The Dr. Hyman Show - Upgrade Your Brain’s Capacity To Learn And Succeed with Jim Kwik

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

View the Show Notes For This Episode Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal Get Ad-free Episodes & Dr. Hyman+ Audio Exclusives Jim Kwik is an internationally acclaimed authority in the realm of brain optimization, memory improvement, and accelerated learning. With more than 30 years of experience, Jim has dedicated his life to helping people tap into their brain’s full potential. After overcoming learning challenges from a childhood brain injury, Jim embarked on a journey with the mission to leave no brain behind. Through his teachings, Jim inspires others to unlock their inner genius, empowering them to live a life of greater power, productivity, and purpose. From students and tech mavens to CEOs, Hollywood celebrities, and professional athletes, Jim's teachings resonate with a diverse audience. Industry giants like Google, Virgin, Nike, SpaceX, and 20th Century Fox, along with institutions like Harvard and the United Nations, have embraced his methodologies. This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, ButcherBox, LMNT, and Zero Acre. Streamline your lab orders with Rupa Health. Access more than 3,000 specialty lab tests and register for a FREE live demo at RupaHealth.com. ButcherBox is giving new members FREE New York Strip steaks for a year—plus $20 off their first order. Visit ButcherBox.com/Farmacy and use code FARMACY. LMNT is giving listeners a FREE eight-count sample pack of their vital electrolyte drink mix with any purchase at DrinkLMNT.com/Hyman. Zero Acre Oil is an all-purpose cooking oil. Go to ZeroAcre.com/Mark or use code MARK to redeem an exclusive offer. In this episode, we discuss (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): Learning as a skill to unlock greater success in all areas of life (8:49 / 6:49) Practical tips for up-leveling our ability to learn (13:11 / 11:11) The “four supervillains” that stand in our way of learning and how we can conquer them (21:01 / 19:01) The four brain types and how to determine yours (30:17 / 26:16) The simple two-minute exercise Jim does first thing in the morning to keep from falling victim to his technology (47:56 / 43:55) Creating a What-Not-To-Do list (52:28 / 48:24) Jim’s message if you’re going through a hard time (1:03:10 / 59:09) Eating and nootropics for the brain (1:04:07 / 1:00:03) Get a copy of, Limitless Expanded Edition: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life. Discover your Kwik Brain C.O.D.E. at MyBrainAnimal.com.

Coming up on this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. So it's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart. It's not how smart your kids are, it's how are they smart. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. If you're a functional medicine practitioner like me, I wanted to share a secret for practicing at the absolute top of your license. And that secret is Rupa Health.

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And now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman and this is a place for conversations that matter. And today I'm delighted to be talking to Jim Quick, who's a global expert and the go-to guy when it comes to up-leveling your cognitive function. If you're interested in unlocking your greatest potential and moving past limitations through upgrading your brain and learning anything and everything faster, you're going to want to listen in. Now, Jim Quick is an internationally acclaimed authority in the realm of brain optimization and memory improvement and accelerated learning. He's had over 30 years of experience and in that, Jim has dedicated his life to helping people tap into their brain's full

potential. After overcoming learning challenges after a childhood brain injury, Jim embarked on a journey with the mission to leave no brain behind. Through his teachings, Jim inspires others to unlock their inner genius, empowering them to live a life of greater power, productivity, and purpose. From students to tech mavens to CEOs and Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes, Jim's teachings resonate with a diverse audience. Industry giants like Google, Virgin, Nike, SpaceX, and 20th Century Fox, along with institutions like Harvard and the United Nations, have embraced his methodologies. His collaborations with entities such as the U.S. Air Force and Cleveland Clinic further highlight the extensive scope of his influence.

Now, we're taught all sorts of things in school, yet we're really not taught how we can learn best and why mastering the art of learning is so valuable. And so today in our podcast, we kick off our conversation diving into why developing our ability to learn enables us to become the best versions of ourselves and why learning how to learn makes us healthier, wealthier, wiser, and happier, as Jim says. He shares super practical tips for uplifting our ability to learn through things like harnessing the power of writing by hand and using our calendars to schedule intentional time to learn. We also deep dive into what Jim calls the four supervillains that stand in our way of learning and how we can conquer them. We're also dive into what Jim calls the four supervillains that stand in our way of

learning and how we can conquer them. We're also facing an onslaught of information all day long and our relationships to our phones and our devices can greatly harm our memory and our ability to focus throughout the day. Jim shares a simple two-minute exercise he does first thing in the morning to keep from falling victim to his technology. He also shares why when we understand our brain it can work better. We don't all learn the same way. So Jim shares about a tool he created to help identify how you learn, process, and excel at different things. I used it and I found out I'm a cheetah. So learn what that is. You'll hear it coming up. We also talk about my results and how they can be applied also to you. We spend a lot of time managing, working to cross

off things on our to-do list, but Jim shares his own what not to do list and talks about why we should each make one. I like that idea. I have a to not list or a to don't list instead of a to-do list. And of course, we can't talk about brain health and cognitive performance without discussing the role of food. Jim talks not only about what to eat to support your brain, but why things like when you eat, the order in which you eat, and who you eat with, and why you're eating at all are important as well. And now let's dive into my conversation with Jim Quick. Welcome back to the Dr. Swarmacy podcast, Jim. It's great to have you back. It's so good to be here, my friend. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. So Jim and I have gone back a long time. In fact, the first time I met Jim was just after I'd

written my book, The Ultra Mind Solution, which was about how to fix your broken brain. And Jim was all about the brain. And I was like, who's this guy? And we had this great conversation. And we've been friends ever since. And I've learned so much from Jim about how to optimize our brain health and how to actually use our brains better. And we're going to talk about Jim's new book today, which is called Limitless. And this is an incredible book, which was previously released, but this is an updated edition that has all sorts of things we're going to talk about, whether it's AI and learning, nootropics, how to know your brain type, and lots more. The title is Limitless Expanded Edition, Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything

Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life. Well, who doesn't want to have an exceptional life? I certainly do. So Jim, what inspired you to actually update this book? Because I thought it was a great book to start with. And I think there's some real interesting things in there that you bring in that I think are going to make a difference for people. So what are those sort of highlights from the book that are quite new and innovative? So when the book came out a few years ago, you know, I know you know this because you wrote the foreword for it. It did, came out in April, 2020, which was- Good time to release a book, right?

Yeah. Interesting time to release a book. So we're really proud of the book. We donated the proceeds to Alzheimer's research for women. Women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than, uh, than men, uh, uh, in memory of my grandmother. Um, also we built schools. I had learning challenges in school from a traumatic brain injury. And so we've built schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya. And so we updated the book though, just because the world has changed a lot over the past few years. So it's meant for a post-pandemic AI world. And it has all the original strategies on how to read faster, improve your memory, brain optimization, focus, flow, changing your habits, but then also really

focuses on the new material on creating momentum in your life, which is what we talk about three Ms in the original book, mastering your mindset, your motivation, and the methods for brain optimization and learning faster. And this is really about gaining momentum. So AI to enhance your HI, your human intelligence, that will give you greater momentum, understanding your brain cognitive type. I think there's a lot of self-awareness as a superpower allows you to lean into your strengths and your traits to help you create momentum velocity. For the first time in over 30 years, I talk about publicly about brain supplements, human studies on nootropics. And so it's vast. It's got 120 new pages. So very excited about that. And also my world,

not only the external world has changed, my world has changed. I mean, I entered my 50s. We had our first child. And it really made me want to double down on my conviction, our commitment to helping build better, brighter brains, especially for the new generation. Well, it's so important. I don't think we put enough emphasis on learning because learning is the key to everything. If you can learn something, you can do something, whether it's your, I mean, I was just in Africa learning with the Hadza tribe, which are hunter-gatherers.

