The School of Greatness - How To Optimize Your Brain Health With Your Morning Routine

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Get my new book Make Money Easy here!This is a deep dive into the fascinating connection between brain health and routine management with an all-star lineup of experts. Dr. Andrew Huberman reveals the science behind morning routines and optimal brain function, while Glucose Goddess Jessie Inchauspé shares groundbreaking insights on how sugar impacts our cognitive performance. Dr. Daniel Amen joins in to discuss how maintaining healthy glucose levels can protect against cognitive decline and dementia. From practical morning routines to revolutionary food hacks, this episode provides a comprehensive roadmap for optimizing your brain health through better glucose management.In this episode you will learn:Why timing your morning light exposure and caffeine intake is crucial for optimal brain functionHow glucose spikes can lead to brain fog, inflammation, and accelerated agingFour powerful hacks to manage glucose levels without restrictive dietingThe scientific connection between blood sugar management and long-term brain healthWhy post-meal movement can help protect your brain from glucose-related damageFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1724For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Andrew Huberman – greatness.lnk.to/1455SCGlucose Goddess – greatness.lnk.to/1575SCDr. Daniel Amen  – greatness.lnk.to/1243SC Get more from Lewis! Pre-order my new book Make Money EasyGet The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to MakeMoneyEasyBook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to

this episode on the School of Greatness. I'm curious, where does brain fog come from? And how can we make sure that we have great morning routines to support us so that we don't have brain fog at all in the morning or later in the afternoon? Great question. Well, there are a lot of sources of brain fog. The most obvious one would be a poor night's sleep. Okay. And sleep, of course, being the most fundamental layer

of mental and physical health. I mean, you don't sleep well for one night, you're probably okay. For two nights, you start to fall apart. Three, four nights, you're really a degraded version of yourself in every aspect. Emotionality is off, ability to do most anything is off, hormones start suffering.

So sleep is fundamental. But assuming that you slept well, there are a number of things. One is your breathing patterns. We often get into discussions of breathing, but this is a slightly different one than we've had in the past. A lot of people have sleep apnea. They are not getting enough oxygen during their sleep or they are mouth breathing during sleep.

These days, it's become popular in some circles to take a little bit of medical tape and tape the mouth shut, and to learn to be a nasal breather. And there is excellent evidence now that being a nasal breather, most of the time, as long as you're not speaking or eating or exercising hard enough that you would need

to breathe through your mouth, that it's beneficial to be a nasal breather for a couple of reasons. First of all, if you are deliberately nasal breathing during the day, the tendency is that you will nasal breathe at night, which tends to lead to less sleep apnea, less mouth breathing during the middle of the night, and less brain fog. Why brain fog? Well, during sleep, a number of restorative processes occur, but if you're not getting enough oxygen into the system, the brain is literally becoming hypoxic, and a lot of the cleaning out mechanisms, the gumphatic system, et cetera, as they're called, don't get an

opportunity to function as well as they ought to. So you wake up in the morning, you slept your normal six to eight hours, but you're feeling kind of groggy and out of it. And of course there could be other reasons that you're experiencing brain fog. Maybe for people that drink alcohol the night before, maybe they had alcohol, for people that, maybe they ate a meal that was too large before sleep,

maybe any number of reasons, right? But getting adequate oxygenation of the brain during sleep is key. So learn to be a nasal breather. And for those of you out there that say, well, I have a deviated septum, a lot of people think they have deviated septums. The problem is they're not nasal breathing enough.

The sinuses actually can learn to dilate if you nasal breathe. Exercising while nasal breathing will kind of depend on the sport. Like if you box, oftentimes there's the need to do a shh or kind of like exhale on impact type thing. So I don't think anyone should tamper with their normal breathing patterns as it relates to sport or singing or some activity.

But what I'm talking about is when you're just standing around, when you're walking down the street, any low level activity, you're working at your desk, you should be nasal breathing and breathing regularly. That will reduce brain fog in many cases. So what's the routine then, the ultimate morning and evening routine to set your brain and your mind up for optimal performance and not getting brain fog? Okay.

I will describe that by listing out the protocol first, and then I'll give some of the scientific mechanisms second. Because in the past, what I've tended to do is give the mechanism and then give the protocols. I know some people, it's like, you know, enough for these academic guys. They'll just give me the, give me, just tell me what to do.

But if people want the mechanism, I'd be happy to flesh that out. I should say that what I will mention is not everything to do. But if people want the mechanism, I'd be happy to flesh that out. Yes. I should say that what I will mention is not everything I do. So for instance, I get up and like most humans, I use the restroom and I have a glass of water. I do those things. So if I'm not listening in every right foot, left foot step through the morning, but the things that are geared towards getting the mind into a proper place for me, I'll describe it as my routine. I generally get up somewhere between 5.30 and 7 in the morning, depending on when I

went to sleep. I'm not super regular about when I go to sleep, but generally that's between 10.30 and midnight. I try and avoid that midnight hour, but it happens. So I get up. Obviously obviously I use the restroom, I drink some water. I do think that hydrating is very important. So I'll drink some water. And then the fundamental layer of health

is to set your circadian rhythm. The simplest way to do that is to go outside for 10 minutes and get some bright light in your eyes. I'll just list off some of the things that people always ask, what if you wake up before the sun rises? Well, simple rule, if you want to be awake, turn on as many bright lights in your house as possible, but then when the sun comes out,

get outside and see some sunlight. You do not have to look directly into the sun, but you do want to get outside out of shade cover if you can, don't wear sunglasses if you can do that safely. Don't try and do this through a window. Don't try and negotiate with me on this point. People are like, what about a window? Well, the filtration of the important wavelengths

of light through the window is just too high, and so it would take hours for you to set your circadian clock that way. You want to do this because once every 24 hours, you're going to get a peak in cortisol, which is a healthy peak. You want that peak to happen early in the day because it sets up alertness for the remainder of the day.

There are really nice studies done by my colleagues in Stanford Psychiatry and Biology Department showing that if that cortisol peak starts to drift too late in the day, you start seeing signs of depression. It's actually a well-known marker of depression. So you want that cortisol almost stressed out, kind of, ah, the day's beginning, I have a lot to do, feeling that's a healthy thing, you want that happening early in the day.

The sunlight will wake you up, and what's really cool is that over time, you'll start to notice the sunlight waking you up more and more, the system becomes tuned up. If you miss a day, it's not the end of the world, because it's a, as we call it, a slow integrating system. But don't miss more than one day. And if you live in an area where it's very cloudy outside, just know that the sunlight, the photons coming

through that cloud cover are brighter than your brightest indoor lights. Now, if you live in a very dark region of the world or it's unsafe or purely impractical to get outside in the morning, then it might make sense to get a sunrise simulator or one of these lights, but they tend to be very expensive. What I recommend people use instead

is just a ring light, a ring blue light. This is a case where you can blast your system. Wow. So get that morning light. That this is, it sets a number of things in motion, such as your melatonin rhythm to happen 16 hours later to help you fall asleep. I would say this is the fundamental step

of any good morning. And if you don't do this enough, you are messing yourself up in a number of ways. Does this mess with digestion also? Yeah, so every cell in your body has a 24 hour clock. All those clocks need to be aligned to the same time. So imagine a clock shop with lots of different clocks and you don't want them alarming off at different times.

