcome that you're hoping for right whether it's elevated mood or feeling more relaxed or quieting your mind down and That's been a really big key to how I've been able to go through my PhD like I have, but I've been meditating for years. And I would say that I started feeling some differences. I mean, it's hard to pinpoint exactly, exactly when, but I would say a few months, right? So in this world where And it's like, it's not our fault, right? I don't think we all came into this world wanting to be super impatient, but with how our world is designed, social media, consumerism, it's very easy to feel like you're behind. And if you're feeling like you're behind, how are you going to feel motivated to carry out some of these things tools that can help you right that are not immediate

Ksenia: 34:14

I feel like there is also a lot of promise out there that you will try this and it's going to make it immediately better so yeah we do get a bit discouraged maybe disillusioned if we don't get the result right away and it's easy to then just drop it and not actually see any real benefits of Whichever practices we're talking about, be it meditation or yoga or breath work or, I don't know, cold plunges, whatever is the latest craze. Exactly. I think this is a beautiful segue into exactly what I wanted to ask you because in this world that is very focused on productivity, consistency, and like a very rigid way of what it means or what success means as well, it is very difficult to... then rewire your brain into being more compassionate and recognizing your patterns and the way you're slipping into them and allowing yourself that grace, allowing yourself to step back, slow down, do more of the things that fuel you instead of just, no, this has to drop off because I have to focus on work. I imagine, I think... It's true, it's probably what you're feeling as well, that yoga is helping here a lot, yoga and meditation in general, right? So can you go into even more details about how your yoga practice has been helping you with this process?

Sylvie: 35:51

Yes, I most definitely can. So in the beginning... In the beginning, I certainly focused on yoga. Like I said, right, I went back home after my master's and was figuring out my next steps. I was also going through a breakup at the time, right? So there was a lot of big life change that was happening. And like I mentioned, I was on medication and I'd been in therapy. So those are all things that were like constant before getting to this point. And the biggest thing that yoga helped me with in the beginning was to quiet my mind down and to feel glimpses of being relaxed in my body and in my brain. Glimpses. It was certainly not the entire time. And of course, the more I did it, the more it began to grow. And I was like, I need to teach this to people. Let's do this. And so I did my 200-hour... I was I had a job at the time in a biotech company, which was a startup. So it was also quite busy. So there were certainly similar feelings that I was being confronted with as to my master's and workload wise experience. there was definitely, it was definitely comparable, right? Like in startup life, there's always something that you can be doing. You know, there's people sending emails on the weekends and texting each other and all that. But I was doing my yoga teacher training and I was teaching yoga. And then after my teacher training, really starting to get into my meditation practice. And really the movement definitely helped me And it felt great and connecting my breath to my movement felt great. But sitting down and doing my meditation practice, I think, is where most of my rewiring happened when it comes to the beliefs I had about myself or even being able to identify patterns. that I was experiencing that, sure, maybe my therapist told me, but there's a difference between intellectually knowing something and then also knowing it in your body deeply. And so meditation helped a lot with that. And, you know, I'd be in my work day and I could feel myself, maybe somebody said something and I perceived it as they, I jumped, so far ahead and either stress myself out or I perceived it as a slight towards me or as a criticism that burned a hole in my heart. And I could actually see those things starting and not react to it right away. I was like, whoa. And that's where the constant meditation practice happened and really helped with that. And then what the breath work really helped with which I still use today, is for when I start feeling really acute, almost high levels of stress. So let's say I'm really tired one day because I didn't get a good sleep. And, you know, my partner says something that he always says, but it doesn't bother me. But for this day, for whatever reason, it's bothering me a lot. Yeah. The breathing practices can really help you put a pause on that panic response. So as you feel your body getting warmer, as you feel like, and everybody feels a bit different, but sometimes I can get the tingling in like my arms and feet, like everything's coming to center, I'm getting warm. I feel like, you know, the classic like fight, flight, like, or get me in a hole somewhere. Like I don't want to deal with this. And the breathing practices have been like insanely instrumental. Like I feel like I can turn it down and that's helped my relationships immensely. It's helped me do more things than I possibly couldn't have possibly imagined. Like, you know, go to different presentations, even just being a yoga teacher, right? Like standing in front of a room, guiding people is not easy. And I think the largest group that I've done it for in between 150, 200 people, like it's nerve wracking, right? And speaking of being compassionate towards yourself, you as a yoga teacher, right? I'm thinking to myself, I can't go out there and be like super stressed out and try and guide these people to a relaxing experience. But breath work is able to really help me get into a zone where I might still feel uncomfortable, but I'm actually equipped to deal with those things. So I would say that what it's evolved to is, to right now and what I try to teach people is that meditation is really great for, I would say, rewiring. And that can be a specific limiting belief, that could be creation, right? Like trying to, I mean, there are manifesting meditations, but really what it is is that you're strengthening a circuit of something you want. And really all that we want is a feeling. You know, so whether it's the career, the relationship, the family, the house. Yes, you want those things, but you want those things because you want a feeling. And in meditation, you can tap into that feeling and basically, yeah, tap into that feeling and help you feel it already. And that just helps the process so much more. And then for the breath work is really for stress regulation, especially acute kind of something comes up, you get elevated. Okay, how can I turn it down so that I can use all the other tools I have? Because when you can't turn it down, all those other tools disappear, right? Like you don't have them in your toolkit anymore. Your frontal lobe is like out to lunch and your lizard brain is doing all the things that it's really great at doing, which is not... using your cognition to go grab the tool to help you deal with the, whatever it is.

