Something You Should Know - How to Organize, Prioritize and Get Things Done & How to Achieve Peak Performance

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

It’s a good thing you learned math in school. Why? Because when you apply math to pizza, you will realize that there is one size pizza that is almost always a lousy deal. This episode begins with a mathematical formula that will save you real dough on your next pizza order. http://lifehacker.com/the-math-equation-that-explains-why-you-should-alwaysb-1784641566 Most of us probably wish we were a bit better at being organized so that we could prioritize tasks and do things more efficiently. Fortunately, David Allen is here to explain how to do just that. David is an internationally recognized expert in productivity and organization and author of the book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (https://amzn.to/32Vr6Or). Listen as he offers some simple yet powerful ways to live and work more efficiently so you have plenty of time for you.  You know that feeling of brain fog? It’s knowing that you are not performing at your very best. A lot of things can cause it such as stress and diet. It also turns out that there can be long term effects from brain fog. Dr. Mike Dow, author of the books The Brain Fog Fix (https://amzn.to/3105nTG)  joins me to discuss what brain fog is and how to fight it off to optimize your brain to perform at its best. Ever wonder if you are dehydrated? Listen as I explain a quick test to tell that requires nothing more than to pinch the skin on the back of your hand. http://www.livestrong.com/article/252621-how-to-tell-if-you-are-dehydrated/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! To match with a licensed therapist today, go to https://Talkspace.com. Use promo code SYSK to get $100 off of your first month! Helix Sleep is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders AND two free pillows for our listeners at https://helixsleep.com/sysk.  We really like The Jordan Harbinger Show! Check out https://jordanharbinger.com/start OR search for it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen!  Go to https://Shopify.com/sysk for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features! Redeem your rewards for cash in any amount, at any time, with Discover Card! Learn more at https://Discover.com/RedeemRewards So, if you think you’re okay to drive after a few drinks, think again. Play it safe and plan ahead to get a ride. Drive sober or get pulled over! Paid for by NHTSA https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, when is a small pizza a better deal than a large pizza? I'll explain basic pizza math. Then, the problem of too much to do, not enough time to do it, and too many things to remember. You need to capture all that stuff, get it out of your head.

Your head's a crappy office, and most people are still trying to use their head to remember, remind, prioritize, and manage relationships with a whole lot more than four things. And new cognitive science research has basically proven that you try to keep more than four things in your head, you're going to sub-optimize your cognitive process. Also, are you dehydrated right now? Let's find out with a quick test and how to optimize your brain. And there are a lot of things that get in the way. The higher levels of stress that Americans have, it really wreaks havoc on the brain. We combine that with the diet, our sedentary lifestyle, because of course our commutes are getting longer, so we're sitting more, we're working longer hours. All of these are contributing factors. All this today on Something You Should Know.

Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like Something You Should Know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue.

It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named the Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts.

And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to an all-new episode of Something You Should Know. And we start today with math. But a special kind of math, it's pizza math. When you order a pizza, the large size is always going to be a better deal. I know this because it's all in the math. An 8-inch pizza has the surface area of about 50 square inches, so you're getting 50 square inches of pizza. However, a 16-inch pizza isn't double the amount of pizza like you might instinctively think. It's actually four times as much with 200 square inches of pizza. So if you're paying by the square inch, the 16-inch pizza should be four times the price as the 8-inch pizza. But in fact, it's usually no more than twice the price.

So the bigger the pizza, usually the better deal on a per-inch basis. And that is something you should know. Too much to do and not enough time to do it. That is the lament of so many people who carry around a million things in their head, past, present, and future, all of which creates a lot of stress,

a lot of mistakes and failure, and frankly, a lot of dissatisfaction. Today, there are so many tools that are supposed to help us keep track of things to do and how productive we are. And still, life can get so overwhelming because we have of things to do and how productive we are. And still, life can get so overwhelming because we have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Someone who has addressed this problem for several years is David Allen. David is widely recognized as one of the world's

leading experts on personal and organizational productivity. His 30-year pioneering research and coaching has earned him Forbes Magazine's recognition as one of the top five executive coaches in the U.S. He's author of a book called Getting Things Done, The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Hi, David. Thanks for coming on. Hey, thanks for the invitation, Mike. Glad to be here. So what do you think the problem is here?

As I said, there are all these apps and ways to keep track of things to do, and yet people are still all stressed out and worried that they won't get everything done. Do you think it's just a case of too much to do and not enough time to do it? Or what? Well, you don't need time. It doesn't take any time to have a good idea or to be creative or innovative or strategic or loving and present. Those don't require time. They require space.

