Dr Tommy Wood: How Creatine Reduces the Risk of Depression

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I think of the brain like I think about a muscle.
They're actually surprisingly similar.
The primary driver of initial brain development is stimulating
the brain. The brain responds to stimulus
just like your muscles respond to stimulus.
Say, if you're doing some kind of any skill that you're trying
to develop, you need to spend short periods of time working at

(00:21):
the edges of your current capacity, and then you need to
back off and give yourself time to rest and recover.
And that's the same for focus, just as it's the same for
learning how to write computer code, just as it's the same for
learning how to dance, or a new language, or a new school.
Doctor Tommy Wed a renowned neuroscientist whose work in
cognitive decline and brain health is recognised globally.
I can guarantee you every singleperson listening to this has an

(00:45):
internal critic that's really loud inside of them, yet we all
just kind of go around saying we're fine the whole time and
trying to do better. When it comes to brain health,
that story that you have in yourhead about your brain, about how
it doesn't work like it used to,all I can do is make it worse by
not sleeping enough and stressing, and it's just
completely wrong. There's so much of a

(01:06):
conversation around mindset and brain health that is so
overlooked when it comes to our cognitive mental health today
and our mindset and the importance of it for you.
How do you think about this in returns to brain function and
brain health? Your brain is absolutely capable
of improving and changing its trajectory of function at any
time in your life. I'm your host, Sarah Ann

(01:27):
Macklin, and I'm on a mission touncover the maze of health myths
around nutrition and well-being and guide you through my 7
pillars of health. Join me on a journey of
discovery and connection and putup a queue for a front row seat
to the most exclusive health conversations of our time.
Welcome to Live Well Be Well. Today we're focusing on one of

(01:51):
the most critical organs in our body, the brain.
Did you know that what you eat can significantly affect your
brain's health and its aging process?
Yes, our diets play a pivotal role in how our brain functions
daily and how well it maintains as it functions as we age.
But it's not just about avoidingforgetfulness and keeping sharp.
It's also about starving off disease like dementia, currently

(02:14):
the leading cause of death, whether you're in your 20s or
you're thriving in your 40s. And what you do today does have
an impact. Joining us today is Doctor Tommy
Wood, a renowned neuroscientist whose work in cognitive decline
and brain health is recognized globally and is here to tell us
everything we need to do to keepour minds healthy and happy.

(02:35):
Doctor Tommy Wood, welcome back to live Well.
Be well. I'm so happy to have you back on
the show for the second time. How are you?
I'm very well, thank you and very excited to be back.
Thanks for having me on again. I'm so thrilled to have you back
now. I think I said before, you have
one of the most impressive CVS to date.
And honestly, when we had our last conversation, it you

(02:57):
highlighted such a plethora of areas and some we touched upon
very lightly and some we kind ofwent quite in depth on.
But I kind of want to recap someof these, some of these concepts
that we spoke about. Now.
I want to touch upon diet and our brain health.
I want to talk about exercise and our brain health.
And I want to talk about the importance of even how we talk
to ourselves and the effect it has on our Physiology.

(03:19):
So to start with, this is one that we spoke about very
lightly. But since our conversation now
must be a year and a half ago, this conversation has come up
time and time again. So I thought I'm going to bring
you on to talk about it. And it's creating because I know
that you talk about this a lot and you, I think it's your
favorite supplement, actually creatine monohydrate.
And so I thought, what better way to start than kicking it off

(03:42):
with this? Now, I think many of our
listeners would have heard of creatine, maybe not creatine
monohydrate. So I want you to explain a
little bit more about that. But do we all need creatine?
Because I think a lot of us, especially women listening to
this might associate it more with strength and sports and
things like that and maybe bodybuilding.
So when it comes to our brain, how important is creatine and

(04:06):
the form that we take it in? So, so we all need creatine.
And I don't mean as a supplement, I just mean it as a
molecule in our bodies. It is ubiquitous throughout all
of our cells and it's used as anenergy buffer in particular.
So like a short term energy buffer.
It has some other functions as well, but it's so important that

(04:30):
it's, it's one of the the molecules that is most dependent
on methylation. People will have no doubt heard
of methylation. And actually a significant chunk
of your methylation currency is spent on producing creatine
because it's such a critical molecule.
So we, we make it ourselves and we make it from amino acids and

(04:52):
people can get a good amount obviously from their own
production, but there is quite alot of evidence to support that
supplementation can be beneficial as well.
If you eat a large amount of meat and fish, particularly
salmon, then maybe you don't need a supplement.
And you know, I, I don't, even though it is my favorite

(05:14):
supplement and I, I recommend itvery freely, I don't, I'm not
going to say that everybody has to take it.
The, it, it has a long history in bodybuilding and, and
athletics. It's, it's very, it's very safe
and it is ergogenic. It improves power production and

(05:35):
strength. And so that means you can push
yourself a little bit harder, get a few more reps to the gym.
It helps build muscle and strength in that way, but it
also has similar functions in the brain.
And rather than being a, a strength athlete, not everybody
has to be a strength athlete, although I think we all are in

(05:55):
some way if we, if we move our bodies.
But you probably want to be a cognitive athlete of some kind.
You want your, your brain to perform well when you want it to
perform well. And creatine helps in a few
scenarios. So there's evidence that those
who consume more creatine from the diet have a lower risk of

(06:15):
mental health disorders, particularly depression.
And there are two or three randomized controlled trials
where they added creatine to an antidepressant medication in
those who didn't respond fully to the antidepressant
medication. And they saw improvements in
depression scores in those who took creatine.
So it seems to help with mood ina range of individuals from

(06:39):
athletes through to elderly individuals, and it has a
greater effect in those who who are older.
But if you take creatine, it seems to support general
cognitive function. So that's been shown in several
studies. And the the like I said, the
benefit is greater in those who are older, but younger people

(06:59):
and athletes do seem to benefit as well.
And then the final, the the final group, and this is
probably relevant to lots of people, is that creatine taken
as a single dose and a relatively high dose, but taken
as a single dose after sleep deprivation seems to improve or
at least allow you to maintain cognitive, cognitive function.

(07:22):
And that's been shown again in athletes and in in the general
population. So there are a range of ways
that creatine seems to benefit both mood and cognitive function
more broadly the the form. Of can I ask one question there?
Absolutely. Because you mentioned that.
So I'm just thinking, you know, I have had, I, I'm aware of the

(07:45):
importance of creating, you know, for our brains, but not to
the extent that having a bad night's sleep, having a high
dose of creatine can help improve cognitive function.
So that will definitely perk up a lot of people this listening
to that. I mean, lots of us can be sleep
deprived. You might be new mums.
I mean, there's kind of a whole plethora might be working
ourselves, you know, into a verylike heavy cognitive load that

(08:06):
we're not sleeping very well. So would that be just on a
supplement or could you have, you know, a high amount of kind
of creatine foods the next day, such as you said, like fish and
meat? And would that have the same
effect or is it just simply taking a high dose supplement?
What's kind of the what would you advise there for the next
day, if that's kind of what the research is showing?

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Yeah, there's probably a little bit of both.

(10:34):
So when they've done the sleep deprivation studies, there was a
well known study that's a a few years old now where they did
this in, in rugby players and they had them be sleep deprived
or not. And they showed that creatine
was as good as caffeine at maintaining complex motor skills
after, after sleep deprivation. And some people might like that
because, you know, maybe caffeine makes them jittery.

