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I think everybody needs to listen to this episode if they want to start 2026 properly. If there's one thing I've
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learned that's really stayed with me this year, it's from speaking to some of
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the world's leading minds about our brain, which might just be the most powerful asset that we all have. You
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know, if you listen to the Diary of a SEO, you're probably listening because
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you're trying to get something, whether it's information, inspiration, maybe
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entertainment, all of which because you're striving towards some kind of goal. And it's dawned on me this year
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because I've interviewed so many incredible neuroscientists that this all starts with having a healthy brain.
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Because all of our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, our memories, our chance of having a future
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start in the brain. So, in this special Christmas episode, we're going to focus
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on the brain. How you can have the most fundamentally healthy brain so you can live the most fundamentally meaningful
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life. I've been through all the episodes where we've talked about the brain and
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I've looked at the moments that you shared and replayed the most. and the moments that added the most value to
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your life. And I've put all of them into this episode today. >> Do you remember the first time you saw a
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human brain? >> I do. >> Did it change how you think about your own brain?
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>> It changed my life because I was like, I want to study that. That is the coolest
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thing that I've ever seen in my whole life. It was life-changing. >> I say that because we, you know, at the
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start of this conversation, we said that most of us don't appreciate our brain. A
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lot of people don't even realize it's there. But the minute I had a brain scan
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one day, and that brain scan >> really changed my life because seeing my own brain for the first time,
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>> it was the push that I needed >> to start caring more about how my
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decisions and behaviors are impacting it. So, let's talk about how I can make
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that ball of tofu in my head, super healthy, big, fat, and fluffy. You you talked about exercise earlier on, but we
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didn't really dig dig into exactly what you mean by exercise cuz exercise, I
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think, is multifaceted in its definition. What kind of exercise should I be doing to make my ball of tofu in my
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head great? >> Yeah. >> Optimal. >> Mhm. Well, all the research shows that
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the best kind of exercise that you can do is anything that gives you aerobic activity that is getting your heart rate
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up. So that that goes for, you know, power walking will get your heart rate up. So soccer, so many different things.
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Name your activity. So many people want to say, "Oh, my favorite activity, will
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that work?" And I always just say, "Is it is your heart rate up when you're
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doing it?" If the answer is yes, then yeah, that that works great. We know that that level of aerobic activity is
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critical because that's going to release that growth factor maximally to get into
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your hippocampus. Uh that will grow those new brain cells. how much? >> So, um I have an answer to that. So, um
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we did two different experiments in my lab. One in um low fit people, people that are really not exercising very much
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at all, less than 30 minutes um um in the last three three weeks you you've uh
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moved your body. And um we asked what could we see any behavioral improvement in your memory function from your
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hippocampus or your uh ability to shift and focus attention if we ask you to move your body in an aerobic way for two
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to three times a week and we collaborated with a spin class. So clearly very aerobic. And what we found
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was in those people that did successfully do two to three times a week of 45minute aerobic activity, their
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mood got significantly better, their memory function got better, and their ability to shift and focus attention got
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significantly better. So that gives a little bit of a guideline for low fit people. Two to three times a week can
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start to give you some of those some of those cognitive changes. But you don't
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look low fit. So let me let me answer the question you're about to ask me with
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like what about me? I I exercise pretty regularly and um how much how much do I need? So to answer that question, we
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went to another spin studio and we said look, we're going to give you free classes. You could exercise as much as
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you want in this in this um at this studio and uh um go up to seven times a week. And the control was just stay the
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same. You know, you they were they were working out twice a week at at the studio
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>> and Troll was the other group that what you were testing them against. >> Yes. Exactly.
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>> And so what we found was basically every drop of sweat counted. The more you exercise, the more change
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in your brain. We noted both your hippocample function, prefrontal function, and mood. if you you were
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already getting benefit, you know, you're already going twice a week, but the more you did, the more brain changes
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you got. So that that doesn't give the formula that I would like, but we were
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heading in that direction, which is part of one of the questions that I want to answer. But I love to leave people with
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the idea that every drop of sweat counts for building your brain into the big fat
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fluffy brain that you really want. And then in the real world, again, making it super um real for people.
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>> Yeah. >> How how does that change how I show up? >> Yeah. if you allow it to should have a
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beautiful effect on your mindset. Um that your mindset around um how often should I take wake up and 30
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minutes early and do that walk before I start my day or uh accept the the invitation to go uh walk the dog with
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with a neighbor. Um it's not an obligation. It is something that you're doing for yourself. It is going to have
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direct benefits on that ball of tofu, as you call it, in your head. It's going to
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make it work better. And and I mean, I think the most immediate thing that I benefit from every single day is the
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mood boost that you get from that serotonin, dopamine, nor adrenaline that gets released every time you move your
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body. >> I always think that because obviously I do a lot of podcasting and it's I'm
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super reliant on my brain being attached to my mouth and sometimes I notice that
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it's not. You know what I mean? like sometimes I'm notic from from your and also I speak on stage
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sometimes. So I've often asked myself cuz I saw Tony Robbins >> the speaker one day on a trampoline
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before he goes up on stage. >> I ask myself okay should I be doing a workout in my green room before I go up
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on stage for a big talk or presentation? >> You think I should? >> Oh yeah absolutely. What's the basis of
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that in science and neuroscience? >> Uh it's the basis is that immediate
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effect. So there's three key effects that we know happen every time you move
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your body. First one is mood. You're going to get your dopamine, your serotonin up. Um second is focus and
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attention. So so a single workout isn't going to make more synapses in your prefrontal cortex, but the prefrontal
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cortex uses dopamine. And so um it's clear that even a single workout can make your prefrontal cortex work better
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in terms of focus and attention. Also very important anytime you're speaking.
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And the third is reaction time. Your reaction time, you know, motor your your your working your motor cortex when you
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move your body. And your response and reaction time is significantly shorter after a even a single workout compared
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to if you just don't work out and sit sit um alone. So great great things to
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do. A great thing to do before you you stand up and speak. >> What about coffee?
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>> I I I'm trying to figure out if coffee is good for my brain, bad for my brain.
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I've had a couple of mixed messages around the impact it might be having. >> Yeah. You know, caffeine is a stimulant
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and uh people respond to that kind of stimulant uh in different ways. Over stimulation with caffeine is is not good
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for your be able your ability to put words together. You know, this is where I turn to a a main theme in in my book
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healthy brain happy life with this which is self-experimentation for you. How what can you titrate your
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coffee to see what level of coffee is best for whatever your podcast or you're
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giving a talk? The other thing that can work similarly to coffee that that I've
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started uh and that I do every morning is um hot cold contrast showers because that cold that you shower on yourself
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after the heat um stimulates adrenaline in you. a natural adrenaline. It wakes you up and okay, it was painful the
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first kind of few times I tried it, but then you get addicted to it and I have forgotten to do it and gotten back in
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the shower just to douse myself with cold water because I feel better when I do that for for you know first thing in
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the morning. So, lots of different things that one can explore with. Okay, on the other side of the coin then, what
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are some of the central behaviors that people do that destroy their brain? >> Well, sedentary behavior is one of them.
