Change Your Brain: #1 Neuroscientist’s Exercise Protocol for Peak Energy and Focus

this is a real preserved human brain her name is Betty holy cow can I give you some gloves oh my god there you go oh okay I I don't want to drop her oh it's lighter no it's not it's heavier than I thought can't believe this was in a person what does the power of moving your body do to your brain every single time you move your body you are releasing can you explain why exercise increases your energy one of my favorite findings is as Japanese Americans we don't say I love you to each other

but when my father had this demena diagnosis um I like gosh you know what I want to start saying it I had the conversation with my dad and it was a little less awkward with him because I knew my mom says yes I I knew my dad would say yes the reason why I started telling the story is that the following week I called back again and my I love you with my mother was significantly less awkward but um my father said I love you first and he remembered after a whole week he was in

the middle of dementia he didn't remember anything but he remembered that we had agreed to say I love you and he said it first the emotional Resonance of his adult daughter asking for the very first time to say I love you it formed a new memory in my dad and um that that was obviously something that I'll always remember oh my God I crying over the brain for crying out loud I I um hey it's your friend Mel I am so excited that you're here it is always an honor to spend time with you and

to be together if you're brand new welcome to the Mel Robins podcast family and I also want to acknowledge you for something thank you for choosing to spend time listening to something that could truly help you live a better life I just think that's so cool and today's guest is someone I have been wanting to sit down with ever since I started this podcast who am I talking about Dr Wendy Suzuki DR Suzuki is a world-renowned neuroscientist and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at New York University she is a leading researcher

known for her groundbreaking research in the areas of memory brain plasticity and the simple things that you can do every single day to improve your learning Focus memory and brain power she's also a Pioneer in researching how moving your body and exercising improves your brain health and what I love about Dr Suzuki is that she's just one of those kind of people that you want to hang out with she's super cool and she makes Neuroscience easy to understand she's so passionate about it and she has this unbelievable ability to make Neuroscience personal and profound so

please help me welcome Dr Wendy Suzuki to our Boston Studios thank you for having me I cannot tell you what a big fan I am of this podcast and of your teachings and on Audible and so thank you yes absolutely holy cow I have a brain crush on you so that's that's a really amazing compliment thank you and what I love about the work that you share is that all of this stuff is free and accessible and things that you can put to use as soon as you listen to this yes you you name the

thing that is also my favorite thing you don't have to have lots of money or or influence you just need to decide to do these things in your life today and you have access to the power of neurobiology to change how your brain works I have to say if you're listening to this and not watching YouTube she is exploding with energy and vitality and I am so excited to dig into this because you not only walk the talk as you say but you can feel it in the energy that you bring just by how you're

moving through your day-to-day life and one of the things that I also love about your work is that some of the simple changes in the science that you're about to share with us today can impact somebody's mood or Focus or well-being starting today absolutely can you speak a little bit to that like what somebody might expect is a an immediate impact yeah so I mean um what you're going to learn is really about the power of neurobiology the power of the neurobiology of movement M on your brain of meditation on your brain I hope we

get to sleep in your brain uh I know you talk a lot about the power of social connection we are social animals there are so many circuits in our brain that evolved so that I could see what your energy level is are you happy are you sad are you excited about this conversation and I think anybody watching will say that we are both really excited about this conversation we can tell that because there are brain areas specific to helping us interpret that that facial expression that is why I love being a neuroscientist it is teaching

me about myself about how to be better in this world to feel better in this world and um this is also why I love being dean of a large undergraduate college like New York University College of Arts and Science because I'm the brain health Dean I want every single one of my students to have a big fat fluffy brain and to be able to soak in all of the information and all the education that is my mission as Dean what is a big fat fluffy brain ah well a big fat fluffy brain is a brain

that has constant what I call positive brain plasticity going on so brain plasticity is the human brain's amazing ability to change and grow in response to the environment brain plasticity is growing in the positive direction unfortunately there's Al negative brain plasticity where things can shrink and get smaller and and functionality can disappear but imagine that certain choices that you make in your life can improve the brain's Anatomy physiology and function and that has been the focus of my neuroscientific research for the last 30 plus years that is so cool and you know when I hear

the word plasticity and neuroplasticity and fact that your brain can grow yeah are you talking about like it can actually get bigger or smaller or are you talking about the like insides of it can change what do you mean like for a normal person like me when you say your brain can grow positive or negative yeah so let's take the positive my brain can grow in the positive direction certain brain areas in fact my very favorite area of the brain called the hippocampus critical for our ability to form and retain new la long-term memories that

is one of only two brain areas in the human brain where brand new brain cells can be born in adulthood so you and I are already growing brand new shiny hippoc cample cells and one of the wonderful magical secrets that we'll talk about later is the fact that physical activity can actually help even more hippocampal cells grow and yes that means that your memory will get better so not just cells growing but um positive brain plasticity also means that the connections between the neurons that are already there can grow so you can have more connections