(10:56):
And there are, there are some nice data on how caffeine and
other stimulants can make us feel better and they can make us
think that we're performing better, but actually, but we're
performing worse. So maybe we'll talk about that
as well. But but creatine is maybe a nice
option there. And then there's a much more
recent study that came out just just a few months ago that

(11:16):
showed something similar. And it's improving energetics in
the brain as we might expect after a night of sleep
deprivation. And they took .35g per kilo.
So for a 70K individual, this would be about 20 grams, which
is like a, a loading dose of, ofcreatine for anybody who's
familiar with the dosing. But it's just like 4 scoops of
a, of a, of a creatine powder. That's not astronomical amounts

(11:39):
of, of creatine and, and creatine in those doses have
been studied long term in peoplevery safe.
It's been studied in the elderly, It's been studied in in
post menopause of women. So these doses are not abnormal.
But if you are taking a regular creatine supplement, you might
take 5 to 10 grams a day. So it's just a little bit, you
know, maybe two to four times a regular sort of long term

(12:03):
creatine supplement dose. You can get those kinds of doses
from food, but I mean, we're, we're probably talking like
several kilos of beef and fish aday to to achieve it.
So, so not impossible, but probably quite, but probably
quite difficult. There are some, there are some
animal, there are some animal studies that suggest that if you

(12:24):
take creatine long term, actually you seem to maintain
cognitive function odd but whilst requiring slightly less
sleep. So this might then say, if
you're taking long term sort of supplemental doses of creatine,
it during periods of maybe less than ideal sleep, creatine can

(12:46):
can perhaps help you maintain cognitive function longer term
as well. But that that's mainly based on
on animal studies. So, so less, less good.
Whereas the acute stuff after like a single night of sleep
deprivation in humans seems to be pretty reproducible.
And do we know why? Do you know why it kind of it
can work in the same in the sameway as caffeine can work with
with brain functioning? Is there an understanding of the

(13:07):
mechanism of how that's happening?
Yes and no. One of the one of the ways that
it seems to be having it is, is providing this short term energy
buffer. And when you're, when you're
sleep deprived, you know, maybe there's, there's a slight, you
end up with different areas of the brain, yeah, essentially not

(13:30):
functioning at their, their optimal, at their optimal level.
Because, you know, there's stilla number of things sort of
suppressing metabolic function like a denazine.
And then maybe creatine by improving the the sort of energy
status can help overcome some ofthat some, some people find that
creatine is slightly stimulating, like directly

(13:51):
itself. So it's potentially having some
other effects. We know it effects mitochondrial
calcium handling, which is really important for energy
production overall sort of cellular health.
So it has these other functions.And I'll, I'll say that we think
we know some of what creatine does, but people have argued
equally that in context, like mental health, the the energy

(14:16):
sort of the energy substrate idea of creatine isn't enough to
really explain what it seems to be doing.
So it's possible that it's doingsome stuff that we just don't
understand yet. I mentioned there when we
started, I know I love that you also said which I'm very
passionate about. You know, it's not just about
supplementation. Not everybody needs
supplementation. But actually, you know, from the
food sources, it's looking at meat and fish and animal

(14:37):
products as having these rich doses.
But if we are thinking about supplementation, and I say this
because many people become plantbased eaters or just don't like
fish, what should they be looking for?
Because they did say creating monohydrate.
And I think many people might not be aware of that term and
that type of creating supplementbecause there's loads on the
market. So, you know, having one that

(14:58):
that we both have spoken about Ithink is really important.
Can you explain why that one is is so important to choose when
it comes to this? Absolutely.
It it's nice because creating monohydrate is the the one
that's the best research. In fact, it's the only creatine
that's really been extensively researched and all of the
studies that I would ever mention about creating used
creatine monohydrate. It's also the cheapest and the

(15:21):
easiest to get, which is nice. And it's it's very inexpensive.
The majority of it is actually produced under the name
Creopure. It's made in Germany.
And then if you buy like a sports supplement that has
creatine monohydrate as either, you know, like a powder with
scoop, with like a little scoop or as pills, it's just white

(15:41):
labeled, but all produced by by the same company.
I would recommend that people look for a product that contains
Creopure because we know that it's high quality.
There are other places making creatine monohydrate, but then
you're, you don't really know necessarily what what's in
there. So create pure creative
monohydrate. But again, that's what most

(16:02):
reputable sports supplement companies and that's you usually
buy it from a sports supplement company.
That's what they tend to use. So you can and you can see it on
the back of the packet and you get get this in Holland Barrett.
They probably have it in boots. You can order it off Amazon,
right? And it's, it's pretty cheap,
easy to get all other forms of creatine and there are lots

(16:25):
where they try and pH balance itor, you know, I've even seen
some liposomal forms and some ofthe other fancy things.
Don't bother with any of that. Just get the basic stuff.
Ignore, not worth your time, notworth your money.
They're not studied. They haven't been shown to to be
to be better, or at least as good as, as you know, the good

(16:49):
old creative monohydrate which has been used for decades at
this point. I feel like from that, if you
are plant based, you should probably be varying towards
looking at supplementation. If you're not plant based and
having a look at how much fish and meat you're getting in your
diet throughout the week to see if you're hitting these these
types of markers. Is that, is that right?

(17:09):
If you're just thinking to see you're plant based, you might be
struggling to get this amount inyour diet.
Yeah, certainly individuals who are plant based have lower
creatine intakes in the diet. There are now, I mean, most of
it is nutrition epidemiology, but we can see some of it from
the interventional literature, you know, randomized controlled

(17:30):
trials at least with creatine, that those who are plant based
do seem to have a higher risk ofcertain mental health disorders,
including depression, and creatine intake could be one of
the things contributing to that.There's also reverse causation,
which maybe people struggle withtheir mental health so therefore
they go plant based to try and improve their health, right?

(17:50):
It's difficult to untangle all this stuff and I'm not saying
that going plant based is going to negatively affect your mental
health at all, but from some of these different pieces, it could
be that the creatine intake is playing a role there.
Absolutely. Hmm.
Well it's a double edged sword, isn't it Because we know that we
need to be eating more plant based foods for our gut
microbiome. But then it's balancing out that

(18:11):
if we are consuming more and we're naturally reducing our
animal products, like where would we be missing out such as
our B twelves and, and from the gals, I want to talk to you
about which is omega-3, which I speak a lot about if somebody is
plant based and brain health, because it's something that I am
completely obsessed with everyone who listens to this
podcast and I talk about omega-3all the time.
And you know, trundling through your website today, looking at

(18:33):
all your fantastic publications,by the way, incredible.
There is a lot. I saw one actually in relation
to DHA in brain health. So, you know, let's talk about
this. Let's talk about omega-3 and
brain health and how we should be looking at this sector.
How important is it for a cognitive functioning and how
much we should be? How much should we be consuming
of it a week, either in a fatty fish form or if not, in a

(18:56):
supplementation form? DHA, you know, the, the, the
long chain omega-3 fatty acid orthe, the longest chain that we
really think about being as being important for our health
is, I mean, it's just, it's critical, it's essential for,
for the brain and the, the brain, depending on the region

(19:21):
of the fatty acids in the brain,DHA make may make up something
like 15 to 25% of the fats in the brain And sort of again,
change difference by region, difference by age, this kind of
stuff. But a lot your brain is mainly
fat and a really big chunk of that fat is DHA.
And when the brain is growing inthe first place in in utero, as

(19:45):
we say, or during pregnancy, DHAtransfer from the mother to the,
the fetus is a very tightly regulated process such that the
mother's DHA status will be sacrificed in order to make sure
that the, the, the fetus gets enough DHA.
Although, and then if, if the mother has a very high DHA

(20:07):
status, it will be rained back, right?
It's it's really tightly, it's really tightly regulated.
And then this DHA accumulation in the brain continues after,
after birth over the first over the first few years, it's prime
primary role seems to be in at at the synapse, which is where

(20:27):
neurons talk to each other. It kind of sits there in, in, in
the membrane. And what's interesting is that
there are again, large epidemiological type studies
where you look at people's omega-3 status, their DHA
status, and you look at their long term health outcomes.
And for omega-3 broadly, it's associated with, you know, lower

(20:50):
mortality risk, lower dementia risk, lower cardiovascular
disease risk, DHA in particular,but actually EPA as well, which
is the slightly shorter chain omega-3's.
But those two EPA and DHA peoplewill be familiar from your
podcast being the ones that you tend to get.
Both really critical for the brain.
EPA may be more to do with vascular function, but but how

(21:13):
your blood, your blood vessels function is really important for
your brain as well. So, so, so both important
together. When you look at supplementation
with Omega threes and things like preventing dementia or
Alzheimer's disease, the, the results are really rather mixed.

