103. Maya Raichoora: Train Your Brain Like Your Body + The 5 Types of Visualization

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Oct 14, 2025

Maya Raichoora, a UK-based mental fitness expert and bestselling author, shares her remarkable journey from overcoming severe ulcerative colitis through visualization techniques to coaching elite athletes. She discusses the brain-gut connection and how our thoughts can influence immune responses. Maya introduces five types of visualization, emphasizing daily mental training's importance. Listeners can also learn practical visualization exercises for emotional release and peak performance, making mental fitness as vital as physical fitness.

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ANECDOTE

Visualization During Hospitalization

Maya Raichoora described using visualization in hospital to mentally rehearse walking and healing her colon.
Repeated daily mental practice complemented diet and lifestyle changes and preceded lasting remission.

ANECDOTE

Refusing Surgery And Recovering

Maya was told at 17 she needed colectomy or lifelong immunosuppressants but refused surgery.
Over years she stopped medication and now reports no symptoms for about five years.

INSIGHT

Deep Brain–Gut Link

The gut and brain share dense two-way connections via the vagus nerve and many neurons.
This neural and immune overlap explains why mental states can alter gut and immune function.

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What if your brain's biggest limitation isn't its capacity, but your failure to train it? In this episode of Extend, Maya Raichoora joins me to share how visualization techniques helped her reverse debilitating ulcerative colitis.

We explore the neuroscience behind visualization, from rewiring neural pathways to regulating the immune system through thought. We dive into five distinct types of visualization and why mental fitness deserves the same daily dedication as physical fitness.

Maya Raichoora is the UK's leading mental fitness and visualization expert, bestselling author of "Visualize," and a former international badminton player. After being told she'd need lifelong immunosuppressive medication or colon removal surgery for ulcerative colitis at age 17, Maya used visualization and mental training to achieve complete symptom remission. She now coaches elite athletes, C-suite executives, and teaches the science of training the brain.

We Also Discuss:

01:45 - How Visualization Reversed Severe Ulcerative Colitis Without Surgery

03:45 - The "Piranha Technique": Making Pain Playful Through Creative Imagery

11:48 - The Brain-Gut Connection: Why Your Colon Has as Many Neurons as Your Brain

18:06 - How Your Brain Directly Controls Immune Cell Production

21:15 - The Five Types of Visualization

26:07 - Why Your Brain's Stories Become Your Ceiling

29:55 - The Neuroscience of Mental Rehearsal: Why Imagined Reps Equal Real Ones

38:00 - The 90-Second Rule for Releasing Trapped Emotions

55:32 - The Language of Medicine: How "Incurable" Becomes a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

1:04:15 - Mirror Neurons: Why You Become What You Watch

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