This sunlight viewing or bright light viewing early in the day, I would say within 30 to 60 minutes of waking up for about 10 minutes, or if it's very cloudy, maybe 30 minutes or so, that activates a particular type of neuron in the eye called the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cell. If people want to look that up, signals to the circadian clock, which is right above

the roof of your mouth, but that is the master circadian clock that then releases a bunch of signals into your body. This all happens very fast. And every cell in your body gets tuned to the exact same time reference point so that your system can work as a nice concert of cells as opposed to out of whack. Your gut has a clock, your liver has a clock, your heart cells have a clock, every skin cell has a clock.

And for those that are not incentivized enough by the cortisol stuff and all the other things, actually the replenishment of stem cells in the skin, hair, and nails is activated by the system. So hair grows more readily, skin turns over, and nails grow more quickly because you have stem cells, literally cells, that release more cells that become new hair cells, or new skin cells, and new cells that make up the nails. So skin, hair, and nails also benefit,

and it has to be light exposure to the eyes. When we talk about all these things like the gut and the skin, et cetera, it's tempting to say, oh, it's sunlight on the skin. No, it's actually only can be signaled through the eyes because the clock lives deep in the brain, that master clock, and you need the signal to get to that master clock.

So don't wear sunglasses. If you can avoid wearing sunglasses safely, right, there are people, for instance, who have macular degeneration, who have to avoid bright lights, and they know this because their ophthalmologist tells them. If you wear corrective lenses, contacts, even if it has UV filtration, that's fine. In fact, if you think about what an eyeglass or a contact lens does is it focuses light onto the eye. Actually, on the back of the eye. Whereas looking through a window filters it.

It blocks a certain amount of light coming in, even if it's a very clear window. So go outside if you wear glasses, fine. If you wear contacts, fine. And if you can get out on a porch and be east facing in the morning when the sun comes up, great. You don't need to see the sun cross the horizon, but ideally you see the sun when it's at what we call low solar angle. It's not directly overhead. If you wait two or three hours after waking up to get bright light in your eyes, you are

setting yourself up for a complicated sleep-wake cycle that leads to a lot of what we call insomnia. So this is important to do in the first 60 minutes of waking up, get outside 10 minutes. You don't have to be in the sun, but you want to be able to look and see the sun, right? Or is it okay to be in the shade or you want the sunlight hitting your skin also?

It depends on how bright it is. So for instance, this morning I woke up because of where I live, there's a lot of tree cover, but I saw that the sun was, there were a lot of shadows, but it was casting a nice patch of light in the street right in front of my house. So I'm the weirdo that walked out there. With my coffee.

Actually, I delay my coffee. It was with my water in the morning. I'll talk about why I delay coffee. And I'm leaning against a tree. I confess I was text messaging for part of that. Forgive me, I'm human. And catching the sunlight coming in through my eyes for a few minutes I allow myself to blink obviously. So look you won't look directly at the Sun. You know, I look direct you'll there's a safety It's a lower. Yeah, no horizon that intense. Yeah, do we have a built-in safety mechanism?

Which is if you need to blink and close your eyes close your eyes Yeah, but yeah, I got sunlight in my eyes, I get the weird looks from my neighbors, but they know me and they do it too. Sometimes they'll join me. Animals will naturally do this. They'll migrate to the sun. So then I go inside. It's 10 minutes or so.

It seems like a long time, but it is so beneficial. And then inside, if I want to be awake, I try and turn on as many bright lights as I can. One of the big mistakes that we've made in the last few years as a culture is assuming that blue light is bad. During the day, lots of blue light is great because that's the best signal for these cells that wake up your system.

It activates all sorts of important hormone pathways and wakefulness pathways. Interesting. It can reduce brain fog in some sense. Sure. It's in the evening that you want to avoid blue lights and bright lights of any kind. We can talk about that. But, so then I come back inside and then I do not drink caffeine right away.

It's important in many ways to delay caffeine enough so that you can clear out some of the chemical signals in the brain and body that lead to a feeling of fatigue. So the longer you're awake, the more a molecule called adenosine builds up in your system. And when you sleep, you push that adenosine level back down. When you wake up in the morning, that adenosine level can be zero, but oftentimes there's still some hanging around. Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist.

It blocks adenosine function. It's a little more complicated than that, but that's effectively what it does. So if you wake up and you've got, let's say 20%, let's make, this is arbitrary, but 20% of your adenosine still hasn't been cleared out, that's sort of a drowsiness that you woke up with. Then you go and you drink your coffee

and you crush that ability of adenosine to have that effect, but it hasn't gone away. So that when your coffee wears off mid-morning, now that adenosine is there and you feel like there's a mid-morning crash or an afternoon crash. So I delay my caffeine intake for about 90 and ideally 120 minutes after I wake up. Because in that way you bring your adenosine level down

very, very low to zero, and then you don't get this rebound crash in the afternoon. For years I would get this post lunch crash, and I thought maybe I'm eating too much for lunch, which I probably was, or maybe I'm eating the wrong foods. Turned out it was all related to my timing of caffeine. And your system learns how to wake up naturally.

You get the natural cortisol and adrenaline. Give it the time. Give it the time. And people hate this one because it's a little painful For the caffeine addicts, but I'm a pretty serious caffeine addict and I embrace that and I'll tell you it also makes the joy of the coffee So much greater waiting for that. You're saving like ah my first day so much better And that relates to the dopamine system, which I know we're gonna talk about later I sometimes will drink yerba mate instead of... Yeah, I love mate.

Mate has a couple... Can I put honey in it or anything? I don't... Sweet, DBR or something? I don't really like sweet stuff too much. I wish I had that disease. Yeah, it's... You know, I wish I had that.

I like savory things and salty things. I like yerba mate for a number of reasons. I don't like the really smoky mate. My dad's Argentine, so I grew up drinking mate. You don't speak Spanish, so do you? I speak four words of Spanish, and those I speak poorly. Is your dad fluent?

He's fluent. Come on. I know. Parents who are by- How do you, that's a crime, isn't it? It's a crime. Well, it's not a crime I committed. I love my dad.

The content I committed, yeah. Bilingual parents, please encourage your children to learn multiple languages. Musicians, parents. Teach your kids the instrument. Have you ever seen, the people who play guitar in college, let's just say their lives are better than everyone else's. Anyone that's thinking about their morning routine

and brain fog, you know, there's no reason why in your morning water you might just put a little tiny pinch of salt. And if you're drinking a lot of coffee in any form, or caffeine in any form, I should say, then you want to be sure you're getting enough sodium. And you'll notice that if you drink a lot of caffeine, that you'll crave sodium.

