The 6 Science Backed Brain Fixes Most People Are Ignoring!

I think everybody needs to listen to this episode if they want to start 2026 properly. If there's one thing I've learned that's really stayed with me this year, it's from speaking to some of the world's leading minds about our brain, which might just be the most powerful asset that we all have. You know, if you listen to the Diary of a CEO, you're probably listening because you're trying to get something, whether it's information, inspiration, maybe entertainment, [music] all of which because you're striving towards some kind of goal. And it's dawned on me this year because I've interviewed so many incredible [music] neuroscientists that this all starts with having a healthy brain because our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, our memories, [music] our chance of having a future start in the brain. So, in this special Christmas [music] episode, we're going to focus on the brain, how you can have the most [music] fundamentally healthy brain so you can live the most fundamentally meaningful life. I've been through all the episodes where we've talked [music] about the brain, and I've looked at the moments that you shared and replayed the most, and the moments that added the most value to your life, [music] and I've put all of them into this episode today. >> [music] >> Do you remember the first time you saw a human brain? >> I do. >> Did it change how you think about your own brain? >> It changed my life because I was like, I want to study that. That is the coolest thing that I've ever seen in my whole life. It was life-changing. >> I say that because we, you know, at the start of this conversation, we said that most of us don't appreciate our brain. A lot of people don't even realize it's there, but >> Yeah. >> the minute I had a brain scan one day, and that brain scan really changed my life because seeing my own brain for the first time, >> Yeah. >> it was the push that I needed to start caring more about how my decisions and behaviors are impacting it. So, let's talk about how I can make that ball of tofu in my head super healthy, big, fat, and fluffy. You talked about exercise early on, but we didn't really dig dig into exactly what you mean by exercise cuz exercise, I think, is multifaceted in its definition. What kind of exercise should I be doing to make my ball of tofu in my head great? >> Yeah. >> Optimal. >> Mhm. Well, all the research shows that the best kind of exercise that you can do is anything that gives you aerobic activity. That is getting your heart rate up. So, that that goes for, you know, power walking will get your heart rate up. Soccer, so many different things. Name your activity. So, many people want to say, "Oh, well, my favorite activity, will that work?" And I always just say, "Is it Is your heart rate up when you're doing it?" If the answer is yes, then yeah, that that works great. We know that that level of aerobic activity is critical cuz that's going to release that growth factor maximally to get into your hippocampus uh that will grow those new brain cells. >> How much? >> So, um I have an answer to that. So, um we did two different experiments in my lab. One in um low-fit people, people that are really not exercising very much at all, less than 30 minutes um um in the last three three weeks you you've uh moved your body. And um we asked what could we see any behavioral improvement in your memory function from your hippocampus or your uh ability to shift and focus attention if we ask you to move your body in aerobic way for two to three times a week. And we collaborated with a spin class, so clearly very aerobic. And what we found was in those people that did successfully do two to three times a week of 45-minute aerobic activity, their mood got significantly better, their memory function got better, and their ability to shift and focus attention got significantly better. So, that gives a little bit of a guideline for low-fit people, two to three times a week can start to give you some of those some of those cognitive changes. But, you don't look low fit. So, let me let me answer the question you're about to ask me with like, "What about me? I I exercise pretty regularly, and um how much how much do I need?" So, to answer that question, we went to another spin studio, and we said, "Look, we're going to give you free classes. You could exercise as much as you want in this in this um at this studio, and uh um go up to seven times a week." And the control was just stay the same. You know, you they were they were working out twice a week at at the studio. >> Control was the other group that were you were testing them against? >> Yes, exactly. And so, what we found was basically every drop of sweat counted. The more you exercise, the more change in your brain we noted. Both your hippocampal function, prefrontal function, and mood. If you you you were already getting benefit, you know, you're already going twice a week. But, the more you did, the more brain changes you got. So, that that doesn't give the formula that I would like, but we were heading in that direction, which is part of one of the questions that I want to answer. But, I love to leave people with the idea that every drop of sweat counts for building your brain into the big fat fluffy brain that you really want. >> And then in the real world, again making it super um real for people. >> Yeah. >> How how does that change how I show up? >> Yeah. If you allow it to, should have a beautiful effect on your mindset. Um that your mindset around um how often should I take wake up 30 minutes early and do that walk before I start my day or accept the the invitation to go walk the dog with with a neighbor. Um it's not an obligation. It is something that you're doing for yourself. It is going to have direct benefits on that ball of tofu, as you call it, in your head. It's going to make it work better. And And I mean, I think the most immediate thing that I benefit from every single day is the mood boost that you get from that serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine that gets released every time you move your body. >> I always think that cuz I also do a little podcasting and it's I'm super reliant on my brain being attached to my mouth and sometimes I notice that it's not. You know what I mean? Like sometimes I'm not articulate. I can't get my thoughts together, whatever. And I always try I try and figure out the correlation between what I did that day when I have a good day versus a bad day. And I from from your And also I speak on stage sometimes, so I've often asked myself cuz I saw Tony Robbins, the speaker, one day on a trampoline before he goes up on stage. I asked myself, okay, should I be doing a workout in my green room before I go up on stage for a big talk or presentation? You think I should? >> Oh, yeah. Absolutely. >> What's the basis of that in science and neuroscience? >> Uh it's the basis is that immediate fact So there's three key effects that we know happen every time you move your body. First one is mood. You're going to get your dopamine, your serotonin up. Um Second is focus and attention. So So a single workout isn't going to make more synapses in your prefrontal cortex, but the prefrontal cortex uses dopamine. And so um it's clear that even a single workout can make your prefrontal cortex work better in terms of focus, attention. Also very important anytime you're speaking. And the third is reaction time. Your reaction time it you know, motor your your your working your motor cortex when you move your body and your response and reaction time is significantly shorter after a even a single workout compared to if you just don't work out and sit sit um alone. So great great things to do. A great thing to do before