🧠How to stay cognitively sharp now and in your 80s. 3 Simple Most Effective Strategies.

TUNE IN TO LEARN: 
Often clients ask me, if I were to choose 3 most effective things to take care of my brain, what would they be? 
 
Here's your research-based answer. 
 
Learn how to optimize your metabolic health without the need for gadgets or supplements, starting with the most crucial elements. 

Stay happy and focused now and cognitively sharp as you age.
Your mind defines the quality of your life. This is how you keep it in shape!
 
Revolutionize your daily routines with these 3 for a longer, healthier life, more vibrant life where you don't lose your mind the longer you live!  
 
BONUS: research-backed strategies to harness your prefrontal cortex to power through short-term doubts and short-term thinking for lasting improvements.  
    

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey, guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brain's Coach and it is my job here to bring to you all the best recent, cutting-edge, well-researched, practical, applicable and effective brain-body tools so you could take better control of your health, this brain-body machine, of your thoughts, of your emotions, of your energy and, most importantly, of your actions, so you get to shape the life experience that you absolutely love living. On today's podcast, guys, it's my absolute pleasure to share with you three protocols that I've learned listening to Dr Rhonda Patrick. She is a founder of Found my Fitness. It's an initiative of science-backed education in the fields of nutrition, longevity, healthy aging, high performance, performance and high quality living. So Rhonda Patrick, on one of her podcasts, shared what she explained, taught what she told about the audience at one of the metabolic health conferences. So today you're going to learn about three protocols that will help you to optimize, in a simple way, without any gadgets or supplements, optimize your metabolic health, or basically, how all the processes run in your body, in your brain. How to optimize your metabolic health so you feel great now, you feel look great now and many years from now so you have high quality, vibrant life. These are three things that you want to take care of, that you want to optimize and invest your time and energy because they will give you, if not maximum return on investment into your health, then pretty damn high on that scale. And then also, I'm going to give you a tool from behavioral psychology that will help you to work and avoid and eliminate as much of this frustration as possible.

Speaker 1 2:27

Minute, as much of this frustration as possible, frustration that you get from not seeing results right away from this long-term investment in your health. Like you know, I'm doing all of this. Why am I not seeing some results already? So that kind of frustration, how to work through that? Because in a lot of areas of our lives, whether that's business, fitness or relationships, a lot of things take long-term perspective and kind of thinking to get the results that you seek. In a lot of those arenas working on quality, it will take some time before you see results. So what do you do with that frustration in your brain telling you, oh, you're investing all this time and energy and not paying off. Why are we doing this? Let's just eat some I don't know chocolate and do some quick thing instead of investing into our long-term project and business, health and life, which will bring maximum fulfillment just not at the moment.

Speaker 1 3:27

So back to three protocols for metabolic health that have gotten quite a lot of attention because of their effectiveness. Number one let's start with the most important one sleep. Getting your sleep right, improving the quality of your sleep, improving the quantity of your sleep, really investing into sleep hygiene and sleep habits pays off in all arenas of your metabolic health, mental health, emotional health, how you look, how you feel, what you are able to do in your daily life the quality of living really depends on your sleep and it's kind of very proportional. When I personally get my eight and a half hours and they're of good quality I wake up and I'm like I'm on fire. I want to seize the day and see what it holds. I want to have no stone unturned. That's how you feel when you get great quality sleep. When my clients learn how to sleep seven, eight hours instead of five hours, they tell me things like Angela, why nobody told me life can feel that good? I recommend sleep to everyone and it's just amazing. People come to my sessions vibrant and full of energy and just this increased capacity for living. Sleep is the best performance enhancing drug as well. If you're working on any of your fitness aspirations, sleep is the best supplement. It's actually a lot more effective than anything that you can take. So sleep, besides getting your seven plus hours seven to nine hours seem to be the golden number. By the way, if you decide to pursue some professional athletic endeavors, then that number can be closer to nine or even 10 hours, because sleep is somewhat proportional to the workload physical and mental load that you get throughout your awake time.