And this has a whole relationship in the kidney and aldosterone, and we don't have time to go into it. But I always make sure that if I'm drinking water before with my caffeine, that I try and put a little bit of salt in there. Got it, okay. And there are a lot of supplement companies now spinning up, we don't have to throw out brands

that are selling salt solution. This is becoming big. Big. Yeah. Okay, so water, bright light, no caffeine until 90 to 20 minutes, what's next? Water with salt, okay. And then, it's a question of whether or not

I'm training that day or not. So I do believe getting exercise is important. I think the data, having reviewed the data and talked to a number of experts on this, in particular, there's a guy who's really terrific. You may know him, Dr. Andy Galpin, who's down at Cal State Fullerton, excellent exercise physiologist.

But also if you look across the massive studies on exercise and heart health, there are a couple of things that become clear. One is that everybody should be getting 120 to 150, and maybe even 150 to 180 minutes of so-called zone two cardio a week. This is the kind of cardiovascular exercise where you're doing work, you could have a conversation, but you're kind of at the threshold where it's not super

easy to have a conversation. But we're not talking sprints. There's just a myriad of effects on heart health, vascular health all over the body, gut microbiome, musculoskeletal stability, mental health, all these kinds of things. So I have a routine where I either weight train for an hour in the morning, or I do a portion of that weekly cardio. And I just alternate, weight train one day, cardio the next, weight drink.

And then one day a week I don't do anything. I don't do any exercise. Six days a week you exercise. Yeah, and I miss days. Occasionally because of travel or other schedules or appointments, I might take two days off. I never go seven days. I personally do well having a complete day off each week, but the hour of exercise generally

is five, 10 minutes of warmup, and it's hard work. This is a new thing that we can get into when I talk about dopamine, but I do not allow myself to check social media, text message, phone calls, and lately not even music when I train for reasons that we can get into later. I'm really trying to get focused on what I'm doing, and I'm trying to extract the greatest amount of joy from the process in its purest form.

So no phone, essentially. I try not to have the phone. Occasionally I'll use music or I'll listen to a podcast because it's such a great time to do that. So I don't wanna say I never do, but most of the time I'm trying very hard to just do my exercise. Be present, yeah, okay.

And it doesn't matter if you run, swim, bike, row. People these days can do calisthenics or weight training or something of that sort. The weight training thing is interesting because muscle building aside, it's very clear that five sets a week per muscle group is what's required to maintain muscle. And this is true for men, this is true for women. And obviously in young kids, you don't want them weight training with heavy loads because

it could shut down their long bone growth. That's the myth or what they say anyway, but I don't know, kids are developing anyway. So I don't know, I'll leave that to the coaches to decide that and the parents. But I think for people that are in their late teens, early 20s and onward, it's really important. If you look at longevity, a lot of the major injuries and early deaths and not just due to accident,

but chronic illness comes from people falling and breaking a hip, just not being strong. And so I think being strong, regardless of who you are, is important, and so that's five sets per week, minimum per muscle group, and probably more like 10. Routines splay out differently. So I do my thing, people have their thing. So I try and exercise,

or I do a 90 minute work bout. And if I exercise, we can talk about that, then I would shower and do my 90 minute work bout, but sometimes I do the 90 minute work bout first. And that's generally when I'm starting to drink the caffeine. And the 90 minute work bout is a serious, non-negotiable time in which I don't allow myself to be on the internet. I'm not checking email. I'm not texting. My phone is off, off, off, and not on airplane mode.

And it's a process of learning to focus and learning to do what we call no-go functions in the brain. So we have an area of the brain called the basal ganglia that control go functions like reaching out for a pen and no-go, which is resisting the urge to do something. And these are circuits that are very important for learning how to control attention and for controlling behavior. Young animals, puppies, humans don't do no-go very well. Do you know the two marshmallow?

Yes. Okay, the two marshmallow, you offered kids a marshmallow and you say if you don't eat it, you'll get two marshmallows. In 10 minutes or five minutes. Some kids can do it. That's pure, that's a no-go task. You're saying how well can you resist the urge to just go and eat the marshmallow?

And there are a number of things that mimic this. Another no-go type behavior would be meditation, for instance, where you sit down, it's kind of painful to sit cross-legged, would be meditation, for instance, where you sit down, it's kind of painful to sit cross-legged, your thoughts are drawing you off, you remember something you need to do, and you're resisting the temptation

to get up and do something else. And so, this 90-minute work bout is a kind of combined meditation, but also functional work for me. So, for me, that could be writing, it could be planning a podcast, it could be reading. It's something that's kind of hard. And the thing to understand about this 90-minute workout is that you should expect some friction

early on. It's not like you just flip a switch and you're in. That it takes some time to get into this focus mode, and throughout that time, your brain will flicker in and out. And there's a tool that you can use to enhance your focus prior to this 90 minute workout, and I actually do this. Sounds a little crazy, but it actually is grounded in really good neuroscience, which is that you place

a crosshatch, you know, just a target at some distance on a piece of paper, and you force yourself to stare at it and not blink for about 30 to 60 seconds. And what you're doing is you're ramping up the neural circuits in the brain that drive go, no-go, and harnessing your visual attention. Your focus. You're focusing. Visual focus drives cognitive focus. And for people that aren't sighted,

auditory focus drives cognitive focus. So visual focused drives cognitive focus. Yes. These two little bits of that we call eyes, are, as people probably heard me say before, are two little bits of brain that are outside the cranial vault. They're the only way that your brain knows what to do

in terms of whether or not it's day or night, who's out there, et cetera, but it's also a mechanism by which you draw your attentional systems into, from kind of everywhere, imagine spotlights just kind of moving around, bringing those spotlights to a common location, and then intensifying that spot. And since most work involves what we call exterocepting, looking outside ourself, this is very different than, you know, sitting in meditation where you're focusing internally. Because when you sit down to work, you kind of want to forget about your heartbeat and how your feet feel on the floor and that you're back and, you know,

might be a little sore or something. You want to be in the work. And so I do, I set a timer and I force 90 minutes of this and it's really tough, Lewis. Some days, some days I, it's anything to go get something out of the fridge. Any... Get up and distract myself.