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Um, not getting enough sleep is critical. We haven't talked about sleep yet. Sleep is so important for normal
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functioning of the brain. I like to scare my students by saying that um you know in torture situations if you
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deprive a person of sleep for too long they literally die. They they they die. You cannot function if you are deprived
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of sleep for too many hours in a row. It's that critical. Yet we don't we we
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happily, you know, watch too much Netflix at night and and and and get only 5 hours of sleep when we could have
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had eight. So um what's happening exactly? Why is it so important? Well, there's um there's so many different
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things. I'm gonna I'm gonna say two. One is that we know that in regular um um
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healthy sleep, there is activity in the hippocampus that helps you strengthen the memories that you have formed in
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that previous day. It's called consolidation and it's so important. If you shorten that, if you don't get
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enough, you are not consolidating your normal everyday memories. And second, it is uh the time during sleep when all the
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metabolites, all that garbage that your brain is producing because all biological cells produce garbage, it
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gets kind of um cleaned up um through the cerebral spinal fluid that that is flowing through your brain. And if you
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do not get enough sleep, you build up garbage metabolites in your brain. It's
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like you have a gunky brain. And do you feel like I feel like I have gunk in my brain when I don't sleep enough. That is
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exactly what is what is happening. >> Well, when you think about um things
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that we consume, you know, like food and drink and alcohol and all these kinds of
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things, is there is there anything that if I'm trying to have an optimal brain,
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I should be >> Yeah. >> having or not having? >> Yeah. Well, so um I think the most
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evidence is around the benefit of the Mediterranean diet which is basically all healthy uh um kind of organic not
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organic but nonprocessed is the word I was trying to think of things to eat that are very very colorful. There is so
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much evidence about how good that is generally for the brain that that is my go-to. Like what should I eat? Well, is
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it on the Mediterranean diet? If it is, then go ahead. If it's too processed,
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>> only do it just a little bit. >> Is it true that if we have less friends,
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if we have less strong relationships, if we're lonely, >> then our brain will shrink and is more
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prone to dementia and Alzheimer's and things like that. Yes, we are social creatures and um there are uh really
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powerful studies that have shown the correlation between the number of social connections that we have including just
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saying hello to the barista at Starbucks. It's not a close friendship that you develop over 30 years. It's
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it's just how many people you interact with and greet and longevity. The more
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people you are regularly interacting with, the longer you are living overall longevity. But if you go into brain
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health, absolutely it's also very very healthy for you. It also brings happiness. So uh friend and colleague of
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mine um Robert Wallinger uh studied um what makes people happy. The study started in the 20s, the 1920s and in
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Harvard. And after all of those many many many decades, the answer is what brings happiness is the strength of your
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social connections. So it makes you happier. It makes you live longer and and uh yes, loneliness on the on the um
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flip side causes stress uh long-term stress that that damages the brain and uh yeah, in the long term can can make
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it smaller and uh less healthy. >> Here's the fifth most replayed moment.
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When I asked you before this conversation started rolling what you're really excited about at the moment, your
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response to me was there was a few things, but one of them which lit up your face was creatine.
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>> Yes. And it's funny because >> it lit up your face again. >> Yeah. It's it's funny because creatine
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has been around for I mean ever for decades and it's always been in my mind it was like one of those gym bro things.
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I'm like I don't need to be swole. >> Yeah. >> I don't need creatine get get swole. And
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you know this is this was the thought for for many many years. And then over the last five years or so,
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the effects of creatine on the brain started to really get my interest. Anything that affects the brain, I
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really become interested in. And so that's kind of what did get me the most excited about about creatine. But also,
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I started doing a lot of resistance training. And so I was like, "Okay, here
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I am now. I'm like one of those gym guys. I'm doing I'm doing the barbells.
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I'm doing the, you know, the squats and the deadlifts and all that and so, so
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why not give myself some of the creatine? Well, what is creatine, right? Why is it important? You talked about
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earlier, you know, why doesn't our body just make more of these things that are
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so beneficial? We do make creatine. We make about, I don't know, our liver makes about 1 to three grams a day of
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creatine. And our brain also makes creatine and those are the two organs that make it. Creatine gets consumed by
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other tissues like the muscle is probably the one that's the greediest because creatine is stored as
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phosphocreatine but it's used to make energy essentially. So it can increase
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muscle mass, it can increase muscle strength in combination with resistance training because you're able to
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regenerate and make energy faster. So, for example, I became interested in it after reading studies where people that
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supplemented with creatine that were engaged in resistance training were able to gain more lean body mass. They were
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able to gain more strength. It was increasing their training volume. So, you can do one to two more reps, right,
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of of whatever exercise you're doing. And it seems to decrease the recovery time between those those sets as well.
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So, you're able to increase your training volume. Well, anything that's going to in increase your training
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volume is going to then have the downstream effect of, you know, increasing the adaptations like
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increased muscle mass or increased muscle strength. I started supplementing with creatine about a year ago and I
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started supplementing with it for that reason, for the my training and I was doing about five grams a day because
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that was really what was shown to to be beneficial for muscle health in combination with resistance training.
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And it's important for people to realize that supplementing with creatine by
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itself, without any type of resistance training, isn't going to grow your muscle. It's not going to make you
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stronger. You have to put in the effort because what creatine is doing, it's
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helping you make the energy quicker, right? And that and then being able to make that energy quicker means that
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you're able to then do that exercise better, um, harder, more of it, right? So, um, it's sort of sup supercharging
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your exercise routine. I had already been aware of the effects on the brain. I thought maybe the five
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grams a day would do that. So what are the effects on the brain? Well, your brain also consumes a lot of energy, you
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know, needs a lot of energy. So it does make its own creatine. But it turns out if you can if you can give your brain
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more of that creatine particularly under a period of anything that's causing
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stress. So let's say lack of sleep or let's say emotional psychological stress
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or in my case high cognitive load where you're just every day learning concepts,
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complex things. you're trying to remember them. You're putting ideas together and coming up with new
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hypotheses and you know, you're just you're just you're studying a lot and
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it's very cognitively demanding and it's it's a type of stress on your brain.