They require room in your head. If you're carrying two meetings a go in your head, it's hard to be creative. If you're taking home to work in your mind or work to home in your mind, you're not going to be loving and present as you could be in cooking spaghetti or tucking your kids into bed. So it's really more about the distractibility of the world out there. It's not about time. And most people have not implemented the best practices that I uncovered. You need to capture all that stuff, get it out of your head. Your head's a crappy office.

And most people are still trying to use their head to remember, remind, prioritize, and manage relationships with a whole lot more than four things. And four things is about it. New cognitive science research has basically proven that you try to keep more than four things in your head, you're going to sub optimize your cognitive process. So most people just don't know that yet. Isn't that weird? Doesn't that seem odd though? The human brain is so amazing in so many ways, and yet it can only hold four things in it. Yeah, well, come on. Your brain evolved to survive on the savannah and the jungle and the desert and so forth. And it does a brilliant job of recognizing patterns and long-term history.

So you know that's probably a bear up there. There may be a snake in that. There are berries in the bush. There's a thunderstorm coming. And the baby's crying. And you do that very well. That's the part of your brain that works in the present tense and does brilliant stuff. The computers can't even come close to that. And yet you go to the store for lemons and you come back with six things and no lemons.

What happened? Well, you tried to use something that's not designed for remembering and reminding. To remember and remind. And all that's doing, you know, to remember and remind. And, you know, all that's doing, you know, you're keeping stuff in your head. Gee, I need to get a new adapter. I need to see if I want to get an MBA. I, what are we doing about mom's birthday? And should we hire a VP of marketing? So if those are just in your head, you'd be wake up at three o'clock in the morning with any of those. Cause that part of you, if it's just in your head, has no sense of past or future. So, you know, a whole lot of the new cognitive science research has just validated what I've known for 35 years, which is your head's just

a crappy office and you need to get stuff out of your head and build an external brain that you trust. Anybody listening to this who has a calendar is already doing that. You know, if you have a calendar, Mike, you've already told yourself your head can't do it. Right. Well, my head can't do some things. I probably still try to keep too much in my head. I don't put everything on the calendar, but, but what everything you're saying implies that, okay, so if you can only keep four things in your brain, your brain's a crappy office, you get a piece of paper and a pencil, you write everything down and the problem is now over. No, it's not.

If you look at most people's to do list, anybody listening to this got a to do list, just pull it out and look at it. What you'll see is an incomplete list of still unclear stuff. You'll see things like mom and bank and tooth and VP and holiday. Yeah. If you're even good at that, you know, so you've captured some, that's great. But you need, then need to, you know, move to the next two steps, which are critical

steps, which are, okay, what are you gonna do about it? Why'd you write mom down? Good historical data. I'm sure you had one. Why'd you write, well, her birthday's coming. What are you gonna do about it? Oh, I guess we need to celebrate mom's birthday. Oh, great.

Now I got a project. What's the next action? Oh, God. You know, I guess I ought to call my sister, see what she thinks we ought to do. Ah, very good. The late great Peter Drucker would tell you, you just did the hardest thing you need to do, which is define what your work is. But if you haven't done that yet, if you just got mom on a list, that's going to remind

you that you still have some thinking and decision making you haven't finished yet. You don't have the energy to do that so it's just telling you you're overwhelmed and reminding you about that so unfortunately you have to capture first but then you need to clarify and organize the results of that thinking so that it's truly off your brain you know if you say call my sister if you don't call her right then better have that on some list you look at when you're on a phone and oh celebrate mom her right then better have that on some list you look at when you're on a phone and Oh, celebrate mom's birthday. You better have that on some list. You look at at least weekly to see how am I doing about that? What else do we need to do to make sure that happens to take it across the finish line? So defining what your work is, defining the specifics

that actually lie embedded in these things that have your attention is the next two critical steps. And most people don't do those or they do, they'll do them when the pressure forces you to, but not on the front end. But some things are, don't require all that. I mean, if I write down dry cleaners, well, I, it means I need to go to the dry cleaner. I don't need to sit down and do a six hour evaluation of my trip to the dry cleaner. It's no, but if you have 12 errands, it's nice to have that on an errands list. So you don't miss that one, right? If that's the only errand you have

to do and you know, you need it and it's automatic and it's pretty habitual. You go that way anyway, you don't need to write it down. Oh yeah. But some things are getting, get a little messy because, you know, celebrating mom's birthday, maybe you can't do everything right now that is involved in celebrating mom's birthday. You can only do a couple things because you're waiting for Susie to tell you about the cake and the thing. And so things then get really messy. Right. So you have a waiting for list to get back to Susie and you look at it regularly enough

to see if you need to light a fire, kick her butt or do what you need to do. So you keep track of the things that have to move toward it. And that could be a few things could be one or two could be a whole lot. It's as much as it needs to get that off your mind, just like you're not thinking Mike about where you need to be when two weeks from Wednesday at two o'clock in the afternoon, because you trust you put the appropriate data in the right place and trust that you'll see it at the right time. So it's not on your mind. But you have to do the same thing with anything else if you want to get it off your mind.