And occasionally I fail. I will get up and go do something and where I'll look at my my phone I do falter sometimes but if you can learn to do this 90-minute bout I bet consistently you can create some amazing work you can do you will do your best work and what's really wonderful is it's not just about the work that you perform in that bout what ends up happening is really special this sort of combined meditation work bout, as I'm calling it, has this effect

of you are actually tuning up and making your neural circuits for focus and attention better so that after that, okay, you flip on the internet, you check your email, you're doing text messaging, you're probably hungry now. I'm hungry if I've exercised, I'll eat my lunch. I tend to fast till about lunch most days. But what happens then is after lunch or something,

you decide, oh, you know, I'm gonna sit down and read something or I'm gonna do some more work. But I've only got 20 minutes. You can drop in like a laser. Methods, strategies, diets, hacks in the food, nutrition, health and wellness space that I think cause a lot more harm than they do helping people because it is so restrictive. But one of the first pages of your book talks about this is not a restrictive diet. First of all, this is not a diet. This is, these are basic common sense strategies

that probably your grandparents already had implemented into their lives, but now backed up by this modern science that allows us to see why they're so powerful. And to me, the hacks that I share, they're not on the same level as like the Paleo diet, the Keto diet, for me they're on the same level as drink water,

brush your teeth, wear sunscreen. We're talking about- Get eight hours of sleep. Yeah, exactly. We're talking about just basic physiology, basic health, stuff that should be taught in schools. It's not a diet, it's not a fad, it's just how your body functions

and it's understanding physiologically how and when to eat your carbs with less impact on your health. But it's not restricting you from eating anything. No, you can eat whatever you want. So let me give you an example. Now you probably don't wanna over consume on sugar all day long. Of course, of course.

But so of course sugar is not good for us, right? Sugar causes glucose spikes that leads to inflammation, aging, insulin release. But the solution to this crazy food landscape that we live in, food environment, is not to cut out stuff. I don't believe in that. I think you try that for a week or you know you're like this year I'm never gonna eat sugar at all. That doesn't work. It never does. So what I recommend people try is try some of these techniques. For example, if you really want to eat some sugar, let's say

a cookie or donut or whatever, the best time to eat that sugar so that you have maximum dopamine from it, maximum pleasure and less impact on your body is going to be after a meal as dessert. You want to always avoid eating sugar on an empty stomach and always avoid eating sugar in the morning. Okay. So, yes. So breakfast should be savory. Okay.

In the morning, nothing sweet. Really? Yeah. Man, those pastries though, with the chocolate inside and just, so yes, so breakfast should be savory. Okay in the morning nothing sweet. Really? Yeah Man, those pastries though with chocolate inside and just oh man, the doughnut in the morning Keep them for dessert after lunch because if you have them in the morning Then what's happening in your body as you digest that sugar and those carbs? They turn into glucose molecules and these arrive into your bloodstream really quickly and cause what's called a glucose spike. So blood sugar spike and then about 90 minutes later Lewis your glucose levels are going to drop. You're gonna feel a crash and now it's 10 a.m. 11 a.m. and all of a sudden you feel more cravings for sweet foods. You're like I need a cookie, I need some chocolate, I need a snack.

I need that spike again. And then you spike again and then all day you're on a rollercoaster where you feel addicted to sugar. Because your brain, when you're experiencing a glucose crash after a spike, the cravings center in your brain actually activates and says, Louis, find a cookie, find a cookie. And you want to avoid that because then you cannot fight against the craving center in your brain. It's so hard.

Yeah. You cannot fight against the craving center in your brain. So hard. Yeah, that center is very powerful. And it's linked to evolutionary responses that we have to low blood sugar. So you want to avoid that from happening. The way you do it is have sugar after a meal as dessert, never on an empty stomach, never as a snack, never for breakfast. Oh my gosh, never as a snack. If you can. So you eat something first before you have the sugar.

Exactly. Or if you really need the snack, the sugar snack, what you do is another hack that I call put clothing on your carbs. So what does that mean? So first of all, carbs. Carbs are two types of foods, starches. So that's bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, oats or sugars. Anything that tastes sweet from a banana to chocolate cake.

Those are carbs. Okay. When you eat them on their own, for example, a slice of cake on its own or a bowl of pasta on its own, well, carbs break down to glucose molecules. So those naked carbs, very quickly they end up as lots of glucose in your bloodstream, therefore a glucose spike. What you wanna do instead is put some clothing on your carbs, and the clothing are proteins, fats, or fiber.

Before. Or with them. You can have them before or with them. So for example. So you can have a bite of cake, but then have something else of fat within that. Yeah, you could have like some Greek yogurt with the chocolate cake, or with the bowl of pasta,

add some chicken or some cheese or some spinach, right? Put clothing on your carbs. Don't eat it naked. Exactly. Never eat your carbs naked so that they don't cause as big of a glucose spike. Because when you put clothing on those carbs, digestion happens more slowly. So you're still eating the carb that you love with less impact on your glucose levels. And this is just one of many different hacks that I have that help us eat the stuff we

love with fewer consequences on our physical and mental health. That's powerful. So the more glucose spikes we have on a daily basis and the more we have over time, it causes us to live less. It won't allow us to live longer. That's what I'm hearing you say. It causes us to age faster. Yeah. It won't allow us to live longer. That's what I'm hearing you say. It causes us to age faster.

Really? Through a process called glycation. Yeah. What does glycation mean? So glycation and glucose kind of sound like the same word. They're similar. Glucose glycation. And this is why.

First of all, before we talk about glycation, I have to explain something to you. So you know when you put a chicken in the oven and it goes from pink to cooked to brown? What actually happened is that in the oven it glycated. Glycation is the cooking process of the chicken. Now, did you know that as a human being, from the moment you're born, you slowly glycate? You slowly cook. You start to cook. Yes, like a chicken in the oven. And then when you're fully cooked, you die.

I know it sounds crazy, but it is true. And on the inside, you're actually browning. So if you look at the cartilage of a baby, it's white. If you look at the cartilage of somebody who's a hundred years old, it's brown. It's been glycated. Glycation is cooking and it's aging. Now why am I telling you this?

Because every time you have a glucose spike, it accelerates glycation. Glucose causes this cooking, causes this glycation, causes this aging. So the more glucose spikes you have, the faster you age. And this shows on your skin as wrinkles, right? I'm actually 85 years old, but you can't tell because I don't have glucose spikes.

And it also ages your organs within. And that's just one of the few things that happen when you have too many glucose spikes over time. Wow. How many glucose spikes is ideal to have on a daily basis? Like what's the optimal amount of spikes that we should have? As little as possible, I would say.

How do you keep, I mean, besides not eating, I guess, how do you not have a glucose spike when you're eating foods? You avoid eating too many carbs on their own, too many carbs for breakfast, too many processed foods. But I don't want people to become too obsessed with keeping their glucose levels perfectly steady because you can actually do that in some unhealthy ways. What I want people to think about is do they have symptoms of glucose spikes? Do they feel cravings for

sugar? Do they feel tired throughout the day? Do they ever experience brain fog, mental slowness? Do they not sleep very well, do they have inflammation on their skin like acne, psoriasis, eczema, etc. Those are all signs of glucose spikes. If you can never leave the house without a snack because you know you're gonna be hungry every couple of hours, that's glucose spikes causing that. And so as we implement these hacks, you can actually check in with yourself and see that these symptoms are improving. You don't have to wear a glucose monitor. You don't have to track your glucose levels to see the spikes or the no spikes.