(21:34):
They've been some lots of randomized controlled trials
that they give people Omega threes and then they don't see
much of A benefit. And then they say, well, Omega
threes don't work. They don't really matter that
much. But there's a really critical
nuance that that that comes out,which is that, you know, DHA say
everything about DHA in the brain.
It's not like this stand alone thing that you like, you eat it

(21:56):
and all of a sudden it ends up in your brain doing this stuff
that it needs to do, right? That's that's not how biology
works. So the the way that I think
about it is what, what does it take for Adha molecule to end up
in the membrane of a synapse in your brain doing it's job?
And so obviously you need to consume it.

(22:16):
And one of the most important things that that we have to
regulate that process is our fatstores.
Our fat stores actually end up being DHA stores for our brain.
That's one of the reasons why humans are born with fat babies
is because you have this nice little store of fats either to
make ketones for the developing brain or, or to supply DHA to
the developing brain. So we have these little DHA

(22:40):
stores and then they have to getinto the sort of eat them.
They, they go into the, they tend to cycle through the
adipose tissue and then they then they beat, they're
trafficked up into the brain. From there you need to attach
the DHA to a phospholipid. So anybody who doesn't school
doesn't care to remember biochemistry if they ever
learned it. A phospholipid is this

(23:03):
hydrophilic or water loving headgroup.
And then you have fats on the other side and they kind of make
this, this bilayer that that makes it the membrane of the
cells. And now as I, as I explained
biochemistry to everybody, you're, you're desperately
wondering how you can get me offthis track, but it's too late.
So I'm so I'm going to finish this thought.

(23:23):
So you're going to attach fats to your phospholipid, right?
So you need, you need that head group and that head group is
made-up of choline, ethanolamineor serine as phosphatidyl
ethanolamine, choline and serine.
And most of the DHA in the brainis as phosphatido, ethanolamine
and phosphatidocerine. Choline is, is important as

(23:46):
well, but less so. But all of these things are
interchangeable. You can convert interconvert
between choline and ethanolamine, but you need
methylation to in order to do that.
So where I'm getting to finally is that if you want DHA to be
sitting in your brain, first of all, you need some precursor to
that head group. So you need to be consuming

(24:07):
enough choline and maybe some serine and ethanolamine.
And you can get all of those either from eggs or from
lecithin if you're plant based, both soy and sunflower.
And then you need methylation tokind of regulate the head group
that you've got. So you need a good B vitamin
status. Finally getting to my point,

(24:29):
there are three randomized controlled trials now that show
that if you have good omega-3 status or good B vitamin status,
you don't get benefit in terms of cognitive function.
But if you improve both, then you do see benefit, right?
So you need a combination of good omega-3 status and good
methylation status in order to get your DHA where you want it

(24:52):
to go in your brain. There are now three studies that
have shown this, either supplementing with B vitamins to
lower homocysteine or with Omegathrees to improve omega-3
status. It doesn't work if you don't
have enough of the other one. So this is where you know, when
you just do a trial and you justgive people Omega threes, if you
don't take other aspects of their health and nutrition into

(25:14):
account, you might say, hey, this doesn't work.
But actually it it's a multi step process.
So this gets back to to part of your original question, which is
we then need to ensure that we have good omega-3 status, but we
also need to ensure good B vitamin status.
And one of the best ways sort ofbroadly to measure that is by
measuring home system. I mean, that literally just mic

(25:38):
drops the the importance on not isolating 11 nutrient.
And it's it's, it's really important that they all work
together in synergy. And so many times and we kind of
look at supplements on their ownor isolated or, you know, we're
supplementing something back in,but we're not looking at overall
health. We're not seeing, as you said,

(25:58):
like these transformative effects that that we're hoping
for and then thinking it's actually not doing anything.
But you've mentioned it there about the importance of having
it together. So I mean, for somebody who is
on more of a restrictive diet, I'm just trying to think about
this because if you're having like a very good high quality
diet, including all of your nutrients, then you should be
trying to support these these nutrients together.

(26:20):
And that makes me think, actually, maybe that's why the
outcome of, of food studies maybe sometimes better than
supplement studies because you're not just isolating 1
nutrient. But is it important then for
some to take it multivitamin when they're, when they're
thinking about this, like what'skind of the concept of if
they're, if somebody is plant based or has more of a
restrictive diet for, for multiple health reasons,

(26:40):
whatever that will be, what should be their approach when
they're thinking about this and,and their brain health in
general, such as, you know, their B vitamins or omega-3 or
you know, they're creating like to give them some direction
rather than just buying single supplements off the shelf.
Yeah, I obviously the ideal is that you get as much of this
from your diet as possible as. Possible.

(27:03):
However, many of the foods that that contain the nutrients that
I've talked about do you know, we're talking eggs, meat and and
seafood at at this point I've talked, we've talked about and,
and that's the same particularlyfor for B12 or the B vitamins,
but you know, we're talking about choline and, and creatine
as well. So if you are on a restricted

(27:29):
diet, and I think we talked about this last time, like
people thrive on a wide variety of diets, right?
So just because I said that I like this particular food for
this nutrient, right, doesn't mean that you have to eat it.
Of course not. But the easiest way to really
figure out what you should do, Ithink is, is to test if you can.

(27:50):
So there are a whole range of nutrients that we know are
critical for brain health. We also have tests that you can
do for them, so iron, vitamin, DB12 and folate, but
particularly homocysteine because that can also tell you
about B6 and B2, which is riboflavin like these are just
these critical nutrients for an omega-3 status, the the other

(28:13):
one, and they're easily testable.
So before you worry about whether you should supplement or
whether your diet is insufficient in these nutrients,
the the best thing to do is is test if you can.
See where your baseline is actually it's the most important
thing. Then understand where you can
kind of tweak and and support your health.
I think, you know, you mentionedthere something really, really

(28:35):
critical, which is where I started becoming really obsessed
is not the word, very passionateabout brain health.
So I found out I was dyslexic when I was studying
biochemistry. It was an absolute nightmare
trying to finish that degree being a dyslexic.
I made-up so many new enzymes along the way.
So I very much appreciate your biochemistry lecture that you

(28:56):
just gave us. But something that I was really
fascinated about was when I was learning about Omega threes and
I wanted to figure out, OK, well, dyslexia, how could that
kind of play? And my first dissertation I ever
did was on omega-3 supplementation with autistic,
ADHD, autism minds. But what it led me into was a
third trimester of looking at pregnancy and thinking about

(29:19):
kind of that brain development. And again, this is a completely
anecdotal this last bit, but speaking to my mum who barely
ate in pregnancy because she suffered so bad with morning
sickness. So she just basically ate sill
bread all the time. Maybe come to think, you know,
the importance of a woman's diet, especially in that third
trimester, you know, and is there ever going to be a link
with with brain development and,you know, autism and and

(29:41):
dyslexia and ADHD. So when it comes to a woman's
pregnancy, what should they be thinking about in in regards to
their diet and their health? I think that's really important.
And you, you know, you work so much in this area.
And then also, do you know any kind of links regarding brain
health and certain nutrients or certain ways of thinking about

(30:01):
food with people that are neurodivergent?
Because I think it's such a big area and so many people always
looking for how they can supportthemselves with diet when it
comes to, you know, ADHD, autismand dyslexia.
But it's quite a vast landscape.So I wanted to ask you if you
see anything in in that area as well?
Yeah, the the most interesting thing to me about like all of

(30:28):
this span, right. I do work in the neonatal brain,
then the the the older brain as well as well as the injured
brain and. I.
Think any brain like we only getone brain, right?
And the the thing that's kind ofseemed more and more clear to me

(30:48):
is that the the rules for what makes a healthy brain are fairly
consistent. I won't say that they are always
the same, but they seem to be fairly consistent.
So the question you asked, the answer I think is generally the
same, right? So what?
What are the critical componentsof brain development in the

(31:12):
third trimester like from a nutritional standpoint?
Then iron, my iron really accumulates in that third
trimester. Iron is really critical for
white matter development, in particular Omega threes.
Like you said, we know that B vitamin status is critical in in
pregnant women. Obviously there's been a large

(31:36):
campaign around folate or folic acid for neural tube defects,
but it's just, you know, much more important than you know,
the other B vitamins are important as well.
It's probably also important notto supplement too much with
folic acid. I think there's people are now
considering that we've probably gone too far in the other
direction. Like we're so worried about

(31:57):
neuro 2 defects that women are taking massive doses of folic
acid. And if you take the, the the B
vitamins in largely mismatched proportions that that may have
some issues. And we're sort of talking, it's
largely hypothetical here, but this is something that that
people are certainly looking at.So, and then, so then all those

(32:19):
things I think are all remain critical as the brain continues
to develop. So if you miss out on some of
those opportunities for nutrientaccumulation in the third
trimester, like if you're born extremely preterm.
So this is a patient group that I do a lot of work with.