and that also we know can correlate to better performance say in your prefrontal cortex for focus and attention as you're listening to Dr Suzuki I'm sure you're having the same thought I'm having right now which is boy I wish I had taken a class from you in college I mean you are so EX exuberant about the topic that I cannot wait to just start to peel away the layers why is it important just at a top level Baseline understanding to care about the health of your brain that's such a great question and my answer is

that the human brain is the most complex structure known to humankind not Einstein's brain not Marie C's brain but your brain Mel's brain Wendy's brain every single one of your listeners brains imagine that the most complex thing known to humankind and everybody has things they do well things they don't do well that is so unique to you it defines how you see feel smell laugh about the world and it's Unique to you the reason why you need to take care of that brain is really about taking care of who you are as a person your

personal history is in there your future decisions are in there and it truly is an awesome thing when you think about the structure of the brain and that is part of my nerdy neuroscientific reason for doing all the things I do to make sure I do take care of my brain so how would the person who's listening to us right now feel feel different in their day-to-day life if they were to prioritize their brain health as much as we tend to focus on the things we eat or taking care of our muscles what would happen

if you did this so many different things you would have lower levels of depression and anxiety higher levels of energy your focus would be better your memory would be better your um creativ ity would go up all of these things come from the studies that have been done both in animal model systems and in humans about the effects of positive brain plasticity and bringing those elements into your life amazing I would love to hear you share how you got interested in the brain and becoming a neuroscientist in the first place yeah I have a very

specific origin story of how I decided I want to become a neuroscientist it was my first day of my freshman year at UC Berkeley and I walked into a first year seminar class called the brain and its potential had no idea who um taught this class but I thought the title was interesting and I remember walking into the class there's only 15 students and I saw this professor at the front of the classroom and I describe her as kind of a neuroscientific Beyonce she she had like control she she was fierce but in a very

positive welcoming way she controlled that classroom and she started telling us about how the brain was the most complex structure known to humankind then she put on these gloves and slowly and dramatically she had a hat box in front of her and she dramatically open the lid of that hat box and she pulled out a real preserved human brain right there in front of all of us students who had never seen one before and the gasp in that classroom was Audible and she told us about brain plasticity which turns out she discovered she discovered she

discovered her name was Marian Diamond she was the very first female PhD in neuroanatomy conferred by UC Berkeley ever and in the 1960s she and our colleagues discovered that the adult mamillion brain she was studying rodents at the time could change and grow in response to what she described as an enriched environment which was I like to describe it as the Disney World of rat cages you compare rats in Disney World of rat cages compared to more of a shoe box condition both rats got you know free food and water but um if the adult

brain couldn't change at all which was the dogma of the time then those experience should have no effect on the brain this is where she discovered that the outer covering of the brain the cortex actually grew in response to the Disney World of rat cages and that was one of the very first demonstrations that the adult brain could change because of the environment that you live in and she told us that and I'm like okay Beyonce of Neuroscience the coolest thing I've ever seen this is a human brain I want to be just like her

and so that's when I decided I want to be a neuroscientist and now you're even better because you're Dr Wendy Suzuki man I love that how did you start studying the impact of exercise on the brain Yeah you mentioned earlier that there was this big shift that happened in your life yeah that had you completely transform from the inside out what it felt like to live your life what happened so I was trying to get tenure at New York University it's a very stressful thing it takes six years and basically you have six years to

show that you're a worldclass scientist and if you pass the test you get a job for life that's tenure but if you don't you're fired and you have to leave in humiliation and so you know for these six years you're like oh my God am I going to be fired or am I going to be part of the club and my strategy wasn't the best one um it was well did you get tenure I did get tenure but still my strategy wasn't the best which was I'm just going to work I'm going put my head

down I'm not going to do anything I'm living in Manhattan and I love Broadway but no I'm not going to do that I'm not going to have friends I'm just going to work and I'm just going to you know have my research lab so I did that for many years and I wasn't very happy and I didn't have very many friends and I I was feeling lethargic and I ate too much takeout and and it was bad um and the thing that started the boat turning around was I gave myself a vacation I went on

vacation by myself because I had no friends and I went on this river rafting trip to Peru and it was beautiful and we were rafting every day and there are these triathletes on the trip and it was so much fun but I quickly realized that I I was the weakest person on this trip upper body strength was not my forte at that moment and I came back thinking okay I don't want to feel that way on a trip like that I I want to keep going on trips like that that was exactly what I needed

and to help me not feel like the weakest person on the trip the most obvious thing for me to do was let's just go to the gym let's just add that into my just work all the time workaholic life and that's what started the shift that regular gym going started me feeling better and I started eating less takeout and added and added until I realized I did an experiment on myself oh my God I I I feel so much better which led me back to looking at the Neuroscience of that cuz I was focused on