you you stand up and speak. >> What about coffee? I I I'm trying to figure out if coffee is good for my brain, bad for my brain. I've a couple of mixed messages around the impact it might be having. >> Yeah. You know, caffeine is a stimulant and uh people respond to that kind of stimulant uh in different ways. Overstimulation with caffeine is is not good for your your ability to put words together. You know, this is where I turn to uh a main theme in in my book Healthy Brain Happy Life with this which is self-experimentation. For you, how what can you titrate your coffee to see what level of coffee is best for whatever your podcast or you're giving a talk. The other thing that could work similarly to coffee that that I've started uh and that I do every morning is um hot cold contrast showers because that cold that you shower on yourself after the heat um stimulates adrenaline in you, a natural adrenaline. Ooh, it wakes you up and okay, it was painful the first kind of few times I tried it, but then you get addicted to it and I have forgotten to do it and gotten back in the shower just to douse myself with cold water because I feel better when I do that for for you know, first thing in the morning. So, lots of different things that one can explore with. >> Okay, on the other side of the coin then, what are some of the central behaviors that people do that destroy their brain? >> [laughter] >> Well, sedentary behavior is one of them. Um not getting enough sleep is critical. We haven't talked about sleep yet. Sleep is so important for normal functioning of the brain. I like to scare my students by saying that um you know, in torture situations, if you deprive a person of sleep for too long, they literally die. They They They die. You cannot function if you are deprived of sleep for too many hours in a row. It's that critical. Yet, we don't We We happily, you know, watch too much Netflix at night and and and and get only 5 hours of sleep when we could have had eight. So, um what's happening exactly? Why is it so important? Well, there's um There's so many different things. I'm going to I'm going to say two. One is that we know that in regular um um healthy sleep, there is activity in the hippocampus that helps you strengthen the memories that you have formed in that previous day. It's called consolidation, and it's so important. If you shorten that, if you don't get enough, you are not consolidating your normal everyday memories. And second, it is uh the time during sleep when all the metabolites, all that garbage that your brain is producing because all biological cells produce garbage, it gets kind of um cleaned up um through the cerebral spinal fluid that that is flowing through your brain. And if you do not get enough sleep, you build up garbage metabolites in your brain. It's like you have a gunky brain. And do you feel like I feel like I have gunk in my brain when I don't sleep enough. That is exactly what is what is happening. >> Well, when you think about um things that we consume, you know, like food and drink and alcohol and all these kinds of things. Is there Is there anything that if I'm trying to have an optimal brain, I should be >> Yeah. >> having or not having? >> Yeah. Well, so um I think the most evidence is around the benefit of the Mediterranean diet, which is basically all healthy uh um kind of organ- not organic, but non-processed is the word I was trying to think of, things to eat that are very, very colorful. There is so much evidence about how good that is generally for the brain. That That is my go-to. Like, what what should I eat? Well, is it on the Mediterranean diet? If it is, then go ahead. If it's too processed, only do it just a little bit. >> Is it true that if we have less friends, if we have less strong relationships, if we're lonely, >> Yeah. >> then our brain will shrink and is more prone to dementia and Alzheimer's and things like that? >> Yes, we are social creatures and um there are uh really powerful studies that have shown the correlation between the number of social connections that we have, including just saying hello to the barista at Starbucks. It's not a close friendship that you develop over 30 years. It's It's just how many people you interact with and greet, and longevity. The more people you are regularly interacting with, the longer you are living. Overall longevity. But, if you go into brain health, absolutely, it's also very, very healthy for you. It also brings happiness. So, uh friend and colleague of mine, um Robert Waldinger, uh studied um what makes people happy. The study started in the '20s, the 1920s, at in Harvard. And after all of those many, many, many decades, the answer is what brings happiness is the strength of your social connections. So, it makes you happier, it makes you live longer, and and uh yes, loneliness on the on the um flip side, causes stress, uh long-term stress that that damages the brain, and uh yeah, in the long term, can can make it smaller and uh less healthy. >> Here's the fifth most replayed moment. When I asked you before this conversation started rolling, what you're really excited about at the moment, your response to me was There was a few things, but one of them, which lit up your face, was creatine. >> Yes. And it's funny because >> up your face again. >> Yeah, it's it's funny because creatine has been around for, I mean, ever, for decades. And it's always been In my mind, it was like one of those gym bro things. I'm like, I don't need to be swoll. >> Yeah, yeah. >> I don't need creatine to get get swoll. And, you know, this is this was the thought for for many, many years. And then, over the last 5 years or so, the effects of creatine on the brain started to really get my interest. Anything that affects the brain, I really become interested in. And so, that's kind of what did get me the most excited about about creatine. But also, I started doing a lot of resistance training. And so, I was like, okay, here I am now. I'm like one of those gym guys. I'm doing I'm doing the barbells. I'm doing the, you know, the squats and the deadlifts and all that. And so, so why not give myself some of the creatine? Well, what is creatine, right? Why is it important? You talked about earlier, you know, why doesn't our body just make more of these things that are so beneficial? We do make creatine. We make about, I don't know, our liver makes about 1 to 3 g a day of creatine. And our brain also makes creatine. And those are the two organs that make it. Creatine gets consumed by other tissues, like the muscle's probably the one that's the greediest, because creatine is stored as phosphocreatine, but it's used to make energy, essentially. So, it can increase muscle mass. It can increase muscle strength in combination with resistance training, because you're able to regenerate and make energy faster. So, for example, I became interested in it after reading studies where people that supplemented with creatine that were engaged in resistance training were able to gain more lean body mass, they were able to gain more strength. It was increasing their training volume. So, you can do one to two more reps, right? Of whatever exercise you're doing. And it seems to decrease the recovery time between those those sets, as well. So, you're able to increase your training volume. Well, anything that's going to increase your training volume is going to then have the downstream effect of a you know, increasing the adaptations, like increased muscle mass or increased muscle strength. I started supplementing with creatine about a year ago. And I started supplementing with it for that reason, for the my training. And I was doing about 5 g a day, because that was really what was shown to to be beneficial for muscle health in combination with resistance