(32:42):
Statistically, I'll say I'm not clinically looking after them,
but I, I work with clinicians who do look after these babies
and we generate a lot of data. So we look at what can we look
at in terms of their, their longterm health outcomes based on
these various things. And if you're born at 28 weeks,
you essentially miss almost all of, if not all of the third
trimester. This is a baby who's born

(33:03):
extremely preterm. So you miss out on all of these
nutrients. And so now then we have to try
and replace them in the the neonatal intensive care unit.
But if you're born extremely preterm, then you do have an
increased risk of cerebral palsybeing, you know, some kind of
neuro developmental impairment, including a range of neuro

(33:26):
divergent neurological outcomes.So that's probably at least
partly related to nutrient status and whether you're
getting those nutrients in the way that you would normally get
them during that critical periodof brain development.
Of course, at the same time, there's a whole bunch of other
stuff that's going on with these, with these babies.

(33:47):
They have lung issues, they havegut issues, they get exposed to
a whole bunch of drugs just to try and keep them alive.
So it's a, it's a very complex picture, of course, but, but
part of this increasingly seems to be what nutrients or, you
know, hormones, other things because like thyroid hormone is
super important, growth hormone and IGF one are super important.

(34:08):
And all of these drop when you're born extremely pretermed
because they're not being supplied by the placenta
anymore. So all of this is, is a big part
of it. But nutrients certainly, you
know, play a role. So then in, in these, you know,
in the, in the, in, in all people, right, when we all exist

(34:29):
on a range of cognitive and emotional functions.
And so then I think all of thesenutrients remain important
regardless of your current neurological state.
For one, one of a better word, Ithink you could still see, could

(34:50):
I, you know, maybe benefit some from some Omega threes or, or do
I have an elevated homocysteine,which means that I need to make
sure that I'm getting enough riboflavin in my diet and that's
actually relatively simple to doso.
So my answer is essentially, after all of that, my answer is
the same. It's always important.
It seems to be important for thebrain throughout the entire

(35:11):
lifespan. So I'd start with those core
nutrients that we just know are critically important, we know we
can test, we know are easy to supplement with or what are easy
to get from the diet. And that's not going to solve
every problem, but I think that's a good starting place.
And go through this again. Iron Omega 3B vitamins.

(35:33):
And vitamin D. Choline.
Choline, Yeah, the, the reason why, the reason why I don't
mention. So choline, absolutely.
And and choline insufficient codeine intake seems to maybe
contributing to a lot of metabolic disease that we're
having, particularly fatty liver.
Codeine is incredibly important for, for brain development.
So it's, it's essential that, that mums get enough choline

(35:54):
that this isn't a good test for choline, whereas there are tests
for the other things, but, but codeine is absolutely another
one. Yeah, choline's another one I
would have on that list. Absolutely.
OK, amazing. And I think it's just one of
those things, isn't it? When I think something that I
have always wanted to help improve is my focus or more so
maybe my processing speed. That's something that, you know,

(36:15):
and I and my niece and nephew have autism and I know there's
certain things that they really support on.
And see, when you do have kind of a weakness in any area where
there's also an opposing strength, which, you know, I
love what you said, like no brain is never bad.
But understanding that there might be possible ways to
support yourself really fascinates me.
And that's why I became so obsessed around brain health and

(36:37):
mental health and how can we actually support ourselves?
And there's, there's a plethora of errors that we can do, but
diet is definitely one. But it's multifactorial, which I
know that we're going to speak about in a little bit more
detail. But something you talk a lot
about, which I find really fascinating, is kind of the
stimuli that we need to kind of in not increase, well, increase,

(36:58):
but also not reduce our cognitive functioning.
So you talk a lot about emphasising your cognitive
demand and having a primary status.
So basically using different things throughout your day of
testing your brain and allowing it to fill that.
It's not overloaded or overwhelmed, but your brain's
using different areas to activate to kind of keep that
strength and resilience going. Can you talk a little bit about

(37:20):
how we can, outside of our diet,support our brain health and
help reduce cognitive decline inthe long term, which I feel like
we're all quite scared of because dementia I think it is
still, but it definitely was oneof the leading causes of death
in the UK, preventable deaths anyway.
Yeah, I think the, the UK is oneof the few countries where

(37:41):
Alzheimer's disease has overtaken heart disease.
Heart disease is still the number one cause of death across
most of the the high income or high resource world.
But you're right, Alzheimer's disease is, is creeping up
mainly because we're getting old.
We're we're living longer and we're getting better at
preventing heart disease. So like that's good news, but it

(38:02):
just means that we then we now need to focus on on other.
Stuff. As well.
Yeah, So I think of the brain like I think about a muscle, and
they're actually surprisingly similar.
The, you know, everybody wants wants to talk about diet, which

(38:24):
is great. I love to talk about diet.
It means I get to talk about biochemistry.
And, you know, I think people are starting to appreciate the
importance of sleep, maybe managing stress.
Like all of these things affect the brain and and they fit into
the bigger picture of brain health.
Absolutely. But the primary driver of
initial brain development and then I think what drives brain

(38:48):
development, I've already said this several times, what drives
brain development, I think is also critically important for
maintaining brain health throughout the entire lifespan.
The primary driver of brain development is stimulating the
brain. It's creating what I call
cognitive demand. And I, when I say I, what I
really mean is myself and my very close colleague, Josh,
doctor, Josh Turkney, who's a neurologist and, or anytime I

(39:12):
talk about any of this, it's work that he and I have, have
done together. We've written papers about it
and we have a podcast and we talk about it a lot.
But the idea is that the brain responds to stimulus just like
your muscles respond to stimulus, say if you're doing
some kind of exercise. And the biochemical response

(39:32):
pathways are actually quite similar.
So imagine you wanted to get bigger and stronger or you want
to get bigger biceps. So you go to the you go to the
gym and you and you lift weights.
And if you didn't lift weights, but you still wanted to get
bigger biceps, right? Imagine you, you had a perfect

(39:54):
diet and you slept great and youhad no stress.
Like all of those things are important for building muscle,
but your muscles don't get bigger if you don't lift
weights. Like that's just, it's just a
fact of the matter. And the brain seems to be the
same, right? We can.
Remove things that are problematic, right?
We can remove maybe if we if we smoke or we drink too much
alcohol or we're stressed all the time, or we have

(40:14):
insufficient nutrient status, wecan, that's like taking the
brakes off. But if you want to really Dr.
improvements in function, you have to stimulate and challenge
the brain, right? Just like if you grow bigger
biceps, you have to lift weights.
So then the question becomes, well, what do you want your
brain to be good at? And each of us wants our brains
to be good at different things. Josh is an exceptional banjo

(40:40):
player and he wants his brain tobe really good at playing banjo.
I really like to write statistical code in R, So I want
my brain to be good at writing code, right?
So we need, we each want our brains to be good at different
things. So then there are some
commonalities, right? We want to be able to focus.
We want to focus and we want to be able to like remember where
our keys are when when we left them right there was we want to

(41:01):
remember the names of our our loved ones.
There are some basics, but beyond that, we each want our
brains to do different things. So then it's, well, how am I
stimulating my brain to become good or better at that specific
function? And what's nice is that some of
these core very human activitiesstimulate several networks

(41:25):
across the brain so that if you're learning how to dance,
for instance, you're also makingsure that you're working memory
is better. Because they've even shown that,
they've shown that with video games where these complex 3D
video games where you're interacting with the environment
that improves working memory. So when you're doing these
complex functions, these complexskills and tasks, you're

