Dhru Purohit Show - Neuroscientist Shares the Number One Activity You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s, Dementia, and Build A Super Brain with Wendy Suzuki

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers, Birch Living, and Lifeforce. What if daily habits could transform your anatomy and physiology by creating new brain cells, enhancing synapses, preventing aging, and improving your mood? Today’s guest, Dr. Wendy Suzuki, shares the lifestyle habits that can achieve all of this. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Dr. Wendy Suzuki to discuss how to prevent cognitive decline based on the latest research in neuroscience. Dr. Suzuki shares her daily routine that boosts brain health and highlights the lifestyle factors that should be prioritized. Additionally, she shares her personal story on why she made it her mission to improve brain health and discusses the crucial role exercise plays in both short-term and long-term brain health. It’s never too late to protect your brain, and Dr. Suzuki shows us how. Dr. Wendy Suzuki is the Dean of the College of Arts and Science at New York University and a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology. She is a passionate thought leader, spreading the understanding of how we can use the principles of brain plasticity to maximize our brain’s performance and transform our lives for the better. Her TED talk has more than 60 million views, and she is the author of two books, Good Anxiety and Healthy Brain and Happy Life. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Suzuki dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): Daily Habits To Prioritize (00:00:43 / 00:00:43) What To Avoid In Your Morning Routine (5:40 / 5:40) Daily Exercise Is Non-Negotiable (12:00 / 9:30) Never Too Late To Start Moving (18:07 / 15:26) Dr. Suzuki’s Fear Around Neurodegeneration (20:31 / 17:50) What Lifestyle Factors Lead To Decline (25:10 / 20:50) Is More Better and The Role of Resistance Training (30:48 / 26:28) Dr. Suzuki’s Wakeup Call (37:16 / 32:56) Social Connections and Finding Your Community (51:25 / 47:05) Alcohol, Sugar, and Whole Foods (59:50 / 55:30) Devices and Anxiety (1:08:50 / 1:04:20) Women and Alzheimer’s Rates (1:15:20 / 1:11:00) Also mentioned in this episode: Dr. Wendy Suzuki Ted Talk  To learn more about Dr. Suzuki, follow her on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or her website.  This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers, Birch Living and Lifeforce.  Upgrade your digestion with enzymes! Go to masszymes.com/dhrufree now for a free bottle of Masszymes for a limited time. To get 20% off your Birch Living mattress plus two free eco-rest pillows, head over to birchliving.com/dhru today. Right now, you can save $250 on your first diagnostic and get personalized suggestions. Optimize your longevity and track your progress; go to mylifeforce.com/dhru!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Wendy Suzuki, you know, one of the biggest fear that many of our audience members have is that their brain will slowly stop serving them and one day they'll wake up with serious cognitive decline or even dementia. Now, your mission as one of the world's top neuroscientist is to remind us that even though this fear is real and the statistics show that more and more people are ending up with dementia and Alzheimer's every day, that there is in fact a lot that we can do to at least prevent this from happening or reduce our risk. So I'd actually love to start there. You know, what are a few of the daily habits, routines that you prioritize to protect your brain and reduce the risk of getting dementia one day? Yeah, great. So I really want to emphasize, this is a steving off. This is a reducing of risk. This is not turning back the clock.

I'm not curing. I do not have a cure for Alzheimer's, despite the fact that I would love it if I did. But what I do know are the most powerful tools that we know from neuroscience to help our brains be as strong and big and fat and fluffy, as I like to say, as they can be. And so let's start with, what do I do every single day?

You know, I like to practice what I preach. So I start off the day with a tea meditation, which is meditation over the brewing and drinking of tea. It was taught to me by a monk who has a tea institute in Taiwan, and it was just such a grounding experience. Okay, full disclosure, I love tea. And so people ask, can I do it with coffee? Yes, you can, but there's this thing with tea where not tea bag tea, but loose leaf tea. And if you have really good loose tea tea, it lasts for many, many seepings. And so you have this, you know, set up where you can just keep, keep dousing the tea leaves with water. And it kind of

keeps you going because there is this ritual that has to happen in a particular order. And I have been doing it. I'm coming up on my, this is my ninth anniversary, a nine-year anniversary of doing it. Literally every single day, okay, if I have a 4 a.m. pickup time for an airport, I don't do it. But all other mornings I do. Meditation is great for your brain. It's known to enrich the prefrontal cortex, one of the two areas that is sensitive to both aging and neurodegenerative disease states. And then what do I do? After my meditation, it lasts between half an hour and 45 minutes usually. It is just my first morning time to kind of wake up. And then I change into my workout clothes in my own living room slash dining room. And I work out for good 30 minutes.

I try and do cardio strength. Sometimes I do yoga. And one of the best things that I developed over the pandemic is my own habit of being able to work out on my own. I used to need that great instructor with all the great music and get all dressed up and everything. I don't need that anymore. And I'm very, very regular with that. Also, seven days a week, it's not just, okay, five days a week you do it. I do it every morning that I can. I do half an hour of cardio workout. I have woken up from eight hours to nine hours of sleep. I also prioritize sleep because you know what happens during sleep? One, garbage gets removed. Metabola. metabolic garbage gets removed from your brain, too, you get emotional control is enriched when you are sleeping for eight to nine hours and memories consolidated when you sleep for eight to nine hours.

It is so important. So I have eight to nine hours sleep. I meditate. I work out. I eat the colorful Mediterranean diet and then I am ready to go and tackle my day. And those I've just hit. Oh, and then I have friends and I connect with people. All of those things, that is my secret sauce and not just mine, but so much research showing that that will make your brain big and fat and fluffy and make you be the most resilient that you can be to aging and neurodegenerative disease states.

I love all that. And you can't talk about the brain and making it. get big, fat, and fluffy without talking about also some of the things that you're avoiding doing. You know, when I hear about your routines and I have a bunch of questions about them, when I hear about the tea meditation in the morning, when I hear about working out, when I hear about prioritizing and going from eight hours of sleep to nine hours of sleep, I'm also asking myself, are there habits in that way that you're avoiding by prioritizing these things, these things that you're crowding out?

many people start their morning with the priorities of everyone else and they go to social media or they turn on the news. So one of the first things that came up for me is that that seems to be a big part of it too, avoiding certain things by prioritizing the good. Is that correct? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, if I prioritize my Mediterranean diet, then I don't go and eat the Twix bars that, okay, I really love them, but I stopped eating them a while. while ago, you have a set of go-toes that you create in your life from food to sleep. I have a very strict, the time that I have to start going into the bedroom. I turn off the TV. I love watching Netflix just like the rest of everybody, but I have a very strict turn off the TV time.