another form of brain plasticity which is memory formation and forming new memories changes your brain and that is really the most common form of brain plasticity but I was getting back to my roots back to Maran Diamond's experiments when I went to the gym and changed my life because it turns out that in the Disney World of rat cages you can ask what was it was it the rides was it the social interaction it was the running wheel that was in those cages all you had to do was give a rat a running wheel and

they got the vast majority of all of those positive brain changes and I'm like oh my god I've discovered my own Disney World of rat cages it's my gym down the block what was the moment where you had an epiphany as both Wendy trying to get herself back in shape and off the kind of miserable track versus Dr Suzuki going oh my God I got to study exercise that's it like when did you have that moment you're like I did have that moment and it was a year and a half into my starting to go

to the gym I was feeling good I was you remember where you were yep I was sitting at my desk and I remember what I was doing I was riding a grant very hard it's like a horrible uh stressful thing to write a grant and it was so memorable because as I was sitting there riding a grant I had this thought that went through my brain that had never gone through my brain before which was gee Grant riding went well today that that was good that was a good session I you never think that he

like oh I'm never going to get this grant you know I'm gonna uh uh be be Grant and um but I had that thought and I thought wow am I just having a good day I I that's an amazing thought for me to have yeah and I thought well you know what the the one thing that I've changed in my life recently for the last year and a half has been my physical activity and then I started thinking about well why did grant writing go better that day and two things came to mind my focus

and I felt like my focus was better during that grant writing but I also have hundreds of Journal articles on my desk trying to pull together my multi-million dollar idea and you need memory for all those details it's like I think that was better too gosh my my focus and my memory are better what's going on here I was studying memory in my own l and then it's like could the exercise is that is that what's happening to me and so it it wasn't an AA I'm going to study exercise it's like could that be

it and it actually sent me to the classroom because when you want to learn something new you always have to develop new classes I decided to create a new class called can exercise change your brain I was going to answer my own question could exercise changed my brain you're a genius you created a class yes to help you answer the question because then the class creates a format where you've got to dig into the research yeah I mean two for one right I had to do it anyway and I might as well answer the question

that I was trying to answer and then I thought well wait a second if students are coming to my classroom every day what if we all exercise together what if I do a study and test them at the beginning of the class and at the end of the class but we'll all exercise together so I'll turn it into an experiment so I ran to my administrator and I said can I have my money to hire an exercise instructor so we'll all do exercise together and she said no and I'm like a and went back to

my desk and thought about it and then I went back and I said would you pay for me to get teacher training if I learn how to teach an exercise class and she said yes and so I went to the gym and I learned how to teach the favorite class that I was going to in the gym called intensati that combined physical movements from kickbox and dancing yoga and martial arts that very New York class Patricia Patricia Moreno I know yes you do yes so she um she helped change my brain and uh so I

got training from Patricia I trained for six months you know I my cats could do in tens Sati really well CU I I I did it so much in my apartment and I went back and I taught this class and so I turned the music on and um and they did it they did it with me and so many things Chang in that moment the invisible wall between the talking head at the front of the classroom and everybody else disappeared because when you're shouting affirmations with professors like oh you're one of us you know we

can we can sweat together um and the level of Engagement that I got from those students that first we sweated for an hour and then we did an hour and a half of interactive discussion about what do we know about the effects of exercise in the brain it set my bar for interactions that I want in every single classroom that going to I love that story for so many reasons because I would imagine that was hugely out of your comfort zone yes yeah and it illustrates the power of just leaning into something and it also

illustrates the fact that a no doesn't mean no yes it just means now I got to find another way yeah EXA and you did and the funny question that I had to ask my colleague because if I'm going to do an experiment I need a control class and so I'm not the only teaching an elective class so I had to go to my literally the the guy that runs the lab next to mine I'm like are you teaching your your elective class and he said yes and I know they they meet for exactly the same

amount of time and I'm like do you make your your students exercise during class like No And I said would you mind be being the control because I would take 30 minutes you know to have them do all the cognitive tests the beginning at the end and he said okay I'll I'll be your control class and so I had my very first experiment you know when you walked in you were carrying a box I was yes and um actually Mel um that box shows that my undergraduate adviser is not the only one that has a

hat box can I show it to you yes a little nervous Dr Suzuki is standing up and she has gloves rubber gloves on top of a hat box yes okay so what do we out here okay little nervous putting putting the gloves on I'd love to show you what's in my hat box now okay this is a real preserved human brain oh like a re like in a person that was in a human being yes this is a real preserved human brain her name is Betty and she's the most photographed preserved human brain on the