training. And it's important for people to realize that supplementing with creatine by itself, without any type of resistance training, isn't going to grow your muscle. It's not going to make you stronger. You have to put in the effort. Because what creatine is doing, it's helping you make the energy quicker, right? And that and then being able to make that energy quicker means that you're able to then do that exercise better, um harder, more of it, right? So, [clears throat] um it's sort of supercharging your exercise routine. I had already been aware of the effects on the brain. I thought maybe the 5 g a day would do that. So, what are the effects on the brain? Well, your brain also consumes a lot of energy, you know, needs a lot of energy. So, it does make its own creatine. But, it turns out if you can if you can give your brain more of that creatine, particularly under a period of anything that's causing stress. So, let's say lack of sleep, or let's say emotional, psychological stress, or in my case, high cognitive load, where you're just every day learning concepts, complex things, you're trying to remember them, you're putting ideas together and coming up with new hypotheses and you know, you're just you're just you're studying a lot and it's very cognitively demanding and it's it's a type of stress on your brain. That's like my life, right? Um under this condition of stress, depression's another one that's a stress on your brain or neurodegenerative disease, that's a stress on your brain. So, any kind of stressful condition, that's where creatine shines in the brain. I would argue that um all of us, who who has the perfect amount of sleep, never has stress? Nobody, right? There's always some sort of stress in the background. So, um that's when I was like, okay. So, if you're the perfect person, you have no stress, you get the perfect amount of sleep every night, your brain makes enough creatine to kind of do what it needs to do. I know that I'm constantly under stress. So, um I'm like, okay, well, I think I need a boost. And this is where a lot of very interesting studies have come out of many different labs. Um some out of Germany that looked at the dose of creatine and how it increases creatine levels in the brain. And this is why I now supplement with 10 g a day. So, the study out of Germany found that 5 g a day of creatine, if you're supplementing with 5 g a day, your muscles are greedily consuming it, particularly if you're working out. They want it. They want it. After about 5 g a day, especially over a few months, like you're you're saturating your muscle and that's enough, right? Anything above that kind of spills over to the brain. And so, they what this German study found was that 10 g of creatine increased creatine levels in several different regions of the brain and that was probably the most exciting, you know, I would say evidence that supplementing higher than 5 g a day was actually doing something in terms of getting creatine in the brain. There have now been a variety of studies that have looked at different outcomes, right? So, if you supplement with 10 g of creatine or even go higher than that, like 20 g of creatine, how does that affect cognitive function, right? And so, um some of these studies have been been done by a Dr. Darren Candow. He's um at the University of Regina in Canada. And it's looked they've looked at things like sleep deprivation. And it's been found that if you take someone and you sleep deprive them for 21 hours and give them about 25 to 30 g of creatine it completely negates the cognitive deficits of sleep deprivation. Actually, not only does it negate the cognitive deficits of sleep deprivation it makes people function better than if they were well rested. That's where I was like wait a minute. There's many times when I'm traveling, I'm jet-lagged, uh lots of times when I'm sleep deprived and I have to be doing a podcast or a presentation, whatever. And in those situations, I go up for my 10 g to more like 20 g, like today for example. I wasn't really sleep deprived, but you know, there's a lot of high cognitive demand. This is a long podcast. There's all that stuff. And so, I went up to 20 g today on my creatine. And I will I will say, even at the 10 g for me we were talking about this with respect to being in ketosis I don't feel that mid-afternoon crash when I have the creatine. Not being on a ketogenic diet, not being in ketosis it's very clear for me. And I have done this where sometimes I only do 5 g and then if I do that, I'll notice. I'm like, why am I tired right now? So, there's something interesting and maybe it's placebo. I'm going to throw that out there, very possible. But, I don't know. Maybe the creatine is again, it's able to regenerate that energy quicker and so that's also beneficial for the brain. And now I I would say all these creatine researchers, a lot of them are shifting to the brain. It used to be all muscle focused. And now people are super interested in what creatine is doing to the brain, especially if you're supplementing with more of it. And you know, this is important for people that are under a stressful situation, but also for vegans because creatine is found in food, mostly in animal products like meat and poultry and fish, dairy. A lot of vegans don't eat that and I've had so many of my vegan friends I've got them on the creatine and it's changed their lives. I mean, they're like this is like incredible, you know, can you imagine someone who's not getting any creatine from their diet cuz they eat no meat. And all of a sudden they start supplementing with 5-10 grams of creatine and it's like they have energy. Some people say they they require less sleep, which is kind of interesting. That's kind of a comment I've heard many, many times from people is that it's like their brain doesn't need as much sleep. They have more energy. So um I've been a big fan of the creatine uh not only for the muscle, especially because, you know, working out is something that's very important, but for the brain as well. >> I always thought of creatine as something that you you took and you kind of had to load up on and then over a couple of weeks or months, the effects would kick in. But you're telling me that if I had creatine in the morning, that same day I would experience potentially improved cognition if I have a big enough dose. >> Yes, so um great question. A lot of studies that have been done that you're referring to have been done in the context of exercise and muscular performance. And the reason why people have to load up on like they do a loading phase, let's say 20 grams and then they go down to this sort of maintenance phase of 5 grams is because it takes I don't know, I think it's about a month or so before you can saturate your muscular stores of creatine. And then >> What does what does that mean? >> It means that the creatine which is actually stored in your muscle as phosphocreatine is there and ready to be used to make energy. Uh so it so it takes again, it takes about a month or so to do that. Unless you are really giving your muscles a high dose, right? So the 5 g a day, it only it it can only do it for so many days and then finally you get saturated. When you do this loading phase, you kind of just accelerate that whole process. And so that's why when people are doing these experiments where they want to test the effects of creatine, they want they want the participants to have really high levels of creatine in their muscles quick because they don't want to do a month-long experiment, right? They want the experiment to be like a couple of weeks or a week. So that [snorts] was kind of the whole concept behind this loading phase. If you're not someone who's going to some kind of competition, you know, like your CrossFit