And while I love to listen to audiobooks to help fall asleep, kind of like a a bedtime story for adults. I do not look at social media in the bedroom. That is not allowed. And so, yes, absolutely. What comes with what you're filling your life with is things that you're pushing out so they don't have these deleterious effects, absolutely.

How are you protecting, especially, you know, you talked about so many things in the morning, your meditation, which comes in the form of a tea meditation, You're working out. So much of this is happening in the morning. In fact, how you slept the night before is setting the stage for the morning. How do you protect your morning and have the energy and the will to give it the love and attention it deserves? I came to it by trial and error because for many years, I was an after work, go to the gym person.

And I loved it. And, you know, they say it's true. you shouldn't work out, like right before you're going to go to sleep, but I would work out. It would come home and eat, and then I would go to sleep, and that was my routine. But I noticed that those appointments got pushed a little bit later and then I wouldn't go to the gym. Turns out people don't like to wake up really early in the morning for meetings. It's just generally less interrupted your early morning routine. I wake up between 5 and 530 to get all this stuff in before I get to work.

And so for my role, and I'm a dean of the College of Arts and Science and a professor of neural science at New York University, so lots and lots of meetings on my schedule from students to other faculty to administrators, the morning was the least interruptible of all the different times of the day. And so I just came through that myself, and I'm a big proponent of self-experimentation. What works for you? Do that test? I tried it in the evening, and I was kind of being pushed. My workout was being pushed out too many times.

Tried it in the morning. It was painful to wake up, because I had to teach myself to wake up early. And yes, was it painful? But I gave myself a two-week challenge, try and do it for two weeks and see. whether you see a difference in how you're feeling during the day and also how much it was interrupted. Felt great. I felt awful at first. It was horrible to have to wake up earlier than you usually do. But once I got used to it, it really fell into place for me. So it's not all, you know, roses. There's some effort that you have to put in. But it's an experiment that you can do on yourself.

You know, one of your most viral talks is on the topic of how moving your body is one of the best things you can do for your brain. Give us some of the top line research, because our audience loves to hear about this. Give us some of the top line research that you've participated in, come across over the years, that makes daily exercise a non-negotiable for you. I say that moving your body is the most. transformative thing that you can do for your brain today for three reasons. Reason number one is that you get an immediate brain benefit every single time you move your body. Why? Because moving your body actually releases a whole bunch of neurochemicals in your brain. And you've heard of some of them. Dopamine and serotonin and noradrenaline. That's what gives you that mood boost when you go out for a walk.

When you can't handle it anymore at work, you go out far at walk and go, oh, I feel better. It's not magic. It's neurochemicals that are doing that to your brain. But you not only get that immediate mood boost, you get an immediate boost in your ability to shift and focus attention. Your prefrontal cortex has been shown to work better. It's not a permanent change, but it's an immediate benefit of moving your body. And you get better and faster response times because one part of your brain that gets better with movement is your motor area. and that is causing those movement times. And so the image that I like to give for people is that every single time you move your body, it's like giving your brain a wonderful bubble bath full of beneficial neurochemicals. And so this is what I like to tell people,

visualize that when you go out for a walk, when you don't feel like going out for a walk, or you go out for a run, when you don't feel like going out for a run. I like to give my brain that bubble bath every single morning. and also the big question is, what is the least amount of movement that I could get to get that bubble bath? And the answer is one that everybody should just cheer about because the answer is 10 minutes of walking has been shown to decrease anxiety and depression levels.

So beneficial anxiety, depression levels going through the roof, through COVID, it's coming back down to more normal, but still we're above where we were before the COVID. pandemic. And that's what you get. You don't even have to change your clothes to walk for 10 minutes. So that's, and that's only number one. I have two more to go. Number two is that moving your body, not just once, not just a one-off, but changing your pattern and increasing the way you, you move your body, including more regular walking. Now that has the magic of actually changing your anatomy, physiology and function of your brain. And I'm going to highlight my favorite way that it does that because one of, so every single time you move in your body, you're still getting that bubble bath. One of the things in the bubble bath is a growth factor called brain-derived neurotrophic factor

or B-D-NF. It's been called the miracle grow of your brain. And where does it go? It goes directly to my favorite brain structure called the hippocampus, critical for our ability to, form and retain new long-term memories for facts and events. This is a structure that is first attacked in Alzheimer's disease. You have that in your family history, as I do. My father died with Alzheimer's disease. You will want your hippocampus to be as strong as it can be as you go into older age. And so this is what's happening.

Part of that bubble bath is bringing in growth factors that go to the hippocampus and grow brand new brain cells. The hippocampus is only one of two adult brain structures where new brain cells can be born. So you get shiny new brain cells in the hippocampus, and you also get not new brain cells, but new synapses, new connections between existing brain cells in the prefrontal cortex that make both these areas

that are susceptible to aging and neurodegenerative disease states bigger and fatter and fluffier and working better in you. That is my personal motivation to work out every morning because I'll tell you, there are mornings where I really don't feel like it. But I think about the bubble bath and I think about big, shiny hippocampal cells and many more connections in my prefrontal cortex, and I do it. The last benefit is regular exercise that's growing your hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. It is that act that is staving off normal aging and neurodegenerative disease states because it is the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex that are two of the most

susceptible brain areas to aging. So I'm not, I'm not necessarily turning the clock back, but I am shoring up and in that way staving off, cognitive decline, because I'm doing those activities that is exercise that are making my hippocampus and prefrontal cortex as big and as powerful as they can be during the time that I have where I am physically able to do that. That is a strategy that I offer to everybody out there who's concerned with aging and neurodegenerative disease states. You know, when people hear you talk and all the incredible podcast, TED talks, books, and other things that you've written out there, social media, they get so excited by this information

and having sent your content to so many people, I know one of the other things that it comes up, regardless of what age somebody is 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and above is they often ask themselves, is it too late to get started? Absolutely not. It is never too late. And what is the data that I use to say an absolute no that it's never too late? The data are studies done in people that were already diagnosed. with mild cognitive impairment, which is a cognitive decline that's basically on the way to dementia and Alzheimer's disease. And even people already showing signs of cognitive decline when put on a regular walking regimen showed significant improvement in their cognition at that level compared to

counterpoints also with mild cognitive impairment that did not do that extra walking. Why? Because every one of us, couch potato, non-couch potato, we're all growing shiny new hippocampal neurons. I should have mentioned that. That is the benefit we all have. At all ages, it's been shown you're getting new hippocampal brain cells even into your ninth decade, which means that though that mechanism is there waiting for the bubble bath of brain growth factors to be sprinkled on the hippocampus. and only you have that power, get up and walk, do a power walk,

because we know that the kind of exercise that's most beneficial for getting the growth factors going in that bubble bath is any workout that increases your heart rate. And I will emphasize that includes power walking. You don't have to do some crazy triathlon. All you have to do is walk so that you feel your heart rate going up. And that is, again, accessible for everybody. This is great, by the way.