East Coast can I give you some gloves you want me to hold it yeah um okay I think my god there you go okay let me put the gloves on hold on oh God okay that do I like I'm I is it normal to be nervous about handling a brain well so you know every time I pick this human brain up I think this was somebody's life this was this was somebody's whole personality here and I feel so lucky that I get to have this specimen that has been in our department for over 26 years

so it it's preserved in from alhy okay but but it does represent this person and so it is I I pick it up with reference every single time so can I ask you to stand up and come over here so we can sure O Okay I I don't want to drop her oh it's lighter oh no it's not it's heavier than I thought heavier yeah look so here's the this was in a person yes but look oh okay what if you open up okay can you hold on a I can definitely look I'm not going

to drop it but I so she is pulling apart the top of the brain is does does everybody's brain do that like you can pull it up it's supposed to do that it's supposed to do that there's a right and a left hemisphere but I'm just pulling it around apart so you can see how deep the folds of the outer covering go you know how much surface area is is represented in this folded thing if I put it out it's probably as big as this dining room table meaning if you took the macaroni and put

it as one big noodle it would cover the table yeah exactly no way yeah and what is in are those like tubes what what is these are folds these are folds of um a a sheet of What's called the outer covering the neocortex and we get more bang for our buck because it's folded in a rat cortex is completely smooth sorry rats you don't have as much computing power as you do from all of this yes it's it's kind of like I can't believe how heavy it is yeah well there's a lot densely packed in

in there this is controlling everything from our breathing to our movement to our memories to the way you feel right now holding a human brain for the very first time I feel so weird well only because I don't think about my brain and to think that there is something this heavy I would say I'm trying to think of an object like it's literally like a um like a if you were to put not a half gallon but a quart of milk m in your hands is that about the right yeah I think that's right it's

like three pounds yes yes and it's it is like two chicken breast bone in like in terms of the size it's like in my full Palm now where where's the front of it frontal lobe here yep then parial lobe visual spatial functions where things are in space occipital lob primary visual cortex is back here we yeah we see from the back of the brain we see from this part of the brain if this part of the brain is damaged you you will blind W so when a parent or grandparent says I got eyes in the

back of my head they weren't kidding like almost like for real it's like it's back there it's yeah they have their visual cortex in the back of the head they are seeing from the back of their head absolutely if you had a concussion yeah would you see damage to the surface or yeah you know sometimes it it causes a bruise kind of thing but what I always tell people is have you had that experience where you bunk the back of your head you see stars yes it's because you are physically stimulating the visual cortex and

that physical stimulation is causing visual imagery of the stars that that's what's happening that's not normal vision of course and is every human being's brain pretty much the same color yes this is the temporal lobe here the last lobe okay and if we flip it over oh God what is that ugly thing on the bottom the n is the start of the um spinal cord oh so it goes yeah it got cut off so sorry okay um and then this thing is I feel like I shouldn't be looking at this part of Betty this is

like oh my God it's all good it's all good this is a cerebellum critical for uh fine motor movement so we can walk smoothly because of our cerebellum but I love the bottom part of the brain because right here is the bottom part of the temperal lobe and right below this cortex here and below this cortex here that's where the hippocampus sits you see it my favorite part you can't see it from the surface but it's right below this area right here okay where is that annoying little amydala a part that is creating fighter flight

the part that keeps us in an alarm State also protects us but where is that sucker it is right in front of the hippocampus it's an almond shaped structure right about here but below the surface gotcha so the hippocampus is like a um a curved structure like this so here and here and the amydala is just my fist that sits right here this is the front of the temporal Lo so goes like that wow and what is like this here looks different than like the foldy stuff so what is this is the orbital frontal cortex

and the olfactory bulb got pulled off of the this brain so so it looks a little bit different because there's a little bit of damage but can you see this this x right here that is the optic nerve no way yes yes and the optic kaym kaym means cross so the cross you see right there is the crossing of all the fibers from one side of your visual field going to the other side of your visual cortex now is that why this is a random question but is is is that like when somebody has a

stroke is that what gets impacted if they're um well the whole brain gets impacted in different parts so The Strokes that cause motor impairment you can't move your move arm anymore it's damaging the arm motor area of your motor cortex that's wild Dr Suzuki Betty and I are going on a walk right and so we're we're moving our bodies how does that cause just the movement itself in the limbs triggers information that goes up into your brain is that how that works yeah that's a great question um the the the exact mechanism of how dopamine

and serotonin is is triggered with physical activity is not that well known but I go back evolutionarily to the fact that we are physical beings despite the fact that all of us are just sitting in chairs all the time and and that is um that is a long-term survival mechanism that's why it makes us feel good because we were made to move our bodies and um I guess we could just take advantage of it more because we're not moving enough but that's what you get every single time that is so cool the other thing sorry

we have to go back to the bottom um this is um the brain stem area right here right before this the spinal cord this is that area that controls our heartbeat our respiration and so brain stem damage if this goes then your heartbeat will no longer beat that that is know lethal but such a critical part of the brain so you have now taught the class you've done the experiments you've written the international bestselling books on the topic what does the power of moving your body do to your brain every single time you move your

body you are releasing literally a flood of neurochemicals in your brain that is the physical thing that happens and I'm not talking about run a marathon I'm talking about even taking a walk a 10-minute walk gets that flood of neurochemicals going is it different if you do get your heart rate up yes it is but the power starts with a 10minute walk that is one of the take homes from our conversation today Mel is the neurochemical flood starts with a 10-minute walk what is in that flood of neurochemicals dopamine serotonin noradrenaline endorphins growth factors the