Ksenia: 42:25

Yeah, definitely. We don't always want our lizard brain to run the show.

Sylvie: 42:30

No, no, not always.

Ksenia: 42:32

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Breathwork is so in, like, it's so helpful in the moment. It's, I think sometimes overlooked as, as such, because it might be seen as a little bit more, weird and well meditation yoga in general i think i'll come back to that can be seen as a little bit and weird and but then it's actually so physiological because you are going through this in your body and you are actually changing things happening in your body so it is not just something who went out there um Coming to this topic a little bit in more detail. So you are a scientist, you're a yoga teacher. Have you ever experienced any pushback or criticism or comments about like, how do you marry these two parts that might be seen as conflicting or maybe in some cases they are conflicting?

Sylvie: 43:37

Yes, that's a good question. That's such a good question. And you're very uniquely positioned to ask that question too. So I appreciate you doing that. So, you know, I think you can understand why I do marry the two, of course, based off of my background and my interests and then having my personal transformation through these tools, wanting to marry them together. And some of the pushback I get is not so much from the scientific community, but at times the yoga community, because I'll get accused of westernizing the tools too much or potentially whitewashing the tools too much. And I can completely appreciate Well, maybe I'm going to take that back. I don't think I can completely appreciate because I am a white woman in the Western world that is, you know, from a very academic background that has taken these tools. But what I will say is that the science, in my view, does not take away from the spiritual components of these tools and that they both can exist. And what I do think is such a shame, which you kind of alluded to, is that a lot of people don't try the tools because of their origins, because they come from a spiritual origin. So to them, it's harder for them to grasp. It's a bit intangible. It's harder to make real and to understand. And that's where I think science is a great tool. avenue or place to pull that from and the science um I wouldn't have a channel if this wasn't the case is very overwhelming in how beneficial they are um I truly if no and this is not going to be the case if no new research came out I could probably continue to create on Synaptic Sylvie for like decades there is so much great resources out there um So if people can get bought in that way and then experience the transformation, that is a great win for the spiritual side as well, right? So I see them both having a ton of merit, a ton of value, and I think it's a bit unfortunate that there isn't kind of an acceptance of both, right? Like nothing is either good or bad, right? So...

Ksenia: 46:26

Yeah, I do think that these two sides, they are not opposing. They are coexisting, as you said, and they are both a plus, both a benefit to people wanting to try it out and experience the benefits for themselves. I do sometimes feel a little bit torn because on one hand, I don't need scientific research to know that it works because I've experienced that firsthand. I know multiple people who've experienced this firsthand. But at the same time, as a former scientist, I love when I see a paper and it's like, yay, it's proving what I know to be true. And it's out there and skeptics can maybe look at that and be surprised. a little bit more convinced and it's good. We all need a bit more yoga, I think.

Sylvie: 47:18

I think so too. And one thing I'd like to add to that is, and this is in part my motivation to share the science behind these things, is to not boost my ego. My day is full of science. I don't need any more. And my research is not in this topic, like my actual PhD. So this is something that I do on the side because I love it. But having a belief that something will work is a huge component of it actually working. And that's where the research studies can really help people because it's like, here it is empirically. This is statistically significant. And that is a huge component of the transformation as well.

Ksenia: 48:09

Yeah, that's a great point.

Unknown: 48:12

Yeah.

