Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 252 - Louisa Nicola: Optimizing Brain Performance

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

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of course, is Legion Athletics. Legion is my go-to supplement manufacturer for what I like to call my big rock supplements. This would be my protein powder, my pre-training formula, my post-training formula and creatine, and my kind of ancillary vitamins and micronutrient protection. So why do I like Legion so much? What sets them apart? It's quite simple. Legion uses all natural ingredients. All the formulas include natural coloring and natural sweeteners, no artificial sweeteners, just stevia. And every single formulation, be it a pre-workout or a vitamin contains clinically effective dosages of ingredients shown to work in humans in clinical research supported by robust trials. No filler,

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So if you are somebody who likes pre-workout with caffeine, you can try Pulse. Or if you like it without caffeine because you maybe want to enjoy your morning coffee or monitor your caffeine consumption, try the Pulse Stim Free. My favorite flavors there for sure are the New Grape and the amazing, amazing Tropical Punch. As for my creatine, I get that from Legion's Recharge, five grams each and every day. I take it on the days I train, as well as the days I do not, because Recharge also contains L-carnitine, which can help with promoting muscle recovery and decreasing soreness, as well as some ingredients to help with creatine utilization. And of course, my favorite supplements for my ancillary micronutrient health are Legion's multivitamin and Legion's greens powder. Not only do these two products contain a ton of high

quality vitamins and minerals, they also contain unique adaptogens like KSM-66 ashwagandha and reishi mushroom, which I like to take each and every day to promote my health. If you want to cover all your bases with a high quality protein, creatine, post-workout, or the ancillary micronutrient health stuff like greens, powders, and multivitamin, I encourage you to go over to legionathletics.com and check out using the promo code Danny. That'll save you 20% on your first order and you'll rack up points that you can use the same way as cash every time you use the code and you'll also be supporting the show. Hey, everybody, welcome into another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, it's your host, Danny Matranga. And today I am joined by world-renowned neurophysiology expert, Louisa Nicola. Louisa is a brain coach to

elite performers. She runs the Neuro Experience podcast, and she is the founder of NeuroAthletics. Louisa is my go-to for optimizing brain function and brain capabilities for not just faster processing, but also better overall brain health and cognitive well-being. She's also a lifetime athlete and a general wealth of fitness, health, nutrition, and supplementation knowledge. She's someone with whom I could sit down and chat for hours. So enjoy me and Louisa Nicola talking shop here through this episode and be ready to take your brain to the next level. Louisa, how are you? Danny, I am good. I am down under in Australia, so life can't be much better than this. Yeah, there's quite a time asymmetry. I think you told me it's 8 a.m. there. It's 1 p.m. over here, but we're

getting about the same amount of daylight by the looks of things. You got a good amount of daylight going on. So I've been following your content for a long time. You and I have shared each other's content, whether it's on Twitter, whether it's on Instagram. And what's always fascinated me about your content, especially as I've grown to learn more about the brain, is the various ways in which our habits, behavior, sleep, nutrition, and lifestyle really interface with our brain and how all these things are inextricably connected. And your content's very behavior-focused. It's very movement-focused. It's very nutritionally focused.

And so I've been taking it in for quite some time and I implemented a lot with my clients, try to give them some of the actionable steps that you promote. And they've been having a good experience with it as have I. And I'm excited that we're getting the chance to chat today. Yeah. I'm so excited as well. I love your content. I always, when I look at it on Instagram and you're doing your reels and you're working out and then you've got a tweet on top of it, I'm like, I wish I could do that. I think that's amazing. So I'm going to have to steal some things from you as well. Well, you definitely can, as I understand it, before you got into really being brain-centric with what it is that you do. And you're pretty high level. You work with some big

names in some big organizations, people who perform at the highest level of athletics, of entrepreneurship. And you didn't just start there. So I think it'd be nice for people to hear what got you from kind of that first inclination that I'm interested in the mind and the body to where you're at now. So it's a funny story. So growing up in Australia, we are all forced to be swimmers. In fact, in order to actually progress through school, we have to be able to swim an ocean swim and we have to be able to do a two kilometer pool swim with clothes on. So essentially, Australia, it's an actual recommendation. So we all become natural swimmers.

But my mother put me in swimming lessons from a young age. So I was quite the little swimmer. And it was around 17 years old. I met a triathlete and I was like, what do you do? This was dating back. Like triathlon wasn't even a sport in the Olympics yet. And I was like, wait, what do you do? And he's like, I run, I bike, and I swim. I thought that'll be cool. And just by chance,

there was a really big triathlon where I'm from in Australia, in Newcastle, which is in Sydney, really. And I did it and I ended up coming first. And I was like, what's going on? I don't know. I don't know if it was adrenaline or just the fact that I was able to swim well. So I ended up becoming a triathlete. I took the sport on and then I became very serious about it. And I competed 20 times a year. I was in a triathlon team for, I ended up making the team for Australia. So I, uh, I competed for Australia at Beijing and in Auckland. So that was my start to professional sport. And this is three sports, Danny. It's not just one sport.

You have to be the best at swimming, running, and cycling, and transitioning. I always say there's four sports involved in triathlon. So I was really understanding what it meant to be an athlete in terms of how you need to sleep, how you need to show up every day mentally, and how you need to eat. So that started my triathlon career. I studied as well during this stage. I was doing an undergraduate degree in sports science and also education. And then I went on and studied medicine and science. I mean, it all kind of weaves together nicely. Would you say that becoming an athlete was what got you so fascinated about the body and the mind, or you were kind of already

invested in that before you took on the journey of becoming a triathlete at the highest level? on the journey of becoming a triathlete at the highest level? I think so. I was always interested in the body during high school. I was actually a lot bigger than all my other friends. And so, I was always interested in, well, how can I... Even from a young age at like 12, 13, I used to ask myself questions like, why am I bigger than my friends? And that was the sort of starting point. I was like, oh, I want to get into exercise, you know, just to look better and feel better. Then when I got into triathlon, my God, I was, it sparked this obsessive competitive state. I was literally, I ate, breathed, slept triathlon. I, and this was like 10 for 10 years. I never stopped. So it was an absolute passion of mine.

