6 Natural Medicines for Brain Health | Jim Kwik

when you want to improve your cognitive performance your brain health is not just your neurological networks it's your social networks who you spend time with is who you become or you have these mirror neurons we're constantly imitating the people around us we start developing the same habits of the people around us the same behaviors the same language and thoughts and thinking and standards and character right in 2018 there was a joint study done by New York University and Virginia Tech and they found that 13 minutes of meditation over eight weeks not only enhanced mood but also enhance things like Focus concentration and working memory just 13 minutes a day for eight weeks welcome back to the quick brain show I am your host and your brain coach Jim quick and what are we going to talk about today I'm going to share with you six natural medicines to be able to upgrade your brain to have greater levels of intelligence greater levels of income and greater levels of impact some of you heard this meme or this quote somewhere on social media saying the six best doctors in the world and no one can deny it are what Sunshine water rest air exercise and diet right and it's kind of true right if you want natural ways to be able to be healthy to be able to improve your learning and your life those things are there and besides diet things are really they're free they could come at absolutely no cost now I'm going to go and level deeper I'm going to share with you six medications that are actually natural they're not real medicine but I'm going to give you an acronym on six things you could do when you feel stressed when you feel like you're overloaded overwhelm you kind of don't know where to start I want you to pick one of these six things so what are these six natural medicines I want you to think about this acronym meds meds meds are X now I didn't create this there was a book that talked about it it's called slow talked about m-e-d-s also recently Brennan burchard who wrote motivation Manifesto he's been he's spoken at our stages at our brain power conference been on our podcast he said meds RX so there's six things you could do to be able to tap into that I want to share with you simple things that you could do that are easy and mostly free right they just take your time so m-e-d-s-r-x and RX is usually like those pharmaceutical drugs but this no side effects then best of all again take very little time very little money so what does the m stand for the m in meds RX stands for meditation now in this podcast we will link all of it by the way in the notes make sure you always go to jimquick. com forward slash notes it's it's Priceless information won't cost you a thing you just have to pay attention so the m stands for meditation we've done so many episodes over 300 episodes total but many of them are on the power of Your Mind through meditation and mindfulness we've had guests come on like Emily Fletcher sharing her process for how to be able to meditate so I'm not going to go through it in this podcast make sure you go through the links all right now meditation is great for the brain sometimes we have to disconnect to be able to reconnect with ourselves it's kind of like a little pit stop or a pause for me I meditate twice a day it's kind of my non-negotiable because you know what your brain isn't meant to go fast all the time you need these little rests you taking deliberate rest for yourself and that's where you could actually consolidate information take your short term convert it to long-term memory it actually can help accelerated learning in 2018 there was a joint study done by New York University and Virginia Tech and they found that 13 min that's a meditation over eight weeks not only enhanced mood but also enhance things like Focus concentration and working memory just 13 minutes a day for eight weeks this study also concluded that it helped to decrease things like anxiety and improved emotional regulation so are you taking the time are you scheduling your meditation each and every day remember when we're talking about routines and habits first you create your habits and then those habits create you so schedule it put it into your planner the number one productivity tool that you have for peace of mind is your calendar and so remember when you're going going you feel like you're burnt out sometimes you're burnt out not because you're doing too much but because you're doing too little of the things that make you feel alive so take that rest for yourself once or twice a day and post on social media let me know if it's working for you now the e in meds RX stands for you can probably guess exercise now we've done many episodes on our podcast about the power of what movement we've had people like Sean Stevenson talk about exercises for the brain we've had episodes with Aaron Alexander who wrote alignment talk about the power of movements and how to maximize your body for a better brain so many episodes make sure you go to jimquick. com forward slash notes and there have been many studies on the power of exercise probably more than any other area that when you move your body as your body moves guess what your brain grooves when you move your body you create brain derived neurotropic factors fancy word b dnf which is like fertilizer for your brain and we live in this very sedentary lifestyle many of us me included we sit behind a computer we're behind a screen and they say sitting is a new smoking so are you taking time to move there's a study done in 20 2015 at Cambridge University where they took participants they did a baseline in terms of cognitive ability and tests and they had part of the group exercise they did aerobic exercise in this case and part of the group they watched videos of people exercising and then they followed up and those who actually exercised there was enhanced activity in the prefrontal cortex and this lasted for hours so if you feel stuck throughout the day right if you're just studying and you're cramming information and you're at work make sure you take those Brain Breaks Take 5 10 15 minutes and go for a walk right clear your mind move your body we know that people when they're listening to our podcast or our audiobook or they're listening to something when they're doing something rhythmic maybe they're on an elliptical maybe you're going uh walking the dog and you're listening to actually help you to enhance your retention of the information and your comprehension so move your body exercise and that's the e in meds RX do you have too much to read but too little time are your shelves full of books that you haven't read yet and become shelf help not self-help and that's why I created the quick reading course 15 minutes a day 21 days will absolutely transform your life just go to quickbrain.