first three dopamine serotonin nor adrenaline what's that going to it's going to make you feel great well you've just given your brain this flood of neurochemicals that I like to call a neurochemical bubble bath for your brain and I I love that image because if you move regularly think of it as a regular bubble bath for your brain these neurochemicals that are making you feel good the growth factors go to your hippocampus that is what's growing those brand new hippocampal cells the power of exercise comes from that neurochemical bubble bath I love that image I

love the image of being outside for just a 10-minute walk every one of us can find 10 minutes and you can imagine that flood happening and I also I personally am a bath person so when you say Bubbles and the like a bath in my brain and and Bubbles are fluffy and I don't know that I wanted a body part to be big and fluffy but now I do want a big big and fluffy brain that a 10minute walk at a minimum causes that flood of really positive chemicals and this goes back to what you

were saying which is neuroplasticity and growing your brain works in the positive yes and not doing these things I suppose works in the negative well you know the the negative comes from the most common negative brain plasticity drivers very familiar to all of us stress chronic stress chronic anxiety are two things uh that will that will cause retraction so is the flood of all of those like superpower do you call them chemicals or what are they called neurochemicals neurotransmitters gotcha so does the flood of all those neurochemicals relieve anxiety is that why taking a 10minute

walk if you're feeling anxious can make you feel better it's because of the release of the neurochemicals yes yeah the most common drugs that one gets prescribed for depression or anxiety or releasing forms of noradrenaline and uh dopamine and serotonin so this is a a natural way to get that it's free you don't even have to change your clothes so that that is just the magical power of moving your body for your brain I love that how does exercise improve focus improved focus is the most common positive effect that has been rep reported from studies

of exercise on the brain easiest to find improved Focus we know it's affecting the prefrontal cortex um and the mechanism of that and what exactly is happening is less clear than some of the other brain areas we think that growth factors are also involved and that it involves not growth of new brain cells in the prefrontal cortex but new synapses you get an immediate positive effect of focus from that same 10-minute walk and with longterm regular exercise your Baseline levels of focus and attention go up and that's where you expect to get you know real

physical change in your brain wow I personally notice a increase in energy which I always find to be weird because I'm usually dragging myself to the gym or dragging myself out of bed to go on a walk or a hike but when I'm done even though I'm tired I feel this boost of energy can you explain why exercise increases your energy one of my favorite findings is in groups that were assigned the exercise condition um the motivation to exercise increased in them so more exercise improves motivation to exercise and the the energy piece that you're

talking about is likely due to the flood of dopamine and serotonin that go to your brain do you feel more energize when you're happy and when the reward that you get with dopamine yes you are so I'm going to say that it's probably most likely due to uh those same neurochemicals we've been talking about well I was just thinking about this morning so this morning the alarm goes off at 5:35 yeah we've got a huge day in the studio I'm super excited to meet you and to talk to you and as I was rolling out

of the hotel bed my husband was down here with me he's like where are you going I'm like I got to go exercise he's like but you have a huge day and I'm like because I need to be energized and I know that if I go exercise at 6:00 in the morning when I walk in that studio I will be a different person and so it was something that I realize I'm doing especially on days that I want to perform yeah me too and can you explain a little bit about why if you've got something

big going on today yeah starting your day with exercise is a really smart thing to do well so it is uh going back to that wonderful blood of neurochemicals you are starting your day in a good mood you're improved your focus and attention which we all need for a big day um you're also increasing your adrenaline in your body with with exercise what I love to do to supercharge that that adrenaline boost every morning is hot cold contrast showers so I do my regular hot shower but at the end I push it all the way

to maximum cold and boost okay it was hard hard the first time I did it it's really but once once you get used to it that's a natural adrenaline boost and that is like I need that if I forget I go back into the shower and I do I do go back into the shower to get it if I I forget it because just like you you need to be up you need to be ready for that day and that together with with exercise are are really powerful um ways to get that energy up so

Dr Suzuki I want to stop you right there because that is a second huge free takeaway we talked about the 10-minute walk yes we have talked about this flood of neurochemicals that you can get by moving your body now you are talking about a habit that you have as a neuroscientist where you end every shower by spinning the dial from that amazing steamy awesome warm shower oh I love that feeling don't you and you start to feel a little tired you're like oh do I really want to get out of the shower and then Dr