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That's like my life, right? Um under this condition of stress, depression is
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another one that's a stress on your brain or neurodeenerative disease, that's a stress on your brain. So any
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kind of stressful condition, that's where creatine shines in the brain. I would argue that um all of us
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who who has the perfect amount of sleep never has stress nobody, right? There's
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always some sort of stress in the background. So, um that's when I was like, okay, so if you're the perfect
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person, you have no stress, you get the perfect amount of sleep every night, your brain makes enough creatine to kind
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of do what it needs to do. I know that I'm constantly under stress. So, um I'm
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like, okay, well, I think I need a boost. And this is where a lot of very interesting studies have come out of
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many different labs. Um, some out of Germany that looked at the dose of creatine and how it increases creatine
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levels in the brain. And this is why I now supplement with 10 grams a day. So the study out of Germany
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found that five grams a day of creatine, if you're supplementing with five grams
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a day, your muscles are greedily consuming it. Particularly if you're working out, they want it. They want it.
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after about five grams a day, especially over a few months, like you're you're
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saturating your muscle and that's enough, right? Anything above that kind of spills over to the brain. And so they
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what this German study found was that 10 grams of creatine increased creatine levels in several different regions of
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the brain. And that was probably the most exciting, you know, I would say evidence that supplementing higher than
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five grams a day was actually doing something in terms of getting creatine into the brain.
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There have now been a variety of studies that have looked at different outcomes,
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right? So, if you supplement with 10 grams of creatine or even go higher than that, like 20 grams of creatine, how
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does that affect cognitive function, right? And so, um some of these studies have been been done by uh Dr. Darren
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Kandow. He's um at the University of Regina in Canada and it's looked they've
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looked at things like sleep deprivation and it's been found that if you take
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someone and you sleep deprive them for 21 hours and give them about 25 to 30 grams of creatine, it completely negates
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the cognitive deficits of sleep deprivation. Actually, not only does it negate the cognitive deficits of sleep
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deprivation, it makes people function better than if they were well-rested. That's where I was like, wait a minute,
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there's many times when I'm traveling, I'm jet-lagged. Uh lots of times when
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I'm sleepd deprived and I have to be doing a podcast or a presentation, whatever. And in those situations, I go
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up from my 10 grams to more like 20 grams. Today, for example, I wasn't really sleepdeprived, but you know,
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there's a lot of high cognitive demand. This is a long podcast. There's all that
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stuff. And so, I went up to 20 grams today on my creatine. And I well, I will say even at the 10 gram for me, we were
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talking about this with respect to being in ketosis. I don't feel that mid-after afternoon
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crash when I have the creatine, not being on a ketogenic diet, not being in ketosis. It's very clear for me and I've
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done this where sometimes I only do five grams and then if I do that I'll notice
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I'm like why am I tired right now? So there's something interesting and maybe
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it's placebo. I'm going to throw that out there. Very possible. But I don't
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know maybe the creatine is again it's able to regenerate that energy quicker
00:21:09
and so that's also beneficial for the brain. And now I I would say all these
00:21:13
creatine researchers a lot of them are shifting to the brain. It used to be all muscle focused and now people are super
00:21:19
interested in what creatine is doing to the brain, especially if you're supplementing with more of it. And you
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know, this is important for people that are under a stressful situation, but also for vegans because creatine is
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found in food, mostly in animal products like meat and poultry and fish, dairy. A
00:21:37
lot of vegans don't eat that. And I've had so many of my vegan friends, I've got them on the creatine, and it's
00:21:44
changed their lives. I mean, they're like, "This is like incredible." You
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know, can you imagine someone who's not getting any creatine from their diet cuz
00:21:51
they eat no meat and all of a sudden they start supplementing with 5 10 grams of creatine and it's like they have
00:21:57
energy. Some people say they they require less sleep, which is kind of interesting. That's kind of a comment
00:22:03
I've heard many many times from people is that it's like their brain doesn't
00:22:06
need as much sleep. They have more energy. So, um, I've been a big fan of the creatine, um, not only for the
00:22:13
muscle especially because, you know, working out is something that's very important, but for the brain as well.
00:22:19
I always thought of creatine as something that you you took and you kind of had to load up on and then over a
00:22:24
couple of weeks or months, the effects would kick in. But you're telling me that if I had creatine in the morning,
00:22:29
that same day, I would experience potentially improved cognition if I have a big enough dose.
00:22:35
>> Yes. So, um, great question. A lot of studies that have been done that you're
00:22:40
referring to have been done in the context of exercise and muscular performance. And the reason why people
00:22:49
have to load up on like they do a loading phase, let's say 20 grams and then they go down to this sort of
00:22:54
maintenance phase of 5 g is because it takes I don't know, I think it's about a
00:23:00
month or so before you can saturate your muscular stores of creatine. And then >> what does that mean? It means that um
00:23:08
the creatine which is actually stored in your muscle as phosphocreatine is there
00:23:12
and ready to be used to make energy. So so it takes again it takes about a month
00:23:20
or so to do that unless you are really giving your muscles a high dose, right? So the five grams a day it only it can
00:23:26
only do it for so many days and then finally you get saturated. When you do this loading phase you kind of just
00:23:32
accelerate that whole process. And so that's why when people are doing these
00:23:36
experiments where they want to test the effects of creatine, they want they want
00:23:39
the participants to have really high levels of creatine in their muscles quick because they don't want to do a
00:23:44
month-long experiment, right? They want the experiment to be like a couple of weeks or a week. So that was kind of the
00:23:49
whole concept behind this loading phase. If you're not someone who's going to
00:23:54
some kind of competition, you know, like your CrossFit games or something, you don't really need to do that loading
00:23:59
phase if you've already been supplementing with five grams a day for like a month. When it comes to the
00:24:04
brain, what's happening if you get above that 5 g, that's pretty much all
00:24:09
consumed by the muscle. You're having some leftover in circulation and the brain takes it up and it takes it up,
00:24:16
right? When it re what it really shines is under that stressful condition, which
00:24:21
again for me, I feel like every day is this is is like cognitively demanding for me because I'm constantly, you know,
00:24:28
learning new material or learning new information or working on things, right? And so there's a lot of cognitive stress
00:24:33
on my brain. And so I feel like I'm constantly under that stress. And that's
00:24:37
where getting the creatine in your brain helps you make that energy quicker. And
00:24:41
so that's why like I've done I've had, you know, been jetlagged and have have
00:24:45
to give a talk at you, you know, like 5:00 a.m. in the morning, my my biological time after not getting sleep.
00:24:50
And I've done like 25 grams of creatine. And it it's insane how much it helps me.
00:24:56
Again, it could be placebo because I'm anticipating that effect, which is fine.