Ksenia: 48:12

Well, can we touch upon a little bit how the Synaptic Sylvia was born and how you started this whole content creation educator journey? So you said that you wanted to share all these tools and practices with people. And yeah, how was that?

Sylvie: 48:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So Synaptic Sylvia has taken a few different forms before it's taken the form that it's on now. I started it when I finished my master's and I was figuring out whether I was going to go do a PhD or if I was going to go work. And I didn't get my job, I would say, maybe six or seven months after my master's. So I was working as a barista at the time, but I definitely needed some more mental stimulation than the barista job gave, although I did love it. I did. I kind of romanticized it a bit, but it is hard work. So I created Synaptic Sylvie and it was more basic science education, right? I mean, my yoga journey was just starting at the time. So it was very much like Q&A, kind of like how does coffee work on the brain, things like that. And then when I finished my yoga teacher training, it was during the pandemic. We started before the pandemic, but by the time we finished, it was during. So no yoga studios were open and nobody was really hiring. And so the channel then changed to be more yoga focus. There was a bit of science in between, but it was more geared towards the stretches, the asanas, the postures, three things you can do to relieve your low back, that kind of thing. And then I would say it was only two years ago that I really started bringing in both the neuroscience and then breathwork and meditation together more intentionally. And I have to give credit to somebody else. There was someone who sent me a video of a really successful creator, M on the Brain. And I think she was doing the kind of like three things I do for my stress response as a neuroscientist. And she was like, you should do that. And so I started doing some of those and that's when my account really started to grow. And I've been sharing more and more around meditation in the brain, breathwork in the brain, and I'm continuing to refine the account as I've been growing it, which is something that is a lot of fun to do. It's also kind of challenging to do, right? Because there is so many things that I'm interested in. But the biggest thing that I would like to help people with in particular is the... real-time application of those tools, you know? And I hear, you know, through people on my channels, as well as people that I know in real life, either through the yoga space or science space, that it is quite challenging to be able to know when you are in a really tough, stressful spot, right, how to get yourself out of it reliably, sustainably, and in a way that really works for you, as well as having a meditation practice that really works well for you and your goals. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people saying, I know meditation is good for me, but I can't seem to do it, or I can't seem to quiet my mind down, or I can't seem to find the time, or I do it for like a month, and then I drop it off, and then I try and do it again. That is kind of the area that I'm hoping I can serve people the most. But Synaptic Sylvie, it's fun. I guess it's kind of like any project, right? It's always a work in progress, trying to refine exactly what I want to share and how I want to serve people.

Ksenia: 52:23

It's an evolution, you know, it's allowed to change, right? Yes, absolutely. New topics and new things. So you're also a podcast host, right? You also have your own podcast, Build Your Best Brain, right? Yes, yeah. And you do so much. So you're very active as a content creator. You're a PhD student, which we all know can be very busy, can be very time-consuming. Can you share briefly about your system, your approach to productivity so that you do all these things you... marry all these passions and all these projects and at the same time you function.

Sylvie: 53:11

That's really, really sweet. I'm happy to share that. And I will say that that is, I guess before I share my tips, I think what you said about evolution is a very important thing to say. And that for me, And it helps in part being a PhD student, because you kind of live like semester by semester. Each semester is going to take on a different priority. So for example, this semester, it's so funny, this semester is over. But this coming semester is going to be pretty focused on experiments. And it's going to be focused on continuing to refine my message with Synaptic Sylvie and creating content through there. I don't think it'll be so much podcast episodes because it's just simply not going to have enough time. But of course, if I feel inspired to make a video, then I'll make it. But I won't put so much pressure on myself to edit it and that kind of thing. So I think knowing that different seasons, you're going to have different priorities. And then creating a schedule helps, but of course, with the caveat that I mentioned before, that it can't be too strict. And so a big part for me is knowing when is it PhD Sylvie time? When is PhD Sylvie time? I'm not creating content for Synaptic Sylvie. If I have an idea, I'll write it down, but then I leave it. I'm not going to respond to my DMs after 3, 4 p.m. because that's Sylvie going to the gym time or Sylvie reading a scientific paper time. And then for Synaptic Sylvie, I do schedule time to create and I have a running list of ideas and I pick and choose what feels most aligned. And I think the biggest thing that helps me with those times is to and i this is maybe a bit strong of a word but to not pollute it with thoughts about other things that i need to be doing because then i know that i've dedicated time for that and again with the the flexibility right like if i do have a really big creative streak looking at my other things and being like you know can i can i like fit this in in a way that's not going to stress me out or feel guilty about um or also with synaptic sylvie if there's a week that you know i'm not feeling so creative or i'm just not feeling it you know like what is what is the minimum amount that I feel comfortable putting in because I love my community and I want to continue to create on my channel, but I'm not going to be overextending myself for them because that doesn't serve them either. So scheduling is a big part, but it's really around my attitude and how I schedule everything. And another big thing that I do is is journal. And that's the redirecting stimulation part. And that's basically things that I want to focus on. And that's often for me is what I deem to be successful or progress, right? So when it comes to synaptic, so because we can, a part of burnout as well, or doing multiple things is, is walking away feeling maybe unsatisfied about what you had done or feeling impatient about the progress you've made when in reality there's been many little moments where you've created a lot of progress you just haven't noticed it and that's where the writing down happens so i'll have it in my the notes section of my phone um you know what are the ways that um massive phd success has shown up today I say massive. It can be small. It can be, you know, the antibody came in on time. So I was able to aliquot it and start an experiment tomorrow. That's a success. It can be a paper getting accepted, right? Like I have a paper that got accepted and I went and got a massage, which I would have never done before. But it's because like I'm not used to celebrating those things.