I mean, if you don't learn how to build a fire from a stick and a little kindling, if you don't learn how to shoot a bird or an animal out of the tree with an arrow, you're gonna starve. So learning is really key. And I think it's across all the spectrum of life. And one of the things that, you know, you talk about is just how important learning is and how we actually don't focus on it as a skill. We think, oh, we should just go learn, just read, just do your thing, just study. But it's not like that. And there's an old Chinese proverb that says, learning is a treasure that

will fall its owner everywhere. And what we learn becomes part of ourself and the tools that we get from learning are things that we can access any time to actually optimize our life. And I think, you know, whether it's one of the wanting to optimize your health or optimize your relationships or optimize your financial life or optimize any aspect of your world, you have to be able to learn. And that learning is not a given skill. And it's not something we learn how to do. We don't learn how to learn. In a sense, your work is so much about learning how to learn as a tool to help us live our best lives. And I think that's really the key to what you're doing. And what's really different about your work from my perspective is that you have really studied the art of learning, the sort of skill of learning, the tools of learning in a way that most people haven't.

And then you're able to translate those into practical things. We know, for example, if you want to build muscle, well, you need to go to the gym and lift weights. If you want to get your cardio up, you go for a run. But what the heck do you do to optimize your brain and to deal with the skills that we need to actually function at a high level? And I think one of the challenges today, and I know this is true for me, is just the enormous flood of information, the constant stream of information flooding our senses from social media, from the news, from, you know, the internet. It's just almost unmanageable for most of us. And we get overwhelmed, and I do too. And I got like, you know, 40 tabs open on my browser because I want

to read all these articles. And then I'm like, oh God, well, when am I going to do this? And I don't want to look at my screen at night. And so I think, you know, you say, you say that, you know, there are no limitations. The only thing required to unlock our potential is one fundamental tool, how to learn. So what do we, where do we start? What are your top tips for learning how to learn? Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, the faster we can learn, the faster we could earn, right? Because knowledge today is not only power, knowledge is profit. And I don't mean just financial profit. That's kind of obvious, but also all the treasures of our life. When we can learn how to learn, we can get healthier. We can get wealthier, wiser, happier also as well.

I think that there's not only this gap between those who have and those who don't have, there's this gap between those who know things and those who don't know yet. Yeah. So there, there's a quote in those are related, I think, right. Very much so. Yeah. I love that. Did you say that learning is really the key to greater success? Because if you want your business to grow, you have to grow. And I really think our well, our true wealth lies between our ears. This three pound gray matter, um, this is our number one wealth building asset that we have yet. It's not user-friendly. It doesn't come with an owner's manual and no. And in school, you're right. They teach you what to learn subjects like math and history, science, Spanish, but there but there are zero classes on how to learn. Going to somebody, a teammate, family member saying, study this or focus, remember this,

that's like going to somebody saying like, play the didgeridoo or play the ukulele, who's never had any kind of training on how to do that. And so we wanted to fill in those gaps. So knowing that learning is so important because every creature has their superpower, right? Some are super fast. Some creatures breathe underwater. Some could fly. Some are super strong. We're not any of those things. But because we have the ability to learn and translate that learning into action, we can fly and we can go underwater and we can go super fast because this technology is so very important. So we take two approaches, right? You have the software on how to read faster kind of strategies on how to remember names, how to learn a language,

how to focus, but then also you have to take care of the hardware also, which is, which is the brain itself. And so, you know, optimizing that with managing stress, getting the proper nutrition, getting proper sleep, and so on. I think one of the fastest ways people can learn as they're listening to this is just remember when you learn something, learn it with the intention of teaching somebody else. Even when you're listening. Yeah.

I love it because in medicine we have this thing, when we go to the hospital and we learn how to do a procedure or something, we have this phrase called see one, do one, teach one. So the idea is you see how to do it, you do it, and then you teach the next one in line, the medical student, the resident, how to do it. So it's exactly that. It's so very important. You take advantage of something called the explanation effect when you learn, even when people are listening to this conversation right now, we're going to go over some practical, pragmatic strategies, proven strategies to help people optimize their brain, learn faster, and create momentum, especially in the new year.

And one of the things is if you learn with the intention of teaching somebody else, then you're going to learn it better. You're going to focus better. You're going to ask better questions. You're going to take better notes, certainly. I mean, it just occurred to me, Jim, that I've written 19 books, actually 20, but one was kind of a ghost writing. But I realized that a lot of the reason I do it is I want to learn more about a topic. And it forces me to actually ingest enormous amounts of information, learn a lot, and then

synthesize it, digest it, and provide it in a clear way for people to understand and then to take action from. So it's actually how I've kind of learned what I've learned. It's like, okay, I want to focus more on longevity. I know the basics, but I want to study this more. So I pull every paper. I want to know about food and nutrition. So yeah, I kind of know the fundamental framework

pretty well, but what does all the data say and how do I translate that into actually meaningful things, whether it's understanding whether you should be vegan or high fat or whether you should eat red meat or not, or like there's so many questions and, you know, these are not things you can just answer by kind of a lighthearted approach. You have to actually learn and study and then just, and then synthesize and teach. And I think that's, that's what I, that's why I love teaching because it forces me to learn. Yeah. And it makes you active too, because the other part of learning is learning is not a, it's not a, it's not a passive endeavor. If you were learning is not

a spectator sport. So many, so many of us were conditioned through school. We were being lectured to, and it was just the human brain doesn't learn best through consumption. It learns better through exactly what you're saying through creation and co-creation and organization application. And so I feel like when we, we take an active role and responsibility in our own learning, that it's not that a teacher or somebody who is an expert you're listening to does it to you. It's something that we have full responsibility that we could take that information and make it personalized for us. We talk about optimizing how to take notes, how to retain what you learn because there's a learning curve, but there's also a forgetting curve. They say when somebody listens to something on a podcast or reads it in a book, hears it in a conversation, they're only exposed to information once within 48 hours.

80% of it is forgotten. And that's not really good use of our time and our energy or attention. And so I think some of the fundamentals, you know, learning to teach it, being active in your learning. We teach a whole brain note-taking technique in Limitless Expanded. One of them is put a line down. We find that people who handwrite notes do better on comprehension and retention exams in universities. Yeah, digital is great for storage, for sharing. But one of the reasons I would imagine, I mean, I think there's something very powerful about handwriting something, right? When you take an idea and you put it on paper it's the first step in taking something invisible in your mind and make it visible outside of yourself in your external world from your internal world but i also feel like you

know most people listening could type pretty fast and one of the worst ways of taking notes actually is full transcription they find the best way is capturing key ideas and keywords and the other thing is somebody could type as fast as someone could talk, but you can't possibly write as fast as someone could speak. So you have to synthesize it, right? Right. So it forces you to actively listen and filter and really focus on what's most important also as well. But if you're going to handwrite notes, a simple way people could do it, even try it right now if you're out or driving commuting just put a line right down the page and on the left side you capture on the right side create meaning on the left side you're going to take notes left brain logic how to remember

names how to read faster what are this you know some of the best nootropics or how to use ai to improve your hr your human intelligence that'll be on on the left side. And then on the right side, if your imagination, your right brain is going to distract you, I'd rather it distract people on the right side of the page and they could write their impressions. Like, how am I going to use this? How does this relate to what I already know? What questions do I have? When am I going to apply it? And I think those are key ideas that for every hour we spend learning something, I would challenge people to spend an equal hour applying and implementing it. Because the challenge is a lot of people get hooked on the actual act of learning, but their life doesn't change. And we know that knowledge by itself is in power.