00:24:59
Placebo is a real thing. It's great. I'm all about it. But there's some evidence
00:25:04
also that this works, right? That the creatine is helping with under that sleep deprivation and that stressful
00:25:10
condition. >> I was reading about a study in 2025 where they gave creatine to people that had
00:25:17
depressive symptoms alongside CBT training. And the people that had creatine and the cognitive behavioral
00:25:23
therapy training experienced a greater improvement in their depression symptoms than those who just received the
00:25:29
cognitive behavioral therapy, which is which is incredible. >> It's fascinating. I mean, depression is
00:25:36
a type of brain stress, right? I mean, we know inflammation plays a role in in depression. We know oxidative stress
00:25:43
plays a role in depression. And there have now been some animal studies that have shown creatine is somehow having an
00:25:50
anti-inflammatory effect. I that hasn't all been worked out. So I don't know if
00:25:54
it's all just the energy component of it. It could also be this other sort of
00:25:59
newly identified role that creatine is playing in sort of having an anti-inflammatory effect. And I don't
00:26:06
know much enough about that. I don't know that there's enough even known
00:26:09
about that. But I do know that it exists. And it's fascinating because again I think where creatine really
00:26:15
shines in the brain and it's been shown study after study is under some kind of
00:26:19
stressful condition depression or sleep deprivation or there's a new study that
00:26:24
came out it was published I don't know a month ago or so showing that it was a
00:26:29
very small pilot study and I want to caveat this there was no placebo control but it did show that giving people with
00:26:37
Alzheimer's disease creatine I believe it was 20 grams a day did improve their
00:26:42
cognition. And so again, this is a whole new field where now we're looking at
00:26:47
creatine in the brain, not just the gym bro Bros and not just the muscular effects, but in the brain and how it's
00:26:54
affecting the brain and being beneficial for cognition, for brain aging, for depression.
00:27:01
>> Here's the fourth most replayed moment. One of the most inspiring and I think
00:27:06
liberating things that I've heard in your work is this idea of neuroplasticity. Because if you're if
00:27:12
the brain can physiologically change based on what I'm doing, then it means that who I am now, my identity, that 16
00:27:18
that 19-year-old who's sleeping in the mummy thing with the ferret isn't who I
00:27:21
always have to be. I can literally change. Um, we've spoken a little bit around like what causes the motivation
00:27:28
to actually change, but knowing that there's a my brain will actually change.
00:27:31
Those two things are really inspiring for me because it means that whatever rut I'm stuck in isn't necessarily a
00:27:37
permanent one. Now, you said that the motivation to change comes from fear. >> Well, in my case, it took a a fear
00:27:44
circumstance, fear of becoming a permanent failure. >> Yeah. >> To motivate immense change. And um uh
00:27:52
that was that circumstance. I I do believe however that the best work, our most creative and best work comes from a
00:28:00
love of craft. But sometimes in order to find what you truly love, you have to be
00:28:06
scared into setting off on a path to find it. So neuroplasticity is absolutely real. But if the question
00:28:14
is can a person change, can you learn new things? Can you unlearn certain patterns? Can you overcome traumas at
00:28:22
any age? The answer is absolutely categorically yes. How? Well, it's very clear that as a child until about age
00:28:32
25, more or less just passive experience will shape the brain for better or worse. After about age 25, and again
00:28:40
these are not strict cut offs, we can change our brain. But what's required is a marketked shift in the
00:28:47
neurochemical environment under which something happens. So one of the reasons why any traumatic event will forever be
00:28:55
remembered although by the way you can remove some of the emotional load of that trauma does not have to be
00:29:00
traumatic forever is because when we see or experience something very intense of a fearful
00:29:07
nature there is the release of certain what we call neurom modulators things like epinephrine adrenaline and other
00:29:15
neurom modulators that cause a state shift in our broad body and brain And the nervous system recognizes this as
00:29:23
unusual and as a consequence in the subsequent days there's reordering of the connections so that the brain can
00:29:30
prepare for that event should it happen again. This is why we have what's called
00:29:34
one trial learning. You go to a certain location, something terrible happens there, you will forever associate that
00:29:40
location with something terrible. But there are tools, therapy and other tools that can allow the emotional load to be
00:29:48
removed from that so that you could go to that location and feel calm, no fear whatsoever. The good news is you can
00:29:54
also learn anything you want to learn provided there's a shift in this neurochemical environment. This is why
00:30:00
when we are very interested and focused on something, two of the main requirements for neuroplasticity, we
00:30:06
have to be alert and we have to be focused. We can't learn passively as adults. We can't just play um you know a
00:30:13
a lecture about AI and large language models or neuroscience in the room and then it just the knowledge doesn't just
00:30:20
sink in by osmosis. But if we pay attention and we're alert when we pay attention
00:30:26
there's a shift in the neurochemicals associated with that attention. What we
00:30:30
call the catacolamines. It's three molecules dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine. All which cause an
00:30:36
increase in alertness. all which cause an increase in focus, a tightening of our visual field and our auditory field.
00:30:42
So like cones of attention is one way to think about it. And then it sets in motion a bunch of biological processes
00:30:48
such that if we get adequate sleep that night, maybe the next night as well, there's reordering of neural connection
00:30:54
so that that knowledge, that new experience is consolidated in your brain. You are forever changed as a
00:31:01
consequence of that experience. So when we hear that the brain is constantly changing, everything that we encounter
00:31:08
changes our brain, that's not true. Why would the brain change unless it needed
00:31:12
to, right? As a child, the brain is basically a template for change. It's it's trying to understand the
00:31:17
environment and make predictions. And so that's true. Neuroplasticity is is a
00:31:23
cardinal feature of of childhood and adolescence and the teen years. Just think about the music you listen to when
00:31:28
you were a teen. No other music will ever have as much significance. And that's because as a teen your body is
00:31:33
flooded with hormones and neurom modulators that the amount of meaning that comes from now seemingly trivial
00:31:40
events when you're a teenager or adolescent is immense. That song meant so much and it's because of the
00:31:45
neurochemical meu it creates in you. But as an adult it takes a stronger stimulus
00:31:50
as we say. The nervous system is very um efficient in that way. It doesn't change
00:31:56
unless it has to and it always changes if it needs to in order to keep you safe. This is why there's an asymmetric
00:32:03
influence of fear as opposed to um just interest in terms of what will shift our
00:32:08
brain. But it's nice to know that love and excitement and appreciation are very
00:32:16
strong stimula for changing the brain. From everything we know about neuroscience, it's clear that doesn't
00:32:23
matter if you're 90 years old, 70 years old, 50 years old, if you want to learn,
00:32:28