(41:46):
actually also supporting some ofthose common brain functions
that we all want all want to have.
So that that's really the key tolong term cognitive function is
how am I first of all, broadly stimulating my brain?
And that's going to include types of movement, it's going to
include languages, music, you know, some of these complex,

(42:09):
again, very human skills and tasks that stimulate several
networks across the brain. But then there are also more
niche skills that we might want to have.
And you then have to think about, am I stimulating those
in, in, in in a consistent manner?
Because what we tend to do is when we're younger, we learn how

(42:32):
to walk, we learn how to talk, we learn social interaction.
These are the hardest things youwill ever learn in your entire
life. And that is when you are
maximally stimulating your brain.
You're spending all your time learning and then sleeping in
order to actually solidify that learning.
But then as you go through school and university, if you go
to university, you know, you continue to stimulate the brain,

(42:54):
but it's not as hard as learninghow to walk and, and, and then
you go to work and you feel busy, but you're essentially
just doing the same thing again and again and again and again
and again. And So what you're doing over
time is you're, you're decreasing the amount that
you're stimulating your brain inthat sort of development focused
way. And as a result, function tends

(43:17):
to decline. So that's the most critical
component of long term brain health.
And, and you mentioned focus, like focus is a learned skill.
Like you can't just spend years not focusing on anything and
then expect to be able to focus for hours on end, unfortunately.
And this is the same for every skill that we might want to do,

(43:41):
right? If you're, if you're working at
the edges of your current function, which is what we do,
we learn a skill, right? We learn how to play the piano
and we're playing a piece that'skind of hard for us and we're
like making mistakes and actually making mistakes is
really critically important because it drives
neuroplasticity. So you, you have to fail at
stuff. It's good for your brain, even

(44:02):
though it feels terrible. And so, so we're, we're kind of
working at the edges of our current function, but we can
only do that for short periods of time, right?
You can't play the piano badly for hours on end like you do.
Like, I don't think anybody can do that, but so, so think.
About, I don't think you'd have any neighbours if you did.

(44:22):
That, that was why I, I was always really bad at practicing
instruments when I was a kid because I was like, the
neighbours can hear me. This is, this is terrible.
But nowadays, actually with modern instruments, you can just
listen to them through headphones.
So it's, it that's less of a, that's a barrier anyway.
So any skill that you're trying to develop, you need to spend
short periods of time working atthe edges of your current

(44:43):
capacity. And then you need to back off
and give yourself time to rest and recover.
And that's the same for focus, just as it's the same for
learning how to write computer code, just as it's the same for
learning how to dance or, or a new language or a musical
instrument. We need these periods of intense
kind of practice where we try and push the edges of what we're
currently capable of. And then we need to, you know,

(45:05):
back off and allow ourselves times rest and recover.
Just like you can only go to thegym for a certain period of
time, you can only lift, you canonly do so many bicep curls in
one session. But then actually, when you get
bigger, when you get stronger, when your brain develops new
connections, when you're restingand recovering afterwards.
So it makes me think actually that, you know, because it could

(45:26):
be misinterpreted, right thinking I've got to constantly
stimulate my brain, but I also sometimes think we can be over
stimulated. You know, there's just so much
happening with our brain from the moment that we're working to
how many things, you know, even when I'm thinking about how I
get contacted via work, it's viaWhatsApp, it's via e-mail, it's
via Instagram, and there's so many different forms of how

(45:48):
someone's contacting your brain is constantly trying to navigate
what it's meant to be focusing on.
So like how should we be lookingat what you're saying, which is
like obviously using kind of stimulation towards helping
support our cognitive health, but also being aware that there
is a barrier and not over stimulating our brain health.
Like how do we navigate that? So the important thing to say is

(46:11):
that those are two very different things and very
different ways of using our brain, right?
So if you know when you're responding to work related
messages across five different platforms, that is not
stimulating beneficial adaptations in the brain.
That is not the kind of stimulusin demand that we're talking
about. And there's now huge bodies of

(46:32):
work in the areas of multitasking and task switching,
which say that that is both likedecreases your ability to focus
and get actual work done. But also it is actually very
physiologically stressful to have to continuously monitor and
respond to a whole range of, of messages across different

(46:53):
platforms with, you know, with, on different tasks.
And, and then and try and juggleall of that as, as well as, you
know, what we're trying to do isactually, you know, get some
work done half, half the time. So there were lots.
Of counterproductive. Yes, absolutely.
And so Gloria Mark has a recent book called Attention Span,

(47:14):
which, which talks about a lot of this because a lot of that
research is hers. So that like I said, I, I don't
think that that is cognitive stimulus.
I think that is just chronic cognitive stress for want of a
better word. Whereas cognitive stimulus is
concerted, effortful practice ofsome kind of, of skill, be that

(47:38):
learning how to walk when you'rea baby or, you know, learning
how to speak a second language when you're in your 50s.
That's what I mean about cognitive demand and stimulus.
The rest, we'll just call it chronic cognitive stress.
And we know that some acute stress is good, right?
I, I think actually the cognitive stimulus is a, is a
short burst of beneficial stress.

(47:59):
Whereas there's other things that these like chronic stresses
that are, right, we would call them stimulating and they may be
like emotionally stimulating. They, they often are, they can
be very, very stressful and arousing.
Arousing. That's another good word.
But it's, it's just not the samething.
So we have to separate out, separate them out entirely and

(48:24):
we have to do some of that stuff, right?
The task switching, the multitasking, right?
All of us are going to have to do a little bit of that.
But the most important thing, I think, in both buckets is making
sure that we have time to recover from it and, you know,
adapt appropriately. Recovery, it's such a big thing,

(48:45):
honestly, it's what when you take time off work, even for a
couple of days, you do feel yourproductivity increase.
But it's such an odd scenario because everyone listening to
us, I feel knows that in some sense, but we still don't do it.
And I'm thinking even though we know it's good, why do we not do
it? It's such a, such a kind of
important question back to ourselves because a lot of the

(49:07):
stuff that we know to recover, but it's harder to do it.
So it's like a, it's a very interesting question for to pose
back to yourself. And, and as you're talking about
this, do you know what's coming to my mind?
So if you're not Auk listener, you, this might not make sense
to you, but in the UK there's, Idon't know if they still do it

(49:27):
because, you know, now Uber's coming.
But London cabs, London cabs, I know for many years had to look
and know and it still makes, it still amazes me.
I get into the back of a black cab and I say I'd like to go
here and they know the route without a SAT NAV and they
basically have to study how theyget around London to get through
their tests. And it's such an intensity of
understanding, knowing every single route, every single Rd.

(49:49):
throughout London and basically having it as a map in their
brains. They do not at all look at a SAT
NAV and it amazes me every time I get in.
They just know where they're going.
That makes me just as you're talking about it.
That's what I'm stimulus. That's what I'm thinking in my
brain. So do you know what this is?
Actually What that specific example is one of the examples
that I use of how the brain responds to specific cognitive

(50:14):
demand to improve function, right.
There's actually a study on this.
It was published in Current. Biology.
Yeah, like almost 15 years ago now.
So what they did is so anybody who doesn't know about black
cabs, if you wanted to be a cabbie in London, you had to
learn the knowledge is what theycall it.
And the knowledge. That's what it is.

(50:36):
The the knowledge is being able to memorize 25,000 streets, a
Six Mile radius circle around Charing Cross station.
That's where that's that's the knowledge.
And you have to and you have to memorize it.
You have to know be able to navigate anywhere on that map in
your head without without a map.And they looked at people who

(50:57):
were studying for the knowledge and these tend to be individuals
in the sort of mid 30s, right? So, so now we're into a later
period of life and we think we can't learn anything new, right?
And it takes at least two years in general to to learn the
knowledge. So they, they had individuals
who successfully passed the knowledge exam, those who

(51:17):
studied and didn't pass. And then they had a control
group. And what they found was that
those who passed had a significant increase in signal
intensity in the hippocampus in the brain, right?
So that you can see the brain changing on an MRI scan as they
become just so good at memorization.
So you can, there are now lots of studies with lots of

(51:38):
different skills. I've even done this with
juggling, right? You learn a specific skill and
you can see that area of the brain change on an MRI scan as
the brain sort of focuses resources into that area of the
brain to support that new function.
So they saw that in those who successfully passed the exam,
but not in the control group or in those who failed the exam.

