That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of "Project Dad"

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

In today's epsiode of That Neuroscience Guy, we discuss a first hand account of a lifestyle change aimed at improving brain health called "Project Dad". 

Hi, my name is Olof Kergolsen, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. Okay, I have to admit, I'm excited for this episode. We've talked a lot about brain health over the trajectory of the podcast. You know, I looked at it just a while ago and realized we're at over 200 episodes, which when I started this as sort of a COVID hobby,

I literally was just that it was a COVID hobby. A couple of people had told me that my voice was good for radio. I also was told I have a face for radio, but that's okay. But we never thought it would get this big. So just thank you for everyone that listens. I know we can be a bit inconsistent with release times and stuff. And it's basically just because we both, Matt and I, have full-time jobs. And we try to put a decent amount of quality into each episode.

So thanks for bearing with us if you still are. Now, anyway, like I said, I'm excited about this episode because we've talked a lot about brain health and I'm doing something called Project Dad. Let's just cut to the chase. I was talking with my son and realizing I wanted to make some life changes. So I embraced what I've told you about brain health. And what I want to do is I'm going to talk to you about the changes I've made with Project Dad. And I'm going to tell you about what I've experienced because hopefully you find this interesting because it will support the stuff I've told you about positive brain health because I'm living it. And I have to admit, I made a promise to my son to do Project Dad.

It's supposed to have started recently, and it's going on until he's graduated high school. So I've got another nine months to go. I also found out I'm getting ankle replacement surgery, which comes with a prognosis from the surgeon saying I have to lose weight as much as I can before the surgery to have a good outcome. So I have to admit it's tied to that as well. So there's a double piece here, which is there is a promise to my son in that. Anyway, enough.

What is Project Dad? Well, here's the deal. I've made a commitment to exercise. So I am averaging 100,000 steps every seven days. I don't like the idea of a daily step count because you need rest days sometimes or life gets in the way. And I've been doing this for quite a while. I walk every single morning, even with my bad ankle, and that's my commitment.

But what I've added is high intensity, short duration exercise. There's a lot of research now that shows that in as little as 10 or 15 minutes a day, you need to get your heart rate up. So you have to do something to boost that heart rate up, right? And like I said, 10 to 15 minutes a day, it doesn't have to be a big amount of time. You just need to force that heart rate up one way or the other. So I have a Peloton

and all I do is short duration rides, 10 or 15 minutes. I typically pick the upbeat ones like Tabata or hill climbs and I do 10 minutes, maybe 15. And I do it three or four times a week, but that's to get that high intensity exercise. Massive benefits for heart health, body health, and brain health. And I've also added a bit of resistance training. As I get older, a little bit harder to do, but I've gone for lower weights, lots of reps as opposed to heavy weights, short reps. I have to acknowledge I'm 54, and I've got all sorts of injuries on pretty much every joint in my body due to basketball and life. So that's the exercise side of things. Diet-wise, zero alcohol. I've always been someone that loves a couple beers on a Friday or a Saturday. I've lived in England and the whole pub culture and pub life is my thing.

I was never one to have a glass of wine with dinner on a Wednesday night just for the sake of it. But on a Friday or Saturday, best place to find me is the local pub and having some pints and the food that goes with it. So I have zero alcohol. That's a big one. And zero to very minimal sugar in the sense that I am giving up all artificial sugars. I'm avoiding bread, pasta. People ask me, what is the diet? I don't really have a name for it. I can say that I was inspired a bit by keto, but it's not entirely keto. There's something called the whole life project. Their diet diets interesting as well, but basically I would call it the Canadian food guide. Uh, so even if you live in the States,

you can Google the Canadian food guide, get the new one. So lots and lots of vegetables. I mean, eating at least one salad a day, uh, natural sugars. So fruits are on the menu, protein, uh, keeping the red meat down. Used to love red meat once a week for red meat now no processed meat so out goes salami and all that stuff and pepperoni no junk food of any kind i am eating some grains but only whole grains so there's a bakery in town i'm lucky where there's zero sugar in the bread and that's one of my meter sticks which is if you see sugar in the bread or they're using white flour it's not there and another good one on the food side which is probably my true source of inspiration um was uh michael poland stuff so if you don't know who he is he's done some cool things on food and i would encourage you to look there as well i'm not an

expert on diet i'm just telling you what I'm doing. And there's some mental stuff I'm doing. I now stop work every night at seven o'clock. No questions asked. I won't work after seven and I don't work on Saturdays. I have to admit I was a bit of a workaholic and I'm also using my free time to do things for myself. I'll confess I build Lego. I do some other forms of mindfulness

in terms of breathing and being just more social and interacting with the outside world. So that's what Project Dad looks like. If you are interested in Project Dad, just send an email to that neuroscienceguy at gmail.com and I can give you some thoughts on what i'm doing and why and give you some references um now let's go with how's it going first well surprisingly easy um i tell people there's two things one is commitment i made a promise to my son and i made a promise to my surgeon those are two promises i won't go back on and And even if I get weak with one of them, I've got the other one to fall back on. So if you do want to make these kind of changes, I would say commitment is a big thing. The other one is motivation.