Speaker 1 5:36

Besides the hours, regularity is very important. So when you go to sleep let's say if you sleep seven hours then it happens between 10 and five, or like 11 and six, whatever that time is. Just keeping it regular seems to be very, very, very important and correlates with important health biomarkers, especially over long term, why it matters. Well, if you think about that, every time you go to sleep, your brain needs to create certain chemistry in your body, in your brain, and it can only do that effectively if you're regular with that timing, because otherwise these processes are not like a switch right your brain is not awake and then suddenly it's off and it's back to sleep. There's a whole cascade of reactions that need to happen throughout the day, starting with production of melatonin three to four hours before your bedtime. Did you know that melatonin to prepare you for falling asleep is starting to be released like three, four hours before your bedtime? And so if you're bedtime all over the place, the brain doesn't know where to start the process to make you fall asleep efficiently. So that's why timing is important. And then what happens to you? All of your cycles deep sleep, rapid eye moment sleep, non-deep sleep all of the cycles get synchronized much better and things like gross hormone are released in proper quantities.

Speaker 1 7:03

So many things fall into place when you are regular with sleep, with food, with everything. Regularity. Your body, your brain really thrive in that regularity. So regularity of your sleep schedule. Whenever that schedule happens, just keep it consistent as much as possible. That is very important. And then also things like you can work on your sleep. If you are able to only sleep five hours a lot of my clients were in that place it doesn't mean that that's all you need or all you're capable of. It means you need to learn better sleep hygiene, better habits around, for example, maybe taking coffee or eating your food at a specific time. You need to get your light exposure appropriately, limit your blue light from different screens. All of these behaviors you need to put together to create a great quality sleep.

Speaker 1 7:59

Slow sleep is not just one thing. You fall into your bed and you fall asleep. It's not one thing. It's actually a set of processes and habits that you do throughout the day and right before going to bed. So sleep from those three things that give you the most return on investment into your health now and many years from now.

Speaker 1 8:21

By the way, guys, did you know that sleep is? It has a huge correlation with your mental capacity later in your life. Do you want to get like your parents to your 70s or 80s and lose your mind and not being able to take care of yourself? Sleep has a lot to do with that. That is the investment you need to do into being cognitively sharp when you are 80s and 90s so you could take care of yourself and keep on living instead of depending on other people and very often not even being aware of what's happening around you. Taking care of yourself, making decisions all of that to create great cognitive health, keeping your mind sharp when you're 80s and 90s. It starts now and the first investment is your sleep. Sleep is crucial for your brain's health and performance and cognition, not getting dementia and Alzheimer's and losing your mind later in life. So sleep, learn how to sleep well. It's a skill set.

Speaker 1 9:24

Besides sleep, what are two other metabolic processes or healthy lifestyle habits that Dr Rhonda Patrick mentioned in her lecture that have just enormous effect on your health now and on your health years from now? Circadian rhythm, circadian eating what it means is eating when it's appropriate to eat for a human being. You are an animal that functions throughout the day and so your eating schedule needs to match. More than that. You have certain digestive enzymes, your digestive organs, your metabolism works in a certain way during the day and it works differently during the night. All of these processes that happen because of day-night cycle, because your sleep-wake cycle, all they affect how your food and nutrition is metabolized. And not only that, but your body, because nutrition is so important, tries to optimize a lot of things in your body, to synchronize things so you absorb your nutrition well, and so then nutrients are put into effective usage. The quality of your nutrition, how you eat and when you eat, will define your metabolic health a lot.

Speaker 1 10:54

And circadian eating and there is more and more studies is all about eating in the time window that is appropriate for someone who functions during the day, which is a human being, and you might say, well, I go to bed late or I need to work during the night, it doesn't matter. Your body and brain biologically wired to be active more during the day, plus plus minus two, three hours for early births and night hours. But that's about it and the most important part of circadian eating from my practice, people eat late and that is really not a great thing. Not a great thing for your sleep, because your sleep to work well, your digestion has to stop by the time you go to sleep and then certain hormones and metabolized to process your food just do not work when you are around your bedtime From your blood sugar regulation. That is hugely important for your overall health, how your brain works, what quality of sleep you get. All of that stuff.

Speaker 1 11:59

It doesn't work when you eat late, when you eat before going to bed, when you eat when you're supposed to be sleeping, your digestive system needs time to calm down and to settle down before sleep. Three hours, that is recommended amount of time that needs to pass before your last meal before your bedtime, between your last meal and your bedtime, and again, we talk about sleep just prior to that. Please understand that when you eat your food, it's going to affect your sleep, because it's going to affect how your blood sugar fluctuates, because it's going to affect your core body temperature, because it's going to affect where your blood flows, to your digestive system, to all these different metabolic processes or to your brain to prepare you for sleep and recovery. When you eat, it changes all of that and it affects your sleep a lot. And maybe that's also where a huge difference in health outcome comes from people who eat early enough and then people who don't. And it's not about some fancy fasting protocol, it's just allowing your digestive system to do everything it needs to do before sleep so you have high quality sleep experience and high quality next day. So when you eat really matters what is recommended to you Stop eating about three hours before your bedtime and start eating an hour or later after your waking time. So these are the current recommendations. If you're someone who does care about the quality of your sleep, the quality of your life, how you look, feel now and many years from now, your investment in high-quality life decades from now starts today. So sleep and then circadian eating, eating when your body is designed to be consuming nutrients and doing all the processing.

