Redefining High Performance Through the Body-Brain Connection – Interview with Dr. Vanessa Harding

Dr. Vanessa Harding is a neuroscience-informed mental and physical performance coach and the founder of Ayla Life Performance. With a PhD in Materials Science and two decades leading global engineering and innovation teams, she brings a rare blend of scientific precision and human performance expertise.

Her work specialises in nervous system regulation, brain rewiring, and high-level cognitive optimisation, training executives, senior leaders, and entrepreneurs to access clarity, emotional intelligence, and super-level thinking under pressure without sacrificing their health.

Vanessa is known for transforming complex neuroscience into practical tools for elite performance, helping high achievers operate as creators of their external success and masters of their internal world. Her visionary approach is reshaping how leaders think, lead, and sustain excellence.

Vanessa Harding, Mental and Physical Performance Coach

Who is Dr. Vanessa Harding?

I’m a neuroscience-informed mental and physical performance coach and the founder of Ayla Life Performance Coaching. I hold a PhD in Materials Science and spent over 20 years leading innovation, engineering, and technical development teams across the UK and Denmark. I’m deeply energetic, curious, and passionate about life and human potential, and I thrive on connection, meaningful conversations, and helping people expand what they believe is possible.

Today, I integrate science, nervous system optimisation, and brain rewiring to support people in shifting out of constant pressure and into calm, high-functioning performance states. At the heart of my work is a simple belief: when the body is supported, the brain can access its most brilliant potential.

What inspired you to create Ayla Life Performance?

Ayla Life Performance emerged from lived experience and a shift in how I understood performance. During my corporate career, an unexpected teacher, a horse named Ayla, showed me that real influence comes from presence, not pressure. She responded to my internal state, revealing how deeply trust, connection, and communication are shaped by nervous system regulation.

At the same time, I witnessed highly capable people, including myself, push through relentless pressure while being praised for resilience, even as their bodies absorbed the cost. A close family member’s long-term mental health challenges brought this into sharp focus.

That’s when this work became a mission. Ayla Life Performance exists to help people move out of survival and into calm, sustainable excellence, so success is no longer achieved at the expense of health or humanity.

What makes your approach different from traditional coaching or therapy?

Most coaching focuses on mindset, and therapy often begins with a story. My work starts with the nervous system, the foundation beneath both. When the body is in a defensive state, the brain cannot access clarity, creativity, or strategic thinking, regardless of effort or intention, and trying to retrain your thoughts is too hard.

Once safety and calm are established, the brain rewiring training begins. My approach integrates neuroscience, neuroplasticity, autonomic nervous system training, and emotional intelligence to create real, lasting change. Once the body is regulated, the brain becomes available for higher-order thinking and new behavioural patterns. The work moves beyond surface change and becomes truly transformational, embedding new patterns that last.

Who is your ideal client and why do they need Ayla Life Performance?

I work with executives, senior leaders, and entrepreneurs who carry immense responsibility and expectation. They are capable, driven, and successful, yet they sense something is no longer aligned in how they’re operating.

Many arrive not because they want to optimise further, but because stress is dominating their inner world. They know they are too switched on too often, and they’re beginning to feel the consequences mentally, physically, and emotionally. There’s a growing concern not just about performance today, but about their health, clarity, and longevity in the years ahead.

They come to Ayla Life Performance because they want more than endurance. They want a way of working and leading that is sustainable, intelligent, and future-focused, where clarity replaces reactivity, energy replaces depletion, and success is no longer achieved at the cost of well-being.

What are the most common challenges you help clients overcome?

The challenges are rarely obvious; they accumulate quietly in roles that demand constant clarity, decisiveness, and availability. Many executives and entrepreneurs live under sustained cognitive and emotional load, operating in a chronic “always on” state that becomes normalised over time.

Internally, this shows up as mental overload, overthinking, and a loss of creative clarity. Physically, the body begins to signal distress through tension, disrupted sleep, anxiety, digestive issues, inflammation, or early stress-related dysfunction.

At the root is a nervous system stuck in protection rather than regulation. When internal safety is restored, higher-level thinking, emotional intelligence, and sustainable performance naturally re-emerge, allowing success to be led with clarity rather than strain.

How does the body-first approach redefine performance?

It reshapes performance from the inside out. Most performance models train mindset alone, yet mindset cannot override a dysregulated nervous system. When the body is under stress, the brain contracts into protection, limiting clarity and creativity regardless of experience or intelligence.