(52:00):
What's interesting, just like I said earlier, is when you become
good at one thing, you become less good at another thing.
So actually those who successfully learn the
knowledge, they became less goodat more abstract memorization
because they were just so good at memorizing this map in their
heads. So there's a trade off, right,
If you want to be a world class power lifter, right, you can't

(52:27):
be a world class marathon runnerat the same time.
And and the brain is the same. So what do you want your brain
to be good at? And when you're more good at one
thing, you become less good at another thing.
And there's always these these trade-offs.
And that's not a bad thing. I think it's just cool.
The the brain is really good at specializing functions.
So that is I think that that thethe cabbie example is one of my

(52:49):
favorite examples of how the brain adapts to challenge, to
improve, to improve function. You can see that when you like
measure it in terms of the memory, but you can also see it
on an MRI scan. What I also think is fascinating
there is that you were saying it, you know, it's through
midlife, this can happen. And that was another thing that
came to my mind is that so many times that we just, well, even,

(53:11):
you know, I'm 34 and I'll go, Oh, you know, I'm too old to
learn something. Well, my brain isn't working
sufficiently and it's not going to work because of my age where
I'm too old to learn language. That's what I say a lot,
probably because I struggle to learn language.
But it's interesting, right? We kind of always put it off
because we think, well, you know, I'm actually not going to
be able to do it at this age. And it's, it's similar to saying
you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

(53:32):
We kind of have this mentality that actually wants to reassess
reach a certain age. We're no longer capable, but to
me what you've just said, that doesn't feel like the case.
And actually, we feel like we can always adapt and learn new
skills in our. Brain, absolutely.
Yeah, except for maybe in late stage dementia.
This idea that our brain can't adapt and learn in adulthood is

(53:54):
100% wrong. It's just completely false.
And there are again, across a wide range of of skills this,
this has been shown in, in, you know, you're teaching
individuals in their 70s and 80snew languages, right?
There were, there were studies that have shown there's
absolutely possible. And again, you can see changes
in the brain, changes in other cognitive functions happening at

(54:16):
the same time. There were there were two
important parts of this. One is that yes, compared to a
younger brain, compared to like the newborn developing brain,
the adult brain is not as malleable to the environment.
And that's an important thing, right?
Because you want your brain to be a product of your environment

(54:38):
because then it's adapted to function in the environment that
you that, that you function in, right?
Like, like I said, right, if you're a, if so say you're a
surgeon, you want those surgicalskills to be like hard wired in
and it really for it to be really difficult for those
skills to be lost, which might happen if your brain is just
like changing all the time basedon all the different inputs that

(55:02):
it's getting right. So you want your, your brain to
be, to have some inertia to, to like to just require a little
bit more effort to, to change. And so, so that's, it's not that
it can't change, it just requires more concerted effort
because your brain has already adapted so well to its
environment. So, but once, once we consider

(55:23):
that it's actually not, you know, not unable or is very able
to develop new, new skills. And the, one of the main
reasons, if not the main reason why we say, well, I'm, I'm 40
and therefore I can't learn new language is because we just
don't invest the time and effortin it that we did when we were

(55:46):
kids, right? Think about the time and effort
that a newborn baby or, you know, a toddler invests in
learning how to walk. It's like, it's a lot of time.
And think about how much time you invested in learning
biochemistry, even like, regardless of how successfully,
how much time you invested in that when you're at university,
if you then, you know, once a fortnight, look at your Spanish

(56:10):
book for half an hour and you'relike, well, I can't learn
Spanish. It's just not the same amount of
effort that you're putting in. And this is of course, right.
We have responsibilities, we have kids, we have jobs, you
know, we're not sleeping properly, right?
All of this stuff does play a role.
But I think that the main thing is that we just don't invest the

(56:30):
time in learning when we're older that we that we could or
that we did when we were younger.
And there's a nice study lookingat pianists on, on this
particular topic. So they had amateur and
professional pianists and they had young pianists and old
pianists. It was like four groups like
amateur, professional, young, old.

(56:51):
And what they found is that for particularly for piano specific
skills, older pianists were not like older professional pianists
were not worse than the than theyounger ones.
But the thing that predicted howgood their piano skills were was
how much they practice, right? Even as they got into their 50s
and 60s. So it all comes down to the

(57:14):
amount of time and effort you'reyou're investing in learning,
developing, and maintaining these cognitive skills that you
want to have throughout the restof your life.
I love that because this links on to something that you had
totally changed my mind about and now my work has gone so far
down to this rabbit hole. Thanks to you Tommy.
Just so you know, the profound effect of this first episode

(57:38):
hadn't me because you completelyblew my mind, which really
relates to this study that you've just mentioned.
And also, if we just believe that we can do it, if we believe
and we set the time to do it, then we'll do it.
It might not be easy, but we'll get there.
And it's there's so much of a conversation around mindset and
brain health that is so overlooked on just how we talk
to ourselves. And you had blown my mind.

(58:00):
Now I talk about this a lot on how our Physiology can change
just by the interpretation that we have on ourselves.
And you mentioned two fantastic trials, um, which was one on
endurance athletes where they were put onto a treadmill and
one was told that they had an endurance gene that made them
run faster. And I was told that they didn't
have this good endurance gene. And obviously the ones that were

(58:22):
told they had this endurance gene obviously kind of
outperformed their personal bestand the other group.
And very similar to how they also responded to a mill.
If they found out they had the FTO gene, they, they hormonally
responded to that mill completely differently if they
thought that they had this fat gene or they didn't have the fat
gene. That blew my mind so much that I

(58:42):
thought, my gosh, what else is the impact of just how we're
talking to ourselves? And it made me think a lot
about, and I know you'll have somuch say on this, which is why
I'm excited to ask you about. When we look at trials, right,
we obviously always before we kind of go to any medical trial,
we always want to do a placebo-controlled trial.
And we know about the noceval effect that has on us.

(59:03):
So even administering a dog thatis a placebo, we normally can
sometimes see a change in how werespond to that because we
believe that it's doing something to us.
So when it comes to the to a kind of our cognitive, you know,
our cognitive mental health today and our mindset and the
importance of it, you know, for you, how do you think about this

(59:25):
in returns to brain function andbrain health?
Because we spoke about we spoke a lot about exercise last time
we touched upon diet today we'vetouched upon cognitive stimuli.
But something that I feel is hyper powerful is just kind of
the belief we have in ourselves and towards our brains and, and
the mindset that we speak about.So what's kind of what's your
thoughts on this? I'd love to know.

(59:45):
I'm sure we're going to recite 10 studies to me.
I think the the more I you. Can see how much of A rabbit
hole I've gone down by the way can.
There's literally so many questions and I just don't know
where to start. This is such an interesting
subject. It's, it's, it's such an
interesting subject and it's, it's super, super important.

(01:00:08):
This is kind of the, the rabbit hole that I've gone down over
the years as well. So it's like if we go back 10
years, I was just at this point where if you put out enough good
information, people will just dothe things that will support
their health and they'll be happier and healthier and that's
it. Like job done, tick.
And then particularly like one. The most impactful person for me

(01:00:33):
on this subject is Doctor Simon Marshall.
He's a behavioural psychologist that I've had the the pleasure
of working with in in multiple spheres that just kind of taught
me that whether it's behaviour change or self talk, like the
way that our brains affect our Physiology is just probably more
important. Yeah.
And, and more important than whether we take creatine or not.