You will feel better and pretty quickly too because your glucose levels respond in a matter of minutes to what you eat and what you do. So I recommend people learn to check in with themselves and see how they feel. What is the optimal amount of eating in a day to manage glucose in a good way? Are you into intermittent fasting?

Yeah. Kind of? Yeah. It's been very trendy recently, but you don't actually need to fast for many hours a day to have healthy glucose levels. No, it's more about what you eat. Right? So you don't need to skip breakfast.

You don't need to skip dinner. No, you don't. You don't need to have 500 calories a day and restrict calories. No. Now, are you still going to look healthy and lose weight in this process or you're going to gain weight if you're just eating whatever in the right order? Well, so there's the order thing, but the hacks that I share, they allow you to stop focusing on the calories, stop focusing on the restriction and just kind of understand

what molecules are in your food. And then naturally, as you focus on these glucose hacks, a lot of other things fall into place because you're less hungry. You have fewer cravings for all the processed junk. Your hormones are healthier. Exactly. Your hunger hormones are more balanced instead of you feeling famished every two hours. So naturally, when you focus on the hacks, a lot of things fall into place into your body.

And then on the on the fasting topic, I just want to remind people that intermittent fasting is not necessary to have a healthy body. You don't need to fast in order to be healthy. It's much more important to eat well in a way that keeps your glucose level steady than to restrict your eating window, for example. Especially for females, we have to remember that fasting is actually a stressor on the body. So if you already have a life where stressful job, kids to take care of, you don't sleep a lot, you drink coffee, you do intense cardio exercise, maybe you do cold showers, you add fasting on top of that, that is a your exercise, maybe you do cold showers, you add fasting on top of that, that is a lot of stress for your body to handle.

And that's why you see some women who are piling on all these things, their hormones are breaking down. They feel exhausted all the time. Their body is just being like, no, that's too much stress. So I love fasting when I'm on vacation, for example, and it feels like an easy stress to add on. But when I'm working and I'm doing lots of stuff, I prefer to have breakfast, to have a savory breakfast, as I explained, to keep my glucose level steady,

and to just eat three times a day. You know? Yeah. Something you mentioned here that I love is around freedom. And I think a lot of people don't feel free today with food, diets, restrictions, needing to biohack their life all the time. It feels like they always have to do something else or restrict something they love in order to be healthy, in order to optimize their life. And the more

I'm hearing you speak about just understanding it's almost like intuitive eating as opposed to restricting counting calories, fasting, all these other things that are that are trendy right now. So because my fear is that a lot of women specifically, and now men more more so with social media, feel like they need to look perfect all the time, they feel like they need to eat a certain way and be on the recent trends in order for their bodies to morph in a way that makes them feel like they're enough. It's so tough, huh?

So how do we apply these hacks without feeling like it's some new trend, but more understanding it's more intuitive for me to just live a holistic, healthy life? Yeah. Well, first of all, if it's not calling you and you like don't do it, right? It's totally fine. Whatever works for you. But I found a lot of benefit from people switching from the fads and the restricting and the intense stuff and that relationship with your body that becomes a forceful relationship. It's like you're battling with your body every day, right? You're like, holding on really strongly

and trying to prevent this hunger and these cravings and just trying to be really tight. You have willpower. Yeah. So hard to have willpower. So hard. Forever. So hard.

And a lot of these fads, unfortunately, they're just not based on science, right? They are marketing machines. So, and that's also being used by the food industry to sell you more processed foods, et cetera. So I think what people will find in my work is, I'm a biochemist. And so I'm coming back to the principles of physiology.

How does your body actually work? And how does food impact your hormones, your cells, your energy levels, your mitochondria? I'm not trying to push some crazy new extreme diet. I'm just showing you some simple stuff that actually has been used for centuries. It's not very groundbreaking when you think about it. Let me tell you and give you an example.

So the four hacks in my second book are savory breakfast instead of a sweet one, vinegar before you eat carbs, a vegetable starter, so starting your meals with veggies and moving after eating. And what's the science behind all those hacks? Okay. So savory breakfast instead of a sweet one. First of all, that's been done since forever. Sweet breakfasts.

That's an invention of the food industry. Okay. We didn't use to have dessert for breakfast. It doesn't make any sense. We used to have meat and potatoes. So savory breakfast instead of a sweet one, because if you have a savory breakfast that's built around protein and not, let's say, orange juice and granola, which is pure glucose, then your glucose levels are going to stay nice and steady with the savory breakfast instead of having a big spike and then that addiction rollercoaster we talked about. So the spike

and the cravings and the spike and the cravings and spike and the cravings. You don't want to be on that rollercoaster because then that prevents you from living the day you want to live. It prevents you from being able to use your energy and your passion and your talents to express in the world. You are being controlled by that cravings roller coaster if you start the day with a sweet breakfast. So that's the first one. Savory breakfast built around protein, nothing sweet except whole fruit, if you want something that tastes a little bit sweet. But after you eat the protein. Exactly.

So for example, you know, this morning I had some leftover salmon cakes, I had some green beans. Sounds good. Yeah, green beans and some rice and some Parmesan cheese. And to me, treating my breakfast like I would any other meal has completely changed my life. And it almost feels like I often get people who tell me I was having a sweet breakfast my whole life and now I'm having a savory breakfast

and it feels like I've walked through a mirror, you know, in the movies, like the Alice in Wonderland, like walking through to this alternate universe, parallel universe. That's how it feels because all of a sudden you're in control, you're energized, you feel good. Anyway, so that's breakfast. Second hack that I love talking about is vinegar. Now, everybody has vinegar in their kitchen. But no one uses it. True.

No one likes the taste of it. True, but it's an ingredient that's been around for centuries in our culture. And actually in some countries, it's very well known that it's something that is good for you. It's healthy. In Iran, for example, they have apple cider vinegar every day. It's a health drink. But only recently have we understood why it's good for us.

So the reason vinegar is so cool- What's the science behind it? Vinegar contains a molecule called acetic acid. And acetic acid, what it does when you have it before a meal, is that it slows down the breakdown of carbs into glucose molecules. So it acts on enzymes in your stomach, and it slows down how quickly the food you just ate

is going to be turned into individual glucose molecules and then into your bloodstream. So the second hack is one tablespoon of vinegar in a big glass of water before a meal that contains carbs. I've done this a bunch in the past, not a bunch, but a handful of times. And I just feel like I have to close my nose while drinking this tall glass of water

because it just burns, it tastes bad, it smells bad. It's just like, man, this is not enjoyable. So how do you make it enjoyable with vinegar? Is there like unflavored vinegar or like lemon vinegar? Or white wine vinegar? You can try making a dressing and putting it on your meal instead of drinking it. And I know it's not great. And so I have some ideas about how you could use other things to have the same effect.