Games or something, you don't really need to do that loading phase if you've already been supplementing with 5 g a day for like a month. When it comes to the brain, what's happening if you get above that 5 g, that's pretty much all consumed by the muscle. You're having some left over in circulation and the brain takes it up and it takes it up, right? When it When it really shines is under that stressful condition, which again, for me I feel like every day is is is like cognitively demanding for me cuz I'm constantly, you know, learning new material or learning new information or working on things, right? And so there's a lot of cognitive stress on my brain. And so I feel like I'm constantly under that stress and that's where getting the creatine in your brain helps you make that energy quicker. And so that's why like I've done I've had, you know, been jet lagged and have have to give a talk at you know, you know, like 5 a.m. in the morning my my biological time after not getting sleep and I've done like 25 g of creatine and it it's insane how much it helps me. Again, it could be placebo, cuz I'm anticipating that effect, which is fine. Placebo is a real thing. It's great. I'm all about it. But, there's some evidence also that this works, right? That the creatine is helping with under that sleep deprivation and that stressful condition. >> I was reading about a study in 2025 where they gave creatine to people that had depressive symptoms alongside CBT training. And the people that had creatine and the cognitive behavioral therapy training experienced a greater improvement in their depression symptoms than those who just received the cognitive behavioral therapy. Which is which is incredible. >> It's fascinating. I mean, depression is a type of brain stress, right? I mean, we know inflammation plays a role in in depression. We know oxidative stress is plays a role in depression. And there've now been some animal studies that have shown creatine is somehow having an anti-inflammatory effect. I That hasn't all been worked out. So, I don't know if it's all just the energy component of it. It could also be this other sort of newly identified role that creatine's playing in sort of having an anti-inflammatory effect, and I don't know how much enough about that. I don't know that there's enough even known about that, but I do know that it exists. And it's fascinating, but it because again, I think where creatine really shines in the brain and it's been shown study after study is under some kind of stressful condition, depression, or sleep deprivation. Or there's a new study that came out. It was published I don't know, a month ago or so, showing that it was a very small pilot study, and I want to caveat this. There was no placebo control. But, it did show that giving people with Alzheimer's disease creatine, I believe it was 20 g a day, did improve their cognition. And so, again, it's this a whole new field. We're now we're looking at creatine in the brain, not just the gym bro bros, and not just the muscular effects, but in the brain and how it's affecting the brain and being beneficial for cognition, for brain aging, for depression. >> Here's the fourth most replayed moment. One of the most inspiring and I think liberating things that I've heard in your work is this idea of neuroplasticity because if you're if the brain can physiologically change based on what I'm doing, then it means that who I am now, my identity, that 60 that 19-year-old who's sleeping in the mummy sleeping with the ferret isn't who I always have to be. I can literally change. Um we've spoken a little bit around like what causes the motivation to actually change, but knowing that there's a my brain will actually change, those two things are really inspiring for me because it means that whatever rut I'm stuck in isn't necessarily a permanent one. Now, you said that the motivation to change comes from fear. >> Well, in my case, it took a a fear circumstance, fear of becoming a permanent failure >> Yeah. >> to motivate immense change and um uh that was that circumstance. I I do believe, however, that the best work, our most creative and best work comes from a a love of craft. But sometimes in order to find what you truly love, you have to be scared into setting off on a path to find it. So, neuroplasticity is absolutely real, but if the question is can a person change? Can you learn new thing? Can you unlearn certain patterns? Can you overcome traumas? At any age, the answer is absolutely categorically yes. How? Well, it's very clear that as a child until about age 25, more or less, just passive experience will shape the brain for better or worse. After about age 25, and again, these are not strict cutoffs, we can change our brain, but what's required is a marked shift in the neurochemical environment under which something happens. So, one of the reasons why any traumatic event will forever be remembered, although by the way, you can remove some of the emotional load of that. Trauma does not have to be traumatic forever. Is because when we see or experience something very intense of a fearful nature, there's the release of certain what we call neuromodulators, things like epinephrine, adrenaline, and other neuromodulators that cause a state shift in our broad body and brain. And the nervous system recognizes this as unusual, and as a consequence in the subsequent days, there's reordering of the connections. So, that the brain can prepare for that event should it happen again. This is why we have what's called one-trial learning. You go to a certain location, something terrible happens there, you will forever associate that location with something terrible. But, there are tools, therapy, and other tools that can allow the emotional load to be removed from that so that you could go to that location and feel calm, no fear whatsoever. The good news is you can also learn anything you want to learn, provided there's a shift in this neurochemical environment. This is why when we are very interested in focused on something, two of the main requirements for neuroplasticity, we have to be alert and we have to be focused. We can't learn passively as adults. We can't just play, um, you know, a lecture about AI and large language models or neuroscience in the room, and then it just the knowledge doesn't just sink in by osmosis. But, if we pay attention and we're alert when we pay attention, there's a shift in the neurochemicals associated with that attention. What we call the catecholamines. It's three molecules, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, all which cause an increase in alertness, all which cause an increase in focus, a tightening of our visual field and our auditory field, so like cones of attention is one way to think about it. And then it sets in motion a bunch of biological processes such that if we get adequate sleep that night, maybe the next night as well, there's reordering of neural connections so that that knowledge, that new experience is consolidated in your brain. You are forever changed as a consequence of that experience. So when we hear that the brain is constantly changing, everything that we encounter changes our brain, that's not true. Why would the brain change unless it needed to? Right? As a child, the brain is basically a template for change. It's It's trying to understand the environment and make predictions. And so that's true. Neuroplasticity is is a cardinal feature of of childhood and adolescence and the teen years. Just think about the music you listened to when you were a teen. No other music will ever have as much significance. And that's because as a teen, your body is flooded with hormones and neuromodulators that the amount of meaning that comes from now seemingly trivial events when you're a