(01:00:56):
Which, you know, it pains me to say it, but it's absolutely
true. I've.
Got that now. That's going to be the quote
that you put on on social media,isn't it?
It is, yeah. So where I think this is
important is that when it comes to brain health, the thing that

(01:01:17):
I am probably most passionate about right now is going around
and telling as many people as possible that story that you
have in your head about your brain, about how it doesn't work
like it used to. All I can do is make it worse by
not sleeping enough and stressing.
And you know, you know, having half a bottle of wine

(01:01:37):
occasionally, it's just completely wrong, right?
Your brain is absolutely capableof improving and changing its
trajectory of function at any time in your life.
Again, except for maybe once youget into true dementia.
But they're just this decades of, of studies showing that your

(01:01:57):
brain has the ability to adapt and improve at pretty much any
age if you give it the right challenge and the the support to
to do so. So like this is the most
important thing. Just like knowing that your
brain has this amazing capacity to change and improve if the
conditions are correct. So like, that's the most like,
so even just starting by acknowledging, do you know what

(01:02:20):
I can learn, learn a new language or I can learn how to
dance, I can learn to play the banjo, right?
Even though I'm 506070 right. And actually that is probably
what you should really be investing your time in, you
know, as, as you get, you know, into the later stages of, of, of
life. Then when it relates to
behaviour change, I think we seesomething similar.

(01:02:42):
So there are a few studies. My, my favorite one is related
to to exercise. And this is, it's epidemiology,
right? It's not a randomized controlled
trial. So, so we have to kind of take
it with a, with a grain of salt,but it kind of fits into the
same picture if we're trying to build a case.
So this is using data from NorthHanes in, in the US.

(01:03:02):
So it's kind of like a big population data set that's,
that's supposed to look like, you know, America on average.
And what they did was they, they, they, they catalogued up,
you know, loads of things related to health, education
status, disease status, you know, blood tests, sleep, all
these other things. And then they did two things

(01:03:25):
that these people had accelerometers.
So they figured out how much they were moving, you know,
day-to-day and sort of like wearing a, a barometer or an
accelerometer. So they had some measure of like
actual physical activity. But then they asked people how
much do you think you exercise compared to other people like
you? And then it was like about the

(01:03:46):
same or less or more. And what they found was that
people who said that they exercise less than people like
them died sooner, regardless of how much exercise they were
actually doing. So the way that I interpret that
is if you're, if you're going around and this could be sleep,

(01:04:06):
this could be diet, this could be physical activity.
And, and what you're telling yourself is I'm not doing
enough, I'm not working hard enough.
You know, my sleep isn't good enough, my exercise isn't
enough, right? What you're doing is you are
socially demoting yourself, right?
You're, you're, you're giving yourself a social, a lower
social rank, which activates that same pathway.
And then in this study, after adjusting for a whole host of

(01:04:27):
things, that was associated witha higher mortality risk.
And again, this is not like castiron evidence, but it kind of
makes sense that the way that weview ourselves compared to
others effects our Physiology and that affects our health.
And the the two ways that I think are most relevant for us
in this conversation is why and social media, like how are we

(01:04:48):
comparing ourselves to others? And how is that affecting us, us
mentally? Then also is how are we thinking
about the the various lifestyle factors that we know are
important, but we're not doing, are we constantly beating
ourselves up about that which again, you know, is driving the
same process? Honestly, it's just hearing

(01:05:09):
that, I mean, I obviously was the epitome of social comparison
being a model for many, many, many years.
And that pivoted my work becauseof my, my entire body shut down
on me and uncovering his work. I'm like, wow, my body shut down
for, for a multitude of reasons,you know, like, you know, from
the stress I was under and you know, how I looked after myself
or how I was eating and everything, but literally

(01:05:30):
telling myself every day that I wasn't good enough.
And, and, and also, you know, 20people telling me as well that I
wasn't good enough. I mean, it's like a, it's a
complete cat, like a compoundingecosystem of just always feeling
like a failure. And I think about that now, as
you just said, in relation to social media, where I just now
think every single person goes through this on a daily basis.

(01:05:52):
I mean, the moment someone wakesup, the majority of people
listen to this will look at their phone in the morning right
when they first wake up already you're hit with comparison or
oh, that person's gone out for arun this morning and I haven't,
or, you know, this person's taking extra and I haven't.
And so that kind of it just compounds throughout the day.
It is something I just don't think spoken about.

(01:06:14):
And I, and I wonder why that when we think about opening
social media and looking at certain things with mental
health or brain health, why it'snot spoken about as much as it
should be. Do you have like any
understanding why? Because more I'm uncovering
about this, the more I'm just going, this is like the elephant
in the room that's just not spoken about.

(01:06:34):
Because I can guarantee you every single person listening to
this has an internal critic that's really loud inside of
them. Yet we all just kind of go
around saying we're fine the whole time and trying to do
better and we kind of never kindof hit this like internal
narrative that we're not good enough conversation.

(01:06:55):
There's maybe 22 parts to it. One is that actually this, the,
there's plenty of stuff out there that's driving this
internal narrative, which is like, you've got to grind,
you've got to work hard, you're not working hard enough, right?
And like, amazingly, this message is, is still out there.

(01:07:17):
Like, you know, the 90s called and they want their failed
culture back. Like what?
I just do not understand why there's still people out there
driving, driving this narrative.And now, of course, that's in
the context of I just told you that you should be working hard
on some things, right? You should do difficult things.
Absolutely. You should do exercise.

(01:07:37):
That's hard, right? You should learn skills that's
hard. But this sort of like you're
never good enough and like that,like that's not how these sort
of like that, that that relatively external, you know,
motivation locus like that that is not going to foster long
term, either mental or or physical health.

(01:07:59):
So that's one of it. Like still that, that message
still exists, which I, I think is completely incorrect and is
probably driven by substantial trauma on the behalf of why, you
know, I don't want to analyse people from afar, but that seems
to be driving a lot of it, at least from those who are sort of
still, you know, maintaining that message out in, in the

(01:08:20):
popular media. And then the other part of it is
that it's this is really difficult to study and there's
maybe only like a decade of workwhere people have really looked
at how does our social environment and our self talk
and our, you know, our internal narrative affect our Physiology

(01:08:43):
and we're only right at the beginning of science.
I appreciate that. So so I think it's probably a
bit of both of those things as well as it's like, it's hard,
like what's what's the answer? The answer to a bad night of
sleep is to take some creatine. Not really, but you know what I
mean. Do you have any tools for
yourself and how you do this? I mean, it's literally like how

(01:09:05):
you work on this eternal narrative, internal narrative
every day. Like what tools?
Because you know the importance of it, right?
You kind of have, like me, done a deep dive, but how do you go
through every day trying to engage in positive self talk?
Like what tools do you use? So I, I don't like, I don't
profess to be like perfect, of course, like I still have that,

(01:09:29):
that narrative, right? There are things I want to
achieve in my career. And when I see other people
achieve them, I'm like, Oh my God, like, how am I, how can I
not, how am I not as good as that person?
Like, why have I not achieved that yet?
And so we all do this and, and Idon't, I don't think we can,
we're not, we're never going to eliminate it entirely, right?
This is, this is kind of how we're built with, with these
social, with these social animals.

(01:09:50):
And that's, that's always going to be part of it, right?
Our, our brain is constantly looking, looking for these to
make these comparisons. So one thing is removing from
your social media feed people who say drive some of this

(01:10:10):
narrative in you if right. So so maybe there are like some
people who they're just like they're a lot like you or you
see a lot of yourself in them. And then when you see them
achieve something or do something or, or showing
something that is, is going to, you know, impart those feelings
in you, Maybe you say, is this actually useful for me to follow
and, and see regularly, Right. So, so that's, that's one thing

(01:10:33):
that I think I think we can certainly do.
And, and that could be the case with podcasts or whatever, you
know, whatever, whatever platform you use, the most
useful thing to me long term. And I, you know, as somebody who
struggled with what we would probably would call exercise
addiction, might even call orthorexia like back in the day

(01:10:56):
is talking like showing myself that I'm wrong, right?
And I talked about the importance of making mistakes.
And one of the most important part of making mistake or making
an error is learning, is learning from it, right?
You can't just like make a mistake if you don't, then, you
know, drive some corrective process.
So it's, it's almost an automatic behaviour at this

(01:11:20):
point. But the reason why I've got to
where I am on some of those things we talked about in terms
of exercise and diet. Some of the things is that I've
just showed like the the driversof of that, you know, which were
internal. I've just like look at this
thing here. You have objective data and you
were you were wrong about this, right?