It has the potential to be a lot of power, but only goes power when we implement it. And so one of the ways of implementing it is just scheduling time. I think one of the most powerful productivity performance tools we all have is our calendar. But we'll schedule PTA meetings or investor meetings or sales meetings, team meetings, whatever, doctor's appointments. But we don't schedule our application of what we're learning when they're regular. And so many people buy books and they sit on their shelf and it becomes shelf help, not real self-help. I have a lot of those books, shelf help. My shelf is very healthy. Right. And I want to remind everybody that, you know, the ability or the capability, the skill of buying a book is very different than the skill of reading and

understanding and remembering that book also. And I think a lot of people don't read because they're not very good at it. When's the last time people took a class called reading? I mean, six years old, seven years old. And I grew up with, when I had my TBI when I was five, I had sensory issues. I had balance issues. I had migraines almost every day. I would think it was like normal, but what really showed up as these processing issues. Teachers would repeat

themselves over and over again. I took me three years longer to learn how to read. And, you know, one of the teachers said, Hey, leave that kid alone. I was being teased. You know, that's the boy with the broken brain. And that was kind of like that label became my limit. But I really do believe that, you know, we have students, we have the largest Academy online of accelerated learning students in every country in the world and we have a lot of feedback and then i i have to say regardless of someone's age or background that they can improve you know these areas it's not fixed your your your memory or focus it's not it's not fixed like your shoe size through neuroplasticity our ability our brain's ability to be malleable and, and, and make new connections, even as we get older, it's, it's so very exciting. So that's what I

mean about limitless. It's not about being perfect. It's just about advancing and progressing beyond what we believe is possible. Yeah. Essentially. And it reminded me of like, when I was, you know, in medical school, I mean, there was no computers. I mean, they were, but they weren't but there were no PCs anyway. And I had to take all my notes by hand. And I was very diligent about keeping my notes. And I think it did really land in my brain by actually sort of slowing down to that axle. I think it's a really interesting kind of frame for thinking about how to learn is write and take notes. But nobody wants to do

that on paper anymore because it's such a mess. But, you know, I guess now they have these iPads where you can kind of like do it and then it'll translate to text because I can't even read my writing anymore. It was bad enough before medical school, but after medical school, it's like I can't even read my own writing. So, you know, one of the things you talk about is the supervillains, the four supervillains, the standard way of learning. What are those? How do we conquer those things? So I think everyone could relate to these.

I alliterated them so it makes them more memorable. So they all start with the letter D, and they're driven by technology. And technology didn't create them, but it certainly has amplified it really quickly. The first one is digital distraction. How do you maintain your focus and your concentration in a world full of rings and pings and dings and app notifications, social media alerts, like shares, comments, you name it. Right. And that's why, you know, we'd have a whole chapter dedicated to how to focus. The other one is digital deluge, which is this overwhelm you're talking about. They say the, I mean, we did program long time,

you know, for years, we trained at Google. And I remember the chairman there has a quote. He was chairman at the time, Eric. And he said, the amount of information that's been created since the dawn of humanity, since humans walked the planet to the year 2003, just a few decades, two decades ago, that amount of information is now created every two

days online. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah. So the amount of information Moore's law, it's doubling at dizzying speed. The half-life is getting shorter. It's getting, you know, information is getting outdated. So you have to, you know, our ability to learn, to unlearn, to relearn is an incredible competitive advantage. I think it's the most, you know, most powerful hedge that we could get in our life and school and in our careers also as well. But that digital deluge creates challenges like information anxiety, right? Higher blood pressure, compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness, more rumination. And so that's why we teach people how to learn faster or read faster. It's so important. Third one is digital dementia, which is healthcare. Yeah, it's where the idea that we're outsourcing our memories to our these external hard drives, like our phone. I mean, think about it, Mark, how many phone numbers? Yeah, growing up a lot, a lot. I know my own, own i can barely remember my my fiance's phone right exactly and so we could be texting or calling every single day to say you know a number of people

if we don't check our phone we don't really know what it is and and not that let me back up so not that we want to memorize 500 phone numbers but it should be very concerning that we've lost the ability to remember one phone number or a pin number or a passcode or something we just read. I believe two of the most costly words in life sometimes are, I forgot. I forgot to do it. I forgot that conversation. I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot what I read. I forgot that person's name. I mean, it just goes, no, I forgot to go to that meeting. Every single time we have those thoughts, we lose time, we lose trust, we can hurt a relationship. On the other side, I think memory is an incredible magnifier when you can easily remember client information, product information, give speeches without notes, remember important

things about the people that you love, your clients, your customers. I mean, life gets a whole lot easier. So that's why the largest chapter in the book is on memory improvement. And then finally, the fourth one outside of digital distraction, digital deluge, digital dementia, is a term I coined called digital deduction. And this is, I was reading research on saying that the new generation, the younger generations, the first time that they've had, they tested worse than previous generations when it comes to logic and critical thinking. And they were correlating that to logic and critical thinking. And they were correlating that to technology doing the thinking for us. I mean, you think about algorithms, even something simple like GPS, we don't have to build the visual spatial awareness and that intelligence, that part of our brain, because there's technology doing it for us.

And with algorithms it's always telling you what to think all the time you know based on what you're engaging with it's true it's like hard to imagine a world without google maps right i mean like right we always have to drive and remember where we're going and learn yeah they would have these tests like at um you know london cabbies that we talk about we do a lot of research right you know where they um have to in order for them to get their license they have to go through years of studying and they actually shown that that you know the part of the brain hippocampus it's it's more highly developed more dense um because they're you know neurons what's the term neurons that fire together they

wire together right so um but that's how you do it. It's use it or lose it. It's similar to technology. Like if you have to go to the bank and it's eight blocks away and you choose to take your car, that's great, but you don't, that was an opportunity to get your steps in, right? Or if you have your apartment on the fourth floor, your office, you know, on the fourth floor and you choose to take a lift or an elevator and you don't take the stairs. I mean, again, it's convenient. Technology is very convenient, but I think there has to take a lift or an elevator and you don't take the stairs i mean again it's convenient technology is very convenient but i think there has to be a balance with also keeping our minds mentally fit and you know our brains are an organ obviously but they act more like a muscle it's it's use it or lose it and i want people to have their strongest mental muscles their sharpest memory you know lots of energy um stronger stronger memory and and so. And so in a sense, you identify these things that stand in the way of our learning, right?

The digital distraction, the deluge, the dementia, the deduction. Then I'm sure you give people a roadmap on how to think. Yeah, that's why we have chapters for everyone. So the superpowers that we talk about, they're all the chapters. It's really a guidebook on meta-learning, what we should have learned for everyone. So the superpowers that we talk about, there are all the chapters. It's really a guidebook on meta-learning, what we should have learned in school, learning how to learn in clearly to help overcome the digital deduction and focus and concentration and flow to get over digital distraction and so on. So it's one of those things, again, technology, like fire. Fire is technology, early form of technology.