And so when you're taking those small little things as you go, you're coming up through the ranks of like being a triathlete. Did you notice like, and maybe you were just really physically gifted at the very beginning of the journey. I think so. Because I think something I see a lot with fitness coaches, with trainers, with athletes is like some of them have it naturally. And then some of them become students of the game because you need to optimize nutrition, lifestyle, and training to get the most out of whatever you got

genetically, right? Like if you weren't the most genetically gifted bodybuilder, you probably learned a lot about the nuances and technicalities to fill in those gaps. If you weren't the most physically gifted triathlete, you learned how to kind of leverage your knowledge to fill in those gaps. So that to me sounds like you kind of got your start and fascination based and born out of that competitive desire to succeed at the highest level. That's exactly what it was. I was only, I have to say I was only gifted in swimming, which is why I probably was never a, an Olympic gold medalist, which is what I always wanted to be. I was never going to be that. I was never a born

runner and running was my worst. I loved it. It was my favorite, but I was the worst at it. And that's pretty much because I think I have this theory is because I was much bigger than my, my, I was racing against these girls that were like the size of my arm and they were just flying with the air. And I'm like, what? So I had the competitive edge with swimming. And then I was strong in my lower body. I had the ability to drive up those hills if we had an undulating course on the bike. And then when I got to running, I was held back. But what I had, I was more gifted than everybody else in my mentality. And that's what I realized. And my coach used to always say that. He's like, you will make it one day. He's like, because I see it from your neck up. And that's what I

really wanted to understand what the brain was. And so as you transitioned out of competing at the highest level, like you said, you were literally in two Olympic games. This has essentially been your whole life has been focused around either optimizing athletic performance or training to be at the highest level. You can't get to a games unless it's your whole entire life in any sport that I can imagine. So you transition out of that competitive stage and you at some point made the decision that I want to start sharing these practices with other people and move into high-level coaching, consulting, whatever people like to call it. Everybody has a different name for it.

But you went from applying these things in your own life to really reaching hundreds of thousands of millions of people and athletes at the highest level, performers at the highest level. What did that transition look like? Because that's something that always fascinates me about people who've had success in anything really is, especially if they had to pivot from an athletic background. What was the moment where you decided, I'm going to run with sharing this with the world because it's out there now? Yeah. Well, it's definitely out there. So once I finished my triathlon career, I went into studying medicine and I understood. We went through neuroanatomy and I fell in love.

I actually fell in love with the brain. I was like, this is unbelievable. This is marvelous. How come we never learned about this when I was a triathlete? Of course, I just equated it back to my triathlon days. And I thought, if only I knew what the brain was really capable of, I probably would have been a better triathlete. So once I learned that, I started working and I was working in neurophysiology.

And neurophysiology is a subsection of neurology. So you're generally looking at people who are coming in with seizures or with multiple sclerosis. I was using an EEG. It's this cap that you put on your head and there's all these leads that come out of it and assesses the functionality of the brain. I thought, wow, this is amazing. So I remember asking, I was working with a neurologist and I said to him, I said, wow, so if we're assessing people with lesions of the brain or multiple sclerosis or seizures, I said, what if we just put this cap on a normal person? And he said, well, you'd probably pick up on little dysfunctions. And I said, well,

if we did that, would that mean that if we worked on their brain, it could perform at a higher level, therefore they'd be better at whatever they're doing in life? And he said, well, essentially, yes. I thought, wow, this is unbelievable. Imagine if I worked with high level athletes and got them to perform better. I just thought about that. So that started my career. And then I, this was in 2016, I started, you know, I exited that field and then started working with elite athletes. And I ended up just scoring some of the best athletes in the world. And in 2016, they put me on Instagram and this is back when, you know, we're 2022 now.

Instagram in 2016 was quite big. You could go viral like that. So I had 2000 followers and this, you know, elite athlete put me up and that's when all the NBA players were like, I need you. I need you to, I need a, I need you. So that's pretty much how it started. So like, I think this is a nice segue. Because people think of athletes at the NBA level as having everything dialed. And I've had the pleasure of knowing a number of people who work

on the skill development side of things or the nutrition side of things with athletes at the highest level. And they go, you know what? You would be shocked at how bad some of these guys are with their food or how bad some of these guys are with their sleep. In fact, I even remember there was a sports performance symposium out here one year in Sacramento, which is where the Kings play. And it's actually the capital city of California, which everybody thinks it would be LA or San Francisco, but it's actually Sacramento. And I'll never forget one of the guys was presenting on, I don't even remember who it was, but he was presenting on sleep management for NBA teams. It's like the best thing we ever did for helping these guys improve their sleep was we took away their phones. The Tinder apps from

their phones were getting managed by the team manager every time we landed in a new city. So these guys weren't staying up super late on Tinder swiping. And so like, I think a lot of people would be shocked to hear how much you can improve somebody who's already at the highest level by working on their sleep, nutrition, behavior. Like what, what are your big things? Like an NBA player comes to you and says, I need to, I need to refine my practice. I need to take my game to the next level. I'm guessing you're not going out and working on ball handling and shooting technique. Absolutely not. What are you working on with them?

So we're working on three domains, really. We're looking at nutrition, we're looking at sleep, and we're essentially just looking at the brain. Okay. So, we're understanding how well their brain is functioning. Now, in order to understand that, when one of our players comes to us, we do a complete DNA test. We'll look at their blood work. We'll do a complete panel. And I'm talking like they're getting like a lot of vials of blood out so we can assess their blood. We're also doing an EEG scan and a brain check. So we're assessing cognitive domains. We're assessing the functionality of their brain and we're starting from scratch. So if you imagine a pyramid and we're looking at the bottom layer.