(01:11:41):
And when you do that enough, youhave to be willing to change
your mind. And like, again, I'm not perfect
at it, but but those are probably the two main things is
like decrease your exposure where you can, particularly if
you know, there's something thatthat triggers you and then, you
know, go through some process ofshowing yourself where that
internal talk has been incorrect, right.

(01:12:02):
And you know, science is the process of getting less wrong
over time. And so I'd, I'd at least me
personally, I kind of approach it in a in that kind of
scientific manner, but you obviously have to be willing to
be wrong and then learn from your mistakes as you go.
And I guess having time, right, there's, there's such a part

(01:12:23):
within that that's mindful. And I know that there's like
that can feel like a very like woo woo term, but having
mindfulness around this, like actually just having time to sit
back and go. Let me just have a look at how I
spoke to myself the last 24 hours.
Let me just actually see where, you know, maybe I've taken the
wrong term or maybe where I've messed up the last few few

(01:12:44):
months and certain things that'sjust actually take a moment to
reflect on that as well as reflecting on the environment
and the stimuli that's actually maybe causing more anxious
thoughts. And what kind of self criticism
I think is is such a big thing because I spoke about earlier,
you know, having that overwhelming and that
multitasking and I sometimes feel like we just we never give
ourselves a break. And I was at a talk the other

(01:13:05):
day talking about the importanceof self compassion.
And somebody said to me, you know, I just feel that I can't
even get a break to think about what I'm trying to do.
What can I do? And it was a really simple
answer. I just said, can you just take
one day? Just take one day 300, Just take
one day. Give yourself that one day.
And you know, even saying something like so simple, but

(01:13:28):
yet we don't give ourselves thattime is, is really important.
And it it ties into like the rest and recovery that you spoke
about, like actually never giving ourselves kind of a
second think about the stuff is is such a critical factor, I
think. Yeah, absolutely.
And I will say that, you know, if you can take one day or

(01:13:49):
several days or whatever, that'sfantastic.
But you know, I think we also have to acknowledge that.
And I see this all the time, right?
If you take a day, you can spendthat day and you're like, well,
you know, I'm being mindful, I'mlooking after myself.
But the the guilt builds of the.Things you are.
Doing right so it doesn't have to be a day.

(01:14:09):
But then that's something else. That's something else, right?
You shouldn't feel guilty about taking a day.
Isn't it a? 100% Of course, like, and this
is also something, so my wife and I talk about this a lot
because this is actually something that I'm quite good
at. Like if I'm just like, I'm not
going to do anything right now for this hour or for this day.

(01:14:29):
I do not feel guilty about it, right, No problem.
What what whatsoever, but it's ait is a learned it's a learned
skill. So then why not make it 20
minutes? And again, like Gloria Mark's
work shows like you take a 2020 minutes, go for a walk outside,
right? No podcasts, no social media,

(01:14:52):
just outside, right. Maybe it has to be 10 minutes to
start, right? Because like it's hard if if
you've never done it before. So just start with something
like that. And then even that can be
restorative. That can help you then get back
into your, into your work with, with a new frame of mind and
with, with more focus. So even just these small chunks
just, you know, and then and then and then build up from

(01:15:12):
there because of of course, right, You should be able to
take a week off and not feel guilty about it like of course,
but right. It's I'm still not there yet.
It's. Difficult so so some of those
small breaks and and like you said, this is also something
that I find myself doing. Like if I immediately respond
negatively to something like either like I get really

(01:15:33):
frustrated or I sort of look at something I'm like and I have
that like, why haven't I done that?
Or I can't believe that, you know, like I'm I'm not doing
that. Then it's just like I'm you just
need need a beat to be like, come on, Tommy, like think about
all this other stuff that you'redoing and you've so like and
that that is part of being mindful, right?
You're just like just that minute to just to like think

(01:15:56):
you're, you're talking nonsense to yourself right now, but we
all do it. But you do need to, you need to
talk back at least, and sometimes it just takes a few
seconds, but that that, that's something that that is going to
be important as well it. Is, and I love that we've, we've
mentioned this because it is a learnt behaviour like it's and I
don't want anyone listen to thinking.
It just comes naturally and inherently because my gosh it, I

(01:16:17):
have to work at becoming more positive than negative in my
mind. We'll always remember what
happens to us negatively throughour day, very rarely where we
celebrate the small wins. We just don't do it.
But as you said, like making sure that we actually just
reference that is, is so important as about everything
that you spoke about today. You know, it takes time, it

(01:16:38):
takes practice, it takes like reiteration.
So you just can't expect it to happen instantaneously.
I think like you and I probably have to work at this as a daily
basis to to kind of get that to be the main kind of component,
but it's still work and that's what's really important.
So I love that we've kind of finished off our conversation
there because for me, I really believe that is one of the most

(01:17:01):
important things when it comes to our mental health.
And I have you to thank to kind of opening my eyes to that.
Tommy, what does live well be well mean to you?
Maybe there's two answers. The first one is like in
particular, if you want to have,if we think about live well, be
well in the, in the frame of cognitive function or brain
health, which is kind of what we've been talking about.

(01:17:21):
Then remembering that your brain, there's this amazing
thing that has the capacity to change and improve if you give
it the right inputs. So learn a new skill with a
friend, right? Go to a dance class like these,
just these and your brain will, will, will love you for it.

(01:17:42):
And so, and then to kind of tie into the later bit, I think live
like living well and being well,particularly in the, in our
modern society, as you know, we tend to be like knowledge
workers or, you know, these kindof work in the, you know, in
that, in that kind of environment where there's
constant demands and task switching and multitasking and

(01:18:04):
all those platforms and pressures elsewhere.
Then I think you meant you mentioned it.
And it's one of my favorite things to say, which is about
celebrating the, the small wins,right?
So it's not about the gulf between what you're doing and
what you think you should be doing, because if you focus on
that, you end up in those, thosescenarios we talked about.

(01:18:26):
But it's about, I actually went for that 20 minute walk today
and I felt great afterwards. And that's fantastic.
And it's not, you know, trainingfor a marathon, but that is a
massive win for me. And like tomorrow, I'll I'll try
and do it again. I think that's where we have to.

(01:18:48):
That's where we should be focusing our efforts.
And then all the the living welland being well will will kind of
follow, follow on from that. I made a conscious decision last
year to always celebrate this small win and honestly, I now
remember them all because I tooka moment to kind of recognise

(01:19:08):
them and that's been quite like a a game changer for me in this
kind of entire thing. Otherwise, I just forget them
along the along the way. As I would say to anyone
listening, celebrate those smallwins, whatever that is for you.
I feel like something that wouldbe a shot of creatine for you.
Yeah, that, that was, that's absolutely how I celebrate my my

(01:19:31):
wins every morning is with my, with my creatine.
Thank you so much though, for coming on.
I know we could talk for ages. I have so many more things I
always want to ask you. But for our listeners that want
to find out more about where to find you, your podcast,
everything, can you please tell everyone?
And obviously I'll link all of everything you say in the show

(01:19:52):
notes. Yeah, absolutely.
So Josh and I, like we mentioned, we have a podcast,
It's the Better Brain Fitness Podcast.
It is a question and answer format.
So there's a a website where youcan go on.
You can leave a voice note or you can type in a question and
then we answer a question every week.
So if you have a question about anything I talked about today,
come here or or go there, look at the podcast and and, and send

(01:20:16):
us a question. We also have a sub stack, which
is related, but also has some articles and things that we
write or if we, you know, publish other things, they end
up there. So that's better brain dot
fitness. If you just throw that in your,
in your into your web browser, that'll take you there and you
can sign up. It's free.
And then my Instagram is at Doctor Tommy Wood where I get

(01:20:40):
our sort of post podcasts and papers and things as they come
out. Amazing, Tommy, thank you so
much. I will link that all below in
the show notes. And thank you so much for your
time today. Again, it's been as enlightening
as ever. So thank you so much for coming
on. Thank you, this is fantastic as
ever, I really really enjoyed being here.

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