But it's how it's applied. Technology could cook your food or it could also burn down your home. It's's how it's applied it's technology could cook your food or it could also burn down your home it's just how it's how it's utilized yeah it's so interesting you know it sort of uh uh it reminds me when you're talking about a marvel uh series right it's like the super villains and the superpowers i think it's a nice way of framing it and i think i think it's true we we have to be vigilant about the things that interrupt our ability to actually live a life that's fulfilled, engaged, that allows us to do what we want, to build relationships, to build our wellbeing and our health, to build financial security. I mean, these are the basic skills in life we don't learn as we grow up. And most of us have

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Go to ZeroAcre.com forward slash mark and use the code MARK at checkout to claim this deal. That's Z-E-R-O-A-C-R-E dot com slash mark. And now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. You know, I want to get into some of the specifics of how do you actually do these things, because it sounds like you've got a roadmap, and you've learned this for yourself after your own challenges, and then you've applied this to thousands of people. You work with celebrities, you work with Fortune 500 companies. You do a lot of work in this this space and you're the go-to guy if people want to optimize their cognitive function. So what, what are the things

that you guide people to? How do the, what are the things that we can take home and the listeners can actually get and understand and try some things at home? So one of the things is understanding your brain type is something that's in the new expanded version. It's a model that I used for coaching for years. And this is the first time we've kind of released it to the public. And what I mean by that is I realized that after three decades as a coach, every single day working with individuals, it's, I think the future belongs to personalized learning, meaning that everybody learns a little bit different. Just like not every food is for everybody or exercises for everybody. And we've identified four different brain types. And for this model, I pulled on from things like personality types like Myers-Briggs to introvert, extrovert, multiple intelligence theory, visual auditory,

kinesthetic processing, left brain, right brain dominance. And we created a simple quiz that's in the book. And there's- I did it. I did it. Maybe we can use me as a practice case. Perfect. Perfect. I'm a cheetah. I don't know what that means, but I just was from Africa and I didn't get to see a cheetah, which was very disappointing. I saw leopards and lions, but no cheetahs. Yeah. One of my favorite places. What I would say is, so we created just like a simple assessment, people take like what Harry Potter school are you or what Game of Thrones character are you, or friends character. So we found that there are four buckets. And so it's not how smart you are. It's how are you smart? It's not how smart your kids are. It's how are they smart. And we realized that, you know, tests like IQ testers or standardized tests like SATs only kind of measures like verbal and mathematical. And there's so many different forms of intelligence.

And once you understand how you learn your best, it's kind of like your dominant hand doesn't mean you don't use your other hand, but it's just what's more effective and efficient and easier for you. Sometimes when we're trying to learn something something though, your brain type is different than a teacher's brain type. And so those styles, it's like you're two ships in the night. And if you've ever been struggling to learn something you're actually interested in, sometimes it's like two ships passing each other in the dark and you don't make that connection. It's like love languages. So it's, you know, maybe you might be expressing your

love through uh words of affirmation but that person on receiving it looks for like acts of service and kindness and so it's just like you're not meeting their values and also you're not communicating and so yeah for for brain animals you could remember code c-o-d-e i'll go through really rapidly uh people could also take the test at mybrainanimal.com, mybrainanimal.com. So do you know how there's, there's like personalized, there's personalized medicine based on like our genetics or DNA. There's personalized, based on assessment, right? And like there's personalized nutrition based on assessments, like a nutrient profile or microbiome test. This is the test for your personalized learning. So what happens is you take the quiz,

it takes about four minutes, it's free, nothing to buy. And then we give you prescriptions on how you can read faster, improve your memory, access flows based on your animal type. And so very quickly, CODE, I use an acronym for everything just as a shortcut. So everyone can remember it. C O D. So the C is the animal is the cheetah. Uh, that's me. Yes. Their dominant trait is action. I mean, these are people who have strong intuition. They thrive in fast paced environments. They adapt very quickly. They're action-oriented mindset. They can benefit immensely from structured time-bound challenges, give them a target, and they will sprint towards it. Like if I have to write a book, I get it done, right?

Exactly. The cheaters are the ones that make things happen, right? The O in code are your owls. And again, we are a mixture of these animals but one is more dominant there's usually a primary and a secondary an owl if action is the dominant trait of a cheetah because they're the fastest animals on the planet owls uh their dominant trait is logic they're very analytical very methodical they thrive when given the space to dissect and ponder and analyze there are always these individuals who benefit from deep work sessions away from distractions. The D, and now just even thinking about it, a cheetah makes decisions differently than an owl would, and they would read differently. Or maybe a cheetah reading would sprint through the data and research, and owl would have to go

through more and more details. The D are your dolphins and your dolphins, their dominant trait is creativity. These are your visionary thinkers. It's all about the future innovation possibilities, entrepreneurs, creatives, the dreamers, they could build, you know, they have a vision for themselves that maybe other people can't yet see. They're very good at pattern recognition. And finally, the E on code are your elephants. And your elephants' dominant trait is actually empathy. They're very empathetic.

They're collaborative souls. They're the glue that holds a team together. They leverage their strengths by encouraging collaboration, open communication, feedback loops. Now, when you understand these models, like all these people, they read different. Where a dolphin would visualize more of what they read or an elephant would try to see it from the author's point of view or different perspectives. We had our team, for example, take this quiz and 100% of our customer service team are elephants because why they're very naturally, we didn't sort for that. Yeah. Interesting. Um, someone's going to like do this as a job interview. Now, now, well, now it's, now it's part of so many different companies. They, they put this

on the front end, uh, kind of filter through because the thing about empathy is elephants, right? They're, they, they're community builders community builders they they want to serve they want people to feel seen and heard and valued our CFO our financial officer is an owl and you want that person to be an owl very logical numbers driven um my business partner she our CEO she's a dolphin she has has this vision of the future. So it's interesting when you want a brain type. And even if you take jobs, people find jobs and careers, your owls would be your data analysts because you're going to fall into your strengths and what Sir Ken Robinson called your element. They'd be your engineers, your accountants, your research scientists, your cheetahs would be your entrepreneurs.

They would be potentially EMTs. They would be professional athletes. Emergency room doctors. Yeah, very, very much so. I love working in the emergency room. Yeah, very fast paced. You have to adapt very quickly, go with your instincts. Dolphins would gravitate towards graphic design or maybe they're writing fiction or they're film directors. And elephants would be maybe in HR or social workers or PR or project managers, teachers, right? And then, you know, you can think about famous people that just give you a – when you're carving out the world, I want people to start seeing it. It's not that it's – you know, the menu is not the meal, right?

The map is not the territory, but it's to give you distinctions. Like, you know, your owls are going to be your Einsteins, your Marie Curies, your Cheetos are going to be your Richard Bransons, your Steve Jobs, your Serena Williams, your dolphins would be your Leonardo da Vinci's, your JK Rawlings, your Walt Disney's, your elephants would be your Mahatma Gandhi's, your Martin Luther King Jrs, Mother Teresa's. And so it's interesting. Like even if you look at Friends, like a popular television show, you would say Joey would be the cheetah, just fast acting, right? Going, you know, adapting, going with his intuition. You would say Ross was a scientist, professor, researcher, would be the owl.

Monica always hosted everything, would always be the owl monica who always hosted everything would always be the elephant bringing people together you know phoebe was the song with the song creativity would be a dolphin right so we could see this in in pop culture also as well but the point in bringing this up is once you understand your brain type you could apply it and and be within your strengths to to lead to learn even for hiring for me and just selfishly like okay i'm a cheetah what what would you share with me as a coach that would help optimize my my health right yeah so so what am i my learning style so so cheetahs are interesting even from their communication style like for like like when you look at communication styles

so cheetahs would be very direct. They're more decisive, more straight to the point. Their speech is concise. They focus on action. They use action-oriented word. They dislike beating around the bush. They trust their gut instinct. And while they could collaborate, they prefer clear directives, autonomy and decision-making, you know, autonomy and decision making. And they're great problem solvers, like an owl in their communication style. And I'll go through strategies would prefer details. You know, they could communicate in logical sequences.