This is all gold. You're so, you have such an incredible knack for making things so digestible for people. I'm sure, I know people have told you that, but, you know, I just wanted to reiterate that again. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I have a lot of practice and I always thought that it was because I'm kind of simple-minded myself. So I say it in the way that I understand it. And somehow that's, that's understandable for lots of people. So that's been a benefit. I want to ask you, you mentioned your father. You've been very vulnerable with your family's story and being touched by dementia.

Do you share this fear that many of our audience members have? In fact, it's their number one fear on many surveys and polls that we've put out there, that your brain will one day fail you. Of course, I share that fear. I think the older we get, the more loved ones and friends around us, we see going through that in a really sometimes dramatic and day-to-day way. There's no way to change that. There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease. There's no turning back the clock of aging, which is why these tools that are available to anybody who wants to implement them in your life.

It costs no money to sleep regularly and more and get your sleep in order. It costs nothing to walk more every single day at a level that gets your heart rate up. It costs nothing. We haven't gone to this. I'm sure you're going to ask about the important role of connecting, having social networks that's so good for our brain. So much of our brain circuit evolved to be able to interact with other people. These are things, and especially since our surgeon general has declared an epidemic of loneliness,

that one is so important to emphasize, especially for the younger generation that is getting so much interaction through the phone. I'm sorry, it's not the same. It is person-to-person face-to-face interaction that is so powerful for our brains and for our longevity. I'm well aware of what could happen. Now, I lost my father and he had Alzheimer's. My mother's memory is, she's very well aware. It's getting worse now in her late 80s. But I remain optimistic.

I know I'm not going to cure this, perhaps in my lifetime. But I know the strategies that I can implement every single day to make my cognitive life as good as it could be with the best signs we know today. And that is what I focus on, and that is kind of my passion in sharing it with others because this is doable. This is not, you have to buy a $59.99 subscription to something. No.

Use these tips and bring them into your life, and it will pay benefits and dividends for years to come. You know, zooming out for a second, from my limited understanding, and this could be incorrect, so please correct me, is that there has been an increase in dementia and Alzheimer's disease, if we look at like the human timeline and landscape. Do you think that there is a list of,

if you had to rank them as the most damaging things that have contributed to that? You know, you mentioned a few things, ultra-processed food, sedentary lifestyle, genetics play a role, but many experts like yourself have come on this podcast and said genetics when it comes to cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease is maybe 5% or less of the influence that's there. So if that is correct, how would you rank them based on your best understanding of what has pushed the human race in this direction where we're having at least more dementia and Alzheimer's disease. So that's such a great question.

And I'm going to kind of approach it from a different landscape, from a positive point of view, which is the other positive thing is that we are living much longer than we used to. Because all the medicine that we have is allowing us to live longer. The older you are, the higher the probability that you are, the higher the probability that you're, you will start to show dementia and ultimately Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia. And so, you know, the longevity that comes with much better medicine in this century than we had in the last century and longer lifespans because of that health care boost. That is such a huge benefit that we have created for ourselves comes with the downside.

that the longer you're on this planet, the more likely you're going to develop these, these cognitive benefits, sorry, not benefits, the cognitive deficits that come with aging and Alzheimer's disease. Now, given that, that, you know, maybe I will live to my 90s. My mother's almost 90 now. And I have several other, I have another family member that just celebrated her hundred and sixth birthday, yay, with great cognition, but, you know, a terrible hearing and her eyesight is not good. So we can't cure all these things that come up with older age. But what can we do? We've already talked about so many of the important ones that come into play every single day. What you eat is very important. Natural, colorful foods is another way to say the

Mediterranean slash mind diet that has full of antioxidants and fresh foods. Obviously, ultra-processed foods, only a teeny tiny bit is fine, but I really want to decrease those movement, regular movement. One of my dream experiments has always been to follow Olympic athletes from the time that they're young because so many of them started when they were so young and have this regular physical activity and really continue it throughout their lifetime. They often continue being teachers and continue to be active and just comparing overall prevalence of Alzheimer's and age that Alzheimer's or dementia comes all. in the Olympic population compared to an age and education match control should show some really clear differences if all the work that I've been describing is true. So obviously, movement, food, movement, sleep, again, daily thing that everybody can do to improve their brain. They're different in younger kids, it's longer. It's eight to ten hours that's

recommended. And more adults, it's eight to nine hours. My own personal experiments show that I am eight, eight to nine. And so I, and how do I know that? You might ask, it's because I test myself out in times. I just had a staycation that I did. And I gave myself the luxury. of I have a very strict going to sleep time, but I asked myself, how long do I sleep when I don't have an alarm? How long? When do I naturally wake up?

And it is eight to nine hours. And I had to fly to Boston at a really early flight. And that next night it was nine hours because I had to make up the time I didn't sleep because I had to wake up so early for the flight. This is something that every single person can do. and connection, those points of connections, family, work environment, your social connections, so important that is building up your brain and letting you work those circuits that are so

important for us as human beings and for our empathy and compassion and so good for our brains overall. Let's say someone has the basics down in terms of walking. What I loved about the recommendation so far is if you're not doing anything and you're living more of a sedentary lifestyle, even 10 minutes a day makes a difference for your brain, right? And it gives people momentum. Let's say somebody already has that and they have that foundational aspect or they're hitting some of their step goals in the day. What does it take to take it up to the next level? And what have some of the experiments that either you've been involved in or have read about in the research? shown us about exercise and is more better. Yeah, yeah. That's such a great question. And I have studies from my own lab that I could share at this point.

