Have you ever wondered why the same traumatic experience affects different people in completely different ways? Or why finding pleasure in life is so fundamental to our mental wellbeing?

To answer these questions and a whole host more, I’m joined this week by Dr Camilla Nord. Camilla leads the Mental Health Neuroscience Lab at the University of Cambridge and is author of the best-selling book, The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health.

In this fascinating conversation, we explore:

• How everything that impacts our mental health ultimately works through the brain, and why we often artificially separate ‘mind’ from ‘brain’ and ‘mental’ from ‘physical’ health
• Why pleasure is so fundamental to mental wellbeing that a loss of it is a core symptom of depression, and how activities like social laughter can boost mood by releasing natural opioids
• The fascinating overlap between chronic pain and depression circuits in the brain – revealing why experiencing one increases your risk of developing the other
• How motivation varies throughout the day based on our individual body clocks, and why morning people and night owls have different energy patterns
• Interoception – our internal body awareness – and how practices like meditation, yoga and body scanning can enhance this crucial sense
• Why the placebo effect is so powerful and how a doctor’s communication style can significantly impact treatment outcomes

Throughout the conversation, Camilla emphasises that there is no one size fits all approach and that it’s the small, consistent actions that ultimately end up transforming our lives.

Watch the video version of this interview – click below.