Isn't that funny that, you know, you're right, I don't worry about where I have to be two weeks from Wednesday at two o'clock because I know that somehow that'll get taken care of. And yet when I go to the store for lemons, which is also on my mind, I get everything but the lemons. Yeah. Just a post-it on the fridge. So you got lemons on the Post-it and you grab the Post-it before you go to the store. Duh. And yet I don't. Well, up to you. It's just, it's taking up brain space. First of all, that you could be using for more creative thinking than trying to remember, remind your list. And secondly, you're going to forget lemons and they get yelled at by somebody. Yep. Well, that's happened frequently. So what does this all look like? What is this? Like, if I go to your office, I mean, are there lists everywhere and their post-it notes all over the place? I mean, how do you, how do you tame it? How do you make this manageable? Well, you need a curated and compact list manager. Frankly, you need a list of

the projects you needed to do and finish. You need a list of the action items that you need to take, you know, and that may look like, you know, I've got mine sorted into calls. I need to make stuff to do at the computer, stuff I need to do at home errands. I need to run stuff. I need to talk to my wife about. So I've got seven or eight different categories because it just makes it simpler to be able to see them based on those contexts and a waiting for list. And that's pretty much it. And I've got all that on the computer. And, you know, I can see it on my iPhone, I can see it on my computer, doesn't matter. So it doesn't take up a lot of space. It's not a big deal. Well, it is a big deal, because you wrote a book and have a whole career based on it. So it is a

big deal. Yeah, if it were easy, I'd have to get another job, I guess. So, you know, you'd have already figured this out. Right? Yeah. And clearly, I haven't. And I've talked to you, I don't know how many times over the years and I'm still... Well, you figured it out. You didn't implement it. You know, it's easy to understand that, but you got to go do it if you actually want to have your head empty. But you have to decide how, whether you want your head empty or not. That's up to you. Yeah. But because I imagine people have different styles of wanting, of how to do this. Like some people just aren't list people.

Some people don't like to make decisions. They don't like to keep track of stuff. They're there. Yeah. And that's up to them. I'm not, I'm not a proselytizer. I'm not out there telling everybody they should do this. I'm an, I'm a researcher and educator.

If you want an empty head, here's how you get it. There's no simpler way. Trust me. And that's up to you, the degree to which you want to implement this. And so when you go to implement it, if you've written everything down and you've got all your lists figured out and all, then how do you then, where do you start? I mean, what do you do next?

It seems like you could look at all those lists and go, well, there's no way I can get all this done. Of course not. People get mad at me for their list. I'm sorry. That's not my list. It's yours, right? You want to keep it inside your head and be reminded that you need cat food three times as opposed to once, but then you're inappropriately engaged with your cat. You know, come on. You know, there's only, there's no reason to have a thought twice unless you like the thought. But if it's something you can't finish in the moment but still want to or still need to do something about it, you better externalize that so you don't overthink and keep being reminded of stuff you can't do anything about at 3 o'clock in the morning. You know, come on.

So it's just building a system. And then once you have the system, then you have all that stuff out of your head. Then you just trust your intuitive judgments about, you know, which of those things is best to do. If you had it, Mike, if you truly had all this inventoried out of your head and in front of you, you've got somewhere between 30 and 85 projects and you've got probably a hundred next actions on all the moving parts of your life right now. And if you just took a look at all that and said, I'm going to take a nap instead, that's a power nap. Cause You just said, wow, that's more. Look at how many things I'm not doing. Way cool.

A nap is more important as opposed to take a nap to avoid your life. So, you know, you don't, I don't, I, a lot of stuff I do is not on any of my list, but I have the freedom to do that because of my list. I know I'm not missing anything, but you can only feel comfortable about what you're not doing when you know what you're not doing. And most people haven't a clue. Yeah, well, as I think about this, you know, I'm getting ready to take a trip and it's all in my head. I haven't sat down and said, here are the things I need to do before the trip.

