Lara Boyd
Neuroscientist and physical therapist, professor at the University of British Columbia and director of its Brain Behaviour Lab
Lara Boyd (Neuroscientist and physical therapist, professor at the University of British Columbia and director of its Brain Behaviour Lab) has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Desirable difficulty in learning, Sleep and memory consolidation, Neuroplasticity.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Desirable difficulty in learning
Boyd rejects any magic number of practice hours and says practice must get progressively harder to keep changing the brain.
“you can't just practice at the same difficulty over and over again, right? It needs to get harder as you go”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 43:15
Boyd reports that the most neuroplastic change occurs when stroke patients succeed at a task only about half the time.
“when they're struggling, when their success rate is right around 50, 60%, so it's hard. this is when we're seeing the most neuroplastic change”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 18:00
Sleep and memory consolidation
Boyd says the science of what happens during sleep is unsettled but it is clear that without sleep there is no learning.
“I think that the jury is still out scientifically as to exactly what is happening in sleep. That is so essential. But certainly, we are very clear that if you don't sleep, you don't learn”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 30:46
Boyd says sleep is where chemical changes become structural changes, so cramming does not produce real learning.
“that is where that chemical change is being transformed into a structural change in the brain”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 31:00
Neuroplasticity
Boyd warns that disengagement also changes the brain, causing lost capacity in a use-it-or-lose-it manner.
“if we do nothing or we do very little, then our brain will also change. And it won't be for the better. You will actually lose capacity”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 25:30
Boyd argues that experience, not any drug, is the single largest driver of change in the brain.
“The single largest driver of change in our brain is our experience. There's no drug. There's no magic bullet”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 4:07
Language immersion
Boyd recommends that Robbins, as an auditory learner, learn Spanish through full immersion without English.
“you need a Spanish immersion. So you need to just go. In fact, this is your excuse. You need to just go to Spain, pick a great city”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 1:00:36
Manifestation and goal setting
Boyd suggests manifesting may work by triggering reinforcing dopamine release and priming the brain for change.
“you may be getting these dopamine releases that are highly reinforcing towards that goal that you have, towards what you're working towards”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 47:28
Mental rehearsal and visualization
Boyd says first-person visualization produces more learning and brain change than observing oneself from outside.
“if you're in your body, you're more first-person engagement, that mental rehearsal is going to have a better effect on learning and on brain change”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 44:33
Meditation
Boyd describes a study in which yoga practitioners, unlike runners, engaged memory structures after amygdala activation in stressful situations.
“in those runners, that amygdala lit up like a fireball. And I felt kind of silly because in our participants who practiced yoga”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 37:51
Cortisol and stress
Boyd explains that cortisol competes with growth factors that enable plasticity, likening it to cars occupying limited parking spots.
“cortisol has this negative effect of blocking the growth factors that allow the brain to be more neuroplastic. So they compete”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 37:55
High-intensity interval training
Boyd reports her lab found exercise paired with practice improved learning overnight, suggesting exercise aids memory consolidation.
“the exercise group had significantly improved from where they were the night before. They got better overnight with exercise, paired with the practice the day before”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 34:32
Stroke rehabilitation
Boyd states that a window of heightened brain excitability and plasticity after stroke lasts roughly 30 to 60 days.
“this window of excitability after stroke, for example, seems to last 30 to 60 days, perhaps”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 14:42
Educational neuroscience
Boyd says that teaching schoolchildren that their brains change when they learn improves their grades.
“if you take school children and you teach them their brain changes when they learn, their grades go up?”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: #1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the Same (Oct 12, 2026) · Listen from 3:37
Appearances
#1 Neuroscientist: After Listening to This, Your Brain Will Not Be the SameThe Mel Robbins Podcast · Oct 12, 2026 · 1 h 15 min
Mel Robbins talks with UBC neuroscientist Lara Boyd about neuroplasticity, how struggle, sleep, exercise and stress reduction rewire the brain, and how to make learning stick.
Often appears with
- Mel Robbins · 1 shared episode