SWAN EGG Part 3: Understanding your brain
When I first created SWAN EGG, I wasn't thinking about neuroscience. I simply noticed that these areas seemed to have a significant impact on how I felt and functioned. (Sleep, Water, Art/creativity, Nature, Exercise, Good/healthy food, God/spiritual grounding.)
Years later, I started learning more about the brain and discovered something fascinating: there are neurological reasons why these things matter.
More than physical health
Growing up, I was taught that many of these habits were about physical health. Exercise was good for my heart. Healthy food gave my body nutrients. Water kept me hydrated.
All of those things are true. But in recent years, I’ve started to learn more about self-care - particularly brain care - which has changed how I think and feel about myself.
For most of my life, my brain was just... there. It kept me alive. It helped me think. But I had never stopped to consider what my brain actually needed in order to function well.
For many years, my motivation for healthy eating and exercise was linked to appearance. The message I absorbed was that eating well and exercising would help me lose weight. We lose weight to look a certain way. If I look a certain way, I’ll feel better about myself.
The problem was that this was never a particularly motivating goal. If your self-worth already feels fragile, changing what you eat today doesn’t suddenly change the beliefs you’ve carried for years.
It felt like a lot of effort for not much reward.
Now my motivation is different. I still care about my physical health, but that’s no longer my main reason for doing these things. I’m caring for my brain – the organ that shapes my thoughts, my emotions, every decision I make.
That feels like a much more worthwhile reason to take care of myself.
Looking behind the scenes
One of the things I love about neuroscience is that it helps to explain what is happening behind the scenes.
For example, let’s think about sleep.
Sleep is far more than rest. I often think of my brain as being like a factory. When I sleep, the day shift clocks off and the nighttime maintenance and reset shift starts. The office clerk files away and consolidates memories and experiences. The cleaner clears away metabolic waste from the day’s activity. A technician recalibrates the brain’s emotional alarm system, adjusting its sensitivity so that tomorrow’s small frustrations don’t trigger an emergency response.
Water isn’t just good for our skin or kidneys. It is one of our brain's delivery systems. Nutrients, oxygen and chemical messages are constantly travelling where they're needed. The brain is around 75% water, so it isn't surprising that hydration matters. Without enough water, our blood volume drops slightly, so delivering oxygen and nutrients becomes less efficient, affecting our concentration, memory and mood. We can still think - it just takes more effort. Drinking more water doesn’t become a super power, but it removes unnecessary friction.
Creativity is another area where neuroscience has helped me understand my own experience. When I'm creating a collage, I notice tiny details as I paint papers – the way colours overlap, unexpected textures appear, or a single swipe of a palette knife creates a pattern I'd never have planned. As I begin assembling an artwork, I'm constantly solving little problems, moving pieces around until the image and the feeling finally match what I'm trying to communicate. I connect with these pieces of paper at an emotional level, especially as I adjust a figure's posture or expression and watch a different emotion emerge.
As I become absorbed in those tiny decisions, the constant scramble of thoughts, to-do lists and interruptions begins to fade. My attention is drawn to the one small problem right in front of me, leaving me feeling calmer, more focused and engaged.
Brain scans show that creativity activates widespread networks across the brain, drawing on attention, imagination, memory, emotion and problem-solving all at once. When I read things like this, I think, "Yes... that's exactly what it feels like." Neuroscience has given me a deeper understanding of experiences I've been living for years.
Time in nature isn't just about getting fresh air, as much as my respiratory system appreciates that. It's about giving my overstimulated brain a break from daily demands, to-do lists and notifications. It's about being quietly engaged. Sometimes that means noticing the tiny details – the patterns on a leaf, the texture of bark, or the birds and insects going about their day. Other times it means lifting my eyes to the bigger picture: how vast the sky is, the way the clouds move, the height of the trees.
Researchers have found that spending time in green spaces can lower stress hormones, restore attention after mental fatigue and even change how our brains respond to stress. More recently, researchers have also explored the experience of awe – those moments when we encounter something so much bigger than ourselves that our perspective begins to shift.
Exercise isn’t only about strengthening our muscles and improving our fitness. It increases blood flow to the brain, supports the growth and maintenance of neural connections, releases chemicals that help regulate mood, and can improve attention, learning and emotional regulation. This is why so many people notice they think more clearly after going for a walk. Or, after going for a run – especially if I didn’t want to go in the beginning or I feel physically tired afterwards – I find myself feeling better emotionally and glad I went.
When it comes to nutrition, it’s not just our stomach that needs to be fed, but also our brain. Even though it makes up only a small percentage of our body weight, our brain uses around 20% of our energy. It's constantly drawing energy to keep billions of nerve cells communicating. A nourishing breakfast isn't simply filling your stomach. It's feeding the organ that's about to make thousands of decisions today. Large swings in blood sugar can leave us feeling foggy, irritable or unable to concentrate, whereas steady nourishment helps provide the consistent fuel our brains rely on.
The sense of awe I experience in nature is one of the reasons faith/spiritual grounding has always been part of my SWAN EGG framework. It doesn't magically remove life's struggles, but it helps orient my attention, reminds me of my worth and offers moments of peace in the middle of uncertainty. Sometimes that looks like quiet prayer, gratitude or reflection. Other times it's being reminded that I am part of something so much bigger than myself.
Holding those two truths together – that I am small in a vast world, yet deeply valuable within it – helps me see my worries in a healthier perspective. Instead of every thought feeling jumbled and circling back to my fears, my mind has somewhere else to rest.
Curiosity and compassion
Each area of SWAN EGG supports the brain in different ways. None of them is a magic fix. But together they create conditions in which our brains are more able to do what they were designed to do.
Understanding the brain hasn't suddenly made healthy habits easy. I still have ADHD. I still have days when sleep is hard, motivation disappears or life gets in the way. But the more I learn about my brain, the more fascinated I become.
Every new insight helps me understand my own mind with a little more curiosity and a lot more compassion.
Let's Stay Connected
If this post stirred something in you, I'd love to hear from you. You can find me over on Instagram and Facebook, where I share more about motherhood, art and neurodivergence.