Suzuki's like and she turns it up cold and now she's stand freezing cold water how long do you stand there yeah and do you actually let it hit your head or do you cheat like I do and you hit a shoulder so um I let it hit everywhere but I now I'm used to it the first time it was only a tiny little shoulder like oh that's enough but you get used to it and now now it's longer I I could do it much much longer um and now I'm much more sensitive because different places

you take showers have different coldness of the water so so yeah I I like it when places are really cold so I could really you know test myself because the colder it is the bigger adrenaline boost that you get and so now I'm sensitive to what that feels like in me so the cold doesn't bother me what I'm kind of addicted to is the adrenaline that comes with it so for the person listening if they wanted to try this yeah and they were going to do it today or first thing tomorrow morning and you turn

the shower to cold yes how long would you want them to try to stay in there and what does it feel like when that Adrenaline Rush hits because I think when you do it the first time your immediate reaction is get out of the shower is that what you're waiting to feel or is it the get out of the shower thing and then you stay for a second or two to feel this like ah hit your body like are you looking for so the person listening can try this at home yeah so it is a

shock as everybody imagine the very first time and so you do feel shocked and you want to kind of try to stay as long as you could handle it but but if you felt the shock that's that's the point get out you know um uh dry yourself off that is going to last I'm going to say easy the rest of the morning you are going to feel that that adrenaline I mean that's why I do it if it only lasted for 2 seconds I wouldn't bother to do it I do it because this is a

boost of physiological adrenaline that is natural from this cold and uh and and it stays in your system and I feel the energy difference when I do that in case it's helpful the way that I have developed this as a habit in my life CU I agree with you it's shocking both what it feels like and it is shocking the difference that you feel like I can go from super sleepy to laser focused by simply turning the dial on the shower and the way that I do it is once you put the conditioner in your

hair when you go to rinse it out turn the shower to cold ahu wow that's a good long yeah it's 20 seconds about I can I'm pretty fast at rining it out now but it's a way to really try this and get the brain changing and life affirm in and focus increasing benefits that you're talking about yeah that's so cool how does movement and exercise improve your memory exactly when you move your body and and here there is a level that's very important aerobic activity that is any kind of movement that gets your heart rate

up think dancing uh think uh um Power walking those count for aerobic activity aerobic activity is critical because there are the these growth factors that you need to get that hippocampal growth they come from muscle movement so you have to have enough muscle movement they come from release of ketones from your liver and um these growth factors get released kind of peripherally go up into the brain go directly to your hippocampus and go into that part of the hippocampus where new brain cells are being born all the time for anybody whether you exercise or never

exercise you get new brain cells but with more exercise more more growth factors get released and more new brain cells are born and those new brain cells grow and integrate and the cool thing we know about these new brain cells that are born in adulthood is they're kind of like Teenage brain cells they're really hyperactive and they want to get involved in all the memory circuits that the hippocampus is involved in so they make your hippocampus work better and we know an enormous amount about the physiology the detailed physiology of the power of those brand

new adult hipocampal brain cells what type of memory does it help because you know like you know if you think about memory there's I I'm one of these people that I think do to chronic anxiety and undiagnosed ADHD I don't have a lot of memories from my childhood at least not that I'm conscious of I know they're like in there somewhere but I can't quite access them I know I was there for my childhood but I can't quite remember a lot of it and I know that's a very common thing so is it impacting that

kind of memory or the short-term working memory that you need if you're learning a new subject and you got to take a test yeah it is affecting your ability to form new long-term memories for facts and events all the things you learn all the students learning stuff in school right now that is because you have a working hippocampus and more shiny new hippocampus cells will make those memories easier to form that kind of memories for facts and events also I need to emphasize that the hippocampus is critical for spatial memory your ability to way find

is also really really dependent on the particular kinds of what does that mean spatial memory spatial memory means how to get from here to the subway how to get uh from one place to the other where the supermarket is relative to my childhood home that memory or or learning a new route highly highly dependent on the hippocampus have you done any research on the impact of exercise and Dementia or Alzheimer's like you know like how I don't even know the technical way you describe yeah that type of memory impairment that people face yeah yeah so

you know I haven't done direct uh research a lot of my research is done in younger populations for the reason that I want to change the movement patterns in younger people because the longer and the more you move your body the better off your your brain is in older age what we haven't said which is key to understand is that the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are most susceptible to both aging and neurodegenerative disease states that is cells die synapsis um kind of melt away in these two brain areas like go oh so that means that

if I'm moving my body and get aerobic exercise I'm making these two key vulnerable brain areas as big and fat as fluffy as possible I'm not curing aging or dementia but I'm staving it off that is the power of long-term regular movement in your life related to aging if somebody's listening to this and they're thinking oh Dr Suzuki I am living that life you described of you in a lab with no friends and I am alone on a raft trip in the River of Life and I have not been exercising for decades is it too

late no it's never too late to start moving and the reason I say that is that we know people that have mild cognitive impairment which is on the way to more severe uh levels of dementia put on an exercise program you can see the Improvement in them so never too late movement is going to continue to have this great thing it's always there for us it's amazing I love that so tell us what to do I'm I'm imagining you in your exercise clothes Dr Suzuki tell us what kind of exercise okay so what kind of