They present facts and figures and data. And even as you and I, as teachers, we could present in a way that appeals to the four brain animal types also as well. So people feel like we're talking to them in their language, right? Dolphins would be, these are the visionaries who speak in the bigger pictures, future plans, innovative ideas. They would be very enthusiastic and passionate. Elephants would have a keen understanding of validating other people's feelings, their perspectives, they would use inclusive language instead of things like an elephant. When you use I or me, they would use more words like we and us emphasizing group unity, right? Even, I feel like even exercise, I feel like even, and again, it doesn't map out perfectly, but cheetahs would

high intensity, fast paced, you know, physical activities align with their energetic goal oriented nature. Oh my God, I love that. I love that. Like, I want to go for like a long bike ride. Exactly. Or high tennis to fill out. Exactly. Just like that.

And owls might prefer the physicality would be more, you know, more precision, more yoga, Pilates, right? Activities that require strategic thinking um so the physicality would be more related to their analytical methodical you know movements more precise dolphins though you know would maybe prefer since they're more creative activities more like dance or social sports or swimming aerobics right classes um elephants which would certainly, they want anything that's team oriented, group fitness classes, hiking with friends, right? That would be one, allow them opportunity to connect. But even understanding, you know, not only can you learn

better once you understand, you know, the way that you learn, you could sell better also. Like even if you want to influence and persuade a cheetah, like if they're in business development or they're an entrepreneur, they want to influence somebody to invest or to buy, they would adapt. Or to get healthy. Yeah. Or to get healthy. You would be, if you're, you know, as you're coaching somebody, you're naturally agile as a cheetah. You would swiftly adapt to the pace of the client. You should harness this by providing, you know, quick solutions, you know, you close deals without letting them drag. If you're selling to someone like you, like to another cheetah, they appreciate directness,

value efficiency. You know, you could skip the small talk and present the key benefits and demonstrate how your product or service can create immediate results. Yeah. But I definitely like get to the point. I mean, what do you want? Exactly. And that that's what a cheetah would feel and do. It's kind of embarrassing to be so like stereotype, but I guess.

And here's the thing, and we're not limited, you know, over time, sometimes based on life conditions, our values could change. And because of neuroplasticity, we could, you know, even when you're taking the quiz, you probably oscillated between like two answers. It could be this, or it could be this, but it's just going to kind of pick, you know, pick, pick the one. Right. But, but yeah, even if you look at like owls, they're more analytical. So as a, to influence and persuade or to teach, they would, they would be more detail oriented, right? They could, they could really understand their product or their service and foresee clients needs, present them tailored solutions.

Now, if you're selling to an owl, let's say, or you're coaching an owl, they would respect evidence. They would appreciate well-researched presentations, statistics, research, case studies. They would be prepared to, with an owl, be prepared to answer in-depth questions and give them time to ponder their decisions. A dolphin, as the salesperson or as a coach or the teacher, could use their strengths of building a vivid picture of that person's future in terms of their path forward. They should leverage their natural charisma and their passion to evoke emotions and create a compelling future for what's possible with their product or service or their idea, their diet, whatever. And if you're selling to a dolphin, you would, this person, you speak to their, to their vision of themselves, you know, show how your offering can fit into their larger picture of how, you know, or how it could pave the way for future creativity or innovation, engage them with possibility,

engage them with big ideas. And then finally, an elephant, if that's the person that's the coach or the salesperson, the entrepreneur, the elephant, it's all about relationships for them. That's the model. They should focus on creating trust, understanding clients' needs at a profound level, positioning themselves as more of a partner rather than a vendor. And if you're selling to an elephant, you want to influence an elephant or coach an elephant on a new idea. They value, the facts are great and speed's great, but it's the relationships. They want to feel like, you know, there's trust there. So kind of knowing your strengths and weaknesses, right?

Yeah. And you spend time understanding, make them feel seen and heard and all of that. But it's, you can see this model in parenting. It's something that I'm looking at where there's certain strengths and challenges that each animal would have in parenting or learning or anything else. But the main idea behind this, Mark, is that when people understand their brain, they can work their brain better. And it takes away the judgment that you have that you have to be good at everything, right? And it also allows you to create a team around you of people that could be supportive

and represent different perspectives and points of views. Fascinating. So this is super helpful. So you create a framework of like why we get into trouble, all the distractions and the dimensions, the ded the dimensions and so forth. And you talk about these types, brain types, which help understand our learning style and our way of actually engaging with the world that can help us sort of maximize those strengths. But I think in terms of the take-homes, I'm curious about what you've learned over the decades of doing this that is so effective in helping to boost our productivity, our focus, our learning.

How do we manage the things? Because now we understand there's digital distraction. Nobody kind of has a problem understanding that. They're all sort of victims of it. And they all have trouble concentrating. I mean, I think ADD has become almost like not a clinical diagnosis for everybody. But certainly we all feel like we have ADD because we're just pulled in a million directions. So how do we sort of focus in? And I think, you know, what I found in my life, and I'm sure you found this too, and probably people listening, is that when you are in a deep connected zone learning and focus, it's actually when you're most happy. It's like when you're able to actually be in an experience, fully present and learn, whether it's being wrapped in a book or give me a movie or anything that's engaging to you, it actually takes you out of the world that we

normally live in, which is all this brain chatter and distraction. And what I think you're offering people is a pathway, a roadmap for how to navigate this part of their brain that tends to be all over the place and to give them specific tools. So can you talk about what those tips are for productivity focus, how we manage this digital distraction and improve our focus and concentration? Yeah. What can we do if we could focus? And when we don't, when we can't, when we flex our distraction muscles, it's really hard to get things done. In the book, we talk about morning routines and evening routines. I'll give you a little bit of a piece of that because I think

first you create your habits, then your habits create you. But I think a lot of people, if you want to win the day, you have to win that first hour of the day. And most people, they lean into distraction and then they wonder why they can't focus and get things done later in the day. It's a simple example, right? We've all heard that you shouldn't touch your phone that maybe the first 30 minutes of the day, right? The whole idea here is that when you wake up, you're very relaxed, you're very suggestible. And if the first thing you do is pick up your, your, your, your doom device, your scrolling device, then you're rewiring, you wire your brain for two things that hurt your focus and your productivity. Number one, you wire your brain for distraction. Every like, share, comment, cat video, that dopamine, you know, flood it's, it's driving you to distraction and whatever, how you do anything

is how you do everything. You wonder why you can't focus later in the day because the first thing you started your day with is with distraction. But the other thing you wire your brain for is not only distraction that hurts your productivity and your peace of mind, but also reaction. Meaning that you get one message in the morning, you know, on a social media or voicemail, a text message, WhatsApp, whatever, email, it could hijack your whole mood for hours. And what it does is put you in a reactive state, a defensive state where you're fighting fires first thing, as opposed to being proactive. And actually, like, for example,

instead of touching my phone, I'll do this simple two minute exercise before I get to bed. And I will thought experiment. I'll say, okay, I will lie in bed with my eyes closed and I'll fast forward to the end of the day. And I'm just, just everyone can imagine doing this, you know, the next morning and just say, Hey, when I come back and I finished the day and I'm going back into this same bed and maybe, uh, you know, my wife asked me, how was your day? And I say, wow, today was amazing. You know, we crushed it today. Today was just such a, it was such an amazing day. Then I ask what had to happen in order for me to, to feel that way, to say those words. And I come up with three things

personally and three things professionally. And I did that this morning. And one of the things that was on my list was having this conversation with you. Right. And what it that this morning. And one of the things that was on my list was having this conversation with you, right? And what it does is it's not just about time management for productivity. It's about mind management. It's about priority management. The most important thing is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing, right? And so the idea here is I have three things I need to thrive personally and then professionally, and they don't have to be really big things. Like even personally was, was doing my cold plunge this morning, you know, it's just something I did for three minutes.