So one of my favorite studies that we did was in midfit people. Midfit is defined as working out around two times a week for at least 20 minutes for the last three months. and if you were mid-fit, you got into the study and we said, we'll give you as many free spin classes as you want. Go crazy. You can go five days a week. They're all free. Or you can stay two times a week,

and usually they were going twice a week to these 45-minute spin classes. And so we got a whole wide range. Some people went up to seven. Some people went to six, five, four. Some people stayed at two. And so what we found was we boiled it down to the thought that every single pedal of the bike counted. The more pedals you did, the more brain benefits that you got. And what were the key brain benefits?

We saw emotional regulation with mood, a positive moon going up, negative mood coming down. We saw benefits in your ability to shift and focus your attention. as I was saying, the prefrontal cortex is sensitive and we saw it in that study. And we saw benefits in your hippocampal function, your ability to do spatial long-term memory mapping, which we know is very, very dependent on the hippocampus. So I'd like to emphasize, I don't want people to go away with, oh, my God, I have to go seven times a week. Is that what she said, no. What I said is every level is beneficial, even a little bit more.

you're going to get that little bit of benefit. Every step counts. And so that helps everybody because very few of us can go from, I'm not working out very much to I'm going seven days a week to a really hard workout. No, that's what I'm saying. That's an aspiration. Sure, that's great. But every benefit counts.

And so every step, every pedal will benefit your brain. And that's a message that I want to convey. I'd love to get your perspective. As someone deep in this research, there's been a trend, especially over the last few years, where there has been a doubling down of emphasis on resistance training for those that are looking to step it up. Weight training, some resistance, and especially where I've seen it is I've never seen more women and also older people, men and women, now start to take resistance training and preserving lean muscle mass as they age seriously, not just for their body and their metabolic health, but also their brain.

Is there deep research and truth to this trend? So I think there's great research from exercise physiologists about the importance, particularly as we age to do that resistance training to get that muscle mass as good as it could be, as our joints age, I think there's a lot of great research there. But now let me turn to the brain. Just because it's great for your muscle mass does not mean that exact same formula is equally good for your brain. And that's where I want to give a little bit of nuance. And the nuance is that, yes, the neuroscientists have taken up this trend also to try and say,

is, they call it anaerobic training, just as good as aerobic training? And the results have been mixed in that some studies haven't shown great benefit, brain benefits, and other studies have shown that there is benefits. And I'm not clear whether part of those benefits are, there's very few studies that are purely just muscle, no heart rate involved at all. In fact, my favorite workouts are the cardio strength workouts that add, you know, the, the weights onto whatever aerobic activity that you do. I love those the best because they get my heart rate up the highest.

And I feel like I'm getting all the benefits, both for my muscles and for my heart. And it actually increases the cardio that I'm doing. So I'm not convinced that we know exactly why. I think there's some evidence that resistance training is good. And I think any kind of movement I would like to, you know, promote, you're going to to the gym you're doing that, that's great. It could be a little tweak as add a little bit more, you know, treadmill work as you're doing your resistance. And that would definitely take it to the sweet spot from neuroscience research, which is there's so much evidence that that aerobic activity is so

good for your brain. So that's how I identify it. I wouldn't say, I think there's more research that has to be done on the effects of resistance training, specific. on the brain. So, but keep moving and try and pay most attention to your aerobic activity. Because I guarantee those people going to the gym with resistance training, their heart rate is going up because that is, I've done resistance training. My heart rate goes up. It's hard to do that.

I am out of breath when I'm doing that. So you're getting at least that benefit from those studies, from that activity. That's great. You know, so many people get serious about this area when usually there's either a rock bottom moment in their life, an aha moment in their life, somebody gets diagnosed with something. I'd love to just talk about your story just for a second because you had a very influential trip that you went on that played a huge role in you deciding that I need to take fitness and strength way more seriously. Can you talk about that? Sure. So this was when I was going through a very stressful job-related moment in my academic life,

which is I was trying to get tenure at New York University. And tenure is they give you six years to show that you are a world-class scientist, and if you do, you get a job for life. And if you don't, you get fired. So, you know, no big deal. You know, just give it a try. And so I took that challenge very seriously, and my strategy was, well, I'm just going to put my head down and work for six years.

I'm not going to do anything else. I'm just going to work. And at about year five there, it's like, God, I'm not feeling so good. I don't have a lot of friends because I work all the time. I eat a lot of takeout. I'm not feeling energetic. And so I didn't quite know what to do about the no. Not on a friend's thing, but it's like, okay, I'm going to give myself a vacation and go on a, you know, a physical vacation.

So I did a river rafting trip to the Kotawasi River in Peru. And you can join this trip with lots of other people. You know, I didn't have anybody to go on vacation with, so I just went by myself. And it was so great. We were outside. We were paddling all day. We did the rapids and we camped out every night. And I still remember the first night we found our campground

and we got into one of those fire lines when you're supposed to lift the packages and help put it out, bring it out. And there were a hundred pound packages. And I'm like, okay, maybe I'll, I don't know whether I can do this. And my wonderful fellow rural rafters kind of got on either side of me and helped me make me feel like it was healthy and even though I wasn't.

And look, it was a great trip. but I came back thinking, I don't know if it was the week of person on this trip. I need to do something. And I felt so much better being out in nature for that whole week and a half that I was there. And so that was my wake-up call to go to the gym and start working on my physical health and not ignore it as I did for the previous five or six years. So I did. And somehow it stuck.

And boy, I really felt the difference. And I'm sure everybody in my lab was like, yeah, keep going to the gym. You're much happier when you're going to the gym. So that was my wake-up call. It also set up a real comparison and contrast because right during that time, and I was like, wow, I feel so good. My writing is better. I have so much energy.

And right at that time, my mom, called to tell me that my father wasn't feeling well and that he had come home not being able to drive back from the 7-Eleven that he went to for the last, you know, 20 years at least to get his afternoon cup of coffee at 7-Eleven and he got lost coming driving back home. It's only eight or nine blocks. And as a neuroscientist who studies, spatial memory in the hippocampus, I knew that was a very, very bad sign. And over those next few months, I could see his focus and attention really when he couldn't tell, you know, what he really didn't know what day it was. His memory was terrible. It was clearly, it kind of went night to day. He was a very smart man, a chemical

engineer, and he covered it up for a very long time. And until one day, his hippocampus couldn't do it anymore. And it struck me that everything that I felt was doing so much better in me, his mood also went very down because he knew what was happening to him. My mood was up. My focus was up. My memory felt like it was working better. And I just saw this horrible opposite mirror image in my father that happened. And it ended up being Alzheimer's dementia. And that's what really got me into this this area of research, the effects of exercise on the brain, because this was all happening at the same time. And I said, I need to know what the link is. Can I help? Can I help myself? Can I help my father? What is the neuroscience of this? And it kind of set me off on a whole new direction.