But nonetheless, the scientific studies are there showing us it does have an impact and it's very simple. It's cheap Yeah, but if you don't like it, don't force yourself before every meal. No, I would say once a day before a meal That's high in carbs, right? Yeah And what is the when you track this with a glucose monitor or how you're tracking it? What do you see the spike doing instead? You see 30% reduction in the glucose spike. If you just have a tablespoon. Tablespoon and a big glass of water diluted

before eating carbs. Like 10 minutes before, doesn't matter. Five to 10 minutes. Wow, 30% less of a spike. Yep. So you still eat the carbs you love with less impact in your glucose levels. Interesting.

But if you hate this hack, it's fine. The other hacks are just as powerful, right? So the savory breakfast one will transform your entire day, the experience of your whole life essentially. And then the third hack is called the veggie starter hack. So that means, that hack means having a plate of vegetables at the beginning of a meal. And you might think, okay, actually this has been done for a long time. In France, we have this concept called crudités, which is raw veggies at the beginning of a meal. In Italy, antipasti, all the roasted nice vegetables. In the Middle East, they eat herbs

by the bunch at the beginning of a meal. You know that salad with vinaigrette? It's quite a common way to start a meal. And now we understand why. It's because veggies contain an amazing substance called fiber. Fiber, she's amazing. I love her. She's on fire. She's amazing. And fiber, when you have fiber in vegetables at the beginning of a meal,

the fiber has time to go and coat your upper intestine and to create a sort of protective shield, like a superhero deploying herself on the walls of your upper intestine. Really? Yeah! And it's this sort of gooey viscous mesh that is improving your gut lining. And then any glucose coming down afterwards will not be able to get through your bloodstream as quickly. Wow. So the veggie starter is an incredibly powerful hack. And you can even combine it to the vinegar hack by making a little vinegar dressing and putting it on your veggies. What does that do?

Does it decrease even more? It decreases even more the glucose spike of the meal. Yeah. So you still have the pasta and the whatever you like, but if you add this hack. The cake and sugar. Yeah. So you see what happens when you do these hacks is that you can still eat the carbs you love,

but then you're creating less of a spike. Therefore, the carbs are first of all, not having as big of a negative impact on your health. Less inflammation, less glycation, less insulin release, and you're avoiding the creation of that cravings rollercoaster, which is the main issue because most of us, when we have something sweet, then two hours later we want more sweets. And then it's 11 PM and you've eaten 56 cookies, right? That's what we want to avoid. We want to have the stuff we love

without creating this cycle of becoming a victim to more sugar cravings. The last hack I'll mention, and you'll love this one, it has to do with muscles. You got some good muscles, no? Yeah, so you know how to use these. I want them bigger though. You want bigger muscles?

Stronger, let's go. Nice, nice, nice. Not too big, but you know, just athletic. Yeah, you want more, you know why? use these. I want them bigger though. You want bigger muscles? Stronger. Really? Let's go. Nice, nice, nice. Not too big, but you know, just... Yeah, you want more. You know why? It's for your glucose levels. It is, it helps you process sugar better

when you have more muscle. Exactly, and the reason is, so glucose is your body's favorite source of energy. Every single cell in your body burns glucose for energy. So right now your brain cells are burning glucose to understand what I'm saying. You're holding a pen. That means your hand cells are burning glucose to contract and hold that pen up. If you're listening to us, you know, every single part of your body is currently burning

glucose to perform its function. And your muscles, as I mentioned, also burn glucose to contract. Okay. And we can use this to our advantage. And your muscles, as I mentioned, also burn glucose to contract, okay? And we can use this to our advantage. The fourth hack in my method is once a day, after one meal, use your muscles for 10 minutes. Move, walk, stretch, jump. Exactly, you can even clean your apartment,

do the dishes, fold your laundry, go grocery shopping. If you're at work and you can't do any movement, you can do some calf raises underneath your desk for 10 minutes. Lots of easy little ways to get that movement in so that your muscles will absorb some of the glucose from the meal. What happens if it's 10 o'clock at night,

you know, Ben and Jerry's is calling my name. Yeah, baby. From the freezer. Whatever ice cream you like is calling my name. Yeah, baby. From the freezer or whatever ice cream you like is calling my name. I'm just sitting there watching a movie, eating a whole thing of ice cream. Yeah. And then I sit there.

Yeah. And then I go to bed a couple hours later. What happens to the brain, body, gut if you do that by itself without applying these hacks? Well, you're gonna experience a very big glucose spike as you're watching the movie and eating the Ben and Jerry's. That's gonna have impact on your brain. It's gonna increase inflammation.

It's gonna mess up your sleep hormones. You're not gonna sleep as well. Your sleep is not gonna be as deep or as restful. You might even wake up the next day feeling hungover. You know, you never get hungover because you don't drink, but sometimes you can feel hungover from sugar. Wow. If you've had it late at night,

you're going to feel a bit groggy. You might feel like your hands have swollen a little bit during the night. Your face swollen. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. Then with that glucose spike, you're also increasing glycation, aging.

You're also increasing insulin release, which over time builds up to a diagnosis of pre-diabetes, for example. Whatever health background your body has, if you've ever experienced symptoms from brain fog to psoriasis to fertility problems, that spike is gonna make those worse. So let's say you're watching that movie,

Eating the Ben and Jerry's, you have a few options. You can have a handful of almonds as you're having the ice cream to put some clothing on the ice cream. Interesting. Yeah. You could do a handful of almonds as you're having the ice cream to put some clothing on the ice cream. Interesting. Yeah. You could do a vinegar drink. You could also grab a book or a bottle of water and after you eat the ice cream, maybe

do some bicep curls as you're watching the movie to help your muscles soak up some of that glucose. There's always solutions. So if I've eaten the cake, the ice cream, the cookies, and I've forgotten to do all these things beforehand, but I can still do it afterwards? Yes. A little bit? Yes, especially the movement.

Even if the sugar is just in my gut already and just soaking down there, I can still have a couple of almonds or have vinegar and it'll still help? The best thing to do afterwards is movement. Move. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do them calf raises. You're sitting on the couch calf raises

for 10 minutes doing the movie. That's gonna help, actually. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And you can do that couch, calf raises, for 10 minutes doing the movie. That's going to help, actually. And you can do that up to 90 minutes after eating the movement, the muscles. OK, cool. Do some push-ups, whatever it might be. Totally. OK, so these are the four hacks in this book.

Do you have other hacks that you recommend as well? Yes. So these are the four most powerful, important ones to start with. But in my first book, I have some other ones that are really lovely as well. So we talked about clothes on carbs. That's the one I really enjoy. And another one is about snacks. So when you want to snack, should we eat snacks? If you want, it's better not to, it's better to wait between your meals. But sometimes you're hungry.

Sometimes it's 4pm and you're hungry. So what you're going to do? to wait between your meals, but sometimes you're hungry. Sometimes it's 4 p.m. and you're hungry, so what you're going to do? Ideally, you would have a savory snack, as I explained. Not sweet. Not sweet. Keep the sweets for dessert. Sweet equal dessert. Have some eggs, have a piece of toast with some avocado on it.