And so from there, we can then optimize. We can look at, well, if they're deficient in certain vitamins and minerals, we can optimize for that. If they've got a, you know, we can look at their DNA test. Some of them have come back and they've tested positive for the APOE4 gene, which is the Alzheimer's disease gene. We've tested so many different things. From there, we can then level up and optimize. Players under the age of 30, you know, it's a lot different than working with players over the age of 30, it's a lot different than working with players over the age of 30. And I generally like

to work with the players over the age of 30, the more experienced and the ones who are really needing this because at the age of 30, your brain starts to atrophy. So, we really need to be taking care of that. So, first of all, we do all of those scans. And then from there, we then optimize and we have a nutrition plan. We have a sleep performance plan. We have a jet lag protocol. We have a neuroathletics protocol, which is my company, Neuroathletics. So we then work from there and periodize all of our training. Well, as I understand it, the NBA travel schedule has these guys cover more time zones than any sport in North American sports are huge. North American professional teams are huge, but baseball teams play three to four nights in a row in the same city. Football teams usually will fly out on a Friday for a game Sunday in

another city. But these guys in the NBA, they can cover three time zones inside of five days. And so managing jet lag, managing sleep would be huge. I think that's a good place to start unpacking things, which is what are things that people who are listening are weekend warriors, they're interested in their fitness, they're interested in improving their brain health, weekend warriors, they're interested in their fitness, they're interested in improving their brain health, can do with their sleep to make sure that they're in a position to really fire on all cylinders? First of all, we have to talk about total sleep time. I don't think that that gets enough attention. When we're talking about sleep, people are really honing in on quality, and that's a very big thing. But before we get to quality,

let's talk about total sleep time. And if we can be extending our sleep as much as possible, and by as much as possible, I'm talking if we can just be aiming for a consistent sleep time of eight hours per night, I think that's the first starting point. A lot of people aren't doing that. Me, for example, last night, I think I slept around seven hours and 15 minutes and I should have slept for eight. I really, I try every night to sleep for eight hours. So total sleep time should be the first determining factor to sleep fitness. From there, we can look at timing.

We can look at what time are you falling asleep? Are you falling asleep at 1am or 10pm? And I would essentially say that to have the most bang for your buck when it comes to sleep performance, you really want to be sleeping at 10 p.m. Is that to say, okay, gotcha. So you don't want to be up much past 10 p.m.? No. For a variety of reasons as well.

I tell friends like, what are you doing out past 10 p.m.? It's not going to get you in trouble. But seriously, is there something magical about that 10 p.m. hour, or is that you see a lot more disruption if you try to sleep later into the night because of where you end up in the morning? Yeah. So we all have this circadian rhythm, which is a 24-hour clock. So Mother Nature knows really what time it is. So, if you're delaying that and going to sleep at around, let's just say you're going to sleep at 12 p.m., there is a lot of science and literature around the fact that if you are getting exposed to any form of light, so if you're up, that means you've got light coming in your eyes, and you are suppressing

the areas of the brain that secrete this molecule called dopamine. So if you are up and you are looking at light from the hours of 10pm to 4am, you're suppressing this dopamine molecule. Therefore, when you wake up the following day, you're going to have a decreased level of this hormone that gets secreted. And that is our hormone of motivation and drive. So you're already giving yourself a disservice when you wake up. So we try and get everybody to sleep before 10 PM just so they can have the best. Perfect. And so once you've established like, okay, this is your hard bedtime, which is obviously harder for people who are playing in the NBA, but for people listening, you can set that bedtime

at 10 PM unless you're working on some strange shift. And you're going to wake up at 6 AM. So you make sure that you get your full eight hours. What else can you do to enhance the quality? We do say, like you said, people have a tendency to dive way too deep into the weeds without having a set bedtime and getting eight hours. They're like, oh, I have my nose or my mouth tape or my nasal expanders, or I have a refrigerated mattress. I have everything, but I don't go to bed on time and I don't get eight hours. Assuming you're hitting on those big rocks, what are those higher level things that you

can do to make sure that your sleep is as restorative and recuperative as possible so we can look at first three things you have to assess whether you're having trouble falling asleep or having trouble staying asleep that's the first thing really understand how you sleep at night that's the first thing the second thing from that is a really great measure of getting into both deep sleep and REM sleep is dropping your core body temperature by at least two degrees. So we know that in order to fall asleep and stay asleep, our core body temperature needs to drop between two to three degrees. But what happens is when we're in bed and we're

underneath the blankets, our body temperature rises. And it also rises as we go through the night and we're about to wake up. That's just natural. So if we can be working on maybe keeping your feet outside of the blankets, that's a good one to cool the body down or sleeping with minimal clothing or maybe putting the temperature on. For me, I sleep on a temperature controlled mattress and I have been for two years now and I can't live without it. or maybe putting the temperature on. For me, I sleep on a temperature-controlled mattress. And I have been for two years now, and I can't live without it. As somebody that travels a lot, and I've heard this from... I've been on the fence about whether or not I ought to get one for quite some time because I've always been very fortunate to have consistent sleep. I can get my eight hours almost always unbroken, almost always waking up

either right before my alarm goes off or around my desired time. But if you travel a lot and you do not have the temperature control mattress, how noticeable is it when you're in a non-temperature controlled bed? Do you notice the big drop off? I do. And for now, I'm in Australia. I don't have my temperature controlled mattress. I'm going to actually phone them and say, can I have one shipped to Australia, which they do ship to Australia now. But I notice it, especially in my HRV, so heart rate variability. I wear numerous devices when I'm asleep to assess the quality of my sleep. And I look at it and I'm like, why is my HRV down to 109 when it's usually 199? I have a very high HRV when I'm performing at my peak. So I can only suggest,

and I've been here now, I've been home. So I'm over the jet lag. I've been home for over a week. So I'm well and truly over the jet lag. So it's definitely has to be about the quality of my sleep that's interrupting with the HRV. That's big. How much stock do you put into supplements that can help with sleep? Do you ever use supplements to help with sleep? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I have a pretty busy supplement stack. Sorry, I interrupted you. No, no. Let's hear it. Because I've talked to so many people about sleep optimization and supplements tends to be

