Brain Optimization Secrets for Menopausal and Perimenopausal Women – with Jim Kwik

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I bring you Jim quick. So hopefully you know this guy, he has written a book called limitless. He has trained professional athletes, high powered CEOs of Silicon Valley celebrities, all on how to maximize their brain power and literally become Live limitless. And he has so many good brain exercises that we can use to improve the power of our mind. He has a new book that’s come out, it’s limitless expanded, we will leave the link in the notes, you can order it on anywhere that you can buy books right now. And what you’re going to hear in this episode is so awesome, because I wanted to ask him how we can improve brain power specifically for women over 40. And men don’t don’t pop off because there’s a lot here for you as well. But where Jim and I geeked out together on is the brain changes that happen to women after 40. And what we can do to navigate things like loss of memory, changes in our focus, brain fog, and we put it off all of his teachings through this lens of how do we help perimenopause and menopausal women and postmenopausal women with improving their brain’s capacity not only for memory, not only for love and happiness, but for learning new information. I loved this conversation with Jim. And there’s so many great exercises that we can all apply right away. So Jim quick, I hope you love this one as much as I loved talking to him, and then applying many of the exercises he teaches. I applied the very next day and they’re spot on. So I’m so excited for you guys to hear this enjoy

Dr. Mindy  

a doctor Vinnie here and welcome to season four of the resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself. Again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so the first thing I have to say is welcome to my podcast.

Jim Kwik  

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this. You know

Dr. Mindy  

what I actually think of all the organs and body systems that I study, the brain is the most fascinating, and I’m sure people say this all the time. But there’s I can’t think of anything more intriguing to unpack than how our brains work at it. You probably feel this.

Jim Kwik  

Yeah, I feel like people are, you know, they’re excited about going out in space. But I’m I’m very curious about this inner space between our ears. You know, we hear about people, you know, technology, and we’re always upgrading our phones and our apps and our devices. But when’s the last time we took time to upgrade this technology?

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. Do you think this is just a curious question of all that we know about the brain? How much do you think we actually know? Like, if you were to give it a percentage, like, yeah, if you put all the geniuses in one room?

Jim Kwik  

I mean, I think we’re discovering more and more. I think we discovered more in the past 20 years than the previous 2000 years combined. Okay, so I feel like you know, the more we know, sometimes we realize them

Jim Kwik  

like little we know, yes, you know, but the brain is such a fascinating, like black box. You know, the reason why I always wear a brain if people are watching this on video if they happen to be watching it. On video, I’m wearing a shirt with a brain on it on social media always pointing to my brain. Yes, but the reason why is because what you see you tend to tend to take better care of, because it’s in your awareness, you see your clothing, you see your car, you see your hair, your skin, because you know you’re conscious about it, but we don’t see the thing that, you know, that takes care of us, our own brain. So I just love how I really want people to know their brain. Yeah, to, to love their brain to trust their brain and to use their brain.

Dr. Mindy  

Do you think that healing the brain is difficult because you have to use the organ that you’re trying to heal is the one that you have to use to heal it.

Jim Kwik  

It’s fascinating, right? The brain is the is the organ that named itself right. Yeah. You know, it came up

Jim Kwik  

thinking about it out loud. Yeah, the brain is it’s fascinating. You know, I had a traumatic talk about healing. I did traumatic a TBI traumatic brain injury when I was five years old. And because of it, I had learning difficulties. I was put in special education. I had delayed, you know, processing issues. Focused memory took me three years long to learn how to read. And I remember a defining moment when I was nine years old. I was being teased for slowing the class down. That is because I just couldn’t keep up and a teacher

Jim Kwik  

came to my defense. And she pointed to me in front the whole class and said, leave that kid alone. That’s the boy with the broken brain. You know, and that well intentioned, but it was just I didn’t realize that’s when I internalized this idea. That label became my, my limit. And so you know, and at the same time, when I was seven, I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer’s, and she was my primary caregiver. My parents immigrated here, they had many jobs, but she was taking care of me. And so just for people who haven’t had a family member, you know, with brain aging challenges, it was just, especially when you’re like, 567 years old, you know, she would call me by my father’s name or forget to repeat something she just said not even 30 seconds ago. So it’s very confusing for me. Yeah, you know, but it put me on a path. Right? Yeah. So it’s, um,

Dr. Mindy  

do you think this is again, just a personal curiosity is when we look at people who we deem like intelligent in our society, we tend to look at them as the ones that can take the tests the best, they can get the fanciest degrees. But the more I live on this planet, the more I realized that some people that are the biggest geniuses in the world are ones that would actually fail a test. But they are so creative and can think outside the box that nobody would have ever thought to, to create whatever they they had created. Do we do you think the brain learns in different ways for different people?

Jim Kwik  

I do I. So this is my 32nd year of coaching people to have better brains. And it’s my life’s mission. Because I had the broken brain, I want to build better, brighter brains, no brain left behind. And, and so in our coaching, we actually have for the past few years, a way to personalize in people’s training based on their specific brain type, which is fascinating. Just like there’s personalized medicine based maybe about around genetics, or personalized nutrition based on someone’s microbiome. I figured out that there are there are four brain types. And in this, I’m really excited about this, you know, because we put the research in the new

Dr. Mindy  

book, I was gonna say this is the new book. Yeah, I love

Jim Kwik  

limitless expanded, the first one did a you know, mixed race very well. Very proud of the work. It’s kind of like an owner’s manual for your brain. And it really focuses on accelerated learning how to read faster, focus, better improve your memory, and so much more. But, um, so I pulled to create this assessment. And I can’t wait for you and your team to do it also, as well. Well, yeah, it’s only a four minute quiz. And it’s kind of like, you know, how some people take quizzes like, which Game of Thrones character or Harry Potter school. This one is pulled from personality types like Myers Briggs, who was inspired by various sciences and psychologies, left brain, right brain lateralization, dominance theory, learning styles, some people like to learn visually auditory kinesthetic, multiple intelligence theory out of Harvard, from Howard Gardner. And so all these different inspire this and I realized there’s a brain code for all of us. And it’s C O D, which is the acronym perfect. And the C is and I made them fun animals, the C is the cheetah. So the cheetah or the fast actors, and as people listen to this, we put the clothes, the quiz, free online, we used to sell it to companies, but you could have it free, it’s just at my brain animal.com There’s nothing to buy, and you get a detailed report on based on your learning style. So the first one is the fast acting cheetah. And these are people who adapt very quickly, they’re strong, strong intuition. You know, also as well, they’re very dynamic. The O R, the owls, and these are your logical individuals. They love data, they love facts and figures and formulas. You know, they, they, they love to they make decisions differently than a cheetah in terms of how they live, how they eat, how they invest, you know, because it’s based on their thinking style. The D are your dolphins. And these are creative visionaries. These are people who could see a vision, you know, of their business or their life maybe where other people can’t see it. They have great pattern recognition. They’re wonderful problem solvers are very creative. And then finally, the E are your elephants and these are your empaths these are the people that hold communities together. They love collaboration. While a lot of people like learning solo, they love to learn social, you know also as well. And if you think about these different characters, if you will, it also you seen in pop culture, like I don’t know like I mentioned Harry Potter like Harry Potter would be a cheetah just going out there very dynamic, you know going on on impulse and intuition. Hermione you know, she would be or the researcher she’s the owl right reading all those books very astute. Yeah. I think Hagrid who held the friends together is really the the elephant you know Dumbledore if the leaders the visionary, you know, wrestler but you see that everywhere you can take Star Trek you can take any You know, in any any pop culture that you relate to. And we, it’s interesting, because many we had our team go through it. And like 100% of the people on our team that are in customer support experience their elephants, oh my god, they’re to serve, they have high levels of empathy. And, you know, they help their community managers. So that’s, you know, our CFO is, is an owl, and you want that person was a good choice, right? You don’t want them to say be super creative. But do you want them to really? And so it’s, it’s interesting, you know, our CEO, Alexis for 17 years, she’s she’s our creative visionary. She’s a dolphin, right? So everybody has their place. So you’re getting right people on the bus, but you’re making sure everyone’s sitting in the right seats. Also,

Dr. Mindy  

can you be like when I just hear it’s explained that way? I see a little bit of myself and all of that. Yeah.