teenager or adolescent is immense. That song meant so much and it's because of the neurochemical milieu it creates in you. But as an adult, it takes a stronger stimulus as we say. The nervous system is very um efficient in that way. It doesn't change unless it has to. And it always changes if it needs to in order to keep you safe. This is why there's an asymmetric influence of fear as opposed to um just interest in terms of what will shift our brain. But it's nice to know that love and excitement and appreciation are very strong stimuli for changing the brain. From everything we know about neuroscience, it's clear that doesn't matter if you're 90 years old, 70 years old, 50 years old, if you want to learn, you can learn. And that learning occurs through neuroplasticity, which is the reordering of neural connections, strengthening of certain connections, weakening of others, and in some rare cases the addition of new neurons. But, you absolutely can change your brain, but you have to pay attention to the thing you want to incorporate into your brain. You have to be alert while you do that, and then you absolutely have to go get some rest because it's during sleep and during meditative states and during rest that the actual rewiring of the brain occurs. >> You know, every once in a while you come across a product that has such a huge impact on your life that you'd probably describe it as a game-changer. And I would say for about 35% of my team, they would currently describe this product that I have in front of me called ketone.com as a game-changer. But, the reason I became a current of this company and the reason why they they now are a sponsor of this podcast is because one day when I came to work there was a box of this stuff sat on my desk. I had no idea what it was. Lily in my team says that this company have been in touch. So, I went upstairs, tried it, and quite frankly, the rest is history. In terms of my focus, my energy levels, how I feel, how I work, how productive I am, game-changer. So, if you want to give it a try, visit ketone.com/steven for 30% off. You'll also get a free gift with your second shipment, and now you can find ketone.com at Target stores across the United States, where your first shot is completely free of charge. All I had to do was brain dump. Imagine if you had someone with you all times that can take the ideas you have in your head, synthesize them with AI to make them sound better and more grammatically correct, and write them down for you. This is exactly what WhisperFlow is in my life. It is this thought partner that helps me explain what I want to say, and it now means that on the go, when I'm alone in my office, when I'm out and about, I can respond to emails and Slack messages and WhatsApps and everything across all of my devices just by speaking. I love this tool, and I started talking about this in my behind-the-scenes channel a couple of months back, and then the founder reached out to me and said, "We're seeing a lot of people come to our tool because of you, so we'd love to be a sponsor. We'd love you to be an investor in the company." And so, I signed up for both of those offers, and I'm now an investor and a huge partner in a company called Whisper Flow. You have to check it out. Whisper Flow is four times faster than typing. So, if you want to give it a try, head over to whisperflow.ai/doac to get started for free. And you can find that link to Whisper Flow in the description below. There are few sports that I make time no matter where I am in the world, and one of them is, of course, football. The other is MMA, but watching that abroad usually requires a VPN. I spend so much time traveling. I've just spent the last 2 and 1/2 months traveling through Asia and Europe, and I'm back here in the United States. And as I'm traveling, there are so many different shows that I want to watch on TV or on some streaming websites. So, when I was traveling through Asia, and I was in Kuala Lumpur one day, then the next day I was in Hong Kong, and the next day I was in Indonesia, all of those countries had a different streaming provider, a different broadcaster. And so, in most of those countries, I had to rely on ExpressVPN, who are sponsors of this podcast. Their tool is private and secure, and it's very, very simple how it works. When you're in that country and you want to watch a show that you love in the UK, all you do is you go on there, and you click the button UK, and it means that you can gain access to content in the UK. If you're after a similar solution in your life, and you've experienced that problem, too, visit expressvpn.com/doac to find out how you can access ExpressVPN for an extra 4 months at no cost. Here is the third most replayed moment. For those people who have just clicked to listen to this conversation, can you tell them the mission you're on and why it's so important? >> Yeah. Well, thanks so much for having this conversation with me. I think that illustrates the problem. Right? Someone as informed as you don't know anything, have never heard of nitric oxide. So, >> it's important for us to just make a distinction between um like nitrous gas that people, you know, inhale, and that used to you if you played like some of those racing car games, you press a button and the car goes really fast if you >> nitrous nitrous. >> These are two separate things. >> No, very Yeah, very good point. So, this is the not nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is I mean, a medicine it's a dental anesthetic. Right? It's a gas. It's called laughing gas. That's N2O. That's the chemical formula. What we're talking about is nitric oxide or NO, one nitrogen one oxygen. This molecule is is foundational for human health and longevity. So, nitric oxide is a gas. It's a naturally produced molecule. It's a signaling molecule in the human body. And so, it's it regulates things like blood flow and oxygen delivery and it mobilizes our own stem cells to help us recover and repair and replace dysfunctional cells. It improves energy production inside the cell. And it regulates blood flow. So, nitric oxide is a gas. It's produced in the endothelium. So, the endothelium is the single layer of cells that line every blood vessel throughout the body. So, the function of these endothelial cells is to regulate vascular tone and to regulate, you know, solute exchange and extravasation or transport of molecules across that endothelial layer. And so, when your endothelial cells can no longer make nitric oxide gas, they no longer dilate. So, the blood vessels become constricted. You start to get inflammation. You get stiff arteries, plaque deposition. And that's what starts cardiovascular disease or atherosclerosis. >> So, let me get this straight. I'll repeat back to you what I think I understand about nitric oxide and you tell me if it's accurate. So, this nitric oxide is a chemical that is in all the blood cells of my body and it allows my blood cells to basically expand, open up so blood can flow through there. So, if I >> It dilates the smooth muscle. It's not affecting the cells per se, but it's dilating the smooth muscle that surrounds the blood vessels. And that leads to regular and dilation. >> Fine. So, my blood cells would then expand. >> Your blood vessels >> And more blood would go through there. But, if I'm deficient, that mechanism doesn't work and my blood cells wouldn't expand ultimately expand through the relaxation of the muscles. >> That's right. >> And therefore, I would have higher blood pressure, which can lead to a a series of downstream diseases and consequences. And so, when we look at the graph that I showed a second ago, where we're seeing for anyone that can't see this graph because you're listening on audio, we're seeing a nitric oxide levels in