You know, I so appreciate you as a scientist, as an academic, as a dean, being vulnerable in sharing your personal story because not only does it humanize you, but everybody can relate to that idea. We've all had people who we care about who are trying to navigate their health. I'm curious from a lens of the audience learning, when you look at your dad's life and, you know, Asian family, also Asian family, you know, coming to the United States, trying to live the American dream, working long hours, often in professional jobs, doctor, chemical engineer, computer scientist, and it's all to try to create a better life for your kids so that

they can have options that you didn't have. So the motivation was there. And there was, of course, sacrifices that were made. Were there things or themes from your father's life that you think were absent or not prioritized that like many families and many parents, especially a lot of these Asian parents, that they just didn't have the education that they should be putting attention in these areas. So what was your dad doing, not doing that we can, you know, Alzheimer's dementia, they're not one thing. It's a life of components.

And even then we don't know why people still get it or don't get it. But are there themes that we can learn from your father's life that weren't present? Another element you remind me in thinking about my dad that was beneficial is cognitive learning is beneficial to the brain. We know the people that are lifelong learners get a brain benefit from that. And my father was absolutely a lifelong learner, a avid reader. He loved history. So that part was really good. He wanted to be. He wanted to be. be an athlete. My mother was the athlete in the family. And my brother also, a great, great athlete. My dad tried. He wasn't as athletic. And I'm kind of in the middle. I got, I wanted to be more athletic. I was not as athletic as my mom or my brother. But, but I also tried. So that was one, especially when he got older, he, well, while he was younger, he wasn't as active as perhaps

he could have been. And he was absolutely that hard worker working long hours to, you know, to bring his family up and so that my brother and I could have a better life. But even, you know, in his old age, he would do his regular walks to the park. And he was a, he was a good Walker at that, at that point. But as people know, when dealing with people that have dementia Alzheimer's disease, his, particularly my father, his balance was not so good. So having him walk was also a danger of having him fall, too. And so at some point, you know, in an older age, you have to weigh the benefits and the deficits of sending them all. off for regular walks.

And we did it as long as we could. And then, you know, we focused on other things, just keeping him cognitively active. But I would say one thing that I was so happy to correct and not correct, but to change. kind of at the end of his life is Asian American families, particularly East Asian American families have a cultural history of not being particularly expressive with their children. And at some point, I realized that as an adult, and this was after my father had been diagnosed and he was seen a neurologist, and, you know, I would speak to him at least once a week. I was living in New York and they live in California.

And I realized that as an adult, I never said, I love you to my parents ever. Because, you know, it's not like they didn't love us. But if you don't say it, it's not part of your culture, then you don't say it. But I am a slightly different culture than they are because I'm a third generation. Japanese American. And it's like, you know, maybe I want to say this to my parents, even though I know it's not in their culture. And so I said, okay, this is a great idea. I'm going to do it. It's like, well, it's actually very awkward to say it to your parents for the first time after you've never said it before. And so I decided I needed to ask permission to say, say this to my parents for the first time. And it was, it was an awkward, but, but in the end, beautiful telephone call that I had.

It was part of my regular telephone calls. And I decided I was going to ask this, but I was trying to, I was going to try and kind of keep it light. You know, no big deal. I'm just going to try and ask it, you know, in a casual way. And so I called and as usual, my mother answered. and she was, she was the harder one. I didn't know what she was going to say. And so we had our conversation, what did you do this week?

What did I do that that week? And in the middle of the conversation, I said, hey, mom, you know, I realized we never say, I love you to each other. What do you think about saying that, you know, to each other on these calls? and then there was silence, complete silence on the phone because you're like, I'd never ever in my whole life asked her something like this. And so she, it seemed like such a long time and I was holding my breath. But she answered after the pregnant pause and she said, oh, I think that's a great idea.

And I was like, thank God. And, you know, keep a catch with that. That's great. Okay. That sounds good, Mom. And so we finished our conversation, and it was great until we got to the end of the conversation where we both realized somebody's going to have to say this. We just agreed to this thing so casually.

And now we're going to have to say it. And I describe it as kind of two lions kind of circling each other. Like, well, who's going to go first? It got very tense, but it was my ask. And so I said, okay, mom, I love you. And in my big Disney voice. And she said, I love you too. And then she went to go get my dad because she knew the conversation was over.

And I think she was as relieved as I was. And so then my dad got on. And this was relatively early in his diagnosis. So, you know, our conversations were pretty normal. And so I asked him and he said yes. And we said this to each other. and I hung out the phone and I burst into tears because it was very emotional, you know,

to say this to my parents for the very first time. And I knew that it was changing the culture of my family's dynamic because we've said that to each other every call until my father passed away. Such a beautiful story. And even regardless of where people come from in the world, there are so many different family dynamic that are out there.

And I know a lot of people can relate, even if they didn't grow up in an Asian household where it is very common that your parents don't say, I love you when you're a kid, and yet would do anything for you because that's the household that it's there. You know, it reminds me that an important part of your message that you also hinted at earlier

is that the strength of our close relationships, of course family telling our family that we love them, that we have their back, that we're there for them, and if it's not there creating that. But also, friendships, friendships, can you call somebody, you know, if you woke up in the middle of night dealing with the problem, like, do you have people that you can call and rely on and not feel, you know, all of us would feel a little bit bad waking somebody up in the middle of night, but you feel like you're there for them and they're there for you. And it's not just, just fluffy. You know, you've talked about one of the longest running studies at Harvard showing

that the strength of our relationships actually plays a huge role into our health and longevity. So I'd just like to talk about that for a second. Remind us about why social connections are so important for the brain. And if you could, the second part of that, as somebody who said that they didn't have a lot of friends when you were so focused on your career, what did you do to find your tribe and community? Yes, the longest running study on happiness at Harvard that came out with this amazing finding that, you know,

the number of connections that you have is not only related to your happiness, but your longevity. I think speaks to our evolution, as a species and so many brain areas are evolved specifically to help us with those person-to-person interactions. Did you know we have a brain area specifically focused on processing human faces? You have damage to that area. You can no longer recognize human faces. Now, there's other things, you know, clothes. People have typical clothing patterns. You can recognize voices. But that is a syndrome called prosopagnosia.