Speaker 1 13:58

And then the third one is doing high intensity interval training. Not just exercise, but specifically high intensity interval training because that seems to have a bigger beneficial effect on your metabolism by optimizing your blood sugar regulation. Even making light sleep deprivation, for example, if you're a parent and you can't get good quality sleep on a regular basis, you're a parent and you can't get good quality sleep on a regular basis. Doing high-intensity interval training actually seems to counteract a lot of negative effects of that forced or needed sleep deprivation. So high-intensity interval training, from better blood sugar regulation to normalizing your hunger hormones, to reducing inflammation A lot of things happen specifically during high-intensity interval training, when your heart rate goes to maximum, when all of your systems are used to their absolute, maximum capacity for an interval of time.

Speaker 1 15:10

So there are different ways to do interval training right. There is Tabata protocol, well-researched, created in Japan, which is 20 seconds on of intense, highest intensity, 10 seconds off and then you repeat it eight times, which is four minute workout total. Then you have some Nordic interval training workouts where you do the highest intensity you're capable of for four minutes and then you take three minute break when you recover. Just don't do much, maybe walk around or bike around, depending what you do for those intense interval of training. So four minutes on, three minutes off, and then you repeat it three times. So that's Nordic high-intensity training and then the simple one for 20 minutes. You go one minute on, one minute off. If you cycle, then it's one minute super high-intensity, then one minute maintenance. If you run, it's sprint, and then one minute off, sprint and one minute off. They even say that even intermittent intensity walking is much better than just walking. So, for example, you can walk really, really fast and then slow down, and then one minute really really fast and then one minute off, which this oscillation between your heart rate and demand on your different physiological systems seem to be the key that give you maximum advantage.

Speaker 1 16:41

Metabolic advantage, specifically how your body again regulates your blood sugar, how your body processes different lipids and cholesterol regulation. All of this we're talking about metabolic health, how your body runs crucial processes like blood sugar regulation right now and many years from now. So we are talking about having a healthy metabolism. So you run well as a machine with the name of human being. So there are three, these three protocols that have maximum effect on your metabolic health, on your longevity, on how well you live right now, like how much energy you have, how vibrant you feel and how much less disease you get, from a regular flu to more serious degenerative diseases down the road, from heart disease to different diseases related to arteries, to your cognitive decline, right. So all of that has to do with metabolic health and these are three protocols that give you maximum return on investment.

Speaker 1 17:53

Sleep as a number one. We get circadian rhythm, circadian eating, which is stopping your eating three hours before bed and not starting it at least like an hour after you wake up. So you get circadian eating. And we get high intensity interval training. Now all the other training and exercise. Of course it works for your metabolic health and it improves your health overall, but it seems that for metabolism, high intensity interval training really stands out, has a special place, really stands out, has a special place. So those are three protocols that you want to invest in on a regular basis to optimize your health now and decades from now.

Speaker 1 18:41

And then let's talk about frustration. These protocols, they're probably not going to give you a lot of results you can see right away, like, yes, from sleep, especially if you were sleep deprived. When you learn how to sleep well, you're going to feel the effect almost right away. But when it comes to circadian eating, when it comes to high-intensity interval training eating, when it comes to high-intensity interval training, results that you see or notice in any way like right away, except maybe for the high after the workout and finishing it they're not going to be there. You just have to trust the data that the results are going to be there in 10, 20, I mean in a year from now as well. But you're not going to be seeing like some muscle popping from one hit or even two hit workouts. You're not going to see your weight just melting away just because you switched your eating time by three hours if you eat the same kind of food. You're not going to see any of that and you might feel frustration like I'm doing this but it's not really working or I'm just not seeing it.