one where everybody has different players that they bring to the table. So I would love to hear the supplements you like to use for sleep quality or sleep duration enhancement, whatever. Yeah. So firstly, I supplement with GABA. So GABA is gamma-aminobutyric acid. It's our chief inhibitory neurotransmitter. And this is something that's going to help me lower my inhibitions, meaning it's going to settle my mind down, settle my nervous system down. And so it makes me feel relaxed. And I've got a busy mind, especially being back home in Australia. The fact that I am 16 hours in front of America now, I think about that because of my work schedule. So I supplement with that. I also supplement with glycine. I never take melatonin. I'm not a believer of melatonin. I've heard so many conflicting opinions about

melatonin, but the people whom I have the most respect for tend to be kind of piling on the side of not worth it, not as worth it as we like to think. Do you have a reason why you don't like it so much? I think that we shouldn't be ingesting exogenous hormones and that's what melatonin is. It is a naturally secreting hormone. It gets secreted in response to darkness. I'm not going and picking up a pill of estrogen and just popping that in my mouth. I don't see most men just going out and getting a pill of testosterone. That's the first thing to know. It is responsible in younger years of growth as well. I see mothers giving their kids melatonin.

I'm like, you're really going to be stunting the growth if you do that in large quantities. So I tend to stay away from that and just stay with the neurotransmitters and vitamins. So I stay away from melatonin. I would have melatonin if it was a very, very severe case of me being up all night. That's very rare. I've heard some people use it to manage jet lag. Yeah. But almost every... And I think that's the most succinct way I've ever really heard anybody put it. It's like, look, this is an exogenous form of something that your pineal gland is supposed to make on its own. So popping that 5, 10 milligram melatonin capsule every night to fall asleep is going to be pretty

disruptive on your endocrine system. You cannot go buy any other, that I'm aware of, you cannot go buy any other exogenous hormone, unless you consider DHEA, at the supplement store and just start pounding back way more than your body would make endogenously for something as important as sleep. And almost every single person I know who's not entirely informed about how important their sleep is or they're trying to sleep better starts by supplementing extremely high dosages of melatonin. So I think that's good to hear. That's become really commonplace out here in America. Glycine is one that I have heard more people talk about more recently, which is exciting to hear. What do you think about magnesium? Because I oftentimes find people like magnesium in the evening as well.

What's going on, guys? Coach Danny here, taking a break from the episode to tell you about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, and more specifically, our one-on-one fully tailored online coaching program. My online coaching program has kind of been the flagship for Core Coaching Method for a while. Of course, we do have PDF programming and we have app-based programming. But if you want a truly tailored one-on-one experience with a coach like myself or a member of my coaching team, someone who is certified, somebody who has multiple years of experience working with clients in person online, somebody who is licensed to provide a macro nutrition plan, somebody who is actually good at communicating with clients because they've done it for years, whether that be via phone call,

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coaching option. And if we have spots available, we'll definitely reach out to you to see if you're a good candidate. And if we don't, we'll put you on a waiting list, but we'll be sure to give you the best shot at the best coaching in the industry. So head over to corecoachingmethod.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today. Hey, everybody, I have a favor to ask you. If you're a regular listener or somebody who gets value out of this podcast, somebody who's learning from me on your health and fitness journey, whether you're a trainer, a high-level athlete, or you're just getting started, other people need this kind of advice. And the best way for you to help me grow the podcast is to take a little bit of time, literally one to two minutes max, to leave a rating and review on the app that you listen

to your podcasts on. The majority of you probably listen on an iPhone and you probably listen on Apple podcasts, but many of you listen on Spotify. Both platforms allow you to leave a quick, easy review. And if you could leave me a five-star review plus a short one to two sentence blurb about what you like, not only will it help more people reach the podcast, it will help me to continue to refine what it is I bring you each and every week. Thanks so much for doing this. It means the world to me. It helps me achieve my dream of helping more people live a healthier life. Enjoy the episode. Hey guys, taking a break from the action to tell you about one of our favorite new sponsors, Underdog Fantasy. If you're like me, you love sports. Sports was actually how I got into fitness in the

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and they will match your first deposit up to $100. You'll have a blast playing underdog all season long. Back to the action. Magnesium is essentially important as it relates to sleep, specifically because magnesium can actually shoot through and penetrate the central nervous system. And I'm specifically talking about magnesium L3-nate. However, we know that other forms of magnesium can also penetrate the central nervous system, which essentially means that once it's dissolved, it can go through and cross the blood-brain barrier and have effects on cognitive performance. And so, magnesium L3-nate, which I do take as

well, haven't taken it this week, but only been really taking the two that I mentioned. But I take it quite often and I just go into a really, really beautiful deep sleep. Yeah, I love that. So GABA is one that I've never tried. I think I will try. Glycine, I've tried for a short stint. Usually it's what my magnesium is bound to, but I have been thinking about trying glycine all on its own just so I can try magnesium threonate because that's one form that I've never tried.