Jim Kwik  

When you when you take the quiz, you’ll get a primary or secondary. And it’s interesting because this like with people, it’s like, I realized after a few decades, that it’s not how smart we are. It’s how are we how are we smart? Yeah, it’s not how smart your your significant other is? Or your team? It’s how are they smart? And every have everyone has a preferred way of, you know, exhibiting that genius, just like if you use your right hand, doesn’t mean you don’t use your left hand. Right, right. And people tend to stay in their animal type. But they certainly through discipline and training to get better in other areas, that they’re that they’re not as strong.

Dr. Mindy  

It would be really interesting. I’m sure I must have visionary one and me was that dolphin. Yeah, I resonate a bit with that. Because where I go now with what you’re saying is, I think, well, gosh, they should do teach this in schools. Like what if you went into an elementary school and you identified what Anam brain, animal or brain type you were, and then you sat in classes accordingly? Because I can tell you as as whatever brain type I am, I never did great with just give me a bunch of information. Let me regurgitate it back. I always had to ask why, like, why would that be, and once I could solve the why it stuck in my brain, because it made sense. But if you just needed me to shove a bunch of information in and regurgitate out I was really bad

Jim Kwik  

at that. And you’re not alone. Because most people, the human brain doesn’t learn best through consumption, it actually learns better through creation, and co creation. You know, it’s, it’s, you can’t it’s, it’s not like your teachers could push information inside somebody’s mind. You know, but certainly people can pull that information and when it’s relevant to them, right, right, and then be able to create with it and pull it out also, as well. But I always thought it was interesting in school, much like a lot of, you know, your expertise. It’s not, it’s not taught, it’s absent in their curriculum. You know, for me, I realized that the school is, teaches you what to learn math and history, science, Spanish, but there are zero classes on how to learn those subjects. There’s no class called Focus, like going to somebody, a child, or any any age or stage saying focus or study. That’s like going to somebody saying, play the ukulele, who’s never taken a class on how to do that, right? Let’s just assume we know how to do these things, right? So there’s no focus or concentration, or creativity or problem solving, financial literacy, but even memory, you know, I always thought it was strange, because it’s not just rote memorization, because that’s not what we teach at all. It’s a very inefficient way of taking information. And I’m sure when you were going through school, like you had to repeat things over and over again, you know, until your mind just submits and says, Okay, I realize this is important, but it’s, it’s not a very efficient way of learning, right, you know, hasn’t changed a lot, they say, you know, we live especially in this area, you know, an age of, I see these autonomous electric cars, you know, they’re developing technology to go to Mars, but our vehicle of choice when it comes to learning is often like a horse and carriage or, you know, horse and buggy, and it hasn’t, it hasn’t improved as much as the world has evolved. Right? You know, and so, you know, when when I’m writing, I’m writing on this on brain optimization and optimize your sleep and, and the best brain foods and all these immune Mental Hygiene things, but also real strategies on something called meta learning, the science and art of learning how to learn, I think if there’s one skill that anyone who’s watching or listening can master is is our ability to learn rapidly and then translate that learning into action. Yeah, because if you can learn how to focus and understand and read and comprehend and remember everything implement, you could apply that towards anything medicine, you know, money marketing, management, martial arts, Mandarin, everything gets

Dr. Mindy  

easier because you have a formula now,

Jim Kwik  

yeah, so that like the book is, you know, almost all methodology on how to do these things. You know, because I just wanted to they say that we’re best suited to serve the person we once were. Right. You know, and for me, yeah, I was that kid that had a lot of doubt, a lot of fear, a lot of embarrassment didn’t have the skills. I thought I was you know, not smart enough. So, you know, I, you know, we create our programs or podcast or courses in our books. You know, around supporting that person, because right now it’s tough. I was

Dr. Mindy  

gonna ask you like, what do you think’s happening with all the information that’s coming in? Is that like, our brains overloaded?

Jim Kwik  

Yeah, I don’t think our brains evolved to be, you know, bombarded, you know, we have unfeathered access to the world’s information. I mean, we have more access to information then Clinton did when he was in office, right? It’s just and I just, you know, especially the context switching when we’re scrolling and doom scrolling. Like, it’s going from this to this, this and you’re lighting up different parts of our brain, obviously, there’s this huge dopamine. And yet I don’t I don’t think it is, I think sometimes it’s important to disconnect to reconnect. But there are the four areas I talked about. In the book, I talk about the four horsemen of the mental apocalypse. And it’s, you know, these challenges that technology and NSA caused, but it has amplified tremendously. So the first one’s digital de luz. So, you know, I’m talking to the person who’s listening right now, how many people feel like there’s too much information? And too little time? Yeah, like keeping up with everything. It’s like taking a sip of water out of a firehose. Yeah, it’s totally me. Yeah. And there’s health consequences. They call it information, anxiety, or information, fatigue syndrome, higher blood pressure, compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness, right, because we’re just drowning in information. So the amount of information is doubling at dizzying speeds, you know, but the, how we learn it and read it, understand it hasn’t changed at all. So that growing gap creates that stress and anxiety. The second one is digital distraction. So you have digital de luz, which is overload, digital distractions, how do you maintain your concentration in a world full of rings, and pings and dings, app notifications, social media alerts, right? And so we’re driven to distraction. And we wonder why we can’t focus when, you know, we need to be present for a family member, or, you know, in a job interview, you know, or with our team. And so

Dr. Mindy  

can I ask you a question on that before we go on to the other ones, because I’ve thought about this a lot, and how I organize my week, I have decided that like, like, today, I did a podcast earlier, you’re here, I’m very focused on human interaction, it allows my brain to calm. But if I was, I’m also in the middle of writing my next book. And if I had to go do a podcast, write my book, come back, do another podcast, then, you know, answer some emails, I find that I get more distracted. If the what I have on my calendar that day is a bunch of different types of brain requirements.