Try to think savory always as much as you can. That's going to be incredibly helpful to keep your glucose levels nice and balanced because when you're hungry, when you want a snack, whenever you feel that hunger, that means your digestive system is quite empty. So if you feed it something sweet, the glucose is going to arrive really quickly into your bloodstream and create a big spike. Or if you could have a snack, should you have vinegar right before?

If you want, if you can, yeah. You should use these hacks and compose with them as you wish, and then you know what? If you can't do any of these hacks one day, it's totally fine. I don't want people to stress out. It's not like something super strict you have to do all the time.

There are weeks where I don't do a single hack because of X, Y, Z reason. You can't fall off the wagon. There's no, this is not a restrictive diet. For me, these principles are things you keep with you for your whole life. Like for example, if one day you don't drink enough water, you're not gonna go crazy about it,

be like, oh my God, I f***ed up. It's like, fine, just drink more water tomorrow. Or if one day you forget to brush your teeth, it doesn't matter, right? We're here for the long haul. We're here to build these habits into our lives and to be able to call upon them like little fairy godmothers whenever we want. Yeah, that's cool. But the more consistent you can be with it, the better off you'll

be. Absolutely. I start at the beginning of the day and I purposefully look for the smallest things that went well that I like that make me happy. Now along that you'll find the big things but you know we're both busy and great things happen but you often don't stop and reflect on those great things that happen. We live in a society of undisciplined minds and there's a science to disciplining it. Yeah.

So what would you call that? Is it a, at the beginning of the day and the end of the day, what is that strategy called? Is it just mental focus? Is it gratitude? Well, when people come to my clinic, we often do some neuropsych testing and one of the tasks is negativity bias versus positivity bias.

What's the difference between those two? Well, negativity bias is you're focused on what's wrong. Your brain quickly, almost immediately goes to what you're afraid of, what's negative. The news will tell you all sorts of things to be afraid of. Positivity bias is you go to what's right. And so those two techniques are part of what I talk about in the new book, positivity bias training. How do you train your brain to look for what's right, not for just what's wrong. Now it's not over the top because I've been thinking about

this Bible verse a lot lately. The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord and it used to always sort of bother me. I'm like why do I have to be afraid? And then I realized people who have low levels of anxiety die early from accidents or preventable illnesses. They're not worried about anything. They die earlier is what you're saying. Right. And often the people that go to jail, they have low levels of anxiety.

They actually have slower heart rates. They have lower sweat gland activity. Interesting. Right? Like if I think I'm going to go rob rob a store, well I don't because I don't want to be caught and I don't like institutional food and I don't really look good in an orange jumpsuit. And so I'm always thinking ahead and one of the lies of happiness, so I open you happy with the lies of happiness is don't worry, be happy. So Bobby McFerrin's Grammy Award winning song,

Don't Worry, Be Happy is a lie because you need some anxiety so you do the right things. And doing the right things consistently help you be happy. Yeah, so you're having moral code You're doing the right habits for yourself. You're not just like I'm not gonna care. I'm gonna drink all day I'm gonna eat whatever I want. Everything's gonna be fine. You want to have some well if I do this action There might be a negative reaction later as well, right?

50% of people 85 and older will be diagnosed with dementia 85 and older will be diagnosed with dementia. I'm not okay with that. Those are bad odds, right? Because we're living longer and I don't want a 50% chance of having lost my mind. Now, but I can't start thinking about that when I'm 83. I need to be thinking about that when I'm 43 or 33. Right? I mean the earlier you can, the more you can push off those negative effects. So not too much anxiety because the cortisol damages your brain, but enough. It's like a dose response. What's the right dose of anxiety? And as a psychiatrist, I used to think my job was to lower the anxiety in my patients and

Then and that's true for some patients. It's not true for other patients. I need to raise So what would you say the three main causes of? Someone more likely to reach a dementia state over 85 or before the demon What would those things be the three bad habits or the thing, the causes of dementia, would you say? So- And increase those chances. In the book, I actually talk about our bright minds approach to preventing dementia.

So there's 11, but if I had to pick a couple, it would be being overweight because if you're overweight or have high blood sugar, there's something I call diabeticity. It's a combination. You actually have seven of the 11 risk factors because I published three studies, the last one on 33,000 people that said as your weight goes up, the actual size and function of your brain goes down, virtually in a linear pattern.

Does it happen if you're 30 years old and you're younger or is it like only when you're reaching... Happens in children. Really? Yeah. We had two data sets, one in children, one in adults, drops. The function and the size of the brain... The function and size because it lowers blood flow to the brain.

Obesity lowers blood flow to the brain. It ages the brain. It increases inflammation. Fat cells store toxins. It changes your hormones, takes healthy testosterone, and turns it into unhealthy cancer-promoting forms of estrogen, this is not a good thing. And so if I had to go, don't be overweight. Now don't be underweight, underweight's not good for you.

Have a reasonable BMI, be a healthy weight. And you don't want anything to damage your blood vessels because they found neurons, brain cells actually don't age. It's your blood vessels that age. And if your blood vessels aren't feeding your brain cells, they begin to die. And so with all of these risk factors, how do I know if I have it? So SPAC, this imaging study I do looks at blood flow. If you're drinking caffeine, if you're using nicotine, if you're sedentary, if you have

any form of heart disease, if you have high blood pressure, all of those decrease blood flow to your brain. You always want to increase blood flow. I love this part because when I get someone brain healthy, their sex lives get better. If you have blood flow problems anywhere, like you have erectile dysfunction, you have brain dysfunction. If you have brain dysfunction, odds are you also have sex dysfunction because it's about blood flow, right?

The healthier your blood flow. And so I see a lot of 50, 60-year-old guys and they're worried about their mom had Alzheimer's disease, they don't want to get it. But when they get on the program, their sex lives are better. That makes me so happy for them. Now there's something you touched on a little bit ago about the negativity bias and the positivity bias. I like to believe that I think in a positive way. I see the perspective of a situation. I try to look at the good perspective of the situation.

I try to appreciate the things that I have as opposed to things that I lack. I try to see, have compassion and empathy for certain situations and say, that's really unfortunate, so I should be extremely grateful for where I'm at. In all areas of my life, I try to have that perspective. I feel like it's a positive bias, right? Because it makes me feel better.

There's been a lot of talk lately with different researchers and professors talking about the negative effects of, call it toxic positivity or too much positivity, I guess. Is there really a negative effect to the brain if you're thinking positively all the time? So can you be toxic in the way you think in a positive way? So I'm actually not a fan of positive thinking.

I'm a fan of accurate thinking with a positive bias. Because positive thinking is I can have this third brownie and it won't hurt me. I can drive at 125 miles an hour down the freeway in the rain, and it's not dangerous. I can give my phone number to a woman I met in a bar, and not be thinking about the potential downsides of that, especially if I'm married and I want to stay married. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Right, I want to stay married. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Right. I have this one friend.