I made the mistake of trying magnesium citrate, which will just put you on the toilet for like two hours straight. And I've had good luck with bisglycinate, but I want to try the threonate because I hear great things about it. Definitely try the threonate. I would essentially say that the other two forms, the citrate and biclycinate, you can take during the day more so for recovery of muscle soreness, et cetera. And the threonate is essentially something that you'll have at night to put you into that deep sleep. I like that. I might even try doing like an AM PM stacking of different types of magnesium, and I'll get back to you and let you know how that goes. So here's a question that's been on

my mind a lot as an early riser, and I've compounded many years of early rising. And I didn't start getting eight hours of sleep consistently until like two years ago, I would be the badge of honor. I only need six hours guy. And my, my dad has Parkinson's disease and I started to, to, I kind of lived in a world of deliberate ignorance around the genetic components of neurodegenerative disease. I didn't want to know about it. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to look into it. But eventually something permeated my bubble and I realized that a lot of these neurodegenerative diseases are heritable and more likely to happen if you're not sleeping. So what are the things that happen to the brain? What kind of negative things happen to the brain

when people don't get enough sleep? So many things happen. First of all, what we see during sleep is that it is really a repair state for both the brain and body tissue. And we know that we're cycling through four stages of sleep throughout the night. And the two most important stages is REM sleep and deep sleep, rapid eye movement sleep and non-rapid eye movement deep sleep. Now, essentially during this deep sleep stage, a number of different processes are happening as it relates to the brain. And the most important one is we do get this sewerage system that gets activated during deep sleep. It's essentially known as the glymphatic system. And the reason why we have coined it the glymphatic system. And the reason why we have coined it the

glymphatic system or research, as I should say, I wasn't involved in that, is because we have certain cells in our brain. We've got neurons and then we've got glial cells. And glial is basically the Greek word for glue. And it essentially holds together and sticks between all these neurons. And what happens during deep sleep is they shrink in size. And when they shrink, it allows for the cerebral spinal fluid to go through and clear out all the metabolic waste. And this metabolic waste is made up of proteins that are built up and debris built up during the day from stress, from environment, from lack of sleep the night before, from what we eat. So you're essentially clearing out these toxins. And when researchers were doing the research on

this, what they found is that one of the things that they're clearing out is a toxic protein called amyloid beta. And this is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. So what they found in Alzheimer's disease patients is that this protein builds up, it clumps together, and it essentially leads to these plaques and tangles. And that's not good for the brain because it essentially results in neuronal death. So, when you're asleep, you're clearing out these proteins. So, you're waking up with a clean, fresh brain and it's a nice thing. So, that's the first thing. The other thing that's involved is we've got, you know, if you're sleep deprived,

you're going to have a lower impulse control the next day. And I speak about impulse control a lot with my athletes because I'm trying to manage that 24-7. The impulse to not throw the ball, the impulse to hold the ball, to not jump, to jump, to not scream at another player, to not swear at another player, to not hit another. These are all things that people don't really think about, but we do discuss in the NBA. There's so many players who are like, oh my God, I just feel like I need to do this. But they have to follow. More often than not, if you're a very experienced player, you have to follow the play from your coach. And if you don't, that's really going to look bad.

So, they really have to work on impulse control. And I'm working with Major League Baseball right now. That's another thing that we're working on. Now, impulse control is lowered if you have not slept well. So, now we're talking about not the structure of the brain, we're talking about the functioning of the brain. So, you're going to have a lower impulse control ability. You're also going to have lower functions such as attention, processing speed. these are all going to be diminished. So you've got to think for anybody, even if you're driving a car, flying a plane, you really want to be able to have those cognitive performances, all those cognitive functions performing at their peak.

Yeah. I mean, do you guys have daylight savings time in Australia? It's summer now, even though I've got this jacket on. Because for some reason, it's just not as hot as it usually is. It's been colder here. And I live in Sonoma County, which is where they grow all the grapes. It's been colder here during the last two weeks than any point in the 10 years that I've lived here. I've never in my life had a sweater on inside. So we're getting a ridiculous cold front.

I've never in my life had a sweater on inside. So we're getting at like a ridiculous cold front. But with sleep and with impulse control, I see this a lot when I help people lose weight. It is substantially harder to adhere to your dietary framework if you're not sleeping because your inhibitions, they need to be enhanced. They need to be heightened to be able to say no to these different foods. It's essentially what you said. It's impulse control. And so maintaining the right dietary framework over the course of a week can be as simple as one bad night's sleep where you wake up the next day and your impulse control shit, and it goes right off the wagon. So I see that all the time. And then the point you made about the cleaning of the brain, I talked to Dean Scherze last week, and we were talking about this. I think you put it even more succinctly.

During that time, when you're in deepest sleep, your body and your brain are essentially working in concert to pump all the debris and the junk out of there. And I think about the many years I didn't give myself maybe one extra trip through that cycle to get my brain clean. You can develop these plaques. You can develop these problems over the course of a lifespan. So you got the acute thing, which would be, man, I'm really noticing a difference in my impulse control. I'm not as sharp. I don't have my reaction time. But you have some long-term things going on if you're not getting adequate sleep that are pretty dangerous for the health of your brain. And so assuming you got an athlete dialed with their sleep,

then we start talking about probably the next thing, which would be nutrition. And I think that nutrition for body composition is easier and more straightforward than nutrition for performance and cognitive performance. What are some things that people can do with food and with nutrition to enhance cognitive performance? And then maybe if you feel like it in the long term, take care of the health of their brain. Yeah. So essentially, I'm only really touching on supplementation because I'm not a nutritionist. I think there's a field that is reserved for people who are doing nutrition.

Although we outsource, we have a nutritionist who takes care of that. What I'm really interested in is what's the brain made of, really. We want to be rebuilding our brain, right? And how do you build a brain? Well, have a look at what it's made of. It's made essentially of fat and water. So, let's deconstruct that. What type of fat? Well, if we remember back in cell biology or biology in ninth grade, you'd look at the structure of a cell. Now, the cell, although it contains our DNA, we've got the nucleus, we've got the mitochondria, so many different organelles in there. The outer layer of the cell is made of phospholipids. It's got a phospholipid bilayer on the outside of it.