Jim Kwik  

Yeah, yeah, that’s a wonderful way of and it’s great that you naturally came up here like organically with that for yourself. Because you know, we do that also where we, where we bucket our days based on the activity, because when you’re going through, and you’re task switching throughout the day, you know, if you’re if you’re doing email, a part of your brain is lit up, right? That cognitive web for that, what do you need to perform for? And then in order to go from that to something else, right to talk to a podcast, do anything get delayed have a different part of your brain? Right? So number one, when people are trying to multitask, right? Really, they lose three things, they they lose time, the thing they think they’re gaining, they’re losing, because it could take 510 15 minutes to regain your focus from going from one task to another. The second thing is, and I get to work with a lot of surgeons, surgeons have been shown to make more errors during surgery, when they’re trying to multitask. It’s similar to somebody driving and texting, right, they’re gonna sit there and make material more likely they experienced an accident. And if that wasn’t a reason, just to focus on one thing at a time, what I wanted allude to what you’re alluding to is, the third reason besides losing time making mistakes, is energy. Because it takes an immense amount of brain glucose to be able to switch from this to this to this. People wonder why nowadays they feel burnt out, or they feel mentally fatigued, right? Because they are going through and using a lot of brain because your brain is only what 2% of your body mass requires 20% And it’s an energy hog. Yeah, you know, and so a lot of people are just tired. And part of it is because they don’t do what you’re saying in terms of chunking their activities. Not everybody can do that. Right. But to the degree we understand the principle, there’s a promise. Like, even for me, even if I don’t like I tend to film all mine in one day, so I can stay in that mode. Yeah, and I stay off my phone because it tends to distract me. So at least I get through. And sometimes, like in a day, I’ll break it up, like morning, afternoon evening. Like for example, what one of the things I’ll do some home and I don’t have certain things I will be I will the first part of the day I’ll create and my brain is just I don’t even want input. Yeah, you know, I don’t know how you were with me with reading your books for me. I was most creative in the morning. Me too, you know, yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

Is there a reason for that? Because sometimes I’ll get up at three and writing.

Jim Kwik  

Yeah, and some people have also founded you know, idiosyncratic way because there’s something calm where everyone else is sleeping and you know, and you have this time, but for me in the morning, I don’t want input so I don’t go on my phone everything and I’m not saying it’s easy, but this is I don’t I don’t know expect people to follow this directly, but just understand that principle. So, for the morning I create. And so that’s, that’s I’m in flow, right? I’m just saying creating in the afternoon I’m consuming. So that’s when I’ll do my research. Or I’ll read or listen to podcasts, right? So I go from my brain, creating pulling out to later on consuming, pulling in. And then the third part of my day is the evening when I just want to clear, that’s the third See, and that’s where I’ll like, you know, I’ll talk with my family in my wife about my day, that’s a way of clearing the day, or I will plan out the next day. So I don’t have to ruminate over it at night, right? Yeah. Or I’ll you do some yoga nidra. Right, or some journaling, you know, the whole idea is for me to clear my mind. So I can parasympathetic, rest and digest. I love that. So,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah, so that’s you just answered something for me, because I just, you know, with the expansion of everything in our business, and all the projects we’re working on, I found all of a sudden, for the first time that I had like, add, and I that’s not my normal way. And I realized it’s too many opposing tasks in one day that my brain was getting pulled in all these different directions. And you mix that with menopause, which we’ll talk about in a moment. It was like I couldn’t, my focus became very, very difficult. And I just came up with this, like, two weeks ago, I was like, Well, it seems like I should have all of the similar activities on one day, so I can just fully immerse in that. And that the minute I said it, it just felt calm to my brain.

Jim Kwik  

Yeah. And there’s a reason when you when you when you when you, when you chunk all your tasks, you know, similar tasks together, like even from if I was to add a fourth C to it would be communication. And I’ll usually do my communication when I go for a walk. So I get my stepson, right, because I think, you know, walking is really good for my mind and my mind, just my peace of mind also, as well. But um, you know, as I’m walking, I’ll do my calls or my zooms, you know, on my phone, and I’ll chunk like two hours together and get my walk in and walk in my steps and, but then also communicate with all the people I need to

Dr. Mindy  

I do that too. I when I go for a walk, I talked to everybody that I need to talk to, and then I come back and I’m like, Okay, now I’ve communicated. So it’s a beautiful thing. Yeah, it’s really smart to do it that way. Okay, so but finish the forest. Distraction was the second one.

Jim Kwik  

So you have digital de luz digital struction. So digital de luces. Why we teach accelerated learning speed reading, the digital distractions might be focused on there’s a whole chapter on focus and concentration, which we could go into. The third area is something called Digital dementia. And it’s determined healthcare, where it’s the high reliance in today’s current society on our devices, and using them as external memory storage. So like, just think about it. I’m in I’m in my 50s. I’m thinking about, like, how many phone numbers do we memorize when we were younger? Like, yeah, like, I remembered all of them. Yeah. Because we had no, I still remember my childhood. Yeah. Isn’t it interesting? your long term memory? Yeah. And but how many phone numbers? Do you recall today? Like now? No. Yeah, most.

Dr. Mindy  

So on that one that’s so fascinating, is that I can tell you my husband’s cell, because it’s been the same forever. I can tell you my daughter cell because we weren’t so heavily reliant on our phones, when she got her phone, I can’t tell you my son’s cell number at all, I can’t even begin to tell you the number. Because by the time he got a cell phone, I already hadn’t had a phone that could just memorize it and send it

Jim Kwik  

well, that’s that’s what they’re saying. Digital dementia is the high reliance on you know, the memory. So your brain is like, you know, it’s an organ, obviously, but it acts more like a muscle. And it’s use it or lose it right. And, and not that I want to memorize 500 numbers, right? Phone numbers, but it should be concerning, we’ve lost the ability to remember one number, you know, or a PIN number, or a passcode, or a seed phrase, or our a conversation we just had or something we were supposed to do, or something we’re supposed to buy, or someone’s name with that we just heard. Right, right. And I believe there’s no such thing as a good or bad memory, there’s more a train memory and an untrained memory. Meaning that, you know, I don’t want to, I don’t want to be able to have to memorize all these things. But I want to keep the ability, but it’s the equivalent of you know, if your offices or your apartments on the fourth floor. Yes, you could take an elevator. Or you could take the stairs, right? And the elevator is much more convenient. Just like those your phone is very convenient. But you don’t want to be crippling at the same time. We’re not getting the physical exercise or the mental exercise. If you have to go to the bank, and it’s 10 blocks away, we could tap in the car or jump into a lift. Yeah, you know, or we could or we could walk it Yeah. Right. And then you know, and then we get our steps. And it’s another way even when I’m going to store sometimes I’ll park you know far away and I could get to you know, get extra steps and but it’s not as convenient. But I also want to level of physical and mental fitness also as well. So that’s the digital dementia and that’s why we you know, memory is such a big focus, and I believe to the most costly words many are like I forgot, when I first think about the consequence of us saying like, I forgot to do it. I forgot to bring it I forgot that meeting. I forgot what I just read. Can I forget that person’s name. And on the other side, you know, when you could remember something life gets so much easier when you can remember fat finger figures, foreign languages give a talk without notes, or a teleprompter, you know, remember client information and product information names and faces. You know, I feel like in today’s expert economy, because nobody who’s listening to this, it’s not like it was hundreds of years ago, where it was our brute strength, you know, going out and fields and everything takes your brain strength here today, you’re not compensated so much for your muscle power. Today, it’s your inner mind power. And the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn, because knowledge today is not only power, its profit. You know, there’s this gap of yes, there’s a gap between those who have and those who don’t have, but there’s also a gap between those who know stuff, and those who don’t know stuff. Right? And the people I’m preaching the choir for people listening, because they’re dedicated to learning and education. Sure. But yeah, I just feel like nowadays, we have to really realize that we’re the pilot of our brains, we’re not the passenger. Yeah, so that’s number three. And then the fourth one I made to fit the DS, because there’s digital data, there’s distraction dementia, is something called Digital deduction. You know, I saw this study where children, this is the first time this generation where they had they scored worse than the previous generation, on, on, on rational ability logic, and so on critical thinking. And they tested it to, to technology, because technology is doing all the thinking for us. I think about algorithms, where we think about even just getting from here to there using GPS, right, that’s visual, that’s a form of visual spatial intelligence. But you know, how many times and there was a study done, you know, in with London, taxi drivers that we talk, we do a lot of research and talk about it, and they talk, promote a lot of the research. But in London, they have these taxi drivers that just have an incredible, they have to memorize all the all the streets, right? And literally, their brain reflects that. Meaning, you know, your vote, you’ve heard the term, you know, neurons that fire together, they wire together, but they actually have part of their brains that’s more dense. And it’s because that, you know, through learning, and new learnings that actually led to that in same thing with, you know, but if you don’t know how to get from here to there, or you’ve done it a few times, but if you don’t have your app open your maps or something people don’t know what to do, is we’re not exercising, you know, our minds the same. So again, convenience, and I’m not I’m I’m all for technology, you know, technology is not necessarily good or bad, like fire is a form of technology. It could cook your foods, or it could burn down your home, right. It’s just how it’s how it’s applied.