young people up to the age of roughly around 20 are optimal. And then from about 30 to 70, there's this tremendous sort of 80 90% drop. In terms of chronic disease that is downstream from me losing nitric oxide level, can you give me a bit of a menu of chronic disease that is associated with this nitric oxide deficiency? >> Yep. And we've touched on them. So, erectile dysfunction. So, erections in both men and women are dependent upon dilation of the blood vessels to get engorgement, to get increase in blood flow, and that's what an erection is. And we call that the canary in the coal mine. Because for years, people thought it was a lifestyle disorder. Right? >> Well, erectile dysfunction. >> Yeah. But, now it's recognized that it's a symptom of loss of nitric oxide and really an accelerated form of cardiovascular disease. High blood pressure, metabolic disease, and diabetes. And then the other one is obviously Alzheimer's. Cuz Alzheimer's is a vascular disease. And nitric oxide corrects every single thing we know about Alzheimer's. It improves blood flow to the brain. It improves glucose uptake. So, it overcomes the metabolic aspect of Alzheimer's. It reduces inflammation. In fact, a number of my patents are on a method of reducing inflammation. It inhibits the oxidative stress we see in in Alzheimer's neurological disease, and it prevents the immune dysfunction. And when you do that, when you restore blood flow and you get nutrients and oxygen in, and you take out the metabolic waste products, there's no misfolding of protein. So, you don't get the amyloid plaque, you don't get the tau tangles. So, this simple molecule, nitric oxide gas, I'm absolutely convinced will eradicate and cure Alzheimer's. >> Really? >> Cuz it it it addresses every physiological root cause of Alzheimer's. >> If you can get it administered therapeutically to patients early enough, or >> No, I think that's a very key because the success or failure of any clinical trial, any drug in any clinical trial, is dependent upon the design of the clinical trial. In what patients, at which stage of disease that you enroll these patients? So, what are the inclusion criteria, and what are the exclusion criteria? And there's a stage in every disease, whether it's heart disease, kidney disease, Alzheimer's, where you've reached a point of no return. There's really no medical therapy that's going to reverse that disease because it's progressed to a state that's irreversible. So, I think what we try to do is take take patients early in the process, what we call vascular dementia, mild cognitive impairment, early Alzheimer's. Because what I want to be able to demonstrate is two things. Number one, can we stop the progression of disease? Once it's started, can we stop the progression? And then number two is we want to enroll patients far enough along to where we can show regression. So, can you move Can you move the needle back? And so, that's a very kind of a specific and finite patient population when you design a clinical study. Number one, at the at the absolute worst, we want to stop progression. At the absolute best, we want to show that we can regress disease. And that's the goal of therapy is that you understand the mechanism of disease to the extent that you can treat it, you can prevent it, you can reverse it, and you can cure it. >> What I want to think about the role that food plays in my nitric oxide production. What should I be eating to increase um my nitric oxide levels or to keep them at a healthy level? >> I think it the same answer is for that, too. It's It's not so much what we should be eating, it's what we should not be eating. >> Okay. >> So, we'll we'll We'll cover those step by step. Number one, you have to avoid sugar and high glycemic index foods. Because sugar is a toxin, it's a poison. And let's think about what sugar is. So, when we eat sugar or drink sugar beverages, right? Whether it's sucrose, whether it's fructose, whether it's high fructose corn syrup, the end result inside the human is we see an increase in glucose. So, elevation in blood sugar or blood glucose is diabetes, right? And now there's continuous glucose monitors that you can get anywhere. And everybody does this. So, if you eat something and it causes an increase in your blood sugar blood glucose, then you should avoid that. Cuz glucose, as the name applies, is glue, right? It's sticky. And if we If you have a soda and you spill it on your countertop, you come back the next day, it's sticky, right? Well, that's what happens inside the body. That sugar sticks to everything. It sticks to proteins, it sticks to enzymes. >> And it lowers nitric oxide production? >> Absolutely. That's why diabetics have a 10-time higher incidence of heart attack, stroke, all-cause mortality mortality. That's why they develop neuro- neurological or peripheral neuropathy. That's why they have non-healing wounds. There's no nitric oxide. That's why they're developing diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, pancreatitis. I mean, all of that can be traced back to a lack of nitric oxide production because the sugar is stuck to the enzyme. The sugar destroys the oral microbiome and completely changes the the ecology of the bacteria and completely shuts down nitric oxide production, right? But I think to answer your question, what should we be eating? I think you've got to eat a balanced diet in moderation. You know, Americans are overfed. All you got to do is walk around and see the the epidemic of obesity. Good high-quality protein, good-quality fats, and little or no carbs. And it's really that simple. >> Here's the second most replayed moment. When you think about behaviors and habits that are popular and trendy at the moment, are there any that stand out to you as being particularly good for the brain or particularly bad for the brain? Cuz I had a couple come to mind that I wanted to throw at you. I mean, one of them that's exploding in the UK at the moment is paddle, which is kind of I think you call it pickleball here. >> [snorts] >> Good for my brain, bad for my brain? >> It's so good for your brain because it's working your cerebellum, and I told you that because yours was sleepy. And as you activate this, and you do that with coordination exercises, it then activates your frontal lobes. >> Does that mean that people that are uncoordinated have a cerebellum issue? >> Yes. >> Oh, really? Huh. >> And the more you do it, the better coordination you develop. And that's why coordination exercises for kids, so we talked about kids, is you want to do that with them early. Play sports, but not sports where they're going to get a head injury, right? I mean, we have to be smarter than we are. Um but when I was young, my mother, who's now 93, was the ping-pong champion in the neighborhood, and she was really good, and she never let us beat her until we could. And but she was always encouraging. >> I've got um I was looking then as you were speaking about different trends at the moment that are either good or bad for the brain. And one big trend at the moment is neuroplasticity training. Lots of people are doing games and using other things to like there's apps you can get that are neuroplasticity training apps. Does any of that stuff work? >> Some of them >> Some of them works because >> And if you're so for example, if you're doing memorization games, do them while you're on the bike. Now, not in the street, but if you're on a stationary bike and you're doing those games, it's been found that exercise increases blood flow to the hippocampus, meaning you're more likely to remember it and you're strengthening your brain in the process. So, exercise with new learning. Stunning. >> So, if I want to learn something, I should do it while walking or moving in motion. >> Right. So, if you're listening to a language app, for example, do it while you're walking. >> Mindfulness and meditation, good or bad for the brain? >> Great. I published three studies on a Kundalini yoga form of meditation called Kirtan Kriya. It's a 12-minute meditation. I always say it's the perfect ADD meditation because it's only 12 minutes. And for 12 minutes, you do this. Sa Ta Na Ma. Sa Ta Na Ma. Sa Ta It's 2 minutes out loud, 2 minutes whispering, 4 minutes silently to yourself. 