Welcome back to the award-winning anxiety Slayer podcast. I'm Shan Vanderleak, and today I'm speaking with

Dr. Sarah Mackay about the neurobiology of womanhood.

Sarah is an Oxford University educated neuroscientist, educatorator, Media Commentator, Director of the Neuroscience Academy,

and author of the Woman's Brain Book, The Neuroscience of Health,

Hormones, and Happiness. Sarah lives on the northern beaches of

Sydney Australia with her Irish husband. Together they're raising two boys in a

cocker spaniel and they can be found sailing, surfing, mountain biking or skiing.

Welcome to Anxiety Slayer, Sarah.

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Shan.

It's a privilege to speak to you.

It's wonderful to speak with you.

I'm really grateful that you reached out and wanted to have this conversation because

our brains are just so fascinating and I'd love to begin talking about why you decided

to write a book about the female brain

and then we'll take it from there.

So I've been a neuroscientist pretty much my entire professional career.

I mean from school to university, my second year enrolled in a degree in neuroscience. This is in New Zealand back in the early 90s.

And it essentially, that's kind of been my career path.

I worked in medical research and academia for about the first sort of five years post my PhD research, working

doing, working in medical research, primarily focused on unraveling the

neurobiology of neuroplasticity,

and how and why does our brain change in response to experience.

...