Dr. Mindy  

So okay, I want to talk about neuroplasticity, because this is another one that I’ve been thinking a lot, especially in terms of the menopausal brain, but I’m pretty sure I think about it in these terms because I have a menopausal brain. But as we were discussing, the research that I’ve seen on what happens to women after 40 is that we are losing one of the hormones we’re losing his estrogen dial. So Astra dye all stimulated dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, oxytocin, BDNF, like a whole array of neuro chemicals. So when we lose one hormone, we’re not just losing that one hormone. We’re losing all these other neuro chemicals, which is contributing to depression, anxiety, memory loss, lack of focus, but the neuro plastic part is really interesting to me, because Astra dials stimulated this brain derived neurotrophic factor that allowed our brains to be more neuro plastic and to be able to hold on to no new information. So when it’s gone, my theory is that we’ve got to put ourselves in environments more often than ever, in our whole entire life, to keep that neuroplasticity plasticity going. So if you were talking to Phil, I’m 54. So to a 54 year old woman, who is really struggling to hold on to information and can can resonate with what I just said, what do we have based off a science to be able to improve this neuro plastic quality that our brain does so well with?

Jim Kwik  

Yeah, I mean, certainly with the BDNF, you know, it’s like fertilizer for neuroplasticity, right? neurogenesis, especially in the hippocampus, where memories happening. So, some research suggests about 1/3 of our brains performance is predetermined by genetics and biology, there’s physiological part, two thirds is in our influence, you know, and so I could go through these 10 things that really can move the needle, because everybody wants to know what’s the magic pill, right? Yeah, but there is no magic pill. There is a process though, right? And so, when when I speak at events, I’ll do these demonstrations while I’ll have 50 people stand up and pass around a microphone and introduce themselves in a memorize their names or give me 100 random numbers or words and, you know, I always tell people, I don’t do this to impress you I do is to express to you what’s possible, because the truth is, and we’ve been teaching this for 30 plus years, we’ve seen It’s in every country in our online academy, you know, so we have a lot of data is we could grow older, but in some ways we could grow wiser, right? And so regardless of our age or background career education level financial situation gender history, IQ, we can we can we can make an marked improvements, because we’re grossly under estimating our own capabilities. Yeah. So I’ll give the time we get through this a little masterclass, great. People can take notes, and so I’ll share with you the 10 things that will help you have more of a limitless brain. I don’t think anyone’s going to debate any of them. But remember, just awareness is a starting point for any kind of change. And when I would ask people to do is when I suggest this just if people could rate themselves on a piece of paper zero to 10, how much energy and attention and effort Am I putting towards these and we’ll go through rapid fire, right? Love it. So in no particular order a good brain diet, right? What you eat matters, especially for your your gray matter, right? There’s a whole area of science we talked about in our podcasts and multiple episodes on a neuro nutrition. While your brain is part of your body, it also requires you know, different sometimes different nutrients, you know, in percentages. And so, um, some of my favorite brain foods, I don’t know what yours would be. And I can show people a fun way how to memorize them. But avocados Yeah, anything fat oriented? Yeah, I just had this right across the street. Yeah, some guacamole. But um, so avocado is the mono unsaturated fat. And we don’t have to go through all the details. But number two, I’m a big berry fan. You know, mulberries, blueberries, I like to call them brain berries, very high in antioxidants, very neuroprotective broccoli, you know, the the sulfur Fein, especially if you sprout them, but broccoli is considered brain food. Some some people see olive oil as being supportive for brain health and Mediterranean diet. Eggs, you know, people die at their diet allows the choline in a eggs, you know, which leads to acetylcholine. You know, it’s it’s like a multivitamin. green leafy vegetables. Somebody if if people now everybody again, when we’re talking about diet as all bio individual, right? Some people have, you know, they don’t digest it as well. But kale and spinach, your fatty fishes, sardines, wild salmon, no other food Tumeric with the curcumin, anti inflammatory effects. And then

Dr. Mindy  

just what do you think walnuts everybody says if it looks like a great

Jim Kwik  

let’s make that number nine walnuts. They’re high in vitamin E. Laden nuts could fall in that category. And then dark chocolate. Yeah, you know, not milk chocolate, not high in sugar. Generally. More supplies and things that generally have an uplift your mood tend to be good for your mind. Here’s a fun way of memorizing these 10 things. Everyone has like a little memory trick. The largest chapter of the book is I wrote is memory. And I wrote it in Greece. You know, I was there for a month and it was I realized that the I wanted to know what did the ancient so we pull on in my work all the late the latest science and neuroscience, adult learning theory and so on, but also ancient wisdom, right? I was like, What did people do when they didn’t have technology to memorize things like they didn’t have a printing press to pass on information. And I found out the ancient Greeks had a 2500 year old technique. It’s it’s purported by a Greek order named sai Montes, he gave a poetry reading, he left the building, something tragic happened, the building collapse and no one survived. And because he was the only survivor, he had the responsibility helping family members identify their lost loved ones. And he was able to do it though, because you remember where they were all sitting. And we realized that we remember things really well based on location. Even if you forget someone’s name, you ask yourself, yeah, where do I know this person from? And so this technique, they call it the memory palace. So we’re going to use the memory palace right now and I’ll teach you how to memorize these 10 foods, right? And the reason why I do this also is to turn this into masterclasses. Remember, there’s no such thing as a good or bad memory. There’s a trained memory and untrained, this is a way of training your memory. Okay? All right. So very, very simple. You need places and you need place you need places to store information that you need that information turned into a picture, because we tend to remember things better when we can see it right in our minds. Hi. Yeah, just like with faces are much better with faces. Can you get the see the face? You forgot what you heard you heard in the name? And you always go to someone say you know, remember your face by forgot your name? Yeah, yeah, never go to the opposite. You never say someone I remember your name.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, I’ve never said ever. So well, we’ll