It's all in my head. And and I'll admit that it's causing me. I guarantee you, Mike, come on. If you just sat down, took pen and paper, take 10 minutes and empty your head, you're going to feel more in control, more focused, more stable, more capable of focusing on the right stuff at the right time about any of that. So why aren't I doing it? I don't know. I really don't know. David Allen is my guest. He's one of the foremost productivity experts in the country and author of the book, Getting Things Done, The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

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Sure. Of course it does. Anything, you know, that starts to become habitual, just a whole lot easier to do. You know, there's some keystone habits as my friend Charles Dewey, who wrote the power of habit would talk about, look, you don't change 16 habits, change the one or two that if you change those, that's going to change a lot of the results that happen in your life. So I got one habit called get my end baskets and backlog to zero every 24 to 48 hours. That forces me to make decisions about ugly emails that I want to think about. And, you know, I'm living in the Netherlands and I get a bunch of stuff in Dutch and it's like, oh God, Google translate. Am I going to have to boot that up again to try to figure out are they trying to give me money? Do they want money from, oh God. But I don't make myself have

to do that. I just have a habit of getting all that stuff cleaned up. And that forces me to then do the, make the hard decisions and go through all the stuff I need to go through. So the, quite frankly, I mean, sorry, Mike, the reason you're, you're not doing it as you're just addicted to stress. You're addicted to the, not addicted, meaning you have to go shoot it up. It just means you're willing to tolerate the feeling you're having right now about the vacation. I'm not. Yeah. Well, so you just need to raise the bar in terms of your internal experience are you are you taught are you okay with tolerating that feeling no you know as i as i talk to you and think about it you know what i think it is i think i like the game i think i like the stress of the game of will i remember everything and if it's all written down

there's no game it It's too easy. Fine. So I think you're right. I like the stress. So enjoy the game, but it didn't sound like you were enjoying the game when you mentioned it to me. Yeah, I probably don't. I didn't say this was a good thing. But I think that's what it is.

I mean, it just seems like will I remember to do everything before the plane takes off? And I like that challenge in some kind of perverse way. And you don't. No, I don't at all. I usually rush on the front end so I can relax on the back. And you know what's so amazing about that is when I do rush on the front end and relax on the back, it's so nice. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about some specific strategies people can use. Cause so far we've been talking fairly globally about this problem and how it happens and all, but so what can people do? And they may not like all the suggestions, but what can people do to help this? My calendar for instance does not have I'd like to do stuff. It's I've got to do stuff on Friday

It's my got to use it's my hard landscape External commitments appointments things that have to happen on Friday not before not after but some time that day as well as information I need to know about that day. Those are the three things on my calendar So the night before I glance at my hard landscape, the calendar for the next day or two to see how late I can sleep in the morning. I'm a big sleep fan, so I like to sleep as long as I can. So I need to just check on that. So once I do that, you know, then I get up in the morning, I have some lemon water to cleanse my system. I have a great cup of French press coffee. I read the New York Times on my iPad. I play a couple of games of words with friends to get my brain sort of kick-started.

Now we've got a new puppy, so probably take the puppy out to do what she does. And then I plan as little as I can get by with and I do what I feel like doing. But I have all the inventory of options out in front of me because I've got the system is current. And once a week I do a real cleanup and catch up what we call the weekly review where once a week I, you know, go through and clean up all my lists, get them current, make sure I've captured any new stuff, you know, that's come up in the last seven days or so, you know, that I haven't yet clarified as a project or something I need to do about it and make sure that I get my inventory clear. That leaves me clean and free to just be making spontaneous, intuitive choices for the

most part during the week about what I feel like doing. Cause I know I'm not missing anything. So when you say that you put things on your calendar that have to be done, are you saying that it all gets done? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Or I have to renegotiate it. If it's an appointment that I have to change for some reason. But there's not much on my calendar except what I got to do. Right? That's what the calendar is for, for me. The other thing, all the other things are things to do in and around the calendar, but I don't rewrite those. I don't move them from day to day and then feel guilty that I didn't do all the stuff I told myself I'd like to do. Life's moving too fast. But there has been, I've heard the advice of, you know, you put too much on your to-do list and then what you prioritize and the things at the bottom that you don't get done, you push them to the next day. Yeah, well that's a terrible way to try to use your calendar. You just create guilt and frustration when you do that. Why don't you keep a list that's more specific to what it really means, which I'm

going to get this done as soon as I can get it done around all the have-tos. And also around all the surprises and interruptions and things I didn't expect that's going to show up, which is at least 40 or 50% of your day. How much time does it take you? I guess I think one of the things people worry about is I'm spending three hours planning my day. I don't want to spend three hours planning. I have all these lists and calendars and things. I just do what I need to do. Yeah, I do too.

Well, how long does it take you? It doesn't take any. If you followed me around today, it's like the number of how much time I've spent looking at my list and my calendar and my systems, maybe 23 seconds. That's all I need to do. See, you don't have time to think like I don't either. I need to have, you need to have already thought. So because I've already thought, I have the freedom to then be making, you know, spontaneous intuitive decisions about what I feel like doing. So I pretty much do what I feel like doing. I mean,

my prioritization is what's most got my attention right now, change that light bulb, write a business plan, deal with that ugly email, or just go have fun with the puppy. I make that at a moment to moment decision. Don't you find that life dishes up things that aren't on your calendar? Oh, all the time.