Unknown: 57:57

Mm-hmm.

Sylvie: 57:57

But if I'm not celebrating those things, then I'm not building a circuit that is satisfied with all the great work that I do. So, you know, it's scheduling, having seasons for certain things, having kind of your attitude be right about it. So when you're dedicating time, you're not polluting it with thoughts about other things. And then the journaling exercise I find helps me a lot in celebrating the little progress I have in those areas so that I don't get into a space of like, oh, if I only had more time to dedicate to my PhD or if I only had more time to dedicate to Synaptic Sylvie, then blank. You know, I can feel that way already if I choose to. Yeah,

Ksenia: 58:45

I think I really... I love the point about celebration. I think it's so important and so often overlooked. And as silly as it sounds, we need to start celebrating even little steps and little things. They might seem little, but they add up in our bigger projects and bigger goals. They all count and we tend to just kind of brush them off and move on to the next thing and only have sort of eyes on the prize and not on all the steps that we're taking to get there. So I love the getting the massage part. I think I need to adopt something like that as well. But I do treat myself as well with even little achievements or I try to notice this as much as I can as well. And then the part about non-polluting your brain with other non-related thoughts and non-related activities, or I need to do so many things, I need to do this for that. What do you do? So you have a running list of other ideas that then you put things on and you don't look at it. So let's say you're in PhD Sylvie mode and an idea comes for Synaptic Sylvie. What do you do?

Sylvie: 1:00:01

I... I have a running list on my computer. Sometimes it's so funny, if I'm walking around and an idea comes, I'll text it to myself and then I put it on the running list for my computer and then I don't look at it. And for me, Synaptic Sylvie is Saturday morning. Saturday morning I'll look at my running ideas. after my meditation, right? I have a good night's sleep after my meditation, look at my running list and then pick and choose what I decide to post for that week. Sometimes in the lab too, like there are a lot of periods where you're kind of like waiting around for incubations. If an idea comes up, I do feel comfortable to just record it and then it's in there.

Ksenia: 1:00:49

Yeah, I guess the... regular meditation and the habit the practice of meditation kind of constantly redirecting your focus or um quite or not quieting down your mind because it's not really happening but yeah redirecting your your attention redirecting your focus is really helpful because sometimes when this creative surges come up it's It's like they're pulling you in all these different directions and you're getting really excited about an idea. Talking about myself, I'm getting really excited about an idea. I want to put all of myself immediately onto that and then it's easy to kind of get so scattered. So this is where I think meditation is so instrumental and so important to try to get into the habit of pausing and okay this thought is out of my brain now I wrote it down I can come back to it later and

Sylvie: 1:01:45

yeah

Ksenia: 1:01:46

now is this that is taking my focus is this my my other priority

Sylvie: 1:01:51

I will add to that because I think it's great and it's incredible it is an incredible feeling to be really excited about an idea and then wanting to like go all in it's such a gift and that in itself is a celebration I think and And what helps me with that, because I've certainly felt that and then, you know, but it's PhD Sylvie time. And I can't, that deserves the time it needs as well. Sometimes with excitement can come a sense of urgency. And that's kind of where I go, you know, well, why does this feel so urgent to me? Like the excitement is great and, you know, can be celebrated, of course. But the idea is not going anywhere right like there's no need for me to dive all in on it right now or the you know the course idea or the business idea or you know the students i'm supposed to serve they're not they're not going anywhere right because i'm still here i still have the idea this can only be created by me And so that helps me a lot when I get really excited about something and I feel like I have to drop everything and like run to it. It's like, well, what's the rush? You know?