So what are lipids? Lipids are fats and oils. So that's essentially what a cell is made of. But there's something interesting that's different when it comes to the brain. It's got cells just like in your body, but there's another part of this cell, which is called the axon. Now that's the different part of a neuron. So the cells in our body are just the cell, which is called the axon. Now, that's the different part of a neuron. So, the cells in our body are just the cell, but then the cells in our brain, which are the neurons, they're made of, and they've got an axon that comes off of it. And they've also got these little spikes called dendrites, and that's how they communicate with other cells. Now, this axon is coated in these little layers, and they're called the myelin sheath. And there's like little blocks of them. And between them are called the nodes of Ranvier. Now, this is how they transmit

signals. So, they come down from the nucleus and they transmit a signal to another cell. Now, these axons are coated in fat. That's essentially what the myelin sheath is. So, it is just phospholipids. And so, we know now that, okay, the brain's made of fat. Well, what type of fat? Well, it's essentially made of DHA. Where do we find DHA? It's found in omega-3s. Omega-3s are made of EPA, DHA, and ALA. So, essentially, I'm really interested in dosing up my athletes with high levels of EPA and DHA. And dependent on we do omega-3 index tests, which everybody should get, I believe. And we're essentially reverse engineering that omega-3 index. We're looking at if they're at 8, we want to get them to a 17. And this is going to protect them from many things. I used

to work with the NFL, but I'm completely against it now. And it will go against my ethical judgment to keep working with them. So now I'm working more so with people who aren't getting smacked in the head. But even so- Is that because, not to ask hard questions, is that because of the brain damaging effects of the game of football? Or is that because of some of the policy decisions of the actual league itself? is more important than the health and longevity of these brains. And also, you can't go and optimize a brain that's being smacked in the head. You just can't. So, I just will not work with them anymore. That was a hard decision.

But so now, when it comes to EPA and DHA, I'm trying to dose up my athletes for more of a protective mechanism because we know that having a high omega-3 index can help lower all-cause mortality. We know that. It's actually a risk factor for all-cause mortality. We also know that it can help with cell membrane fluidity. So, the more fluid your brain cells are, the better that they're going to be able to move around and do their thing. Thirdly, you're feeding the brain what it's made of. And it also helps with inflammation. Inflammation is a really big thing. We can get neural inflammation, which is inflammation within the central nervous system. So EPA, DHA can really help lower the inflammation threshold. When you say EPA index, that's something that's relatively new to me. I know that you can look at

EPA relative to other, or omega-3 relative to omega-6 relative to the other omegas. When somebody comes to you, you used 17. You said, well, I want to get up to a 17. I'm guessing that's arbitrary, but it's also probably way above average. When people come to you, how many of them are showing deficiencies in EPA relative to the threshold you'd see in a brain that's capable of functioning at its best? More than 80%. A lot of Americans actually are below 8%. Wow. Meaning 8% of the fat they eat is omega-3 or meaning- No, they're omega-3 index. Gotcha. Gotcha. And so with supplementation, you're going, I'm BSing fish oil and algae-based omega-3. At what dosage, and maybe it's dependent

on the size, but at what dosages do you start to see that index tip more towards where you want it? Because I think a lot of people hear, okay, omega-3. I got omega-3 at Costco. I take one omega-3 a day. I'm going to have an omega-3 index. It's where I want it to be. There's two things wrong with that statement. First of all, do not get your EPA DHA from Costco. do not get your EPA, DHA from Costco. That's the first thing. I think the supplement industry is a bit... It can be corrupt. It is corrupt. You don't need to caveat. I'm not going to say it is because I'm an advisor for an amazing company called Momentus. And I've looked at how they manufacture their products and they go through third-party testing. That means that they have been not once certified, not twice certified,

but three times certified to show the purity of their products. That's the first thing. A lot of these companies, maybe Costco, I would imagine, but people are getting their supplements from a brand like this where you'll find that maybe 20% is made up, the 20% of the capsule is made up of what it says on the bottle, maybe EPA, DHA, and the rest of it is just laced with God knows what. So, we have to be careful with where we get our supplements from. That's the first thing. The second thing, to really drive the omega-3 index up,

it takes some time. It's not something that's going to happen overnight. It may take four, five, six months, but I'm starting off with four grams a day. Four grams a day. And that is made up of two grams of EPA and two grams of DHA. Notice that I don't say ALA. Yeah, I did. People supplement with ALA for a variety of different reasons, but I I'm curious why you're not including it here. I'm not including it because yes, you can get that from, that's more so, that's the plant base, that's the algae base. And that's a lot, you know, people who are on a plant-based diet can get their omega-3s from there. However, you're going to need a much higher dose because what happens is your ALA ends up converting into EPA, DHA. So, it takes a longer time

to actually penetrate the cells. So, therefore, you need a higher dose. And it just hasn't seemed to be as well-performing as the EPA and DHA. Everybody is different. I think it comes down to how well you metabolize these lipids. For me, for example, I'm not on a plant Everybody is different. I think it comes down to how well you metabolize these lipids. For me, for example, I'm not on a plant-based diet. I eat everything. I'm an everything girl. I do eat a lot of organ meat. I think they call those omnivores. Omnivores. I don't eat kid food. I don't eat like- Chicken nuggets and hot dogs. Yeah, no, no. I, I eat decent meals. Um, a lot of steak if you follow my Instagram, but, um, yeah, so I'm getting

my EPA DHA from fatty fish, but I'm also, I'm also dosing up on it. I actually went to Greece for two weeks, uh, in September and I was, was i'm greek yes i can tell you can tell yeah is it the way i look no you like yeah my mom's side half of my mom's side is greek uh and there's just some like facial structure features that you know when you have a greek family when you see another greek person you're like that you know you could have been Italian, but it's just, you know, Greek when you see Greek. Your last name's not Greek. No, it's not. My last name is Italian. So my dad's Portuguese and Sicilian. My mom is Spanish and Greek. So I'm one Mediterranean. Wow. You're just a little Mediterranean olive there. It sounds like the olive mix I had the other night. Now I'm 100% Greek Cypriot, so we like our meat. But I was over there and they were literally

getting the fish from the ocean. I was staying on a little island. So you know that that fish is fresh. So you know you're getting the EPA, DHA. It was absolutely beautiful. Whereas if I'm in America and I'm having the fish, maybe it's really, I'm not getting what I need. So that's why it's important to dose yourself with high level omega-3 fats. So that's the first thing. The second thing, which I'm really pushing for anybody, even my parents, I'm getting them to have creatine. my parents, I'm getting them to have creatine. Yep. Creatine is the most widely studied and cheapest supplement you can take. And we used to think, oh, let's just take it for the body. But we now know the beneficial effects of creatine in the brain. And I got to tell you, my dad, he's very old school. He's now on the EPA, DHA. He's been on it now for a

year. I'm now trying to tell him to take creatine. He thought it was drugs. So it's really hard. So I'm trying to like sneak it into things, but yeah. I do the same thing. Like not, not in the sense that I'm sneaking it into anybody's routine, but if my dad is equally stubborn to the point where he won't take any supplements. But when I started taking creatine, I started taking it for the same reasons that every other 20-something-year-old dude takes creatine, to get bigger and to get stronger. And yeah, you're right. It is far and away the most well-studied ergogenic aid out there. You're not going to find a single supplement that's more positively correlated with upticks in athletic performance than creatine.