you can learn. And that learning occurs through neuroplasticity, which is the reordering of neural connections,
00:32:34
strengthening of certain connections, weakening of others, and in some rare cases, the addition of new neurons. But
00:32:40
you absolutely can change your brain, but you have to pay attention to the thing you want to incorporate into your
00:32:46
brain. You have to be alert while you do that. And then you absolutely have to go
00:32:50
get some rest because it's during sleep and during meditative states and during
00:32:55
rest that the actual rewiring of the brain occurs. >> You know, every once in a while you come
00:33:00
across a product that has such a huge impact on your life that you'd probably
00:33:04
describe as a gamecher. And I would say for about 35 to 40% of my team, they would currently describe this product
00:33:14
that I have in front of me called Ketone IQ, which you can get at ketone.com, as a game changer. But the reason I
00:33:21
became a co-owner of this company and the reason why they they now are a sponsor of this podcast is because one
00:33:26
day when I came to work, there was a box of this stuff sat on my desk. I had no idea what it was. Lily in my team says
00:33:31
that this company have been in touch. So I went upstairs, tried it, and quite frankly, the rest is history. in terms
00:33:37
of my focus, my energy levels, how I feel, how I work, how productive I am. Game changer. So, if you want to give it
00:33:44
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00:33:51
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00:33:58
All I had to do was brain dump. Imagine if you had someone with you at all times
00:34:02
that could take the ideas you have in your head, synthesize them with AI to make them sound better and more
00:34:08
grammatically correct and write them down for you. This is exactly what Whisper Flow is in my life. It is this
00:34:14
thought partner that helps me explain what I want to say. And it now means that on the go, when I'm alone in my
00:34:20
office, when I'm out and about, I can respond to emails and Slack messages and
00:34:24
WhatsApps and everything across all of my devices just by speaking. I love this tool. And I started talking about this
00:34:29
on my behindthescenes channel a couple of months back. And then the founder reached out to me and said, "We're
00:34:33
seeing a lot of people come to our tour because of you." So, we'd love to be a
00:34:36
sponsor. We'd love you to be an investor in the company. And so, I signed up for
00:34:39
both of those offers. And I'm now an investor and a huge partner in a company
00:34:42
called Whisper Flow. You have to check it out. Whisper Flow is four times faster than typing. So, if you want to
00:34:48
give it a try, head over to whisperflow.ai/doac to get started for free. And you can
00:34:54
find that link to Whisper Flow in the description below. There are a few sports that I make time for, no matter
00:35:00
where I am in the world. And one of them is, of course, football. The other is MMA, but watching that abroad usually
00:35:05
requires a VPN. I spend so much time traveling. I've just spent the last 2 and 1/2 months traveling through Asia
00:35:12
and Europe and now back here in the United States. And as I'm traveling, there are so many different shows that I
00:35:16
want to watch on TV or on some streaming websites. So when I was traveling through Asia and I was in Koala Lumpur
00:35:21
one day, then the next day I was in Hong Kong and the next day I was in Indonesia, all of those countries had a
00:35:25
different streaming provider, a different broadcaster. And so in most of those countries I had to rely on
00:35:30
ExpressVPN who are sponsor of this podcast. Their tool is private and secure and it's very very simple how it
00:35:36
works. When you're in that country and you want to watch a show that you love
00:35:39
in the UK, all you do is you go on there and you click the button UK and it means
00:35:43
that you can gain access to content in the UK. If you're after a similar solution in your life and you've
00:35:47
experienced that problem too, visit expressvpn.com/duac to find out how you can access
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ExpressVPN for an extra 4 months at no cost. Here is the third most replayed moment.
00:36:00
For those people who have just clicked to listen to this conversation, can you tell them the mission you're on and why
00:36:07
it's so important? >> Yeah. Well, thanks so much for having this conversation with me. I think that
00:36:12
illustrates the problem, right? someone as informed as you don't know anything
00:36:15
or never heard of nitric oxide. So, >> it's important for us to just make a
00:36:18
distinction between um like nitric gas that people, you know, inhale and that used if you played like uh some of those
00:36:27
racing car games, you press a button and the car goes really fast. If you >> That's nitrous nitrous.
00:36:32
>> These are two separate things. >> No, very Yeah, very good point. So, this
00:36:34
is not nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is I mean a medicine is a dental anesthetic,
00:36:41
right? It's a gas. It's called laughing gas. That's N2O. That's the chemical
00:36:45
formula. What we're talking about is nitric oxide or NO. One nitrogen, one oxygen. This molecule is is foundational
00:36:53
for human health and longevity. So nitric oxide is a gas. It's a naturally produced molecule. It's a signaling
00:36:59
molecule in the human body. And so it's it regulates things like blood flow and
00:37:04
oxygen delivery. And it mobilizes our own stem cells to help us recover and repair and replace dysfunctional cells.
00:37:10
it uh improves energy production inside the cell and it regulates blood flow. So
00:37:15
nitric oxide is a gas. It's produced in the endthelium. So the endothelium is
00:37:18
the single layer of cells that line every blood vessel throughout the body. So the function of these endothelial
00:37:25
cells is to regulate vascular tone and to regulate you know solute exchange and extravisation or transport of molecules
00:37:34
across that endothelial layer. And so when your endthelial cells can no longer make nitric oxide gas, they no longer
00:37:40
dilate. So the blood vessels become constricted. You start to get inflammation. You get stiff arteries,
00:37:47
plaque deposition, and that's what starts cardiovascular disease orthoscerosis.
00:37:52
>> So let me get this straight. I'll repeat back to you what I think I understand
00:37:55
about nitric oxide. And you tell me if it's accurate. So this nitric oxide is a
00:38:00
chemical that is in all the blood cells of my body and it allows my blood cells to basically expand open up so blood can
00:38:09
flow through there. So if I >> it dilates it dilates the smooth muscle. So it's not affecting
00:38:15
>> the cells per se but it's dilating the smooth muscle that surrounds the blood
00:38:19
vessels which leads to re relaxation and dilation. >> Fine. So my blood cells would then
00:38:23
expand >> your blood vessels >> and more blood would go through there.
00:38:26
But if I'm deficient, that mechanism doesn't work and my blood cells wouldn't
00:38:31
expand ultimately expand through the relaxation of the muscles. >> That's right.
00:38:35
>> And therefore, I would have higher blood pressure, which can lead to a series of
00:38:40
downstream diseases and consequences. And so when we look at the graph that I showed a second ago where we're seeing
00:38:46
for anyone that can't see this graph because you're listening on audio, we're
00:38:49
seeing nitric oxide levels in young people up to the age of roughly around 20 are
00:38:57
optimal. And then from about 30 to 70, there's this tremendous sort of 80 90%
00:39:02
drop. in terms of chronic disease that is downstream from me losing nitric oxide level. Can you give me a bit of a
00:39:09
menu of chronic disease that is associated with this nitric oxide deficiency? >> Yep.