Jim Kwik  

use 10 places you can use your home. If you wonder your office. In this case, let’s use our body. Everyone. I encourage everyone to do this. So we’re going to take 10 places on our body from top to bottom, right, and we’ll just say it out loud. So we get the verbal memory and getting the kinesthetic memory so you attach that place. So one is top so you could touch your top and say top top. Alright, two is Nose, nose. We’re just going to about encourage everyone who’s listening to do this. Also three is mouth, mouth, four ears. Yours bye I have throat, five throat, right so that we’re halfway there to 10. Right? It’s 10 brain foods. So top, top, Nose, nose, mouth mouth. Here’s yours throat. Okay, six shoulders, shoulders, seven collar. collars, eight are your fingers. Okay, fingers, nine is your Belly, belly, and 10 is your Bottom. Bottom right. So that’s 10. So that’s the first thing you create 10 places. Now we take the information, and well, yeah, just remember pi pi, the P is the place 10 places. Pi is not a brain food. By the way. The word clear the eye is imagine. So we’re imagining, and then the E is entwined, which means we’re going to and Twinings when you’re putting things together, what are we gonna put together the P in the eye, the place in the image, okay, so the image is going to be the food. So that the so what was the first location, it was the top right? And I want to remember avocados, that’s when a fun way you pretend you’re eight years old again, and use your imagination and use an emotion and be playful about it. So imagine, you’re using guacamole as a scalp conditioner. And you don’t have to see it a lot. If you did it once, you would see you would remember it right. Second place is your what? Nose, nose and the second brain food. We’re blueberries. So the next batch and you’re sneezing and blueberries come out of your nose. What does that smell like? What does that feel like? Yeah, and again, if you say if people think like listening, they’re like, so childish. How fast? Or who are the fastest learners? Oh, yeah, children. Yeah. And they do it playful. Exactly. And so we’re playing also. Yeah, right. Because some people say, Oh, I stopped playing because I grew older. And I’m like, No, the opposite. You grow there because you stopped playing. Right? And so number three is what? Mouth mouth and the third brain food we talked about was broccoli. So imagine a big, like, like, I don’t know, broccoli sprouts or a big piece of broccoli in your teeth. It’s so embarrassing, right? Yeah, but just make it bigger. Right? What does that tastes like? Feel like for is what it was your ears and olive oil. So just imagine maybe earrings with olives made out olives or clean your ears with olive oil? Yeah, whatever it is okay to use just picture once you get it. Okay. Number five is what was your throat? And then it was the brain food wood or eggs? Egg? So Majan I know. There’s no Adam’s apple. Maybe there’s a hard boiled egg.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, I was gonna say I can see it hard boiled perfectly now. I read grant glance.

Jim Kwik  

Exactly. But that lands for me. So we’re halfway there. And see even if you can think about what goes on top of my head, the food comes. Right and then your nurse. So after five, you have six your shoulders. And those are your green leafy vegetables. So kale and spinach, maybe shoulder pads made of kale and 387 is your collar. And that was the fatty fish. So imagine a collar made out of salmon sushi. Or sardines, like a bowtie? Yeah. I mean, I imagine it’s a week old. Oh, yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

yes, yeah. You’re getting more descriptive. I see what you’re doing

Jim Kwik 

more vivid, the more of your nervous system you’re going to recruit? Yes. Have you ever gone to the store to buy one thing and you come back with two bags full of things? Yeah, except for that one thing that you went there originally for? This is a great way of having your your list here. And I’m going to show you how you can use this for anything like a speech or anything else. So seven was fish on your collar, eight, where your what? Fingers fingers, and it was Tumeric was the brain food. So imagine that golden powder, it just gets messy. And it’s all over your fingers in your fingernail beds everywhere. You just can’t get rid of it. And even if you can’t imagine it, imagine that you can imagine it right. All right, number nine is your belly button. And you want to remember walnuts. So imagine you’re just outside and somebody’s sitting on the bench there and they’re eating walnuts out of their belly button. Yeah, that’s kind of like weird. And you’ll never buddy, you would never forget that. No, no, even 10 years later, you’d be telling people about it, right? And then finally, the 10 places you’re what bottom bottom, dark chocolate. And you don’t have to know it is to share online or on YouTube or anything. But just imagine dark chocolate bottom. See, when you understand how your memory works. You could work your memory, because now imagine you who are at home, you’re listening. And Mindy and I we contact you and just like hey, we’re gonna have like a limitless brain party, you know, and just while you’re out, you need to stop by the store and pick up these 10 things. And you’re like, No, I can’t because I’m driving. I can’t remember. But then you did this simple exercise and takes more time to explain it than it does to do it. And then you finally get to the store and you’re walking down the aisles and you go to the first place. What’s the first food avocado avocados and then I’m pointing to my nose out of my nose or the blue blueberries, the Prain berries. My mouth I have stuck in my teeth, broccoli, broccoli, and then my ears and I’m hoping everyone’s doing this at home two years olive oil and then my throat I have a hard boiled egg. And that’s halfway there. Six on your shoulder pads made out of kale and spinach, kale and spinach. Very good. And then your collar you have a necklace that’s made out of Yeah, the fatty fishes Yeah. And then your fingers you have all over that Spike. Tumeric Yeah, tumeric all over your face, and then your belly button. Walnuts and then bottom you have chocolate or chocolate. Oh, yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

that was good. I followed that. And I, I followed that

Jim Kwik  

point, because you know what you eat matters, especially for your gray matter, right. But it’s the strategy, something simple, it takes more time to explain than it does to do, you could probably do it backwards to even I challenge you, you could go from your bottom where dark chocolate, right, your belly button on that Dawn, that’s your fingers, you have the tumeric and then all the way back to your top again. So yeah, that’s um, and then so we’re going back to the 10 keys for a limitless brain that could help anybody and be supportive. ScienceBase zero to 10 just rate people could rate themselves the past week, you know, how much energy and effort intention How well did they eat? Because everybody you know, knows what would be on the opposite side? You know, zero? Yeah, highly processed foods, high sugar, and so on. Number two, we’ll go through the rest really fast. To our killing ants is good for the brain. Oh, yeah. And this is a term I got from Daniel. Yeah. Dr. Daniel Amon, automatic negative thoughts. You know, this is going back to the power of beliefs, you know, if people if people believe that, as you know, they get older there that certain things happen. And certainly there’s a reality to it. But all behaviors, belief driven, you know, at this event that I just came from speaking, somebody pulled me aside, say, I’m so glad you’re here, I know, you’re this, this memory coach, I have a horrible memory, I’m really, I’m really just getting too old. And I was like, Wait, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them, right, if you fight for your limits, and so many people fight for what they can’t do, and then keep those, you know, those those restrictions. So on a scale of zero to 10, you know, how positive encouraging of our thoughts been. And even if you find yourself saying, I don’t have a great memory, which is totally fair, just add a little word like yet at the end, it just feels different. Or if you say something like, Oh, I got to work out, I gotta pick up the kids, I don’t listen to podcasts, I say I gotta meditate. You know, if you change a little word, like got to get, I get to meditate, and I get to I get to pick up the kids I get to work out and you know, and, and reduce some stress then just feels a little bit different, right? So zero to 10, how encouraging and positive your thoughts are. Because if people truly understood how powerful their mind is, they wouldn’t say or think something, yeah, that they didn’t want to be true. And that’s not to say we, you know, you have one negative thought it ruins your life any more than eating that one doughnut does. But if you eat that doughnut dozens of times a day, every single day, it’s going to have an effect, right? Same Same thing with what we’re planting in our inner mind. Because your brain has this incredible supercomputer. And your self talk is a program that will run if you tell yourself I’m not good at remembering names, you won’t remember the name and next person to program and not to zero to 10 Number three, exercise. Yeah, right.

Dr. Mindy  

That’s what I found actually, in my a lot of my research for this book on BDNF was exercise. But it wasn’t just exercise, it was intensity, consistency, and even breaking muscle down, like through strength.