So people just assume like, yes, it must live in that athletic athletes only kind of space. I'm not, if I'm not a bodybuilder, why would I take it? I communicate with so many women who are afraid to take it because they think it's masculinizing or they think not only is it only for athletes, but it's only for male athletes because it can help you increase muscle size, which for anybody who's taken creatine for a considerable amount of time, they will tell you it does not increase muscle size enough that any woman ought to worry about taking it. But the brain research is fascinating. And I don't think I realized until I stumbled across

your content, why creatine is actually good for the brain. I I've done a poor job of communicating to people why it's good for the brain. I just say, Hey, you know, take creatine. It's great for your muscles and it could be good for your brain. So, you know, what the hell do you have to lose? You already know it's safe. If there's any collateral benefit beyond what it does for your muscle, even better. But why is it that creatine is good for the brain? How does it interface with the brain? It's essentially the same as the body. It's helping in the production of ATP. Now, ATP, adenosine triphosphate, is where we get our energy from. And as we get older, just due to the natural brain aging process, we are depleted in many things.

Just like I said, our brain starts to atrophy at the age of 30. Many things start to go down. Even immune cell function, T cell function starts to decrease as we get older. So does the ability to generate this ATP and creatine phosphate actually helps with that. It goes in into the cell and actually helps you generate that. So you've got to think like when I take creatine, I feel incredible when I go to the gym. I can lift harder, I can push harder, and I can go for longer. Now, the ability to lift harder, push harder is the benefits I'm getting from a body perspective. The ability to endure is that brain energy, which is what we

need. We need that brain energy and that's what it's helping with. So the fact that women are, A, scared of getting, quote-unquote, bigger, which just means that they really don't understand muscle protein synthesis because in order to get bigger, you need to push so hard. And these muscly women you see most generally may be on hormones or they're extremely great with their protein intake. or they're extremely great with their protein intake. The second thing is if you experience that bulkiness feeling, which is probably just the fluid buildup where you're just feeling a bit bulky, maybe just cut back on the creatine.

Instead of taking five grams a day, which is what one scoop generally is, I take five grams. And I'm not bulky. Maybe I am. I'm not sure. But I would I am, I'm not sure. But I would cut back and maybe take two and a half grams, but you know, not doing it for that reason is ludicrous. So if you want more energy, neuronal energy, you can help. And actually this is good for you to know. There's very early studies that have been done now in humans, but they've been well and truly there. The data is there in mice and rats to show the effects

of creatine on neurodegenerative diseases. And one of the most studied ones is Parkinson's disease. So that might be worthwhile to look into as well. So they're my two. Yeah. I remember specifically like scrolling through Twitter one day and somebody had shared some of the creatine Parkinson's research and my brain was like completely frozen on seeing those two words right next to each other in a sentence. Cause I was like, what could I get my dad to take creatine? This could be incredible. And that was like three or four years ago. And that was the first time I had ever heard whatsoever about there being any correlation between creatine and the brain.

And I love the tip of, look, if you think it's going to be too much or if you're retaining more water than you'd like, just take less. You can take less than five grams. You don't have to take five grams at once. You can space it out into five, one gram servings. You can have two, two and a half gram servings, or you can have less than five grams a day. And a lot of people report having digestive issues with creatine because it can pull so much fluid, I think, from the intestine while food is working its way through there that you can get a little uncomfortable. Again, another reason to just take smaller amounts if you're one of the maybe 10% to 20% of people who has any adverse

response. So we've talked about sleep, we've talked about nutrition, but there's one more thing you really like to focus on when it comes to optimizing the brain. I might refer to it as mindset. I believe you refer to it as what would you call that third domain? Well, the third domain that I usually focus on is actually exercise. But when we talk about mindset, I don't, I mean, as a neurophysiologist, I don't say mindset, I call it cognition and cognitive performance is extremely important where it's so important that we have come out with our very own neuroathletics coaching certificate, the NAC course, which we'll be going, we'll be launching early 2023. And that is a chance for personal trainers, athletic trainers, such as yourself to come and learn more about cognitive performance.

So you can start training your clients and your athletes because these things, these cognitive domains, which live right here in the frontal lobe, they diminish as we get older. First of all, they have a high rate of fatigability. Therefore, if our athletes are, they've got games at night, right? So therefore their cognitive reserve is already going to be depleted by the time that they go into the game. So we're talking about how can we preserve and optimize these cognitive functions so they can go through the game throughout the night on a 24-hour cycle with a high level of cognitive reserve. So that's what I call it, cognition.

Gotcha. And so the final domain, and for anybody listening that is a personal trainer, if you can improve the mental capabilities of your clients, whether they're athletes or whether they're just Mary Muffintop walking down the street. Mary Muffintop walking down the street. Mary Muffintop. That is from another Aussie. I got that from Luke Lehman. I don't know if you're familiar with Luke at all. I don't know who Luke is. Yeah. Luke, I'm not going to name drop, but he's worked with a lot of people who are big

in the fitness space over there. And that's the archetype for a general population, middle-aged client who happens to be female. And so if you take somebody and you can improve their life physically, they will certainly retain your services. But if you can work with clients and you can improve their cognition, their mental faculties, you get them feeling sharper, And you can improve their cognition, their mental faculties. You get them feeling sharper, which exercise is great for. We'll talk about in a second. They'll keep you on retainer forever.