When the body is regulated, this is where the magic begins. The brain opens. Creativity, intuition, emotional intelligence, and logic integrate, unlocking a level of thinking most professionals rarely access. From this calm, energy-efficient state, clarity and decisive action flow naturally. This is where leadership becomes grounded and expansive and where sustainable, high-level performance truly lives.

Can you describe a typical transformation journey with you?

The journey begins with awareness, recognising how stress and protection patterns live in the body and drive behaviour. For many, this alone is transformational. There’s a powerful penny-drop moment when clients realise it’s not their thoughts driving old habits, but the internal state and feelings beneath them. That insight changes everything.

Next, we build regulation capacity: learning to shift state quickly and reliably, even under pressure. As the nervous system stabilises, neural rewiring begins. Different parts of the brain are retrained to activate together, unlocking higher-level thinking where creativity, instinct, and balanced logic work in harmony. This is where performance starts to feel expansive rather than effortful.

The final stage is integration. These new thought – emotion – behaviour patterns are practised until they become automatic through neuroplasticity, allowing clients to operate with super performance under a calm state, rather than from survival-driven reactivity.

At every stage, one principle holds true: to change your performance, you must first change the state you perform from.

What results can clients expect physically, mentally, and emotionally?

Clients experience meaningful, measurable shifts across physical, mental, and emotional levels. Physically, they often report improved sleep, reduced tension, steadier energy, better digestion, and fewer stress-related symptoms, alongside reduced long-term inflammation and autoimmune disruption. The body moves out of constant defence and into a state of recovery and efficiency. Mentally, clarity sharpens. Focus strengthens, rumination quiets, and lateral thinking expands, allowing for more confident, creative, and effective decision-making.

Emotionally, clients develop deeper confidence, greater resilience, and the ability to remain calm, present, and composed in high-stakes situations. Over time, these shifts integrate through neuroplasticity, enabling super performance under a calm state, rather than survival-driven reactivity. Clients often say they feel “more themselves than they have in years.”

How does your coaching help professionals avoid burnout and thrive under pressure?

Burnout isn’t a failure of mindset; it’s a physiological mismatch between internal capacity and external demand. When pressure consistently exceeds the nervous system’s ability to regulate, stress accumulates and performance declines.

My work focuses on increasing internal capacity. By training professionals to regulate in real time, they stop storing stress in the body. The nervous system becomes more efficient, the brain sharper, and energy more sustainable. This is how people move from enduring pressure to thriving within it, operating with clarity, resilience, and expansive leadership rather than constant strain.

How do you merge science, physiology, and mindset in your programs?

The AYLA method weaves science, physiology, and mindset into a single, intelligent performance system. Grounded in neuroscience and neurophysiology, it reveals how the brain and autonomic nervous system shape perception, stress responses, and decision-making, and how these pathways can be retrained for higher levels of functioning.

Through physiology, the nervous system is regulated, and energy is redirected away from stress reactions, creating a calm, stable foundation for clarity and focus. From this state, mindset work becomes precise and powerful, allowing creativity, instinct, and logic to integrate naturally.

When science, physiology, and mindset align, thinking sharpens, decisions elevate, and performance becomes expansive rather than effortful.

What should someone consider when deciding if they’re ready to work with you?

You don’t need to be at breaking point to begin this work. Readiness starts with recognising that the way you’ve been operating, however successful it appears externally, may not be sustainable or reflective of your true capacity. Many high performers overlook subtle body signals such as persistent tension, inflammation, immune disruptions, or recurring physical discomfort, dismissing them as minor issues. These are intelligent signals of accumulated stress and a system that’s been operating in high activation for too long.

If you sense there must be a clearer, calmer, and more powerful way to lead and live, that instinct matters. What’s required isn’t perfection, but awareness and openness, a willingness to work with your body rather than override it. When you choose to listen to those signals and optimise your internal state, a higher level of cognitive, emotional, and creative intelligence becomes accessible, and real transformation begins.

If someone is on the fence, what would you say to encourage them to reach out today?

You’re already successful, and with that success comes the responsibility to sustain your energy, clarity, and well-being. If you feel fatigue creeping in, pressure mounting, or a quiet anxiety about having to stay on top form, listen closely. These aren’t weaknesses; they’re intelligent signals from your system asking for attention.

Stress accumulates silently, dulling higher-level thinking and impacting immunity, digestion, and long-term health. You deserve a future where your success feels expansive, not costly.

If you’re ready to train your system to access a super-level of brain performance under pressure while staying deeply healthy, I’d genuinely love to help. I have the tools and techniques to support this shift, and I’d hate for you to miss what’s possible when your body and brain are truly working together. Your body already knows what you need; I simply help you understand its language.

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!

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