It didn't take up a lot of time. And I was just like, that would put me in a great state. Right. And then three things professionally. And those are six things because nobody's going to get through a 200, you know, thing, a to-do list, right? And so that's the opposite of being distracted. It's being proactive, setting up your champagne moments. Like in sports, you know when it sports, you break open the champagne because you can see the scoreboard, but we don't create that scoreboard on a daily for ourselves. Like what's a win look like? And then work backwards from that. So it's minimizing technology. And I think one of the best ways is just keeping your phone in another room personally, because when it comes to your habits, and we have a whole chapter on habit design is master

your environment. Like you want to make the things that are not good for you hard. Like why have all those snacks and that bread at the table and all that stuff and you have to say no 50 times during a meal as opposed to saying no once up front, right? Or, you know, not having the sweets or even – and you want to make the things that are good for you easy to do, right? Have that – if journaling is good for you, then have that journal by your nightstand. Or like I have a kettlebell right by my office, you know, doorway. So I just, I use it more because

it's convenient and it's a constant reminder. But little things like that. And remember, you don't have focus, you do it. There's a process for focusing. A big part of Limitless is a core principle is taking the nouns in our life and turning them into verbs. What I mean by that is sometimes we hypnotize ourself into submission by saying, oh, I hope I have motivation to write today or I have creativity to write my book today. You don't have creativity. You don't have motivation. You do it. There's a process for motivation.

It's a verb rather than a noun. And when you take those verbs, what does it do? It a process for motivation. It's a verb rather than a noun. And when you take those verbs, what does it do? It gives you agency back. It gives you your power back because you don't have to hope to wake up and say, I hope I have energy and creativity to write. There's a process for energizing yourself and there's a process for being creative. And then you have power, right? And so I would focus on when it comes to focus, you don't have to just hope you focus as a process for focusing. Simple thing like directing the questions you have. Like a simple thing is your brain is mostly a deletion device. There's a billion stimuli we could focus on. But what we let in are the things that are important to us, right? Because we let everything in, we would go insane. And so this gatekeeper, this reticular activating system is kind of like a spotlight that you shine on things. And what captures that really are the things we're interested in that are driven by the questions we have. So even a better way of like harnessing our

focus is to ask a question like, what's the best use of this moment? Or how can I finish this and enjoy the process? Or what is the tiniest action I or how can i finish this and enjoy the process or what is the tiniest action i could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal where i can't fail right these are questions that will direct your retic or your ras your reticular activating system that spotlight on on the things that are important and constantly that that would be like our reality more. That's great. So the other thing that you talked about is this sort of not to do list. And I sort of always joking is like when I was overwhelmed, I thought I'm going to create a to don't list and not a to do list, a to don't list. And there's a lot of things that might to don't, which is actually growing as I begin

to realize that my most precious commodity is time. My most precious value is time because, you know, money is, you can expand or contract, you know, but time is the same for all of us. And so where I pay my attention to, what I focus on, the relationships I build, what I learn, all really matter and are more consequential than we think. And I think we kind of flitter away or fritter away time. Flitter is a word. I think flitter is a word, but it's not. Fritter away time. And we don't think about it. And as I've gotten older, I just realized, wow, like this is very precious. And we should think about, you know, what we're choosing.

And I think I'm imagining that your not to do list is really about that. And I'd love to hear what your not to do list is too. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. So if you look at it this logically, so there's a quote in Limitless that says life is the letter C between B and D. Life is C between the letters B and D, where B is birth, D is death, life C is choice. So our lives are the sum total of all the choices. And there's only, if you want to make something better,

there's only four choices we can make. It's either you start something, you stop something, you do more of something, or you do less of something. Those are the literally the only four choices. The fifth choice is not to do anything. And that's, you know, insanity, right? Expecting different results and doing the same thing. So we either start something, our lives change when we start something new, we stop something we've doing, we do more of something. And so, you know, so I'm always looking for those four things. Like, what can you start? What can you stop? What can you do more of? What can you do less of? And so for me on my, to stop list or to do less of is like checking my phone first thing in the morning. Don't keep it in your bedroom. How about that? Yes. And even better,

right? Cause that would, that would stop that. That would stop that right up front. That would be a lead domino. And I'm always focused on, you know, everybody has, that's the, you're right. That's the one thing that we can't get back is our time. And we all have, that's the one thing that's equal. Not everybody has equal income or education or a Rolodex, but everybody has the same 24 hours in a day. And it's how we're utilizing that time. And so I would say is on my, on my not to do list, I would say let's first not touch our phone first thing in the morning and then late at night.

That's kind of a simple, not necessarily easy, but a simple one. For me, the device also just creates so much stress. So it's not that I'm so enlightened or I have such amazing willpower and discipline. It's just something that I've just associated. It's wonderful to use it to connect and to learn, but it's also going to really hurt your peace of mind. And peace of mind is high currency it's true i remember like recently i forgot my phone and i was like went out for that evening and i was like wow i feel so free and like i actually had a flashback to what it was like before there were cell phones or even even even having not having the phone at

tables like we've done a we have our own podcast and you've been on a number of times and just, we know that the stress that's caused anxiety, the impetus, having the phone on the dinner table makes you want to check it. Right. And it's just, it, it starts like every, every X amount of seconds, you have that impulse to do it, even if you don't touch your phone. And so I feel like, especially because, you know, dinners and meals with family members or friends is kind of a lost, yeah, it's very precious. And, you know, it's kind of a lost time that we're spending less and less time doing that. I think, you know, it allows us higher quality of life and enjoyment, help us live longer also, because it's not just what we eat, it's who we're eating with and how we're eating and when we're eating, right. And why we're eating that stuff to begin with. So many people eat in a stress state. They're like still working or something. And

they never again, that parasympathetic rest and digest. So even things on my not to do list is when I'm eating something, I don't, I don't work, right? I just, it's an, meditation is not limited to be mindful is not to limit your meditation time. It, you could take mindfulness into brushing your teeth, right. Into, into eating a meal and really tasting what you're, what you're eating and connecting, using that opportunity to connect with other people. So, um, yeah, so I don't, I don't work like, for example, my not to do is I don't work in bed, something simple because we also, part of our learning journey is when we're, we associate unconsciously the environment to the state

that we're in. And if, if you tend to work in sitting in your bed or on your phone, then that's the place where you should be like, you know, doing only a couple activities, right? And one of them is sleep. And, you know, you don't want to, it's hard sometimes for people to turn it off if they're conditioned every single time, even having a device, let's say they binge watch, they use their device, their laptop for work, but if they're conditioned every single time even having a device let's say they binge watch they use their device their laptop for work but if they're also using it to binge watch netflix you're training your nervous system like hey these are two different activities two different states that you're you're anchoring to it so i would think that not working in bed or not working

when you're um when you're eating is it could be very important and even so it sounds like very zen when you eat eat when you sleep sleep when you walk walk when you breathe it's so profound but basically the buddha taught this a long time ago yeah i take absolutely no credit for this i definitely didn't initiate this but it's it's something sometimes also a coach reminds you what you're doing when you're doing it well. And sometimes it's hard because we're addicted to, you know, to work or addicted to social media or something like that. I would also say even simple, simple things like just not, I would say on the top of the list also is not complaining. I mean, it sounds, you know, like if I was to say not to do list, okay, here's what would be on the list. It would be not caring what other people think. And I know it's easier said than done, but if you fill your life with the opinions of those around you, both positive and negative, you're going to run out of gas. Nobody has a right to define who you are. The only opinion that matters about you and your dream is yours. And we do ourselves a disservice when we let the noise of other people's opinions distort our reality and subvert our own thoughts and

values. I think also on our list not to do, and this is, again, easier said than done because so many people are addicted to it, and I know I've been in these places, is complaining. We're talking about mental health. Mental health, you can't make excuses. You can make excuses or you can make progress, but you can't make both. And complaining wastes valuable time, energy, and achieves nothing, right? And so I would say you can't be upset by the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do. So I would just say that nothing happens great. I would also say- After complaining to me yeah no complaining no overthinking also because i think thinking is good but overthinking and wanting everything to be perfect can end things you know before they even have a chance yeah well it's true i think you know we can go through the world with looking at what's right or looking at what's wrong and i

think some of what's wrong with the world now is we're over focused on looking at what's wrong instead of what's right and there's so much beauty in magic. I just came back from Africa, like I mentioned, and I went to the most horrific slum. It was the biggest slum in Africa. Children living literally next to six-foot piles of garbage and sewage outside their little tin-check door, no sanitation, no running water, living on $3 a day. And easy to kind of look what's wrong with that.