00:39:17
We've touched on them. So erectile dysfunction. So in erections in both men and women are dependent upon dilation of
00:39:23
the blood vessels to get engorgment to get increase in blood flow. And that's
00:39:27
what an erection is. And we call that the canary in the coal mine because for years people thought it was a lifestyle
00:39:33
disorder. Right. >> Well, erectile dysfunction. >> Yeah. But now it's recognized that it's
00:39:37
a symptom of loss of nitric oxide and really an accelerated form of cardiovascular disease,
00:39:44
>> high blood pressure, metabolic disease, and diabetes. And then the other one is
00:39:48
uh obviously Alzheimer's because Alzheimer's is a vascular disease. And nitric oxide corrects every single thing
00:39:54
we know about Alzheimer's. It improves blood flow to the brain. It improves glucose uptake. So, it overcomes the
00:40:01
metabolic aspect of Alzheimer's. It reduces inflammation. In fact, a number of my patents on a method of reducing
00:40:07
inflammation. It inhibits the oxidative stress we see in in Alzheimer's and neurological disease. And it prevents
00:40:13
the immune dysfunction. And when you do that, when you restore blood flow and you get nutrients and oxygen in and you
00:40:19
take out the metabolic waste products, there's no misfolding of protein. So,
00:40:22
you don't get the amaloid plaque, you don't get the tangles. So this simple
00:40:26
molecule nitric oxide gas I'm absolutely convinced will eradicate and cure Alzheimer's
00:40:33
>> really >> because it it addresses every physiological root cause of Alzheimer's
00:40:38
>> if you can get it administered therapeutically to patients early enough
00:40:43
or >> no I think that's a very key because the success or failure of any clinical trial
00:40:49
any drug in any clinical trial is dependent upon the design of the clinical trial and what patients at what
00:40:54
stage of disease that you enroll these patients. So what are the inclusion criteria and what are the exclusion
00:40:59
criteria and there's a stage in every disease whether it's heart disease, kidney
00:41:06
disease, Alzheimer's where you've reached a point of no return. There's
00:41:10
really no medical therapy that's going to reverse that disease because it's
00:41:13
progressed to a state that's irreversible. So I think what we try to do is take
00:41:19
take patients early in the process what we call vascular dementia mild cognitive
00:41:23
impairment early Alzheimer's because what I want to be able to demonstrate is
00:41:27
two things number one can we stop the progression of disease once it's started
00:41:33
can we stop the progression and then number two is we want to enroll patients far enough along to where we can show
00:41:41
regression so can you move can you move the needle back and so That's a very
00:41:46
kind of a specific and finite patient population. When you design a clinical study, number one, at the at the
00:41:53
absolute worst, we want to stop progression. At the absolute best, we want to show that we can regress
00:41:58
disease. And that's the goal of therapy is that you understand the mechanism of
00:42:02
disease to the extent that you can treat it, you can prevent it, you can reverse
00:42:07
it, and you can cure it. When I think about the role that food plays in my nitric oxide production, what should I
00:42:15
be eating to increase um my nitric oxide levels or to keep them at a healthy level?
00:42:22
>> I think it the same answer is for that too. It's it's not so much what we
00:42:27
should be eating, it's what we should not be eating. >> Okay, >> so we we'll we'll cover those step by
00:42:32
step. Number one, you have to avoid sugar and high glycemic index foods because sugar is a toxin. It's a poison.
00:42:40
And let's think about what sugar is. So when we eat sugar or drink sugar beverages, right? Whether it's sucrose,
00:42:48
whether it's fructose, whether it's high fructose corn syrup, the end result
00:42:52
inside the human is we see an increase in glucose. So elevation in blood sugar or blood glucose is diabetes, right? And
00:43:02
now there's continuous glucose monitors that you can get anywhere and everybody
00:43:06
does this. So if you eat something and it causes an increase in your blood sugar, blood glucose, then you should
00:43:12
avoid that because glucose as the name implies is glue, right? It's sticky. And
00:43:17
if we if you have a soda and you spill it on your countertop, you come back the next day, it's sticky, right? Well,
00:43:23
that's what happens inside the body. That sugar sticks to everything. It sticks to proteins. It sticks to
00:43:28
enzymes. >> And it lowers nitric oxide production. >> Absolutely. That's why diabetics have a
00:43:34
10 times higher incidence of heart attack, stroke, all cause mortality mortality. That's why they develop neur
00:43:40
neurological or peripheral neuropathy. That's why they have non-healing wounds.
00:43:44
There's no nitric oxide. That's why they're developing diabetic retinopathy,
00:43:48
macular degeneration, pancreatitis. I mean, all of that can be traced back to a lack of nitric oxide production
00:43:55
because the sugar is stuck to the enzyme. The sugar destroys the oral microbiome and completely changes the
00:44:02
the ecology of the bacteria and completely shuts down nitric oxide production. Right? But I think to answer
00:44:08
your question, what should we be eating? I think you've got to eat a balanced
00:44:12
diet in moderation. You know, Americans are overfed. All you got to do is walk around and see the the epidemic of
00:44:18
obesity. good high quality protein, good quality fats, and little or no carbs. And it's really that simple.
00:44:27
>> Here's the second most replayed moment. When you think about behaviors and
00:44:31
habits that are popular and trendy at the moment, are there any that stand out to you as being particularly good for
00:44:37
the brain or particularly bad for the brain? Cuz I had a couple come to mind that I wanted to throw at you. I mean,
00:44:43
one of them that's exploding in the UK at the moment is paddle, which is kind
00:44:49
of I think you call it pickle ball here. Good for my brain, bad for my brain. It's so good for your brain because
00:44:58
it's working your cerebellum. And I told you that because yours was sleepy and as you activate this and you do that
00:45:08
with coordination exercises, it then activates your frontal loes. Does that mean that people that are uncoordinated
00:45:14
have a cerebellum issue? >> Yes. >> Oh, really? >> Okay. >> And the more you do it, the better
00:45:21
coordination you develop. >> And that's why coordination exercises for kids. So, we talked about kids is
00:45:32
you want to do that with them early. Play sports, but not sports where they're going to get a head injury,
00:45:39
right? I mean, we have to be smarter than we are. Um, but when I was young, my mother, who's now 93, was the
00:45:52
pingpong champion in the neighborhood, and she was really good, and she never let us beat her until we could
00:46:00
>> and but she was always encouraging. I've got um I was looking then as you
00:46:08
were speaking about different trends at the moment that are either good or bad for the brain and one big trend at the
00:46:13
moment is neuroplasticity training. Lots of people are doing games and using other things to like there's apps you
00:46:20
can get that are neuroplasticity training apps. Does any of that stuff work? >> Some of it
00:46:25
>> some of it works. And if you're so for example, if you're doing memorization
00:46:30
games, do them while you're on the bike. Now, not in the street, but if you're on
00:46:38
a stationary bike and you're doing those games, it's been found that exercise
00:46:48
increases blood flow to the hippocampus, meaning you're more likely to remember
00:46:55
it and you're strengthening your brain in the process. So, exercise with new
00:47:01
learning, stunning. So if I want to learn something, I should do it while walking
00:47:08
or moving in motion, >> right? So if you're listening to a language app, for example, do it while
00:47:14
you're walking. >> Mindfulness and meditation, good or bad for the brain.