com forward slash reading use the code podcast 15 and you'll get instant access now the D you'll probably guess right is your diet right we talked about this in our programs we did a whole chapter of it in Limitless on neuronutrition your brain is an energy hog it's only two percent of your body mass but it requires 20 percent of the nutrients and your brain actually requires different nutrients than the rest of your body so I'm not going to go through our brain diet we've done many episodes on that we will link jimquick. com forward slash notes with our interviews with individuals like DrLisa Moscone right talking about the best brain foods DrUma talking about the best brain foods and supplements and nutrition for your brain you want to be able to feed this machine because what you eat matters especially for your gray matter my team just sent me this study in 2015 there was a study by DrDrw Ramsey the Journal of Missouri State Medical Association discusses in detail the benefits of nutrients and brain health specifically severe nutritional deficiencies in vitamin B12 B9 which is folate and zinc can cause things like depression low mood fatigue cognitive decline and irritability eating food with high nutrition reduces inflammation which is linked to higher rates of mental illness increased risk of depression mild cognitive impairment and ADHD so bottom line you can control your mood and your mind even your memory by the food that you decide to eat because food is information right there's a lot of junk food out there you want to reduce the processed food you want to reduce the sugar because sugar is very detrimental to the human brain we did an episode with Leanna Warner gray talking about anxiety free foods Foods you could take to be able to reduce anxiety and reduce stress because chronic stress is shown to shrink the human brain so make those wise decisions every single day because food is information and there's no such thing as like junk food there's junk and then there's real food eat that food the s in meds RX you could probably guess it is what sleep and we've done multiple episodes podcast episodes on mastering your sleep when you don't get a good night's sleep how's your brain the next day how's your mental energy how's your memory how's your ability to solve problems make good decisions every function is impaired by lack of sleep when you sleep specifically for your memory I know a lot of you join us because you want to better your memory better your ability to learn when you sleep you consolidate short term to long-term memory right when you sleep you potentially can clean out that beta amyloid plaque that could lead to brain aging challenges and so are you getting enough rest go to jimquick. com forward slash notes and listen to the episodes or watch on our YouTube many of you subscribe to our YouTube channel about a million of you have our episodes with DrMichael Bruce right the sleep doctor with Sean Stevenson who wrote sleep smarter we've done so many episodes probably a dozen episodes on mastering your soul leap the American Academy of sleep medicine and sleep research Society released this study recommending adults get a minimum of seven hours of sleep per night to avoid adverse health problems such as weight gain obesity and we know that as your waistband increases your brain actually grows smaller right diabetes hypertension heart disease stroke depression individuals who get less than seven hours of sleep were shown to experience impaired immune function increased pain lower cognitive and physical performance we're prone to make more errors during the day and had a greater risk for getting into accidents so make sure you prioritize your sleep we have in our podcast so many brain tips you know starting with get sunlight first thing in the morning reset your circadian rhythm right sleeping environment that's more cool because the triggers to produce melatonin which helps you to relax there's a drop in two things what are they this is like me quick quizzing you like this is your quick recall crop in temperature and some of you know like you drop your temperature I use a mattress topper to help reduce the temperature that actually could regulate the amount of temperature that you have and also what reducing lighting sometimes our screens are keeping us awake because it's mimicking sunlight and it's not you're fooling your mind I think it's still daylight so you want to sleep in a dark environment ideally of these blackout curtains some people use an eye mask but remember temperature and light and if you want more read Limitless listen to our podcast we have all the Links at jimquick.

com forward slash notes but make sure you prioritize your sleep you have an alarm to wake up have an alarm to go to sleep your brain loves consistency now the RX part I got from our friend Brendan burchard again the r stands for relationships we've done many episodes that when you want to improve your cognitive performance your brain health it's not just your neurological networks it's your social networks who you spend time with is who you become right you have these mirror neurons we're constantly imitating the people around us we start developing the same habits of the people around us the same behaviors the same language and thoughts and thinking and standards and character right so you want to make sure you build your positive peer group we all need people to cheerlead for us we all need people to Pat us on the back to encourage us to challenge us to be kind to us how we say if you haven't found that person yet be that person for somebody else especially be that person for who be that person for yourself right and we've done many episodes on the power of belonging with Mickey we did many episodes on the power of connection and and we even had uh Drwaldinger on the show he talked about that study it's an 84 year old study the longest one on happiness at a Harvard University and the power of being healthy and happy the number one contributor it wasn't diet and it wasn't exercise it was the people around you because who we spent time with with is who we become so if you haven't listened to those episodes make sure you go to gymquick.