Jim Kwik  

Strength training is so because there’s so many brain benefits to strength training, resistance training, right? Yeah, blood flow, you create a dopamine, serotonin endorphins, you have the neurotransmitter effect. You know, you also get the BDNF in which you mentioned, there could potentially be some anti inflammatory, you know, benefits from it all, you know, as well. And also in terms of how you metabolize glucose, right? You know, insulin helped, could help with its insulin sensitivity also, because, you know, the muscles are absorbing and you utilizing it. So, so many brain benefits, and also, as your body moves, your brain grooves, you know, research has shown that also, if you’re listening to this podcast, when you’re doing something like going for brisk walk or some elliptical, you actually understand it better and retain it better. Yeah, also also as well, which is fantastic. Yeah, you know, and I don’t just mean exercise, yeah, you could do your strength training two or three times a week, but also moving throughout the day. Yeah, I mean, that is just, we just didn’t evolve to sit behind screens, you know, and the water and all the Bloods, pooling, you know, to, to other areas, as opposed to our brain, you know, and so I just recommend every 30 to 60 minutes, people take a brain break to move, right and hydrate because just staying hydrated a 2% Dip and if you’re dehydrated could affect your cognitive performance. And so and also to breathe, so maybe every you know, hour to getting off the screen taking a five minute getting some air some vitamin D, you know, moving your body, the primary reason we have a brain is to move our body is to control our movement, you know, even with you know, a new child like just watching them like learning how to crawl that’s so important. You know, a lot of movement is important for children for brain development. So

Dr. Mindy  

I want to I want to hold on to that thought for a second. The primary reason we have a brain is for movement, does that mean that the brain’s greatest desire, and where it will shine its best is when we’re in movement.

Jim Kwik  

Yeah, I find that you know, when I when we do events, we do a lot of exercises like we’ll do exercises like massage or your love with your opposite hands and inhaling and squatting down and up something called super brain yoga right in In an area of research, educational, kinesiology, a brain gym, really make it a lot famous, these cross crawls, where your left hand your reenter your hand or your elbows touching your opposite knee, you’re using them back and forth, as opposed to potentially increase communication between your left and right hemispheres of your brain also, as well. Yeah, it’s been it’s been my experience, you never want to learn something in a statics state because I feel like rigid physiology leads leads to rigid thinking also, right? You know, when you’re, when you’re pliable, and you’re flexible with your body, you tend to also be that way with your mind.

Dr. Mindy  

Because the reason I want to highlight that is that I feel like we’ve gotten all really sedentary, even more post pandemic, like the pandemic just shut us all down. And a lot of us haven’t found our routines. But if you look at the menopausal woman, she she’s losing testosterone, even men, as they age are losing testosterone. So you’re not only losing the that major hormone that supports you when you’re working out, but it’s also a motivation and drive to want to work out. Yeah. And so for me, I’ll tell you something that really worked for me in my 40s. And this was where fasting helped me is I discovered that I could use fasting and food to keep my weight where I wanted it to be. And so all of a sudden, I had to relabel exercise, and exercise became what I did for my brain. And the minute I looked at it that way, I never struggled to work out again, because it wasn’t like, oh, I want to fit into my skinny jeans. It was like, wait, I want to be happy. I want to think clearly I want to hold on to information.

Jim Kwik  

I love that. I love that. So be I love that beyond. Yeah, I think a lot of people look at exercise as punishment. You know, yeah, they ate this food. So you have to punish themselves to do this. But I love it that you’re doing this to be physically fit and also more mentally fit as well.

Dr. Mindy  

It’s literally like, I want to ask myself every morning what exercise I want to do, I think about what does my brain need to know. And sometimes it’s like you I need some endorphins. So I better go for a run. And sometimes I’m like, Oh, I got a long afternoon of like really intense activity, I better break some muscle down, because my research showed that you will get a metabolite that goes up into the brain and stimulates BDNF when you break that muscle down. So I’m like okay, let me break it down so that my brain is Supercharged. I love that. And it was really it was an I’m a competitive athlete. So like to make that shift from this isn’t something I’m doing for my body but for my brain was it was really profound. So it’s interesting to hear you acknowledge that, that that’s part of why the brain what the brain wants,

Jim Kwik  

yeah, is movement. Yeah, it really I mean, just think about the opposite. If we’re just, you know, for bedridden and we’re not moving, right, you know, how our thinking is also right, and our and our mental acuity. Yeah, I feel like movement is so very important. Underrated. Yeah, great, just any opportunity to be able to move more, yeah, it’ll be more and more here mentally fit. Um, so that’s number four. Number three, is movement. Number four, our brain nutrients. Like if you’re not getting people aren’t getting it from their diet, which I always prefer personally, yeah, people can make their own decisions or go to, you know, get get lab work done and do a nutrient profile, but certain nutrients they might supplement with, based on what they’re not getting from their food, like they’re not if they can’t eat fish, or they’re not needing flax seeds or whatever, you know, omega threes or DHA is your your vitamin DS, you’re not getting enough sunlight, you know, these are all critical. You know, magnesium is so critical for all the physiological you know, transactions going on in your in your brain. It’s interesting, creatine, this has been shown to be very, very supportive, very popular lately. Yeah, not just for exercise for a lot of people doing it, but also for, for cognitive energy. So those zero to 10, in the nutrients, and then the the other ones are number five is a positive peer group. And I really want to just, this is something Yeah, it’s who we spend time with, we’ve heard this is who we become, right? Who you spend time with, who become, we have these mirror neurons, where we’re imitating a lot of times unconsciously, the people around us, you know, I always tell people, you know, here’s an acronym watch, WA Tch, we tend to imitate the words of the people, the language patterns that people we spend time with, we start to adopt the same slang and yeah, which the A and watch our actions, we started modeling the behavior. So it’s less of our biological networks and more with our social networks, meaning, whether you smoke has less to do with your biology and more does your friends smoke, right? It’s going to influence you, right? Because we’re going to imitate those behaviors and then become more acceptable. So that’s the a the T in watch our thoughts, we tend to send them the same thoughts and beliefs of the people around us. The see and watch is our character, we tend to model the integrity, you know, in the standards of the people around us as well. And then finally, the H are your habits, right? We tend to pick up the same routines and habits of the people around us whether they’re working or exercising or reading, we tend to adopt the same ones. And so positive peer group on a scale of zero to 10. How we all need people to encourage us to cheerlead for us to be kind to us and if we haven’t found that person or persons be that person for somebody else? Yes. And especially be that person for you. Yeah, right. They say, you know, we’re the average of the five people we spend time with, including health and money. If you’re around nine broke people, be careful, because you’re likely to be number 10. Right? Right. So zero to 10. Spy is number five, which is positive peer group. Number six, something people could do for their brain besides the first five, a clean environment. Ooh, you know, this is we don’t care enough about this. So we’ve done just some more recent podcasts about it ourselves. But your external world tends to be a reflection of your internal world. I mean, just imagine like, when you make your bed or you clean off your desk, or everything’s in the right folder on your screen, you did just because you clearly have so much calmer Yeah, and also clean environment, you know, it also be the air quality. Yes, you know, it could be the, the, the lighting, right? It could be the water, all of these things, you know, like, you know, or, you know, some some, there could potentially be off gassing on furniture or neurotoxins in the carpet. But just an overall clean environment, zero to 10. EMF, some people’s, you know, suggest could be, you know, aren’t harmful to our brain. That’s number six. Number seven sleep. Yeah, this is a big one. It’s a

Dr. Mindy  

big one because it’s so important, but not as especially for menopausal women. It’s really difficult to to get a good night’s sleep.