That's why I keep everything clean and pristine and keep my backlog. If I'm not doing anything else, Mike, I'm cleaning up backlog to zero because there's something like that coming toward me. I can't see. And when that hits, I don't want any unclarified, uncaptured, unorganized stuff lurking in the background, which is going to then bother me about any input, even if it's cool stuff, because I'm not sure how to evaluate it against all the other commitments I've got. So I have all my commitments. I could show them to you. I could show them to me in 30 seconds. And so I can

very quickly then assess that surprise, that phone call, that invitation to go boogie at a party or whatever. I can just make a judgment call at the moment about what to do. So that's a lot more fun. See, most people think I'm some anal retentive OCD corporate, you know, button down kind of guy. If you meet me, hang out with my life, you'll see I'm just the opposite. I love being spontaneous and intuitive and follow my intuitive hunches about what to do at any point in time. That's how I came up with GTD. So I had the freedom to do that without any downside.

So when you talk to people or they talk to you, what is that? What is the thing or things that people seem to have the most trouble with? First of all, just like you, you keep stuff in your head. Why? You know, if you ever wrote things down and felt more comfortable and more in control and reverse engineered that, why would you ever keep anything in your anything in your head your head's not designed to do that so first of all it's just the habit it gives you a false sense of control mike to keep stuff in your head and that's a pretty big addiction for most people is to try to keep their world in control so you don't want to look at it you want to try to contain it there oh my god if i i already feeling out of control if i get it out of my head i'm going to feel worse know, sorry, that's just what I've seen in 35 years and thousands of people I've worked with about all this. Second thing is even if you got it out of your head, you're resisting

making next action and outcome decisions, real specific about those things. What do you need to decide about those? What are you committed to do? What, you know, what does done mean and what is doing look like and where does it happen? And that's a thought process. It's a cognitive muscle. You actually have to train because you're not doing, you're not born doing that. It's actually, you have to train yourself to think that way. And then you have to have some trusted external system to park the results so that your brain can truly let it go. No, you're going to see the right list at the right time. So you're not missing anything that you've got any commitments about. So any one of those could be where you fall off. But do you find that do people say,

you know, I've, I've pretty much got this nailed. It's just email. I can't seem to get a handle on, or, you know, if my phone, my phone just drives me nuts or is it anything like that? Well, that's kind of a lot of people's complaints out there. It's just volume. But I say they're letting email pile up. Why are you letting it pile up? You only want to take out half your garbage? Oh, yeah.

Mike, just tonight, just take the stinky part of your garbage out. Leave the rest in there. Duh. I don't think so. No, just leave. Why don't you leave the mail that That's not really really important in your mailbox Of course not so it's just a volume issue But it's the same thing whether I ask you to do something walking down the hall or send you an email about it

What's the difference? Or you know there are whatsapp or it doesn't matter if you're getting input What are you gonna do with that input if you've let it into your system? First of all, if you don't want it, stop it. But if it's something that is potentially meaningful that you might would, could, should decide or do something about, you damn well better do that. Otherwise, it's going to be, you know, it's going to wrap around some part of your subliminal psyche and just keep spinning in there and taking up space not available for creative, intuitive thinking. Yeah. Well, I think there is an epidemic of,

I'll get to that later. I mean, it just seems that people hold on to things. Oh, I'll get to that email later. And you never do, or maybe you do, but you're right. In the meantime, it sits in your head. There's actually nothing wrong with that as long as you park it in the right place. You could create a folder in your email system that says stuff I might want to get to later. Just move the stuff over there. So you don't have to keep rethinking in your email inbox, which is trash, which is reference, which is stuff I still need to do. You still are sitting there, you know, having to rethink all that stuff as opposed to, I've now decided what this is, what it means. Let me park it in those kinds of categories. Well, I know no one who has thought about this and researched this and figured this out better than you have. So I appreciate you sharing what you know. My guest has been about this and researched this and figured this out better than you have. So I

appreciate you sharing what you know. My guest has been David Allen and the book is Getting Things Done, The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, David. Thanks for coming on. Hey, Mike, thanks for the invitation. Been a pleasure chatting with you. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows.

In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events.

Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Have you ever felt as if your brain was just in a fog? That you just weren't at your best? Even if you put into practice all the advice you just heard from David Allen in the last segment, there are still times in your life, I suspect, when you just feel off your game. You don't perform well. Maybe there's a lot of stress in your life or you're not getting enough sleep. Something is causing that brain fog. Dr. Mike Dow is a psychotherapist who has studied brain fog.