And it just shows that this was very important to us evolutionarily, our ability to process faces and also to process the emotions on those faces. Are you upset? Are you happy? Did you like that story? You didn't like that story? We were always doing that. And we evolved making that happen.

And I think that it's all wound up not only in, using those areas that help us process, you know, social connections. But it is wound up in our emotional regulation and emotional life. Having those connections, okay, they're not all happy. I'm not saying that. How many of our relationships with our family can be, you know, very, very difficult. It's not about being happy. It's about it's about dealing with humanity.

and learning from that. It's actually very, very complicated. It involves basically all brain areas from your memory areas to your emotional areas to your planning areas. That is what it takes to have good, strong relationships. And it's probably one of the best things. I highlighted two brain areas

that exercise is really important for. I bet you that if you did a study on all the brain areas that get activated when you have good, strong relationships, whether they're perfect relationships, Instagram relationships, or real relationships, where you have to fight and you have to make up and you have to forgive and all of that. That is activating so much of our brain. And I think that activity is part of the value that you see over for happiness and for longevity. And to get to your second question about my strategies for going from, I don't feel like I have

enough friends because I focus too much on my work to getting more friends. You know, it is, it's simple. You enrich what you focus your time on. And I was giving zero time to my personal relationships. And I just gave more time to that. I gave more time. I gave more care. I gave more appreciation to what it came from.

And it's not like I went from no friends to a million friends overnight. It's taken some time. But with that care and with my own, like, I, with that prioritization of I want to have friends that I love and I appreciate and stimulate me around me, that has changed my friendship. area of life over years. So with all that understanding, would it be fair to say that one of the most damaging things that we could do to the brain, especially as people age, where they have a tendency to self-isolate, not participate in community? And that's not their fault. It's kind of the American system, the Western world that we live in that makes it hard for a community to happen. So would it be

fair to say, isolating, self-isolating, not participating? anticipating in community, that would be, especially as we age, one of the most damaging things we could do to the brain. In addition to especially as we age, as we are right now, if I isolated myself, I was isolated. I was significantly more isolated in those first five years of my trying to get tenure than I am right now. And that was damaging to my brain. It was, I was not as happy. I was, I was, I was, um, tended to kind of focus on on my, myself. then, no, I don't have tenure right now, all the bad things. That is outlined beautifully in our Surgeon General's focus on loneliness and why it's so bad. He experienced it himself, which is how he got sensitive to it. But then there's so many studies, including the Minister of loneliness that got appointed in the UK. I would rather have a Minister of Belonging if I was going

to decide on ministers. And in fact, I'm recruiting for a faculty director of belonging right now just to put a point on that point. So important at all ages. But yes, absolutely. It's especially can be especially concerning in old age when we have fewer and fewer options to change our circumstances. One hack that I feel like I've heard you talk about in your story that both brought in the movement piece and it sounds like maybe some community and friendship piece, although I don't know as much about that. is it correct that you took up dancing classes? You were going to like some dancing classes

or like hip hop at some point in time? Yes, when I came back from that river rafting trip from Peru, I joined a gym and the very first class that I went into is like I'm a member of the gym. I'm going to go into the first class that's just there. It was a hip hop dance class. Oh my God, that was such a nightmare. I'm a terrible hip hop.

I'm still a terrible hip hop dancer. But it got me moving. And then I found classes that I loved. And the one that really changed my motivation to come to the gym all the time was a class called Intensati or a workout called Intensati developed by an amazing fitness instructor Patricia Moreno. And she paired physical movements from kickbox and dance and yoga and martial arts with positive spoken affirmations. And that was a class that I could not wait to come back to. It's like that made me feel so good. And that was the class that I ended up training to be a teacher in a few years later after I kind of got into my exercise groove.

And it was just so, so fun and motivating. And I even brought it into my classroom and taught my NYU students an hour of intensati before we talked about the effects of exercise on the brain. So that was probably the favorite class that I've ever taught at NYU. You know, I want to pivot to when we told our audience that you were coming on and we were taking some questions, one of the areas that people had a lot of questions around were around the vices that many of us are surrounded by and that there could be a spectrum of them and how they're influencing our life. And so I'll run through a few of those to get your perspective and take on them. The first thing that came up is we saw, especially during the pandemic, alcohol consumption went up. and there are all sorts of different messages that people are sharing about alcohol. You have the Blue Zones and Dan Boutner's work talking about how all of the Blue Zones consume

moderate levels of alcohol except for Loma Linda, which is based in California. You have the top podcast of last year, which is Dr. Andrew Huberman talking about the dangers of alcohol on the body and the brain. I would love to get your perspective on alcohol and what your recommendation is to individuals who are listening today. So I am in the Huberman camp based on the most recent studies coming out that, yes, there were studies earlier suggesting that moderate amount of alcohol is fine, not harmful. But the most recent, quite convincing studies suggest that even a little bit of alcohol is not great for. your brain. And I will add that irrespective of the effects of alcohol for long-term health of your brain, there are immediate effects and deleterious effects of alcohol for your sleep. It is clear that even a

single glass of alcohol will disrupt your sleep at night. And my sensitivity to that is the reason why I, first I decreased my alcohol until I realized I could still tell that night that I had my one glass of Prosecco, which was the last thing that I was really enjoying. And I don't get me wrong, I loved my glasses of cocktails. You know, I'm a New York City cocktail, aficionado or I used to be. It was hard to give that up. But when I evaluated, could I tell that night's sleep the quality of that sleep and the answer was yes. And then that was backed up by lots and lots of studies. I was on a sleep mission at that moment.

And this was also during pandemic, where I mentioned that I did a sleep analysis and myself, and I gave up alcohol. And boy, I could tell the difference. So I think it's clear that there are, it's certainly not, not, I think the best thing you say, it's not nearly as beneficial as we used to think. And there are definite deficits that happen with every drink of alcohol for your nightly sleep.