00:47:18
>> Great. I published three studies on a condundolini yoga form of meditation
00:47:23
called kin crea. It's a 12minute meditation. I always say it's the perfect ADD meditation because it's only
00:47:30
12 minutes. And for 12 minutes you do this. Sa m saw saw. It's two minutes out loud, two minutes
00:47:41
whispering, four minutes silently to yourself. 2 minutes whispering, 2 minutes out
00:47:47
loud, you're done. Satan ma, birth, life, death, reborn. Birth, life, death,
00:47:54
reborn. But the one we studied is sat na ma. And so if they look it up, kitin crea um activates your cerebellum,
00:48:08
activates your frontal loes, calms down your emotional brain. People who did that for 12 minutes for 8 weeks, their
00:48:20
resting frontal lobe function was stronger. So simple. >> What the hell is going on there?
00:48:29
I think it's the focused attention plus you're doing a coordination meditation s
00:48:36
no s >> loving your job good or bad for the brain >> absolutely great for your brain if
00:48:48
you're learning new things people who are in a job that does not require new
00:48:54
learning have a higher incidence of Alzheimer's disease So if you're stagnant in your work, you have a higher
00:49:00
risk of >> Alzheimer's. And like if I just read brain scans all day, well, I know how to
00:49:06
do it. I'm not learning anything new. So I do that, but I also am writing about something I
00:49:16
don't know about. Um, or I'm learning something new. >> What if you're working with
00:49:24
>> I'm sorry. >> I love the job, but I'm working with >> Bad for your brain. Chronic stress
00:49:30
increases cortisol. And I think everybody should sort of know their baseline cortisol level
00:49:38
and cortisol shrinks the hippocampus and puts fat on your belly. So that's two very bad things for your brain.
00:49:48
>> Breath work. That's a big trap. >> Excellent. Excellent. You want to break
00:49:51
a panic attack? The 15-second breath. 4 seconds in, hold it for a second and a half. Eight
00:50:00
seconds out, hold it for a second and a half. You just do that four or five times, your whole nervous system will
00:50:11
calm down. And the research shows take twice as long to breathe out as you breathe in. That's why 4 seconds in, 8
00:50:21
seconds out. >> It shifts your nervous system, doesn't it? >> Yes. It increases something called
00:50:26
veagal tone. >> Okay. Some bad things then. Social media usage. Chronic social media usage. Good
00:50:31
for the brain, bad for the brain. >> Because you're constantly comparing
00:50:35
yourself to people who aren't real. >> What about workcoholism and hustle
00:50:40
culture? >> So, I love my work. Am I addicted to it? I don't know. But I
00:50:50
love it. When they say people are workaholics and it's bad for the brain, it's they're
00:51:01
working with or doing something they don't like or doing it for the money but without
00:51:12
other purpose. >> Microplastics, that's a big >> awful for the brain. One of the major
00:51:18
causes of hormone disruption and cancer. and other environment. >> Thank you for not giving me a plastic
00:51:26
water bottle. Yeah, >> it's okay. Imagine imagine if we did that when we spend a long a lot of time
00:51:31
these days talking about the microplastics and other environmental toxins that I think people are becoming
00:51:36
more aware of now which is good noise pollution bad for the brain and if if it hurts
00:51:44
your hearing hearing loss is actually one of the risk factors for Alzheimer's.
00:51:50
Why is that? I did a I did a >> Because you're not getting input, right?
00:51:54
>> And if you're not getting appropriate input, your brain starts to atrophy.
00:52:02
And if you don't hear what other people are saying and you have a lot of ants,
00:52:09
you have a high negativity bias is you can actually begin to get a bit paranoid and fill in the empty spaces with
00:52:18
negativity. I just bought some new Apple AirPods and when I connected them to my phone, it
00:52:24
said, "You want to do a hearing test?" So, I did the hearing test and then I
00:52:27
asked my girlfriend, I said, "You should do this hearing test as well." Cuz I
00:52:29
needed something to compare it to. And I was a little bit shocked. Um, it said I
00:52:34
hadn't lost any hearing yet, but my hearing was significantly not as good as
00:52:38
hers. And I remember thinking, gosh, you know, this is, but I didn't have any
00:52:43
idea that it was linked to Alzheimer's at all. So now I've turned down the
00:52:47
volume for the first time in my life because I think your hearing declines regardless really of what you do with
00:52:53
age anyway. Um but as you said earlier like starting from a better baseline when you're talking about the brain
00:52:58
reserves is really the game I think with aging. My last point is uh my last question is a bit of a
00:53:07
seems to be uncorrelated but the world is heading towards a world that's driven
00:53:11
by artificial intelligence. It's like all the all the rage at the moment if you log on the internet. People talking
00:53:17
about they're going to lose their jobs. All of these new tools that allow us to
00:53:21
optimize our lives in a variety of different ways. When you think about the world of AI that we're heading into,
00:53:26
there's so many ways that I imagine it's going to make your job easier as someone
00:53:30
who's doing scans of brains and so on. But do you think artificial intelligence
00:53:35
is going to be good or bad for our brains? I think in the short run it's going to
00:53:41
be bad because your brain is going to do less and that's bad for the brain. I I think it's
00:53:52
fascinating to watch what's going to happen. And ultimately, in the words of
00:53:58
my friend Byron Katy, argue with reality, welcome to hell. We need to figure out how to use it to
00:54:07
enhance our lives rather than to steal brain development. >> Here's the first most replayed moment.
00:54:15
There was a study done in 2007 that showed Can't even say it. >> Curcumin.
00:54:21
>> That shows curcumin upregulates anti- oxidant defenses and downregulates
00:54:28
oxidative stress. >> Yeah. There was a study done in 2016 which is a meta analysis of random
00:54:35
control trials found curcuminium comparable to ibuprofen in terms of pain relief.
00:54:41
>> Yeah, there there's a lot of work on kurcamin and turmeric. As I said, a lot
00:54:46
of people get confused because they think the it only works if you absorb it into the blood and I'm saying that
00:54:51
actually you don't. What you do is you work with the microbiome to make it useful. And there's early preclinical
00:54:59
studies taking place around the impact it can have with cancers. And there's
00:55:03
promising but early studies showing the impact that curcumin that comes from turmeric can have on brain health.
00:55:08
>> Yes. Well, that's uh focus is switching on to the blood supply to the brain.
00:55:15
What we call the vascular effects on the brain. And there's something that we
00:55:20
used to call the blood brain barrier which you've probably heard of which is
00:55:24
seen to be the place where the barrier that stops a lot of stuff entering the brain and potentially upsetting it. We
00:55:31
now know this bloodb brain barrier is a very dynamic interesting interface between the brains tissue and the rest
00:55:41
of us. It's now called the neurovvascular unit, NVU. And it is so exciting. And the more we
00:55:50
look at it so far, the more we find that the things that help the neurovvascular
00:55:56
unit, the bloodb brain barrier are plants. And we have green tea. And you know we can if you if you really want to
00:56:05
help um our brain health regular drinking of green tea you know is has been shown to be really useful.