He's the author of a couple of books including Healing the Broken Brain, The Brain Fog Fix, and Your Subconscious Brain Can Change Your Life. Hi, Mike. Thanks for coming on Something You Should Know. Thanks so much for having me. So I think when you say the word, the term brain fog, people know what it is, they know how it feels, they've had that sensation, but how do you define it? So brain fog is sort of this umbrella term. It's for people who are feeling gray, cloudy. Maybe there's a little bit of mood, depression.

Maybe it's not as bright as it used to be. And we know that more and more Americans are really experiencing this brain fog, that scatterbrain or that mommy brain or having those senior moments. Those are all what I would call brain fog, which is the brain not optimized, the brain not really functioning at its best, so to speak. And that comes as a result of what? Basically, our American lifestyle. So basically, everything we do. So many things have changed in America. We know that our diet has shifted. We used to eat a lot of anti-inflammatory omega-3s.

Now we're eating a lot of pro-inflammatory omega-6s in the forms of factory-farmed meats, non-organic dairy. We know that we're spending less and less time with the people that we love. And ironically, social media is now making a lot of people antisocial. You know, in the beginning, Facebook was meant to connect you, to reestablish real friendships and relationships, catching up with that person from college. Now people live online. We also know that we are taking more sleeping pills, more Adderall. So all of these things together, the higher levels of stress that Americans have,

it really wreaks havoc on the brain. We combine that with the diet, our sedentary lifestyle, because, of course, our commutes are getting longer, so we're sitting more, we're working longer hours. All of these are contributing factors, and it really is an integrative way to understand what is causing the problem, but also that the integrative way could be part of the solution. I imagine that brain fog is not itself a medical diagnosis. Is there a medical diagnosis name for what you're talking about? Yeah, that's a great question. So no, you cannot be diagnosed with brain fog in terms of what your doctor is going to code to your insurance company. But there are a lot of diagnosable conditions that are actually common forms of brain fog. So if you're feeling gray, maybe you're going to see mild cognitive impairment. And a lot

of people with that MCI, mild cognitive impairment, eventually go on to receive a diagnosis of dementia. So if you're having problems with memory or scatterbrain, that is one diagnosis. A lot of people feeling inattentive, and because of our multimedia multitasking, a lot more people are feeling inattentive. So maybe these people are getting a diagnosis of ADHD inattentive type. Some people are getting a diagnosis of insomnia, others an anxiety disorder or depression. So it's really what flavor of brain fog do you have? But I think in all of these people, they all say that something just doesn't feel right. I just don't feel like myself. My brain is just not the way it used to be. So that is really how you know if you

have brain fog. So is the trick to cut those things out that are causing it? Yeah, it's really a lifestyle shift. You know, there was this really interesting study that was just published that sort of validated all of the things that I recommend. And it's really about an integrative lifestyle shift. This study followed 2000 people over six years. And check your score right now. Do you do this? Do you not smoke? If so, give yourself a point. Do you exercise at least 150 minutes a week? Number three, do you consume a brain-supporting Mediterranean diet? Do you drink just a little? So a little bit of alcohol is actually great for the brain. A lot is terrible. So if you are a light alcohol drinker, give yourself a point.

And five, engaging in cognitive activities. Because remember, when it comes to the brain, use it or lose it. And that could be all sorts of things. It could be challenging yourself in a new class. It could be playing a brain game, any sort of board game. And we know that people who actually answered yes to all four or five of those questions had a whopping 60% decreased risk of developing dementia. So we know that it's sort of, I like to call it health math, where one plus one equals three and one plus one plus one equals

10. So the more things that you do, lifestyle, exercise, diet, social connection, really challenging yourself, the more your brain is going to change from this foggy state to a really bright one. So my guess, my sense is that people already, for the most part, have a sense of that, that something's wrong and that they need to get off social media, they need to eat better, but they don't. They don't. So what's the motivation here? How do you motivate people who know what the problem is or have a sense of it and say, but I'm sorry, I'm not doing that? Yeah, that's a great question. I really believe that people have to connect with their why. Why are you doing this? And then there's, you know, to be honest, we know that with a little bit of scare, when you hear some of these stats, like just being

moderately overweight drastically increases your risk of dementia and brain fog. I think that makes a lot of people say, oh, whoa, I had no idea. That's really shocking. That is really scaring me because I don't think most people fear heart disease as much as they fear brain fog because our brain, think about it, it's not only our most important organ, our brain makes us who we are. So to lose that, I would say that most people find that scarier. In fact, there was this one study that found that people said that they feared losing their cognitive abilities and dementia more than cancer. So this is scary, but it's also that wake-up call. It's also that as scary as it is, if you add an omega-3 food to your diet every day,

if you walk a mile every day, if you engage in a social activity this week, these are all little things that you can do that can drastically reduce your risk. So as scary as it is, there's also so much you can do. Well, like you say, nobody really fears heart disease because even if it comes, it's going to come in 20 years. It's not tomorrow. But brain fog, what you're talking about, is either here or just around the corner. Yeah, that's right.