2 minutes whispering, 2 minutes out loud, you're done. Sa Ta Na Ma. Birth, life, death, reborn. Birth, life, death, reborn. But the one we studied is Sa Ta Na Ma. And so, if they look it up, Kirtan Kriya, um activates your cerebellum, activates your frontal lobes, calms down your emotional brain. People who did that for 12 minutes for 8 weeks, their resting frontal lobe function was stronger. So simple. >> What the hell is going on there? >> I think it's the focused attention, plus you're doing a coordination meditation, Sa Ta Na Ra Sa Ta. >> Loving your job, good or bad for your brain? >> Absolutely great for your brain. If you're learning new things. People who are in a job that does not require new learning have a higher incidence of Alzheimer's disease. >> So, if you're stagnant in your work, you have a higher risk of Alzheimer's. >> And like, if I just read brain scans all day, well, I know how to do it. I'm not learning anything new. So, I do that, but I also am writing about something I don't know about. Um or I'm learning something new. >> What if you're working with >> I'm sorry. >> I love my job, but I'm working with >> Bad for your brain. Chronic stress >> [snorts] >> increases cortisol, and I think everybody should sort of know their baseline cortisol level. And cortisol shrinks the hippocampus and puts fat on your belly. So, that's two very bad things for your brain. >> Breath work, that's a big trend. >> Excellent. Excellent. You want to break a panic attack? The 15-second breath. 4 seconds in, hold it for a second and a half, 8 seconds out, hold it for a second and a half. You just do that four or five times, your whole nervous system will calm down. And the research shows take twice as long to breathe out as you breathe in. That's why 4 seconds in, 8 seconds out. >> It shifts your nervous system, doesn't it? >> Yes. It increases something called vagal tone. >> Okay, some bad things then. Social media usage, chronic social media usage, good for the brain, bad for the brain? >> Because you're constantly comparing yourself to people who aren't real. >> What about workaholism and hustle culture? >> So, I love my work. Am I addicted to it? I don't know. But I love it. When they say people are workaholics and it's bad for the brain, it's they're working with or doing something they don't like or doing it for the money but without other purpose. >> Microplastics, that's a big topic. >> Awful for the brain. One of the major causes of hormone disruption and cancer. >> And other environmental >> Thank you for not giving me a plastic water bottle. >> Yeah, it's okay. Imagine if Imagine if we did that. We spend a lot a lot of time these days talking about the microplastics and other environmental toxins that I think people are becoming more aware of now, which is good. Noise pollution. >> Bad for the brain. And if if it hurts your hearing, hearing loss is actually one of the risk factors for Alzheimer's. >> Why is that? I did a I did a huge >> Because you're not getting input. Right. And if you're not getting appropriate input, your brain starts to atrophy. And if you don't hear what other people are saying and you have a lot of ants, you have a high negativity bias, is you can actually begin to get a bit paranoid and fill in the empty spaces with negativity. >> I just bought some new Apple AirPods and when I connected them to my phone, it said, "You want to do a hearing test?" So, I did the hearing test and then I asked my girlfriend, I said, "You you should do this hearing test as well cuz I needed something to compare it to." And I was a little bit shocked. Um it said I hadn't lost any hearing yet, but my hearing was significantly not as good as hers. And I remember thinking, "Gosh, you know, this is but I didn't have any idea that it was linked to Alzheimer's at all." So, now I've turned down the volume for the first time in my life because I think your hearing declines regardless really of what you do with age anyway. Um but as you said earlier, like starting from a better baseline when you're talking about the brain reserves is really the game, I think with aging. My last point is a My last question is a bit of a seems to be uncorrelated, but the world is heading towards a world that's driven by artificial intelligence. It's like all the all the rage at the moment if you log on the internet. People talking about they're going to lose their jobs, all of these new tools that allow us to optimize our lives in a variety of different ways. When you think about the world of AI that we're heading into, there's so many ways that I I imagine it's going to make your job easier as someone who's doing scans of brains and so on. But do you think artificial intelligence is going to be good or bad for our brains? I think in the short run it's going to be bad because your brain is going to do less. And that's bad for the brain. I I think it's fascinating to watch what's going to happen. And ultimately, in the words of my friend Byron Katie, "Argue with reality, welcome to hell." We need to figure out how to use it to enhance our lives rather than to steal brain development. >> Here's the first most replayed moment. There was a study done in 2007 that showed curc- I can't even say it. Curcumin. That shows curcumin upregulates anti- oxidant defenses and downregulates oxidative stress. >> Yeah. >> There was a study done in 2016, which is a meta-analysis of random controlled trials, found curcumin comparable to ibuprofen in terms of pain relief. >> Yeah, there's a lot of work on curcumin and turmeric. As I say, a lot of people get confused because they think they it only works if you absorb it into the blood. And I'm saying that actually you don't. What you do is you work with the microbiome to make it useful. >> And there's early preclinical studies taking place around the impact it can have with cancers. And there's promising but early studies showing the impact that curcumin, that comes from turmeric, can have on brain health. >> Yes, well, that's the focus is switching on to the blood supply to the brain. What we call the vascular effects on the brain. And there's something that we used to call the blood-brain barrier, which you've probably heard of, which is seen to be the place where the barrier that stops a lot of stuff entering the brain and potentially upsetting it. We now know this blood-brain barrier is a very dynamic, interesting interface between the brain's tissue and the rest of us is now called the neurovascular unit, NVU, and it is so exciting. And the more we look at it so far, the more we find that the things that help the neurovascular unit, the blood-brain barrier, are plants. And we have green tea and you know, we can if you really want to help um uh brain health, regular drinking of green tea, you know, it it's been shown to be really useful. Not that rather than the supplement, by the way. It's the drink that you have. Um >> [clears throat] >> let's I'll probably put it in here. Right, so we can make it. >> So, as you make that, can you explain to me why green tea is a good idea? >> Because it contains a number of, again, polyphenols. >> And polyphenols are those >> are these colors. >> These colors, yeah. >> And this case it's green, obviously. And remember, green tea is just the smoked, unprocessed part of