00:56:14
Not that rather than the supplement by the way is the drink that you have um oh I put it in here right so we can make
00:56:22
it. So as you make that can you explain to me why green tea is a good idea >> because it contains a number of again
00:56:34
polyphenols >> and polyphenols are those >> are these colors >> these colors yeah
00:56:38
>> in this case it's green obviously and me green tea is just the smoked unprocessed
00:56:43
part of the tea leaf so it's a plant called chameleia senses um so this is nice Japanese teapot. That's
00:56:56
the sort of thing you'd have green tea in. And these are the mugs, but we've
00:56:59
filled these up already with uh ginger and cinnamon. So, let's let's leave it
00:57:05
for a moment, but we can while it's sitting there for a while. There are a number of these polyphenols in green tea
00:57:11
that seem to be particularly effective in modulating that barrier. We talked about the neurovvascular unit
00:57:19
between the brain and the rest of us. And um there's all sorts of reasons why
00:57:25
regular consumption of green tea seems to be linked to less of this sort of trouble.
00:57:30
>> What what sort of trouble? >> The dementia type problems, the cognitive decline as they get older.
00:57:36
>> Do they find that in cultures where they drink a lot of green tea, they have less
00:57:39
dementia? >> Yeah. But that doesn't mean there's a cause and effect. So you need a few
00:57:42
other things to establish that. What we're finding is that other plants have
00:57:48
very likely powerful effects in this area. And I mentioned the rosemary. Now all you need to do to appreciate
00:57:55
rosemary is to press it and sniff. >> Oh, it smells so good. Really nice. >> That's not just nice because what you're
00:58:04
doing there is you're inhaling volatile oils, >> the things that give the smell.
00:58:09
>> And when you're inhaling, they're literally going into your brain
00:58:14
because part of the brain actually reaches the outside world. It's called the alactory lobe. And when you inhale
00:58:21
something, it literally moves into the brain and from there into the lyic system. Remember there's a line in a
00:58:29
Shakespeare play called Hamlet Ailia the young lady says rosemary that's for
00:58:36
remembrance >> because everyone knew that this improved cognitive functions and when I was in
00:58:43
working on our campus in Maryland we actually did a clinical trial with rosemary in people with struggling with
00:58:50
their crosswords you know as they get older and found that although it wasn't
00:58:54
a conclusive study there were pointers to it's improving cognitive or performance in those people and there's
00:59:01
been other studies since that re that reinforce that. I would say that rosemary is one of the ones to watch in
00:59:08
terms of long-term brain health. There's another remedy called GKO that a lot of
00:59:13
people know about which is used as a prescription medicine in Europe uh for cardiovascular problems and that's been
00:59:20
shown to be likely useful and using the same sort of mechanisms as as we've seen
00:59:26
here and with the green tea. I'll check it here. Yeah, that looks all right.
00:59:36
You see, it's more yellow than green, but uh and this is flavored with a little bit
00:59:42
of mint to make it a little more agreeable. Sometimes people find green tea is not their favorite taste. Green
00:59:49
tea is rich in polyphenols, um which are linked to benefits ranging from heart and brain health to fat loss and cancer
00:59:56
prevention. >> It's got a nice minty flavor. >> Yeah. >> You can live with that, couldn't you?
01:00:05
>> Yeah. Yeah, >> my girlfriend again, she she's all over this stuff. She's always bloody right.
01:00:09
>> Well, you know that learned that lesson a long time ago. >> I know, right? Like I say it all the
01:00:13
time on this podcast, but she's always like 2, three years ahead of what then
01:00:17
someone really, really smart comes and tells me and I spend those two or three years in denial. I'm like, what the
01:00:22
is she like doing over there? Don't get me started on cacao. If you start talking to me about cacao, no, no, no,
01:00:27
no, no. She's been telling me >> I'm gonna I'm gonna nail this because
01:00:31
there's a lot of people listening who will want to hear this. >> Okay,
01:00:34
>> Coco. Yeah, >> chocolate, dark chocolate is a medicine. End of one of the best medicines around is 50 g
01:00:45
or 100 g of 75% or more dark chocolate. Do you know what I've just realized? My
01:00:51
girlfriend, she's going to live till she's 150 because she all she eats 90%
01:00:56
or something 80% dark chocolate. She drinks green tea all day. She has the ginger and cinnamon drinks all day.
01:01:08
She eats the the full rainbow. >> She should be stepping in for you. >> I know. I I know. Exactly.
01:01:14
>> No, Coco. Seriously, brain health as well, >> cardiovascular health.
01:01:22
>> I mean, they just they do studies where they've put coco into volunteers. That
01:01:27
means students usually um you know so young kids and they were able to show changes in the blood flow within minutes
01:01:37
certainly within an hour of eating cocoa >> beneficial changes in your blood flow.
01:01:43
>> They call it the heart medicine. >> Yeah. No heart circulation brain.
01:01:49
>> So she's um my girlfriend's very spiritual. She runs a business called
01:01:52
Bali Breathwork. Um #ad if I have to say that. But in her business, one of the things she does at the very start of the
01:01:58
session with women all over the world that come to her retreats is she makes cacao for them. And
01:02:05
you notice instantly how people change when they've had a hot cup of cacao. It's and and she says it like almost
01:02:12
brings out their heart. And I guess that's because of the circulation reasons. Yes,
01:02:16
>> it is. But it also of course we know it contains a few other beneficial
01:02:21
stimulate stimulating effects sort of similar to the effects with coffee which in certainly as I've already said is a
01:02:27
medicine as well. Uh but cocoa and chocolate does have a uplifting effect which is why we love it. So
01:02:35
>> and we have to be clear here we're not talking about hot chocolate that comes
01:02:38
from a packet or something necessarily. >> We would like it to be as dark as
01:02:42
possible. >> Okay. Sorry, >> the less sugar, the less fat. Um, so we
01:02:48
talk about 75% cocoa solids, you know, so it's dark chocolate and it tastes a
01:02:53
bit more medicinal, doesn't it? It's not as sweet. Um, but I'm saying to many of
01:02:57
my patients, take 50 g a day. It's a medicine. >> Damn, she's right. My fridge is full of
01:03:05
dark chocolate. I tend to avoid it, but the drawer of my fridge has all of her dark chocolate in, and it's she she
01:03:11
likes it 90%. If she can get a 90% she'll take it. >> Yeah. 90% is quite good now.
01:03:17
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Having a look at the green tea. There was a study done in 2008 which
01:03:25
supports how it improved cognitive function, memory, attention accuracy and um long-term consumption associated with
01:03:32
lower risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease according to the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry in
01:03:38
2011. It's nice to have somebody else just say what you said. >> Yeah, but it's it's ex exactly. I didn't
01:03:45
realize that. I didn't I had no idea. I had no idea. All those times I turned it down when
01:03:52
she offered it to me. >> You can't say sorry. >> I have literally literally I've got a
01:03:57
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