exercise what I would recommend and and this comes from studies that I've done in my lab first we did studies in people that are um low-fit so they they move their bodies less than 20 minutes a week for the last 3 months and we put them on an ex exercise regimen aerobic exercise 45 minutes three times a week okay okay it was a spin class 45 minute spin class but the point is that it was aerobic um they did that and compared to 45 minutes three times a week of um Power Scrabble competition in my

lab so that was the non- aerobic you know control experiment and what we found is that three times a week 45 minutes aerobic activity would improve their mood improve their focus and improve certain forms of hippocampal function so is it effective yes we saw it in three months and there is a number for everybody three times a week 45 minutes that's a doable thing three times a week 45 minutes you get brain effects now you say well I'm you know I don't I don't work out that little and so we did the next study in

kind of midfit people already working out two to three times a week okay so midfit yeah trying to see if I actually fit in that category how many times two to three times a week you're working out and that could be lifting weights it could be going for a long walk it could be yoga class like you're just doing something yes got it okay okay so we asked what will change their brain and we said okay you could go to this spin class as many times as you want during the week and uh so we

had people staying at two to three times a week and those that went up to seven times a week the take home from that study is that the more you worked out the more brain changes you got and that's great it's Democratic you earn what you get so it works on a Continuum and I used to say every drop of sweat count but then turns out there's a lot more people than I realize that don't sweat so now I say every turn of the you know exercise bike wheel that counts what I'm doing counts walking

dancing uh gardening all of that counts and the inspiration is just do it a little bit more you're going to get the benefit it's not like it's not going to count it is going to count just find a way to get it into your life importantly in a way that you enjoy and in the way that you're going to do if somebody is wheelchair bround or they are like injured yeah or they're combating a illness so they are very sedentary is is there some kind of something that you can do I mean imagine like if

you're Wheeling yourself that's a very aerobic activity absolutely are moving your body but where do you recommend somebody start if they are sending this episode to someone that they're worried about and the person who is listening to this is thinking I can't do any of that right right for most of us that we might send this episode to it's that there is um lack of a Hab of movement and there I I say so many times walking counts do you walk wow I walk I walk to the car can you walk a little bit more

can you park the car farther away all these things that you're already going to do can you take the stairs up so that it doesn't feel so much like gym going that is you know off-putting to to people and I understand that but it turns out that you know maybe it's a walk with with a loved one a walk with your pet um maybe it is a walk at the Museum maybe you love the museum okay well there I'll walk around there's so many ways to be creative about getting movement into anybody's life what I

really love about your message and your research is the visual of this flood of neurochemicals and the fact that so many of us reach for something in a bottle and you have something in your body that you can unleash and I'm not shaming anybody at all CU medications save lives they're a very important tool in the toolkit but don't forget about the one that's actually designed by your own body yeah and when you understand the science it makes your resignation over the fact that you've let yourself go or you don't have a lot of time

or what difference is a 10-minute walk or turning the dial to cold to get the blast of adrenaline it actually makes a profound difference it does does make a profound difference little things that that's the thing you don't have to completely change your lifestyle in fact it might be scary I completely changed my life but it started with that first class that I went I still remember it was a hip-hop dance class I'm a terrible hip-hop dancer but I still went I was like even though I was terrible I still feel better it might be

different for you it might be I love this park and I'm just going to walk around this park that's near my house it's convenient the Park's not going anywhere it's always going to be there what is that thing that you can do that will be easy for you to do to move your body how does uh exercise improve longevity and decrease your risk for disease so I have to turn to my friend um Robert wallinger when you talk about longevity uh because his wonderful studies at Harvard that he oversees shows how important social connection is

for longevity that that is the number one thing and of course physical activity that increases your heart rate and and um you know decreases your your um uh your propensity for getting cardiovascular disease that's great too but for longevity um it is social connection and so taking those Walks With a Friend including your pets you know all those things I I I like to multiply all these effects that come from from great science my father um uh very smart guy he was an engineer and um one day he drove back from the 7-Eleven that's only

about eight blocks from our house he would go there to get his afternoon cup of coffee and he told my mom that he he had a hard time finding his way back home that's the spatial memory I was talking about that's so dependent on the hippocampus and as a hippocampal expert when my mother told me that I knew immediately there was a problem with his hip a campus uh that is the structure that is uh first affected in dementia including Alzheimer's dementia and that is what um that is what he ended up being diagnosed with