Jim Kwik  

Yes. So sleep and I don’t know your favorite thing. But I do especially for your brain. Because how’s your brain functioning on little sleep? Yeah. Because how are you focusing how your ability to solve problems, your mental endurance, you know, your ability to be creative to remember things. Yeah, because when you’re sleeping, it’s where you consolidate short term long term memories. They have long term memory issues, maybe a sleep test, or you know, at home sleep tests you could do also. It’s also where, you know, when you’re when you’re sleeping, your brain doesn’t necessarily turn off at night. It’s doing other things besides consolidate memories. A lot of like our dreams. Did you know a lot of inventions and works of art and literature came from people in their sleep state in their dream state. Like believe that. Yeah, it was supposed to be like Paul McCartney came up with song yesterday in his dream. You know, Mary Shelley created Frankenstein in her dream. Yeah, right. And so what are we dreaming about? The chemists created the period, the framework of the periodic table in his dream, but that presupposes we’re getting that REM sleep. Yeah. And

Dr. Mindy  

I was gonna say is that what part of sleep is it total sleep is REM deep, I always think is the detox or REM is the information Yeah,

Jim Kwik  

for me. So it’s not the quantity of sleep is the quality of the deep sleep, the slow wave sleep, you know, the REM sleep. For me it just to simplify it. Rem is where your mind is recovering, you know, the deepest, were more your body or yeah, just recovering. You know, and then the things we talked about getting direct sunlight first thing in the morning to reset your circadian rhythm. I can’t do caffeine past noon, because it just for some reason, I’m so sensitive to it. So I, you know, if I, if even if I did it, I need the energy, I just know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna pay something at the other end of that. Also, just think about it as hunter gatherers, we would know, it’d be time to sleep, and we would crave melatonin when there be a drop in to environmental factors, a drop in light gonna drop in temperature? Yeah, you know, and so, you know, are we making it cool or not so cool, where it keeps you up? Where you’re shivering, right, it’s distracting, but a cooler environment or even taking a sauna or a warm bath? Yeah, you know, and then when you get out of the bath, especially if it’s a magnesium, like Epsom salt, and you’re transdermal again, in the magnesium to help you relax, when you get out of that sauna, or that warm bath, your core body temperature is going to drop and that’s a signal to produce melatonin and help you relax and phase, you know, darker, obviously, the better which, you know, a lot of people are on their their devices. Yeah, you know, and people’s get full your mind and think it’s still daylight, you know, with the screens. And so, you know, those are all the things zero to 10 how good your sleep the past week, right? And then finally, eight, nine and 10 Eight is brain protection. Just a reminder, you know, having had three brain injuries before the age of 12 protect your brain wear a helmet, you know, avoid extreme sports? Yeah. So zero to 10. And then number nine is new learnings. You know, just always learning you know, always having that neuroplasticity because, yes, you know, we can grow older I mean after 25 You know, it’s not as plastic as as a as it potentially once was. But you know, we could always everyone going to gym is going to, you know, it’s going to get or being or being more active is going to get the benefit. Same thing with the mental gym. Yeah. And there was a study done, it was on the cover of Time Magazine, where they found these nuns and these nuns were living pretty long lives at 90 above. And they wanted to find out, you know, what was the cause of that? And they said, approximately half of it was their emotional faith and gratitude. But the other half they were lifelong learners. Yeah, for reading all the time, having deep conversations and debates. And because of it add a year sort of life and life to their years. They did this study, it was called aging with grace, you know, a beautiful name for a study. So yeah, on a scale of zero to 10 How much are you learning and for me, I like reading I still think reading is the one of the most important fitness Yeah, I really think reading is to your mind what exercises to your body. Yeah, yeah. And, and so very important. The thing is people don’t schedule it. You know, like they just it’s like you schedule. I don’t know, parent teacher meetings and doctor appointments and investor meetings, whatever works appointments, but we’re not scheduling like our workouts as much like, I think one of the most important productivity performance tools we have is our calendar. Yes, you know, put it in there, the day escapes you. And then you wonder why you didn’t meditate or you didn’t do the things you’re supposed to do. I also wonder

Dr. Mindy  

if going from left to right, left, left and right, left to right is also calming to the brain. So I like to read at the end at the beginning and the end of the day.

Jim Kwik  

Yeah, I do the same. I mean, I read usually around lunchtime, and then at night, the differences though I just, I am super sensitive with my sleep, especially because I travel so much. And then my sleep hygiene and lean jetlag and hotels and stuff like that. I read nonfiction during the day and fiction at night. I just for me, I can’t. If I was to read a book on neuroscience or entrepreneurship at night, I would go in more into my executive function. And when I want to just kind of relax that’s exactly what I decided to. Yeah, I think nonfiction is great to learn from information and fiction is great to learn through imagination. Yeah, and actually reading fiction actually has been shown to improve your EQ, your emotional quotient, improve your deeper levels of empathy has been shown to because through narrative, you could shift perceptual positions, right, through storytelling, and all of that, in your creativity, imagination, obviously. And so yeah, it’s for those of you who just reading, you know, all the just the nonfiction, I would encourage you put 10% towards some fiction writing.

Dr. Mindy  

You know, by the way I, I studied under Marianne Williamson, during the pandemic, there was 20 of us that were in an author mentorship trip. And she said, if you want to be a good nonfiction writer, read fiction. And it was she kept saying it over and over again, she’s like, if you want to be better at writing nonfiction, you got to immerse yourself in fiction. And I think it’s because of the storytelling and being able to convey a point in the way that that narrative approach happens in fiction.

Jim Kwik  

And when you think about how people improve, you know, pass on information around campfires, or they did have books and everything else. They do it through stories. Yeah. Because it uses all of the visual, auditory and kinesthetic feelings built in and yes, story method, you know, I could teach people to memorize the entire periodic table using a story. And I do that with children all the time in a fraction of the time it would take and just one time without rehearsals, but it’s the same way as you remember the brain foods if you still remember the brain, I can probably tell it to you now. Yeah, and number 10 is the 10 keys for to changing your you know, your brains performance and health is stress management. We know that chronic stress has been shown potentially to shrink the human brain. Yeah, you know, when you’re in fight or flight also, you know, we’re in our survival brain. And it’s keeping us hostage from like our creative brain or executive functioning, you know, and so I would just say on a scale of zero to 10. So like chronic shows your strength and chronic fear will actually suppress your immune system, right? Hilarious science called psycho neuro immunology make you more susceptible to colds and flus to viruses. So we have to be very careful watching is, you know, if it bleeds, it leads, and a lot of people hooked on the news, and they’re addicted to it. But I sort of remind people just like social media, there’s an algorithm, like with, if you’re on Instagram, you’re swiping through whatever you engage with the most most they show you more of. So if you’re just liking sharing, commenting on cats, right, they’re gonna show you more cats, right? Same thing with your mind, your mind has a similar algorithm. So if you’re just feeding it, fear and everything that could, you know, threaten you and things that are scary, then whatever you engage with, you start seeing more and your reticular activating system, your RAs, which controls a lot of your focus, will start looking for more of those. And you’ll wonder why that, you know, we’re in that kind of fight or flight stage all the time. So on a scale of zero to 10 How well 10 being the best. are you coping with stress and what what mechanisms do you have in place? You know, for me, it’s meditation. I feel like it’s important for me to disconnect to reconnect and I you know, do that, you know, other people they get body work done or they use some foam rolling or they do something right or relaxed some other way. Yeah, yeah. So amazing.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so and I love that I love all 10 of those. I think they’re so flexible. Yeah,