And that is going to affect you for the next day. How in your memory, how strong your memory from the previous day is, is going to affect your emotional regulation because how many people feel that grumpiness when they haven't slept every single one of us. And it's going to affect your ability of the natural sleep cycle to clear out those brain metabolites. So just think of all that garbage buildup. So I gave you the image of the bubble bath with movement. A lack of sleep. Think of garbage pile up. I have a beautiful image. Come to New York City and see what happens when we have a garbage pile up in the streets. It is

smelly. It is not good. You do not want that. That is what's happening in your brain. So, so no, I'm a, look, I'm not going to say, therefore, everybody, give up your alcohol. I'm saying, that do it in moderation, but do not tell yourself that this is something good for your brain because I think the most recent evidence suggests that it is not good for your long-term health. You know, the next one I want to talk about is sugar. Again, here in this Western world, we do everything big. And sugar is consumed at often, unfortunately, for kids, especially at these pharmacological doses. And even though the link is not 100% clear, there is an understanding with more researchers and

physicians speaking up and saying that these metabolic disorders and being metabolically unhealthy seems to impact the brain. In fact, some people go on the extreme and say that Alzheimer's disease could be considered type 3 diabetes of the brain. what is your thought about added sugar? We're not talking about fruits and things with fiber and other stuff and its impact on the brain and anything that people can do to audit whether or not they're having too much of it in their diet. I absolutely agree with the study showing that too much long-term sugar is not good for your long-term brain health.

that is clear. As part of my dietary evaluation of my own life, I do pay attention to sugar as somebody who has more of a sweet tooth than I like to admit. So I don't know if there's anybody else out there like that, but I like, oh, I don't really like. And then I'm the first one. Let's share a dessert, you know. So I see that in my own behavior. But I'm also careful about that, both because of the study showing that too much sugar over the long term is not good. But also, I come back to, I'm very sensitive about sleep. Too much sugar late at night, I happen to be very sensitive to it. I learned that I remember the afternoon that I had a soda because I was so sleepy and I decided to have a soda. I hadn't had a soda in such a long time. And I could not sleep that night because of the extra

soda boost. That was the last time that I had a soda. It must have been maybe 17 years ago. So I am sensitive to soda for my sleep and I'm sensitive to the studies about sugar, extra sugar on the benefits for the deleterious effects of our brain. Now, a boost of sugar can help you in the short term to help kind of get your focus up. I recommend going for a walk that 10-minute walk to boost your focus and to boost your mood. The truth is that a little boost of sugar, like a muffin that has so much sugar in it, can also make you feel the same kind of boost. That long-term, in a pinch, go ahead and do that.

Long-term, not good for your long-term brain health. But you will feel some short-term brain benefits. We know that also for a fact. I remember very dramatically colleagues talking about the cafeteria diet that they fed their experimental studies versus the low sugar diet and the long-term hippocampal health, much better memory function in the rats that had the healthy, non-sugar-free diet. and they literally fed fed rats a diet that is most common in our school cafeterias. Lots of fat and lots of sugar. Not good for brain performance. There's so much talk about superfoods that are good for the brain.

Is there any truth to that? I know you've talked about your overall arching theme, which is that the Mediterranean diet, you know, having dark green leafy vegetables and a lot of those sort of things that you would see typically in the Mediterranean, do you buy into the idea that there are superfoods that are in particular really powerful to the brain. Blueberries are the ones that always come to the top of the list when people are talking about superfoods. Yes, they're good for your brain, they're good for your body. Does that mean that you should go on the blueberry diet? No. I think that you always come back to, I always come back to

what should people eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? And the answer in my mind is no, don't supplement with everything, eat that colorful, real food diet to get all the benefits that we know are important for both your body and your brain. And yes, add the blueberries, add the antioxidant, other antioxidant things. Whole grains are really good. I'm going to say that there are good foods. I'm not sure if I would go as far to say that they are super. I think the whole holistic diet is really important, particularly in this culture that tends to like to, okay, I'm going to cut that out of my whole diet. And I feel like diet trends in our country are a little bit too extreme and not healthy in the long term, which is why I don't want to focus on one or two superfoods.

I want to focus on the overall diet as being the most healthy for the long term health of our brain. Well, we were talking about vices, and one of the ones that is there that was on people's mind was overusage of the phones in particular social media, which doesn't seem to be always driving social connection. So what do you want to say about phones, anxiety, which you've written an entire book on this topic of anxiety, and the damage of unhealthy behavior when it comes to our brain? Yeah, I mean, I think the evidence is absolutely clear and the best evidence is for young kids, teenagers. Phone use going up and the prevalence of smartphones and the use of social media was strongly correlated with increase in anxiety and depression levels and taking into the next step, suicide levels.

suicide levels went up, particularly in young girls. And it's clear that social media used, while it can be used to look at inspiring things, young kids are using it to compare themselves to some idealized version that they will never have and they feel worse about themselves. So yes, does it lead to higher levels of anxiety, loneliness, isolation, that we talked about, absolutely. So particularly for young kids, the kind of two-pronged solution is less phone use and more social connection, which we just spent so much time talking about, because the more you're on your phone trying to like and like and comment and comment,

the less time you have in your life for that person-to-person social interaction that we know is as important, if not more important for our teenagers as they are for you and me as adults, trying to, you know, make our brains big and fat and fluffy. Is there any boundaries that you have when it comes to devices in your own life? I try and, well, my boundaries changed as I decided to use social media for good to spread my message of neuroscience. So in the last three months, I've really focused on learning how to give a 50-second lesson in neuroscience. And so I got really good.

I just passed my 100th post all about from mindfulness to neuroanademy. I have this campaign called Betty's Brady Bites where I talk about different parts of Betty's brain. Betty, Betty is my real and sometimes stuff, fleshy brain. And so, you know, on TikTok, there's some really good content. You can learn a lot on TikTok and Instagram. And so I use it and I check it more because I need to know which message, you know, was better or worse. But for my own social media, my own personal social media, I try and focus on things that I like to learn about rather than comparing myself to others. I, you know, I don't have the same

issues as a teenager, but food is one big thing. I have a huge, you know, list of recipes that I want to try. I have a huge list of restaurants in New York City and other cities that I want to try. I have a huge set of posts about travel, about places that I want to go. So it is, it is relaxing for me to do that and, and, and, and just look through everything that I've, I've tagged and, and learn more about the things that I, I want to do. I have at least one day a week where I do not look at any email, phone, anything else. But all the rest of the times, I am keeping a, keeping an eye and, but trying to balance, you know, not being completely controlled. by my phone. So I have the same struggles as everybody else. What I love about it is that there's so

much beautiful things that can come from technology. I'm so thankful for Instagram and TikTok because I can find the content of individuals like yourself. And I try to have my own cues of we all doomscroll and I'm sort of, okay, am I feeling unfocused? I'm feeling a little bit unlazy. I don't want to do anything. Oh, okay, this is a time to give myself a reminder. This is a perfect time to go on a walk, right? Yeah. You're not allowing social media, which can have a lot of good and some bad that's there. You're not allowing it from cutting off your natural human connections and you're using it for good. And in your case, you're using it for the best good, which is promoting your important message in this world that often doesn't give the care and love that it needs to the brain

and will often take for granted the role that the brain plays in our life. I've been so high. I've been so happy with that learning experience for myself, because it was a big learning curve. Like, I'm a lecturer. I talk in 90-minute chunks. 50 seconds is impossible, right? Well, I learned. And so it's opened up all these possibilities to tiny little mini-money classes of all these different topics. And can we spread information that way? Not, I mean, not that I, as a university, Dean and professor, I teach students how to dig deep and to, you know, struggle with with the hard concepts. But with this, I've taught, I've taught myself how to hook people onto those really interesting things. There is so many things that everybody should know about their whole brain.