And, you know, I think a lot of people only used to fear brain fog when they were 60, 70, 80 and beyond. But we're now seeing that younger and younger, you know, millennial brains are getting foggy. We know that if you are the kind of person who is checking your iPhone while watching TV, while working on your laptop, your brain starts to lose the ability to focus on a task and to filter out the irrelevant stimuli. So if you're working in a shared office space, it's like you can't focus on what you're doing when you need to focus. So now a 25-year-old brain is experiencing brain fog. We also know that certain foods are shrinking our

brain. So if you're eating a lot of carbs from white bread, if you're eating a lot of red meat, so if you're having that, let's say you're having that cheeseburger, that fries and a soda for lunch, we know from research that all of those foods are shrinking your brain. And that occurs not just when you're 60, but through the whole lifespan. So now a 25-year-old, a 27-year-old, a 35-year-old can all experience brain fog. So we really know that it's not just something to worry about when it's too late. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So be sure that wherever you are, however old you are, no matter what you're doing, if you're somebody who's recovering from a stroke and you

have some brain issues, or if you just have a young, vibrant 25-year-old brain, everything that you do today, everything that you put in your mouth is going to affect the health of your brain. You have to acknowledge, though, that the kinds of changes that you are talking about are really changes in habit, that people eat habitually, and they do things habitually, and those habits are hard to break. I like to tell people, don't focus so much on what you're not doing. Focus on what you're adding that's healthy. So instead of telling yourself, okay, you can't have hamburgers anymore. You know, you can have hamburgers, but I would really like you to focus on you need to eat one of the best fruits for your brain, which is organic blueberries.

You need to figure out how you can add one omega-3 superfood a day today. So instead of having, you know, bacon for breakfast, a cheeseburger for lunch, and a steak or grilled chicken for dinner, maybe one of those meals you say, you know what, I'm going to have some rainbow trout or I'm going to have some walnuts. I'm going to have arctic char or wild salmon, which are four amazing omega-3 superfoods. So it's really that pivot of,

I can't do this, to, you know, you can. And, you know, by the way, even changing your self-talk, we know that instead of saying, I can do this, talk to yourself in the second person and say, you can do this. You're an incredible person who wants to change your diet. Research shows that if your self-talk is in that second person, that you make the voice inside your head that you, like an inner cheerleader or coach, because we see in research that that helps people to reach their goals faster. There's a tendency, I think, to look at all of the kinds of things you're talking about and say, you know, I can't do all of that. And then when you try and you fail the first time, you say, well, see, I can't do this. It's hard.

So it's really catching yourself whenever you notice catastrophic thinking, whenever you notice personalization, when you are blaming yourself for something, whenever you notice polarized thinking. A lot of perfectionists, including myself, I deal with this, where if it's not a complete success, it's a complete failure. If it's not 100%, it feels like an F. So really watch those thought patterns. And, you know, the one hack that I have for that is ask yourself, what's the contrary evidence? So you can start to be more aware of your thinking because our thinking affects our behaviors. So whenever you're noticing a negative thought, just give yourself that proof,

sort of like you're in a courtroom and you are the defense attorney and that other attorney who's nasty is saying, you're a terrible person or this is all your fault. And then you're fighting back. So you're having these dialogues in your head. And just like you're taking the first person to that second person and talking to yourself and that you, you got this, use that same voice and say, you know what? There are lots of times when my worst case scenario fear didn't come true. And so we're sort of starting to use our mind to change the brain. It's so interesting to me how we see this in ourselves, we see it in other people, and somehow we just think it comes with the day.

It's just part of who we are. It's just nothing we can do, and clearly there are plenty of things we can do. Something you just said I really like. There is something in the human brain that when a behavior or a way of living becomes normalized, that normalization feeds the behavior. So when you look around, and most Americans are eating this way, and most other people I know sit around and don't exercise, and most of the other people I know are on their phones all day, are checking social media all day long. And when a

behavior is adapted and really becomes the new norm, it does something to us that makes it harder to change. So I think we have to flip that around. I think we have to say, I want to be abnormal. If this is where our society is going, if this is the norm, well, guess what? I don't want to be the norm. I want to be the maverick. I want to be the person who is not going to fall into the statistic of the skyrocketing rates of all of these major diseases, which in the end turns into some very gray diagnoses like dementia, Alzheimer's disease, major depressive disorder. And you say, you know what, I'm going to do something different. And we know in the past five years, study after study has confirmed that,

for example, the Mediterranean diet can treat people who've been diagnosed with major depression. Isn't that incredible? 10 years ago, 15 years ago, people would have said, oh, you can't treat depression with diet. But now we know we have the proof that, yes, you can, because the med diet is so filled with anti-inflammatory foods, omega-rich foods, omega-3 rich foods, antioxidants. So, you know, it's just incredible. Lifestyle is really winning these days. In the days of having a pill for everything, we know that there's just a huge risk. And if you can do something by changing your lifestyle, that is always the preferred mode of action.