I wish I could say so therefore I had him immediately on an exercise plan he was in his early 80s maybe late 70s when that happened I can't remember exactly his age he was a little bit wobbly on his feet um he did like going for a walk so he would he would go do that but there was a little bit of danger as we all know with older people there's you know a little risk-taking again going back to social interaction the more time that I could spend with him the more time that we can

get him together with family where he came alive and he could think and talk about you know all the memories that he had um is a great way to go as Japanese Americans I'm third generation Japanese American my my parents are second generation Japanese Americans other Japanese Americans out there will know we don't say I love you to each other not because we don't love each other it's just that you don't have to say that it's you know it's just not part of our culture but when my father had this dementia diagnosis um like gosh

you know what I want to start saying it but it's very awkward when you're an adult child and you've never said I love you to your parents as an adult do you just like blurt it out it's like what should I do I had a long you know internal conversation about this and I realized that I should ask permission like let let's talk about it and uh I I didn't want to say oh because you have dementia I want to say I love you I was like let's keep it light let's let's just ask and

you know but I wanted to do it for my mom and my dad and I would call every Sunday and when I called my mom would always answer the phone and I would tell her about the week and then she would hand the phone to the my dad and I'd tell him all the same stories and then you know that's how the conversation went but this Sunday I decided I'm going to ask you know whether we we can start saying I love you for the first time in our whole adult lives um so it started

out normally and at some point in the middle I said you know mom um we I realized we never say I love you at the end of these conversations what do you think about saying I love you silence silence on the other end of the phone like what is she asking me she's never asked me that before and of course I was just terrified that she would say no because she might I mean she's she may not be comfortable I did I didn't know I'd never asked her that question before but after what seemed like

hours it was just a few seconds she said I I think that's a great idea I said oh okay great and so we kind of finished up our conversation and then both of us realized at the same time I think that we had nothing more to say to each other and we both knew that we had both agreed to to say this thing I I kind of describe it as you know it felt like two lions kind of circling each other what's what's going to happen who goes first and you know it was my ask

so I said okay I love you and uh she said I love you too in our very Disney voices so we can get through it and so I had the conversation with my dad and it was a little less awkward with him because I knew my mom says yes I I knew my dad would say yes and so we agreed with my dad I said we said I love you hung out the phone and burst into tears because I had kind of changed the whole family dynamic of generations of not saying I love you and

that was the a Tipping Point in my family kind of history from not saying I love you to saying I love you but the the reason why I started telling this story is that the following week I called back again and my I love you with my mother was significantly less awkward but um my father said I love you first and he remembered after a whole week he was in the middle of dementia he didn't remember anything but he remembered that we had agreed to say I love you and he said it first and because

I'm a neuroscientist that studies memory I know why and it's because emotional resonance makes hippocampal dependent memor stick and his hippocampus was not working well but the emotional resonance of his adult daughter asking for the very first time to say I love you it formed a new memory in my dad and um that that was obviously something that I'll always remember because the last time I spoke to him we also said I love you it's so beautiful oh my God I crying over the brain for crying out loud I I um I'm really proud of

you thank you for recognizing what you needed and also recognizing what your parents needed yeah and asking for it yeah and the story demonstrates something you said earlier which is the brain is the most like intricate complicated amazing beautiful thing about a human yes it and you have the ability to change it for the better yeah and for anyone that's listening that feels like you are in a family Dynamic that you wish would change all it takes is one person to do it yeah what a gift you gave to your parents and to yourself yes

it was and I still enjoy that gift in my regular conversations with my mother so yes I think about that that day often what did it teach you as a scientist to have that personal experience it really brought home how precious our memories are it defines who we are it defines our personal histories and and if you lose that personal history you still have your same person ity characteristics but that's what's so sad to see as the family member those memories SL slip away um but when they come back or when one is is created

a new you celebrated in a different way so it it really kind of brought all my science home to me it's beautiful so beautiful I am so struck by what a profound experience this has been to be with you and you know one of my missions is to take the smartest people in the world like you and some of the most complicated research and to try to make it personal and useful and you have done that for us today oh thank you in a way that not only I know that I personally feel so much

more empowered and motivated but I have a bigger reason for why this truly matters and is there anything that you want to say to the person listening as your parting words so my parting words for everybody listening to this podcast is that you have a beautiful brain we all have beautiful brains that is the message that I try and bring and the recommendations that I give are so that you can keep that beautiful big fat and fluffy brain going as long as you can Well you certainly empowered us to do that it is such an

honor to meet you to get spend time with you thank you thank you thank you for being with us the honor is mine thank you so much and for you I just wanted to say in case no one else does that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life and it has been such an honor to spend time together today and to learn from Dr Suzuki and I know that if you take to heart everything she just shared with you not only from her brain

but her heart that you hold the keys in your hands to take better care of your brain which will lead you to living a better life and I truly hope you do I'll see you in the next episode and I want to thank you for being here with me on YouTube and making it all the way to the end of this extraordinary episode wasn't this unreal I just loved this conversation I hope you did too and since you made it this far could you do me a favor would you click right there and hit subscribe

I'm going to tell you why it's my goal that 50% of the people that watch these videos subscribe to this channel it's just just a way that I know that you're enjoying the content and it supports the team and bringing you more amazing videos and experts like this and by the way I know you're thinking what am I going to watch next you're going to want to check out this one too because if you loved this episode you're going to love this one next this is with world renowned brain specialist medical doctor Dr Daniel aan

where he is going to share secrets and strategies and tools and tips everything that he's learned from doing over 200,000 brain scans I cannot wait to see you there