Jim Kwik  

common sense, but they’re not always common practice. So the reason why people rate their past weeks zero to 10 is because everybody wants to know the one thing but you could do everything and not sleep well. Right You know, and you’re not gonna get the bed if you do all this stuff and eat just processed food all day, you’re not gonna get the results you could do all this and be stressed out of your mind or be around energy vampires on a positive peer group. Yeah. So you know the whole thing here is you know, we could choose you know, again life is the letter C between B and D with the power of the C is choice Yeah, in between birth and death that these difficult times they could distract you these difficult times can diminish you or these difficult times they could they could develop you Yeah, you know, we decide with our choices,

Dr. Mindy  

you know, and life style, I feel like lifestyle is never given enough credit for health, like we want, the way that our healthcare system is set up is more like if you have a problem, we got to bring a big gun in, whether it’s a surgery or medication and we lost sight of weight. No, it’s a really, it’s just consistent habits done over time. That’s gonna build you an amazing body and brain. And that’s, that’s what I

Jim Kwik  

love the word consistent, because I believe if you’re persistent, you could achieve it. You’re the gym all the time. You’re persistent, you could shoot but if you’re consistent, you get to keep it. Yeah, you know, and consistency compounds. Yeah, because little by little a little become becomes a whole lot

Dr. Mindy  

becomes a lot. Yeah. Okay, last couple questions, I have to ask this one. I don’t think I told you this one. But I want to I want to know if your your, your brain geeks out on this. Okay. So as I’ve been navigating my menopausal brain, I’ve realized how important it is to try new things, many of the things you said like I’m putting myself in new environments, I’m trying new information, I’m exercising different. And what I tell myself is you just created more neuroplasticity in your brain by doing these activities, but I call them baby neurons. And I’m like, if I have a bunch of little baby neurons in my brain right now, from the activities that I just did, I gotta be really careful how I talk to these baby neurons. Just like I wouldn’t talk to a toddler and say bad things. I gotta be really careful that I don’t talk to these baby neurons in a bad way. Otherwise, they’re gonna turn out to be like the old neurons and I call them grumpy neurons.

Jim Kwik  

Okay, I like that. What do you think of that? I love that. I love that. It’s an image even when people you know, have a voice inside their head, and they gave it a label, you know, gave give it a name. It allows you to address something, you know, I think I love it. Like every time you were explaining it, I could see like the baby neurons and the grumpy neurons. And

Dr. Mindy  

so so I was I was at a menopause retreat, I was leading this menopause retreat in Ibiza, and I was trying to explain how important neuroplasticity was to these menopausal women. And so I use the baby neurons and the grumpy and I call them the grumpies. And oh my gosh, they took it they started using it. We were like in a chat together about it. And but it’s really helpful for me to realize if I want to change my brain, I can’t let the grumpies tell the babies what to do. I gotta be really conscious about who I’m listening to what I’m thinking otherwise, they’re gonna every time you’re even out working out. If you’re out working out creating neuroplasticity, and then you go back to talking poorly to yourself or hanging around people who are thinking negatively. Your baby’s now turned into grumpies

Jim Kwik  

I love that. Yeah. It’s a mic drop right there. Because it’s it put a story in my mind. And now I can’t unsee it. Yeah, when you explained it to me, I literally if the camera picked up at goosebumps, I come truth bumps truth.

Dr. Mindy  

I love Yeah, well, anyways, I can talk braid all dancer, that was like, okay, and that I’m telling you one other thing. So then I was like, I should create a neuronal nursery for my babies. Oh, nice. What does that look like? I don’t know. But I was like, and I think it, I think it’s going back to play like what I did as a kid, like maybe listening to a podcast while playing hopscotch, or jump rope. But like going back to that playful spirit where I’ve got all these fresh new baby neurons that want to hold on to this information. So let me play with them so that they can actually grow into more

Jim Kwik  

develop. Yeah, I love that. It’s again because it’s very visual and that that’s so that’s so telling, you know, to remind everybody like as we’re doing this, for neuroplasticity, neurogenesis, it needs two things, novelty and nutrition. Just like your physical body. If you want to build your body, you give it novelty, you know, workout, and then you give a nutrition Right To feed it as it gets tired and then maybe a nap you know, for the road. I have to keep the end Yes, or alliteration but not all nap. But same thing with with when you’re learning when you’re learning new things or entertaining new ideas. You have that novelty you give it nutrition, even it’s been shown if you’d actually take a nap or you meditate after you learn something, you’ll actually integrate it, you know really well also as well. So that could be a nice quick tip for everybody.

Dr. Mindy  

So good. So good. Okay, my last question I asked everybody. This season I’ve been this has been something I’ve been focused on is what’s your superpower? What is like everybody has a superpower I believe they bring to the world. What do you think yours is?

Jim Kwik  

I believe my superpower is the same as yours. And everybody’s listening. That If knowledge is power learning is our superpower. You know, like think about it. Like every creature has a superpower. Yeah, you know, some could fly. Some could breathe underwater. Some could climb some good. Some are super fast, right? But we’re not any of those things. But because we have the ability to learn. We can learn to fly. We can go underwater, right? We can be super fast, because this is the ultimate superpower. So I think learning in our brains are the ultimate power.

Dr. Mindy  

I love it. Yeah, love it. Well, thank you, Jim. I could go on forever because I

Jim Kwik  

challenge everybody to do it. Please do. I would love everyone out of the 10 things actually to take a screenshot or wherever you’re consuming this right now and tag Mindy tag myself and put one thing in the post that you’re going to do for better brain. Just one thing we talked about, like a couple dozen different things, right? Maybe it’s just hey, I’m gonna have more, you know, walnuts and brain berries, right? Or maybe I’m gonna read that 10 minutes a day, or maybe I’m gonna do that little bit of weight lift, you know, strength training, you know, something or prioritize your sleep, you know, maybe yes, I have an alarm to wake up and I want it I need an alarm to go to bed because I think that’s, you know, having the consistency is important. And also, I challenge everyone to do that brain quiz in four minutes. That’s fun and easy. It’s a my brain animal.com. And you’ll get a detailed report based on your animal, and you’re gonna get some art that we created for you post the animal, and then tag us both This shows what animal you are loved, and I will repost some of my favorites. And I will give a couple signed copies of our new limitless expanded, and people could go to limitless book.com and get that and all the brain training that we’re gifting people as a thank you. We donate 100% of the author proceeds to charity Wow, to Alzheimer’s research for women because women are twice as likely spirits Alzheimer’s than men. Yeah, most of the research is done on men, treatments in memory, my grandmother and also to build schools for girls and boys around the world. We’ve done it we built fill out our team has donated to build schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, just to build better, brighter brains. So I want to thank you so much. I can’t wait to have a conversation with you on our pot. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

no, I love this. And I assume so the best place to go find the new book is

Jim Kwik  

you can get wherever books are available. Limitless book.com. We just have a couple of free brain training. So you get to the basics of speed reading, memory, improvement and focus. It’s of course that we sell for hundreds of dollars, but you get as a gift for just getting getting a copy of the book. Yeah, beautiful.

Dr. Mindy  

I love this. Thank you, Jim. And thank you for thank you for taking the brain you are given as a child and turning it into this giant because we’re all benefiting from it. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.