You'll be the last thing to go if you can take care of people's body and brains. But also you're opening up a whole new sector of your business and increasing your revenue because I'll tell you why. We have got an aging population now. Go and work with, you know, I see a lot of personal trainers, like, I just want more clients. It's like, go and work with the Alzheimer's disease patients. Cause I tell you, you will have money for life. And that's essentially why we started this course. We actually started it two years ago. We've put through a thousand trainers now. So you also get NASM certified. So you've got your CEC points, but not just that.

What I noticed was to understand the brain, you know, I've had to do 10 years of schooling. So in order to be able to go out and teach it, and you don't get that in a personal training certificate. You also don't get it from books or Instagram, by the way, unless you're following me or Andrew Hibberman. So, yeah, you've really got to understand what it is and how can you use it for your advantage to train other people so they can have

a healthy performing brain. Yeah. And those are populations who are very rewarding to work with. I think a lot of people, rightfully so, are pursuing working with high-level athletes because everything's happening on the margins. It's a tightrope walk. It's small, tiny changes that can make a huge difference at the highest level of sport. But when you're working with general population clients, a little bit of the right lifestyle change around food and around sleep can make them feel, look, move so much better. And then obviously exercise is a domain that I feel like I can help them quite a bit with, but usually it's mostly physical. What ways does exercise positively influence brain health and behavior? So muscle mass can help decrease or

cause mortality. Muscle mass is a huge thing. So the actual makeup of the muscle tissue is extremely important for the brain. That's first and foremost, but also for longevity. But why? Well, it turns out that the active process of exercising in the form of resistance training, which is going and doing weights or performing any type of resistance against a muscle, can help with the excretion of various hormones. So, for example, when we perform a bicep curl or we're contracting our muscle during that stage, depending on how hard you actually contract it, but let's just say you're lifting a heavy weight and you're doing this, your skeletal muscle releases these little molecules and these are called myokines,

molecules. And these are called myokines, myosin meaning from the muscle. And these are secreted and then they go into the bloodstream and they have an effect on different organs. So, they may go and bind to a liver, to your heart, but these ones I'm talking about go through and they bind to different receptors in the brain and the spinal cord. And these have effects on the structure of the brain. So they can help with the myelin sheath, the white matter, but they can also help go and lodge in areas over here called the frontal lobe and help with those executive functions. So things such as IL-6, which is the most well-studied myokine, IL-6 has been seen as pro-inflammatory, but also anti-inflammatory, depending on where they're excreted from. But also things such as irisin.

Irisin is a wonderful, wonderful hormone and molecule that is excreted from the muscles and goes in and binds at these different areas in the brain. So healthy hormones get released from the skeletal muscle. They go into the bloodstream. They cross the blood-brain barrier and they do wonderful things for the brain. That's what people need to know. And also, you can't get these from doing other things. So, you can get these growth factors from running.

So, aerobic exercise, I was going to say. But you don't get these from, you don't get as many, you only get really like, you know, 10% of them. There's over 600 different myokines. We can get them from resistance training. I've been doing this for a decade and I've heard the term myokine, but I've never heard about its interplay with the brain. And that's going to be, that's going to be one of my new selling points because that's a succinct way to look at it. Basically, you have chemical messengers that your body starts secreting or releasing as an effect of being stimulated with resistance. And those go all throughout your body, but a very, very unique set of them go to the brain

and possibly affect the health of your brain in a way that other exercise can't. And that to me is particularly compelling because I found that resistance training does tend to be a little bit more challenging to get people excited about than something like a walk or a hike because it is more technical. And a lot of times people have a lot of preconceived notions or misconceptions about the safety profile of resistance training. So knowing that will help a lot. And I think that's a nice way to circle the wagon on all three of those domains. So I'll ask you this question then, which is, you've been studying the brain for a very long time. What are you most excited about? What emerging research, what emerging techniques, what therapies have you the most excited and encouraged to continue to study the brain moving forward? Well, I'm currently publishing a lot as I'm doing a doctorate and it is in this

area of myokines. So I'd love to go and discover a few more myokines. That's the first thing. The second thing I'm excited about is at neuroathletics, we use a lot of, we use different modalities. So we've come up with our own training regimes, which is what we give out at the neuroathletics coaching course. I love finding different neurotech. We use lights, we use balls, we use number patterns. I'm really excited to find out what other forms of neurotech can be involved in optimizing the brain. I don't know if you watched the game this morning with Messi. Yeah, I did. And yeah, he is my absolute, I think he's unbelievable. And I'd love to find out, well, how can we get other players performing like him from a neck up perspective?

Yeah, I love it. Louisa, thank you so much for coming on. There's a lot that people can take from this to improve their physical performance, their behavior around sleep and make their brain function better across the lifespan. Where can people find you, keep up with you, and then do tell them some more about your coursework? Because I think, especially for the trainers listening, that'll be really valuable. Yeah, definitely. Come and follow me on Instagram. It's where I hang out the most,

LouisaNicola, underscore at the end, or Twitter, exact same handle, LouisaNicola. But yeah, there'll be a link in there for our neuroathletics coaching course. It'll be a two-day live course. Our location is to be determined, but I'm thinking on the West Coast somewhere. I think a lot of people over there, maybe in LA or Sacramento will want to come and join in. So it's going to be both theory and practical. So you'll get our complete, you know, you'll get, you'll get to understand what the brain is, what the cognitive domains is. You'll understand what sleep does for, for, for the brain and how to coach your clients. I'm not going to say just athletes. I'm saying everybody on how to have a better performing brain. So we're really excited

about it. I love it. And if you're in LA or anywhere up here, I'll be there. I'd love to learn more from you. Louisa, thanks so much for coming on. Thanks, Danny.