And then in that, there was this beautiful light of this little school that was formed by a friend of mine called Little Lions and how he really helped these kids emerge from the slums and become something and give them food and nutrition and how he cut these guys who were, you know, basically criminals in the neighborhood and got them cleaning up the garbage and paying them and getting rid of all the, and now they're like, it's really quite amazing. So there's like, there's so much to look at what's right. And, uh, and I had a business coach once who was talking to me about an employee of mine who was always complaining about everything. And, and, uh, he said, you know, some people are just make wrong machines. And I was like, wow, that is a great

phrase, you know? And I think I really pay attention to my own inner narrative about looking at what's right or wrong and it can really color your whole life and the good news from a scientific perspective as a doctor and some of my now folks on longevity is that optimists live longer even if they're wrong so yeah very true and I think they enjoy the process a little bit more also and and we're willing to take risks where a pessimist is going to be right more often because they're not going to do much because they're cut out of that. And I think the other thing to stop besides complaining and overth, exercise that day or eat properly that day, that they're more likely to follow through. But studies done on self-compassion show that when you're actually kind to yourself, you say, hey, I'm human. I had a kind of a hard day. You're more likely to follow through.

So I think self-judgment, meaning we should lighten up a little bit. It's not about being perfect. It's about personal progress. So we can release self-judgment. I'm not saying, again, it's easy, but those moments when you start criticizing yourself, you can take a pause and a breath and just observe yourself instead, right? It's hard to tame your inner- Yeah. But it's possible. It's definitely possible. Yeah. Because the former leads to self-doubt, but the latter leads to self-awareness

and self-improvement. So, you know, we could be so, you know, more, and I would say, I say this busy because I think that's something else we should stop being, but we should be so busy growing ourself, you know, that we have no time for that self-judgment. Then in those moments, we start judging ourselves. We just get curious and we replace judgment with curiosity. So overthinking, comparison. Yeah, stop comparing ourselves. Because if you're not a fifth digital horse villain, I would say it's digital depression, right?

Don't compare yourself to anyone but your best self. It's not about being perfect. It's about the consistent action every day that leads to small incremental improvements. Little by little, little becomes a lot. But when we compare ourselves to the highlight trail of everybody on social media, you know, it can make us feel like we're not enough. And there's a lot of artificial turf, like it's greener where we, the grass is greener where we, where we water it. Right. But it's tends to look greener online because of the filter people use a lot

of artificial there's a lot of artificial turf online um so i would say yeah and then if people are going through a hard time right now i just want to remind people that there are some things we can only learn in a storm right and we have to can just control the controllables we focus on what we could do and we know we know that the clouds will eventually part and the sun will shine. And then not all storms come to disrupt your life. Some storms come to clear a path, right? And some people create their own storms and they get upset when it starts to rain. So lots of times, you know, we have to, you know, recognize how we contribute to the, so those are some of the things i might not to do that's

so great it's a great list a great list to start i encourage everybody to think about what is there to don't list it's hard to write that down next time before we close i want to talk about two topics uh and and they're things that uh i was uh some of which i've written about like nutrition and the other is this whole emerging field of what we call nootropics. So food in the brain is clearly an emerging field. It's quite exciting to me as a physician to understand more and more about how food is affecting our cognitive function, our memory, our mood, our behavior, learning, memory, attention, all of it.

And secondly, this whole field of nootropics, which is this basic category of compounds, both natural and pharmaceutical, that can optimize your brain function, help with focus, attention, and memory learning. So can you sort of start with, you know, your view of nutrition of the brain and then dive into this field of nootropics and give us a guide about what that is and the framework for thinking about it? Yeah, absolutely. And I would always suggest, you know, talk to someone like Mark Hyman, talk to a functional medicine doctor.

This is my disclaimer. Tend to diagnose or treat anything. And also, again, everybody's bio-individual and find out what nutrients you could be lacking so you can do full spectrum in the nutrient profile. I would always, for my, so we have a whole chapter in the book on neuro nutrition, that your brain is only 2% of your body mass, but it requires 20% of the

nutrients. And some of those nutrients are more important than the rest of the body. You know, obviously your brain's part of your body. And I would say for my personal preference, I've always wanted to get as much from whole foods as possible. Um, like whole organic, you know, natural local foods as possible. And if I can't get that, then, you know, then I'll consider supplementation. Like for example, choline is a nutrient found in foods like eggs or soybeans, and it plays a vital role in brain health. And it's a critical component, you know, of acetylcholine, which neurotransmitters supports memory and cognitive function. That's what goes down with Alzheimer's, right?

Yeah. But if you're not getting that from your eggs or your other foods, then you might, that might look into supplementation. I mean, probably one of the most important are your omega-3 fatty acids, right? Particularly DHA, critical for brain health. And, but if they're not getting that from their sardines or fatty fishes or flack, then supplementation, right? So again, i would rather

get it from foods like even even things like um like we talk about brain foods and i talk about to turmeric but it's their curcumin that's the active ingredient that can be you know very beneficial it's anti-inflammatory has antioxidant neuroprotective it potentially could cross the blood-brain barrier and been shown to curry i mean curry right yeah exactly and with with foods and you know can help improve cognitive function particularly in patients with without with alzheimer's um and you know so that's one of the things that you can get with your foods um so you know but obviously you want to have your vitamin d levels checked your b vitamins especially uh you know b6 b12 they're vital for brain health magnesium i mean these are we're talking about supplements not nootropics yet

but magnesium is vital for for brain health promotes learning and memory and mood um get magnesium l3 and like for sleep yeah i just had a podcast on magnesium actually just a solo podcast because it's such a big problem and so underdiagnosed yeah and i'm feeling really good about my breakfast gym because i had i had pasture raised omega-3 eggs with lox and onions which one of my favorite childhood breakfasts i used to go to the diner in the jewish deli and eggs lox and onions eggs are like nature's multivitamin i mean they're they're they're incredibly dense with nutrients yeah um and then for the nootropic i mean i don't know like again it it varies but let me just back up this i mean in terms of diet when you think in terms of uh you know

versus being a vegan versus keto versus paleo versus you know do you have any sense of what what works best for the brain from your perspective or you leave me answer that question yeah yeah you could you you you you could answer this question i'm curious about your perspective yeah i mean for me i've tried all the diets um i was even vegan for many many years i was raw vegan for for a full year it didn't work for me um like I really did it and I feel like I did it as well as I could, but I had a lot of, a lot of health issues, uh, because of it. So it's not just, I also, again, what you eat, it's also when you eat, um, for, for, for me, um, I, I happen to still intermittent fast, uh, not, not because of it. I says I never grew up eating a lot of breakfast. So it wasn't like a big change for me.