the tea leaf. It's a it's a plant called camellia sinensis. Um So, this is a nice Japanese teapot. That's the sort of thing you'd have green tea in. And these are the mugs, but we've filled these up already with uh ginger and cinnamon. So, let's leave it even for a moment, but what we can while it's sitting there for a while, there are a number of these polyphenols in green tea that seem to be particularly effective in modulating that barrier that we talked about, the neurovascular unit between the brain and the rest of us. And um uh there's all sorts of reasons why regular consumption of green tea seems to be linked to less of this sort of trouble. >> What what sort of trouble? >> The the mentioned type problems, cognitive decline as you get older. >> Do they find that in cultures where they drink a lot of green tea, they have less dementia? >> Yeah, but that doesn't mean there's a cause and effect. So, you need a few other things to establish that. What we're finding is that other plants have very likely powerful effects in this area, and I mentioned the rosemary. Now, all you need to do to appreciate rosemary is to press it and sniff. >> Oh, smells so good. Hm, really nice. >> That's not just nice, because what you're doing there is you're inhaling volatile oils, >> Hm. >> the things that give the smell. And when you're inhaling, they're literally going into your brain, because part of the brain actually reaches the outside world. It's called the olfactory lobe. And when you inhale something, it literally moves into the brain. And from there into the limbic system. Remember, there's a line in Shakespeare, they call Hamlet, Ophelia, the young lady says, "Rosemary, that's for remembrance." >> Hm. >> Because everyone knew that this improved cognitive functions. And when I was in working on our campus in Maryland, we actually did a clinical trial with rosemary in people with struggling with their crosswords, you know, as they get older, and found that although it wasn't a conclusive study, there were pointers to it improving cognitive performance in those people. And there's been other studies since that that reinforce that. I would say that rosemary is one of the ones to watch in terms of long-term brain health. There's another remedy called ginkgo that a lot of people know about, which they used as a prescription medicine in Europe uh for cardiovascular problems, and that's been shown to be likely useful and using the same sort of mechanisms as as we've seen here and with the green tea. I'll just check it here. Yeah, that looks all right. You see it's more yellow than green. But uh And uh this is flavored with a little bit of mint to make it a little more agreeable. Sometimes people find green tea is not their favorite taste. >> Green tea is rich in polyphenols um which are linked to benefits ranging from heart and brain health to fat loss and cancer prevention. >> It's got a nice minty flavor. >> Yeah. >> You could live with that, couldn't you? >> Yeah. Yeah. My girlfriend now again she she's all over this stuff. She's always bloody right. >> Well, you know that or learn that lesson a long time ago. >> I know, right? Like I say it all the time on this podcast, but she's always like 2 3 years ahead of what then someone really really smart comes and tells me. And I spend those 2 or 3 years in denial. I'm like, "What the is she like over there?" Don't get me started on cacao. If you start talking to me about cacao >> No, no, no, no, no. >> She's been telling me this >> I'm going to nail this because there's a lot of people listening who will want to hear this. Cocoa >> Yeah. >> chocolate, dark chocolate is a medicine. End of. It's one of the best medicines around. It's 50 g 100 g of 75% or more dark chocolate. >> Do you know what? I've just realized my girlfriend she's going to live till she's 150 because she she eats 90% or something 80% dark chocolate. She drinks green tea all day. She has the ginger and cinnamon drinks all day. She eats the the full rainbow. >> She should be sipping it for you. >> I know. I I know. Exactly. >> No, uh cocoa s- seriously brain health as well, cardiovascular [clears throat] health. I mean, they just they do studies where they've put cocoa into volunteers, that means students usually, you know, so young kids, and they were able to show changes in the blood flow within minutes. Certainly within an hour of eating cocoa. Beneficial changes in your blood flow. >> They call it the heart medicine. >> Yeah. No, it's heart, circulation, brain. >> Every So, she's um my girlfriend's very spiritual. She runs a business called Bali Breathwork. Um hashtag I have to I have to say that. But in her business, one of the things she does at the very start of the session with women all over the world that come to her retreats, is she makes cacao for them. And you notice instantly how people change when they've had a hot cup of cacao. It's And And she says it like almost brings out their heart. And I guess that's because of the circulation reasons. It's >> It is, but it's also, of course, we know it contains a few other beneficial stimulate stimulating things that sort of similar to the effects of a coffee, which in certainly as I've already said is a medicine as well. But cocoa and chocolate does have a uplifting effect, which is why we love it so. >> And we have to be clear here. We're not talking about hot chocolate that comes from a packet or something necessarily. >> We would like it to be as dark as possible. >> Okay. So >> The less sugar, the less fat. So, we talk about 75% cocoa solids. You know, so it's dark chocolate. And it tastes a bit more medicinal, doesn't it? It's not as sweet. But I'm saying to many of my patients, take 50 g a day as a medicine. >> Hm. Damn. She's right. My fridge is full of dark chocolate. I tend to avoid it, but the drawer of my fridge has all of her dark chocolate in it, and it's She She likes 90%. If she can get a 90%, she'll take it. >> Yeah, 90% is There's quite a bit in there. Yeah. Yeah. >> I'm having a look at the green tea. There was a study done in 2008 which supports how it improved cognitive function, memory, attention, accuracy, and >> [clears throat] >> long-term consumption is is associated with lower risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease according to the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry in 2011. >> I just have somebody else just say what you said. >> Yeah, but it's it's exactly. I didn't realize I didn't I had no idea. I had no idea. All those times I turned it down when she offered it to me. >> Mhm. Can't say sorry. >> I've literally literally I've got to Wow, heart health, brain function, fat burning and metabolism, cancer prevention early evidence, blood sugar and insulin sensitivity, gut and oral health. >> [music] >> If there's anything we need, it is connection, especially in the world we're living in today. And that is exactly why we created these conversation cards because on this show when I sit here with my guest and have those deep intimate conversations, this remarkable thing happens time and time again. We feel deeply connected to each other. At the end of every episode, the guest I'm interviewing leaves a question for the next guest and we've turned them into these conversation cards. And we've added these twist cards to make your conversations even more interesting. And there are so many more twists along the way with the conversation cards. This is the brand new edition and for the first time ever I've added to the pack this gold card which is an exclusive question from me. But I'm only putting the gold cards in the first run of conversation cards. So get yours now before the limited edition gold cards are all gone. Head to the link in the description below. >> [music] >> Ooh. Ooh.