Ksenia: 1:03:15

This is so helpful. So thank you so much for this. You're welcome. I need to write it down. I need to put it on my wall. The idea is still there and I'm still here. I can still create things. Of course. All right. Thank you for this. Let's start to slowly wind down. I do have questions. That kind of like rapid fire little questions. Ooh, cool. A few of them, so not too long. What is, you mentioned that you're really enjoying breath work for like rapid stress relief when you're in acute moments of getting agitated, activated. What is your favorite breath work to do in such moments?

Sylvie: 1:03:56

Hmm. So my favorite to do on the go is a six count inhale, pause for two, and then an eight count exhale through the mouth. This is when I'm like walking and like other people are around. So I can like sneak it in and nobody notices. My favorite to do when I'm home alone and I'm really activated is the bumblebee breath, the Bromery breath. Yeah. Yeah, the long exhale with the vibration, just like I feel like I'm having like a shower on my insides. It just washes everything out.

Ksenia: 1:04:32

I feel you on that. I love that one as well. So you do post, so I do think that I kind of know the answer to that. You do post yourself meditating in the morning. So is morning your favorite time to meditate or do you also do it at other times of the day?

Sylvie: 1:04:49

Morning is my favorite, which of course you know. I don't do it at night. I do other things to wind down at night, but I will meditate as I commute sometimes. This is maybe a bit antisocial of me, but I'll put in my headphones but not listen to anything and kind of have a few visuals that I go in my head to relax and calm down or to kind of bring about a certain feeling. Okay.

Ksenia: 1:05:21

Yeah. Okay. Right. Let's do two more. What is your favorite brain fact? Ooh.

Sylvie: 1:05:31

Oh. One. That we have more synapses in the brain than stars in the Milky Way. I know. I know. Just so many... So many connections in the brain. So, so, so, so many. This is

Ksenia: 1:05:51

beautiful, actually. This is a really beautiful visual.

Sylvie: 1:05:56

Right? Yeah. We're all basically little universes in our skull, truly. Amazing.

Ksenia: 1:06:04

All right. So last one is more going towards the yoga and yoga philosophy. Do you have like a single concept or a single maybe yama or niyama or something that is really... important for you personally on your journey or maybe influencing how you're viewing things that has influenced you the most? That is a good question.

Sylvie: 1:06:29

There's just so many. But one that's coming to mind now, which makes me think that's maybe meant for everybody to hear, is Ahimsa, which is the first one, which is around nonviolence. And I see it, I know it's one for how we interact with the world, but I see it as how we interact with ourselves. And really how we interact with ourselves is how we interact with the world and the world interacts with us, you know? So ahimsa, nonviolence, practicing nonviolent ways with myself, I would say, has been a really big one. But there's so many juicy, beautiful philosophical threads when it comes to yoga. But that's the one that's coming to mind today.

Ksenia: 1:07:25

It is coming back to the conversation about self-compassion and kind of nonviolent communication, even with ourselves, the way we talk to ourselves inside yoga. this little universe here

Sylvie: 1:07:36

exactly yeah exactly

Ksenia: 1:07:40

well I think we arrived to the end of our conversation I think I don't have any other questions I will put all the links and everything the way to find you in the description if there is anything coming up for you like any workshops any events that you want to talk about

Sylvie: 1:07:58

yeah sure I mean so For those who live in Montreal, I'm not sure when this will be posted, but May 3rd, I'm hosting a Breathe and Rewire workshop at a yoga studio in Montreal called Akasha, which will be a two-hour offering May 3rd that will be going through the neurobiology of stress as well as the biomechanics of breathing. And then there's a very big practical component where we go through different stretches for our breathing muscles, go through like eight different types of breath work, and it's a really beautiful experience so if people are in Montreal they can certainly come to that but otherwise you can find me on Synaptic Sylvie and there are new things cooking up that are in its infancy so I won't share too many details but they can find all that there

Ksenia: 1:08:49

yeah thank you Well, thank you so much. I really, really, really enjoyed our conversation. I know we kind of have to wind it down, but I don't want to. So that's why it's taking a while. So thank you for dedicating this time to me and to this chat. I loved it. And well, thank you for listening. And I'll see everybody here soon.