You know, it's funny, when you were saying that, i was with some people and uh for lunch and we all sat down for lunch and they all immediately picked out picked up their phones and started checking whatever they were checking so guess what i did i and i wouldn't have normally done it but well they were doing it i felt like an idiot sitting there not doing it so i I did it. Yeah, right. We are creatures of, yeah, it's like when somebody yawns. It's so contagious. So, you know, what I would say is be the person who is starting the good behavior and let that be contagious, too. You know, say, hey, can I talk to you about something? And ask them a question about something that you're interested in. You know, tell me about your favorite part of the day today or, you know,

something profound, depending on if it's a family member or colleague. But when you have those open conversations and you're the maverick and you're the one swimming upstream, I know it takes more work, but at the end of the day, people will thank you. It is interesting to me to see, like, it wasn't that long ago, you would see a group of people sitting in a restaurant or a bar or something, and they would be talking to each other. And now you're just as likely to see those people all individually staring at their phones and not talking to each other. Yeah, it's really become this epidemic. And what I would say is we cannot solve this with an all or nothing solution. So I'm not asking people to give up their phones, but in the same way that you would

go on a cleanse after a holiday eating binge and you're going to hit the gym and you're going to eat healthier, I would say that what we need is a social media phone detox. So what I recommend is find three one-hour periods every single day. Maybe it's your gym time. Maybe it's a walk with your dogs. Maybe it's a family dinner to put your phone away. Turn the ringer off and make it less like a shiny, bright-colored object. You know, you can turn on the gray filter of your phone.

You can charge your phone in the living room instead of the bedroom. All of these little tips and tricks to help your brain become more mindful, to be more present. You know, we know that you're actually changing the brain. The mind, what you do every single day and how you choose to think and how you choose to live, changes the brain. It changes the physical structure of the brain. So, you know, people who meditate have thicker prefrontal cortexes, which is the most advanced part of the brain. So, you know, people who meditate have thicker prefrontal cortexes, which is the

most advanced part of the brain. People who do the opposite, who are mindlessly checking their phones all day, aren't using that really advanced part of their brain, and they're not going to experience the same benefits of having that thicker prefrontal cortex. Does doing all this just get you back to ground level, or do you actually sense the difference in a positive way, or this just get you back to ground level or do you actually, do you actually sense the difference in a positive way or you just get back to zero? People will experience a profound shift, you know, in just a couple of weeks, two or three weeks, you'll start to feel something and maybe for you it's returned to normal.

You know, I believe that in a lot of ways we have gotten so far away from normal that returning to that normal can feel really refreshing, like a relief, rejuvenating. And if you can just get there, there are so many rewards and you will feel better. You'll be sleeping better. You're going to have more energy. All of these things that I know everybody wants. And it's just, in a lot of ways, everything that I'm talking about, Mike, isn't new information. I feel like everybody actually says, okay, I know that to be true, but what if you actually did it? What if you actually got your brain back to that way that we used to live that was healthier, that was more connected, that was eating a healthier diet? What

if you actually did that? I dare you to do it, And I dare you to see as an experiment, just how much better you will feel because I believe it's going to be profound. Well, I think everyone listening has had that experience of not being at their best, of not feeling in control of having that brain fog that you talk about. And this is good advice to combat all of it. Dr. Mike Dow has been my guest. He's a psychotherapist and author of the book, The Brain Fog Fix, as well as the book, Your Subconscious Brain Can Change Your Life. And there is a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Mike.

Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Of course, you know it's important to stay hydrated in the summer. And you've probably said to yourself many times, I've got to drink more water. But how do you tell if you're dehydrated? Well, experts agree that if you get to the point of being thirsty, you're already dehydrated. Another symptom is feeling tired, weak, or lightheaded. Here's a simple trick to see how dehydrated you are right now. Pinch the skin on the back of your hand.

If the skin seems to stick together, you're severely dehydrated and need to head to the hospital. If your skin slowly moves back to its original position, you are mildly to moderately dehydrated and need to drink fluids immediately. If the skin bounces back to its original position quickly, you are hydrated. And that is something you should know. It's always appreciated by us if you would take a moment out to recommend this podcast to someone you know,

and they'd probably appreciate it too. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro,

who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan.

Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Bantwine. To be continued... is not a loving God, and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Rudolf Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available.