You know, I just looked in the mirror and my weight had crept up a bit. And I'd had trouble sleeping for quite a while. And I went, you know, I want to make some changes. Like I'm really behind this concept of Project Dad. All right. Now, I guess the reason I thought this would be an episode and not something I put on my own personal social media is brain health and what I've experienced on the brain health side.

Within seven days of committing to the exercise and the diet, and it was realistically within about four, but by seven it was sorted, I was sleeping better. I went from sleeping five or six hours a night and getting up two or three times within that five or six hours to sleeping eight to nine hours and getting up once. I don't set an alarm clock anymore. I used to at the start of Project Add and before, but I don't need to now. I go to bed shortly after nine every night, maybe 9.30, and I wake up naturally between 5.30 and 6, and I feel rested and ready to tackle the world. So sleep is massive. The one thing I'll say, because we did talk about the neuroscience of

sleep, this is just a little thing, but I went and got what I call super pillow. I went to a store here in Victoria that makes custom pillows and mattresses and everything else. But my pillow was the one weak spot in my sleeping arsenal, if you will. And I got a pillow custom made for my head and the way I want to sleep, completely a factor. Now I got that a couple weeks into Project Dad, so the sleep changes happened before I got Super Pillow, but it's definitely happened. So the biggest thing, sleep. And what comes with sleep? I'm rested. I wake up in the morning and I'm ready to go. I am more happy. So I would say that, that I, on a day-to-day basis, and I'm not charting too much, uh, numerically, which is surprising given my day job, but I'd say that I

am more emotionally happy. Uh, I am definitely less angry and I get less frustrated. Um, in the past, I have to admit, I've, I've fought depression a few times in my life, but that's completely quashed. Um, and yeah, so there's a massive positive mental impact just to the sleep alone. And I, I tie a lot of that to sleep. It's probably also due to diet and exercise, but sleep is there, uh, sleeping better and coming with sleep and the other changes, this emotional change and this energy change. So it's that simple. Improve the quality of your sleep. Well, for me, that came by getting rid of alcohol, reducing sugar and exercising more. I'm pretty sure there's a relationship there. You can just Google alcohol and sleep and sugar and sleep and lack of exercise and sleep, and you'll see what's there. And I think that sleep has driven

a lot of those changes, but I think the changes also come from these other things. We know that alcohol is a depressant. We know that sugar can disrupt mental states. So there you go, Um, so there you go. Project dad. So I guess that's my challenge to you, the listeners. Try it. All right. Try removing some of these things from your life. All right.

If you do like to have a couple of drinks from time to time, just try a stretch without it because the changes are outstanding. Now I'm only on week four. I got a long way to go, but it's there. I am losing weight by the way too. If you're interested in weight loss, I'm losing on average three to four pounds a week. And that's there. Oh, I forgot. I also do intermittent fasting. So I got into intermittent fasting. And again, if you want a tip on this one, there dr jason fung he's written a book called the obesity code i highly recommend it um i have to admit i'm a neuroscientist i'm not an exercise

physiologist so i subscribed to the whole key to losing weight is to exercise more and eat less well his first couple of chapters are all about why that doesn't work. And I found it fascinating and it's well-cited research. So I've, and based on his recommendations of, of divinant to intermittent fasting. So basically I eat lunch and dinner and I skip breakfast or eat breakfast and lunch and skip dinner. Uh, and I've found that to be beneficial. So that's a contributing factor. So that's a bit of a ramble, but the short version for Project Dad is, you know, changing what you eat, no alcohol, no sugar, no breads and that kind of stuff. Exercising more, walking every day, weights and high intensity activity, and some

mental health stuff. I am doing some mindfulness stuff as well to promote that. Massive changes in terms of brain health and performance. Like I said, if you're interested or have questions, you can get me on threads or x at that neuroscience guy. You can email us at that neuroscience guy at gmail.com. I'm the one that checks that one. Some of you do email me on my personal email address, which is Craig Olson at gmail dot com. I'm not really advertising it because it's hard to miss, but if you title it Project Dad, I'll respond. If you title it anything else or it's about the podcast, I actually just push it to the that neuroscience guy at gmail dot com. And of course, there's my work email address where if it's not work,

it typically gets blocked by the spam filter. So I'm not going to advertise that one. Anyway, hopefully you found that a bit interesting. And the reason I just want to say from my heart, the reason I wanted to talk about it is I've talked a lot about brain health and things you can do to promote brain health. And I'm living all the things I've talked about and have been for the past month. And it does work. Make those changes and your brain health will improve. All right. My name is Olaf Kregolsen and I'm that neuroscience guy.

I'll see you soon for another episode of the podcast.