He came in and he told me about this woman he'd met at a medical conference. And they were on a plane together and she'd been to his office. And I looked at him and I'm like, do you like attorneys? And he's like, what do you mean? I said, you're married, you have ADD, you're not gonna cover up this affair, your wife's gonna find out, you're gonna lose half your net worth,

and you're gonna be visiting your children on the weekends. And he's like, oh, I hadn't thought about that. Which means his frontal lobes weren't working because the front part of your brain not only thinks of the moment, it thinks of all of the moments right if I do this what? Happens and too often people that have the most sadness it's because they make bad decisions and

That can be toxic positivity like oh, I'm in the moment where I want people to be in all of the moments. Sure. Not just now. The future moments. Now and later, right? I want people to feel better quickly with things that help them feel good now and tomorrow. Right. Okay.

So I like that. Accurate thinking with a positive bias. Yeah, accurate thinking. Okay. Is there such thing as toxic positivity in your mindurate thinking with a positive bias. Yeah, accurate thinking, okay. Is there such thing as toxic positivity in your mind? Well, it could be. It's like, don't worry, be happy. It's like, no matter what I do today,

it's not gonna impact me. Tomorrow, I can spend, I can max my credit cards, I can flirt with a girl, even though I'm in a committed relationship. I can drink all I want, I can eat all I want. Yeah, that's toxic positivity. It's like, no, you need to be afraid. I mean, you came to my clinic and we looked at your brain

and it's like, no, I wanna love my brain. So if I love my brain, I avoid these things and I do those things. And then you have a better life. The school of greatness starts with healthy brain. Absolutely. And so how do we figure out what our brain type is then? There's different brain types. How do we know what ours is?

Most books on happiness, and there have been a lot of books on happiness, is they go, okay, here are the things that make you happy from gratitude and purpose and novelty. Working out and this and that. And I'm like, well, it depends on what your brain type is. For some people, helicopter skiing makes them happy or jumping out of an airplane makes them happy. And for other people, that makes them flat out miserable.

It's like, no, I'm not gonna do that. I don't be anxious, I'll be afraid. No. And what I learned, so at Amen Clinics, I have 10 clinics around the country, we do brain imaging. So if you have anxiety, depression, temper problems, relationship problems, memory problems, head trauma,

whatever, we'll talk to you and then we'll scan you. It's been my big love affair in life is looking at people's brains. And early on I realized, because I was looking at like, what does ADD look like in the brain, or what does depression look like, bipolar disorder or autism. And early on, quickly I learned they're not one thing. That each of those things have subtypes. And I've written books like Healing ADD, the seven types of ADD.

And then when I was thinking about happiness, I'm like, it's clearly not one thing. And I've identified five primary types. There's brain types five primary types. Brain types. Brain types based on imaging. So there's the balanced brain type, where quite frankly, most anything will make you happy.

You're focused, you're flexible, you're positive and relaxed. And type two is the spontaneous type. Type one you have a generally healthy brain. Two you have sleepy frontal lobes, the front part of your brain. Lower in activity and you're very creative often. A lot of the young superstars I see are the spontaneous type, they need novelty. They love surprises. They hate routine. They want their life to be a bit unpredictable. They also like scary movies. They need a dopamine fix. Now the

persistent type, type three, their frontal lobes actually work a bit harder than everybody else. They hate surprises and love routine. They are accomplishment-oriented. they finish things on time, they show up on time, and unfortunately they tend to marry the spontaneous type, or at least those are the people that come to my office. The fourth type is the sensitive type, and this was the type that was damaged the most in the pandemic, because they crave connection, crave relationships. They're deeply empathic. When their relationships are good they're really happy and when they're stressed they're very unhappy. And then type five is the cautious type. These are people that are early to appointments.

They will never jump out of an airplane unless the airplane's on fire. And to make them happy, they need peace. They need relaxation. They need a massage. And so understanding my type and their combinations. Yeah, you might have two or three. Right.

And so. I'm like, I like three or four of these things at times. It's like, I like my routine, but I also like to get out once in a while and do something spontaneous. So there are 16 types when you look at the combinations. And in the book, there's a link on how to get to your free brain type. It's just so helpful.

What can we do once we know which type we're at? What do we do then with that information? Well, for the balance people, just keep it that way. For the spontaneous people, here are some supplements that might help your type. Here's the right diet for your type. Here are the right exercises for your type. So the spontaneous person is critical for them to know their goals in great detail. And they love the exercise and then every day they ask themselves the question, does it fit? Does my behavior fit? Because the break in their brain is vulnerable, it's a little weak.

And so often they'll go off here. They'll go off there. And a lot of CEOs are the spontaneous types, especially entrepreneurs, not maybe CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, but for their own companies, which can be wildly successful. But they need a persistent person to organize them. Because they're really good at starting businesses,

they're not good at growing businesses. So just know, oh, is that me? Then make sure you don't hire someone like you with your type to grow your business, because they won't. They'll get you in trouble with the IRS. Exactly. So once we know the, and what's your in trouble with the IRS. Exactly. So once we know the, and what's your brain type? So I'm balanced.

Balanced, yes. I have features of cautious and sensitive because I crave relationships. So when Tan and I get along and thank goodness we get along almost all the time, I'm so happy. My first marriage didn't get along at all and time. I'm so happy. My first marriage didn't get along at all and I was miserable for two decades. And I guess maybe I have the persistent type too.

You wanna try to make it work and try to do everything you can. Yeah, I feel guilty when it doesn't. I know that feeling. What do you say is the biggest lesson you've learned about your own personal life of assessing, I think it's 200,000 brain scans now, over 30 years? How long is it?

30 years of work of just assessing the world's brains in these different types. What's the biggest lesson you've learned about yourself in personal life, relationships, all these things? I'd been a psychiatrist nearly a decade. I was the top neuroscience student in medical school, and I didn't care about my own brain. So what did that mean? You were eating whatever, you were sleeping whenever,

you were- I only slept four hours, and I thought I was special, because I could do that. Then I realized I wasn't special, I was stupid. You're bragging, oh, I only need four hours and I can sleep and I can function. I was eating fast food, I was overweight, chronically stressed. And the week before I scanned myself,

I scanned my mother and she was 60. And at 60 she had a stunningly beautiful brain. Then the next week I scanned myself and it wasn't good. My brain looked older than her 60 year brain. But it reflected her life, her brain. She could manage my difficult dad, she has seven children, she now has 54 grandchildren, great grandchildren. She's the most consistently loving person.

She knows everybody's birthday. She knows what's going on in everybody's life. She's just always interested. My brain wasn't healthy. I played football in high school. I had meningitis twice when I was a young soldier, and that's a bad thing for your brain. And I didn't care, right?

I never drank or smoked. I just didn't want to do that. I fell in love with my brain. And every day I'm like, is this good for my brain or bad for it? I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to

stop making money hard in your life but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on the School of Greatness. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's

episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.