Speaker 1 19:49

It's a normal frustration that our brain goes through every time we invest our energy and effort into something and we don't see the results right away. It's harder to make connections what we are getting for the effort we are putting in, and that's a natural mechanism that your brain developed to make sure that you don't waste your effort and energy which is the currency of life onto things that do not give you any results. Otherwise, we'd be hunting some animal or foraging for some berries that give us barely any energy berries that give us barely any energy and we'd have to spend hundreds of calories just for pursuit. Right, your brain is the best economist that makes sure that you don't waste energy, and that's why you're going to feel that frustration. Emotion is how your brain communicates to you what's the next action it wants you to take. So frustration one of the purposes of frustration is to give you that signal.

Speaker 1 20:50

Maybe it's not worth it, but that's where your long-term thinking and your prefrontal cortex that can analyze data and understand data can come into place and override that frustration and say here's what the data says, and I'm going to believe. These folks did the research, and that's why I personally listen only to the guys who really proved their words, who've been around in science realm for a while and have really good reputation and respect from their colleagues. So what I'm giving you right now is based on really good research, the best that we have and sleep, circadian eating, high-intensity interval training is out there and they will improve and maintain great metabolic health, great cognition, great energy. Health, great cognition, great energy, great quality of life. So, because you know that is a good source, check out Dr Rhonda Patrick and Found my Fitness her channel on YouTube and on Instagram. See what she's done in the arena and how she trains Just amazing, individual right. So check them out and check your sources and trust the science.

Speaker 1 22:14

That's why you got your prefrontal cortex, your brain, to help you override this short-term thinking and frustration that your brain might give you when you don't see the results right away. You know, I was talking to a client of mine and we were discussing our experience with sales and she was sharing with me how she often right now gets frustrated that in this new field she is not getting any sales yet and she just wants to give up. And I tell her you know the best way to overcome this frustration. Yes, trust the data, trust the sources, but also find something that you love about the process. Don't focus on the result but on the process.

Speaker 1 23:01

So for me, the process of sales is all about helping the person to make a decision. It's not about whether you the person to make a decision. It's not about whether you're going to buy from me. I want you to make a decision in your life and move forward. If this is the thing to help you do that, then let's do it. And if it's not, make a decision and stop running these loops of thinking should I do it, should I not do it? Indecision is what's going to kill all of your dreams, and so my purpose in the sales process is to help you make a decision.

Speaker 1 23:32

Whatever that decision is, my purpose is to help you realize what you want and take some action, and once I started looking at the sales process from this perspective, first of all, pressure went away. I don't need to sell anything. I want you to help you to figure your shit out. So the pressure is gone. Fun is on. I'm talking to people getting better at having transformative conversations and I'm getting the kick out of the process. I'm enjoying the process, and that's where results become irrelevant. Yeah, it's awesome to close some sales, but you know what I love the process anyhow.

Speaker 1 24:11

Even sales conversation is a part of my coaching, because I help people to make decisions that they might have been avoiding for years, and when I told her about my frame, my perspective on sales process, she's like yeah, you know, you're right, I love doing my fitness and I don't check my muscles every workout, because I love the process. I found this something that I like, that is fun for me in the training and that's why I stick with it and I don't get frustrated with not seeing the results right away. And so now I need to develop this in the sales process as well, because the results in most things in life will take time and you need to stick around without feeling this frustration, because that can make you quit, and that's how people end up quitting all too many things not getting extraordinary results. They want extraordinary results that take time and don't show up right away. Thank you, guys for listening, thank you for tuning in.

Speaker 1 25:27

Don't forget about the three most effective protocols to improve your metabolic health, quality of life now and decades from now, so you don't lose your mind and you can take care of yourself and you can enjoy life when you're 60, when you're 70, when you're 80, when you're 90, right, so do your heat, pay attention to sleep, work on your sleep. Eat a little bit earlier at night, eat a little bit later in the morning. Frustration it's normal. That's how your brain is trying to save energy, so you don't die. But you can override that because you know you're not going to die and the energy is always out there. Frustration Focus on the process, focus on the progress, focus on getting better in whatever it is you do, and you'll get frustrated a lot, a lot less often, and that will help you to keep going after long-term goals and that will give you the extraordinary results you are looking for.

Speaker 1 26:26

Don't forget, guys, please do share this podcast episode. If you found it useful, share it, screenshot it. Tag me on Instagram at AngelaBrainBodyCoach, angelabrainbodycoach, or on WhatsApp or on LinkedIn AngelaSharina on LinkedIn, angela Sharina on LinkedIn. Please do share. Let's help a lot more people to thrive and get extraordinary results they seek. And till next time, sleep, eat early, do your heat, live an extraordinarily good life and let's together make the world a better place. Talk to you soon. Stay tuned.