And this is a wonderful way to get that out to so many different people with this, with this outlet. So I've learned an enormous amount. Dr. Wendy Suzuki, as we're winding down here with our time, and thank you so much for being gracious enough. I know you're busy, and I so appreciate you sharing all these beautiful nuggets with our audience. I had some questions around women and women's health in particular. You know, we know from the stats, men on average die earlier than women on average. We also know from the stats and a few people that have come on this podcast, that have shared that when it comes to certain brain challenges, if I understand correctly, the data on Alzheimer's disease, that there is a slight increased risk that's there for women.

Is that true? And do you have any important message that you want to share to the women that are listening today? Do you have a message in context with that for the women that are listening today? First, I want to validate the findings that it's not just that women live longer than men, which is true, and therefore they get Alzheimer's more because they're living longer and you're more likely to get it when you're living longer. It's more than that. They get it more often than men, irrespective of what age they make it to. And so I'm very proud to be a science advisor to Maria Shriver's woman's Alzheimer's. movement that has been so active in promoting and getting more research done around, why is that happening? What is it about the brains of women? Can we have specific interventions that are specific to address this finding? That's still in process, but the first step is to start asking the

specific questions. This is something that could help bring women together and come together and support each other, not only when you're later in life, but earlier in life. We are often, so often, caretakers of our parents, and that gives us insights over people that have not been caretakers. And so can we come together and help come up with plans and strategies so we can caretake for each other is my challenge and what I think about in with my friends. and particularly my women friends. I think it's really a challenge, but an opportunity to come together and join forces

and use all that caretaking experience that we already have to help ourselves when we get to that stage. Are there any things that in particular, you might recommend that women double down on earlier to sort of avoid that increased likelihood. For example, we've had some people talk about the importance of having honest conversations about hormone replacement therapy and whether or not they're a candidate earlier on in their health journey because there seems to be maybe some role between the brain, hormone replacement

therapy, and that might be connected. I don't know if there's truth to that. There's not true to that. Is there anything else that women in particular should be more mindful of or be looking at or talking to their practitioners? with when it comes to their health. What you pointed out is something that we should all do, men, women, every single person. We do have to be our own best advocates.

And it is challenging for neuroscientists and not to mention just somebody that doesn't have any medical background to know what is true. You know, what is the best treatment? And the thing that you need to do is ask those questions and maybe go to more than one doctor and get varying opinions. I know that's a hard thing to do. It's hard for anybody. But I think we all have to be more sensitive

and become an advocate for ourselves more. There is no clear answer. We have a finding that women are more likely to get Alzheimer's disease than men. And the open question is why? We don't know that. If we don't know why, then we don't know what to do to help reverse that. But we've just spent the whole last hour talking about general things that one can do,

irrespective of you are a man or a woman, these are things that are going to be beneficial, kind of no matter what your genetic background is as we are going through our lives, how many of these can you get into your lives? So I'm just going to end with the thing that we spent the most time talking about. These basic findings of movement and connection and sleep and good food are so important. And the good news is every one of us can have a major effect today. Don't have dessert. Oh, my God, you did such a great thing for your brain.

Go for a walk. Oh, my God. You just did it again. Text a friend and have a conversation and go out with coffee with them. There you did it again. So I just want to empower people that these are not theoretical things. These are all things that every single one of us can do right now today. You can change one of them today.

And that is going to help your brain. Dr. Wendy Suzuki, thank you so much for being on the podcast today and sharing your message. You have told us so many nuggets, so many gems, and that it's never too late to incorporate them into our routine, into our habits. we can start to protect and build a fluffier, fattier. What was it again? Big fat, fluffy. Bigger, fatter, fluffier.

Bigger, fatter, fluffier brain today. There's so much that we can do. And even though the stats are out there, there's a lot of agency. And sciences evolving extremely rapidly. We have no idea what's going to be possible or what else we'll find in the research in the next coming years. So we thank you for providing that hope and that sense of resilience and agency to know that we can make a difference in our life today.

I want to acknowledge that you are great at making content. In fact, just earlier today I shared you're doing this challenge this month and you talked about the power of slow breathing and I sent it to a few friends. Oh, thank you. You seem to be most active on Instagram. And then also you have your two fantastic books that you've written as well. Would you mind just sharing the title? We have the links to them and the show notes that people can pick up a copy.

But if you wouldn't mind just mentioning the titles. Absolutely. So my first book was called Healthy Brain, Happy Life. And it's about the effects of exercise on the brain and kind of a personal story of how I changed my research from memory to the effects of exercise on the brain. And the most recent book is called Good Anxiety. and it's all about how to reframe the most misunderstood emotion. And did you realize that your anxiety could be your superpower? And I'll mention a third thing, which is that I just came out with a new course on master class called

Brain Health. It's a three-series course. And I'm so proud of it. We talk about super aging and memory and a lot of the things that came up on this wonderful conversation, but it's a really fun series and beautifully shot. If I say so myself, well, if I say so, if I compliment masterclass myself. And so check those three things out. Who should take that course, right? Who is the person that's going to benefit from taking this master class course? I would say anybody from 25 to on up. It's things that really going deep.

And it's not just me. There are two other psychologists that bring their own expertise in evolution. And there's a nutritionist on there. So you get not only Mediterranean diet is good, but here's some recipes that are particularly beneficial. They have all those superfoods. They call them superfoods. We had our own conversation about superfoods. So it's really for everybody who wants to take care of their brain today and take care of their brain for the future.

Which I would say is everybody. So please check out the course. Check out the books. We have the links to all them below. Dr. Suzuki. Thank you again for joining us here today. Thank you so much. It was such a fun conversation. Hi, everyone. Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share with a friend, share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter, and it's called

try this. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I said,