And I also don't desire it so much. Um, so I, I do do that and I feel a mental lift for me personally. Um, but for me also, it's not just what you eat is the order you eat in where if I do have my carbs, I'll do it last. Right. And I'll do, I'll do my, my, my, my, my steamed vegetables, my salads first, and then I'll do my proteins and then my fats. And, and then if I have some, some sweet potato or something else, you know, that it's, it's my, my thing also,

when it comes to, it's not just what you eat, it's how you eat. It's when you eat, it's who you're eating with. It's why you're eating in the first place. Cause some people are so stressed about their diet. What's eating you? Yeah. I literally feel like it negates a lot of the potential benefits that come from what they're eating because they're eating that stress state. And they're not even properly digesting and absorbing it just because they're in that kind of sympathetic kind of state. Yeah.

But food could also be nutritious and it could be delicious though. We know that from your work and cookbooks and just so much out there. So let's dive into nootropics because that's a topic most people probably never heard about, don't know about, but it's actually an emerging field that I find very fascinating, which is how do we, for example, if we want to be a weightlifter and bodybuild, we know we need to take branched-chain amino acids or creatine or whey protein. We have kind of tricks, but if we want to, like, get our brain to be more fit and strong and perform better, you know, what are the things that are out there? And you kind of got to go over that research with us. For me, what's in my, as my resource and we we have a few dozen here

i put my latest stuff that that i'm recommending at uh uh in terms of the human studies and people could get it this is like the chapter of the book at um brainnutrition.com but it's um so i could keep that current but like you mentioned working out creatine is is an incredible substance naturally produced um predominant in meat and fish. And it plays a crucial role in energy metabolism, especially cognitive function. And so that's something that I do five grams per day. And I use it for my workouts, but I also, I notice mentally when I don't do it. There's been shown that even when you have bad night's sleep,

it can help you recover and compensate for that also as well. Lion's mane, it's unique nootropic. It has neuroprotective effects. Research has shown that it helps stimulate the synthesis of nerve growth factor, which is enhanced cognitive function by reducing inflammation, promoting overall brain health. That's a mushroom that looks like a brain. Yeah. It's kind of weird. Very, very, very much so.

So there's a little mnemonic device stuff if you remember it. Caffeine is interesting because while it's a stimulant, I get very sensitive with caffeine. But if I pair it like with like L-theanine, maybe like as a green tea, I, I get the, I get the benefits without the jitters. Um, but that's me. Cause I tend to, you know, I don't do caffeine past usually 12 o'clock, um, just for my sleep. Um, but I find that that combination leads for me to a calm alertness. It improves a reaction time, memory, mental endurance. Ginkgo biloba has been around for ages, right? Chinese medicine helps to treat various ailments, especially cognitive decline helps promote good blood flow circulation. And the name of the game

when it comes to your brain is really getting up blood flow and oxygen. Even for my recovery from my head injuries, which I've had a few and have, you know, various scans, hyperbaric oxygen has been very, very helpful with my, with my personal recovery. I know it's outside of the realm of nootropics, but that lion's mane, L-theanine, ginkgo, creatine. If we're going into this, bacopa. Bacopa is an herb in Ayurvedic medicine. Yeah, Ayurvedic medicine. Yeah, it's been shown to improve cognitive function and memory.

Rhodiola also as well as a Scandinavian herb. And that potentially can be beneficial in reducing mental fatigue for those who struggle with it and improving cognitive function the astronauts used when they went on the russian cosmonauts used when they went into space yeah it's it's amazing like there's this even this uh whole coffee fruit extract that um is the whole fruit that from the from the coffee plant it's usually a byproduct um that's discarded but it's been shown to be a strong antioxidant and have positive effects on cognitive function. One of my favorites is phosphatidylserine, which is a phospholipid, which is, it's an integral part of your brain cell membranes. It's been shown to improve memory, learning, cognitive function also as well. So we put like

three dozen uh brain supplements and nootropics in the book and we reference all the human studies that are that are there obviously again talk to your health practitioner and you know you know do it do it intelligently i say this not just to protect us but also protect the person who's listening also as well be intelligent you know with this don't just down and don't don't go to a store and just buy everything and just take it yeah no yeah no it's true these are bad these are very common things like you know whether it's a green tea or creatine very safe you know bacopa rhodiola choline theanine um these are things that we can actually incorporate and i actually i realize i take most of these things every day but but there's another category of of uh nootropics

that are are pharmaceutical and i don't know if you can speak to that but the racetams and also the the prescription ones that are related to narcolepsy like modafinil or provigil or noovigil um did you did you have a chance to sort of have any perspective on those or using those? I've read about a number of them. I don't personally. It's not part of my protocol, but I've seen some pretty amazing things with clients and coaches. We're working with people. Have you also as well? Yeah, for sure. I mean, in the right person, it can be really a game changer. So I think, you know, there's a whole army of tools out there from foods to nutrients, to herbs, to even prescription drugs that can help you if your brain's not working. But often, you know, the key, you know, and I think that Jim and I chatted about this before we started the podcast

is, you know, the reason I wrote the book, Ultra Mind Solution, which is how we first bonded, actually. That was in 2000. That was 2010. Yeah, probably. Yeah, a little while ago. And it's really that there are all these tools for learning and enhancement and so forth. And Jim's book is chock-full of them. And I encourage you to get a copy and have a look because I think it's really practical. We just touched on the surface of a few of these things.

But what's really important to understand is also you have to deal with the biology of your brain. Because, you know, your brain is an organ, just like every other organ. And if you're, you know, drinking alcohol, and you got a fatty liver, your liver is not going to work right. Or if you're eating the wrong food, you're going to get plaque in your arteries, your heart's not going to work right. Well, your brain is very similar. And so the body has huge influence over the brain, we have to fix, I always say we have to fix our broken brains by fixing our body first. And then we see what's left over, right? Because if your thyroid's not working, you can do all the memory tricks you want, but you're probably not going to do very well.

Or if you're mercury poisoned, or if you're B12 deficient, or if your vitamin D is super low, or if your microbiome is off, your brain's not going to work right. So all these things are really important to consider. It's not one or the other, but it's both and. And I think Jim's book is really takes the work that I do around optimizing your brain from a biological perspective and takes it into then, okay, now we've got the machine working, what do we do to optimize it? And I think your work is just so important, Jim. And you've been really acclaimed all over the world. You've done some amazing work. I've watched you grow and evolve over the last 13, 14 years.

And it's been such a joy. You're very humble. And you also are so giving of your skills and knowledge in ways that help enhance people's lives. So I really appreciate you as a friend, as a mentor. And I learned a lot from you. So you're the best, Jim. Everybody's got to go get a copy right now of Jim's new book.

It's an incredible book. I wrote the foreword to it, if I do say so myself. But that's not why it's an incredible book. It's called Limitless Expanded Edition, Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life. And I think – Can I challenge everyone, Mark, to do something really quick? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. I feel like the most important thing people could do after they listen to something is to take one simple, small step just to kind of create some momentum. And so whether

it's, you know, getting the book, that's great. Or, you know, teaching something that they just learned here, but I would love for people to maybe post their big takeaway and then tag both Mark and myself. So we get to see it and I'll read some of my favorites, or maybe you went to mybrainanimal.com and you could post the animal and you'll get a detailed report on how to read faster, improve your memory, focus flow based on your animal type or something else. But tag us so we get to see it. I'll repost some of my favorites because I'll get to see it because you tagged us. And we'll gift out a few copies of Limitless Expanded just randomly to people just as thank you for listening to this

podcast. Okay. All right. Thanks, Jim. Thanks for listening today. If you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family. Leave a comment on your own best practices on how you upgrade your health and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. And we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey, everybody. It's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health.

And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays. Nothing else, I promise. And all you do is go to drhyman.com forward slash PICS to sign up. That's drhyman.com forward slash PICS, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger, longer. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my

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