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Welcome to Kwik Brain Bite Sized brain Hacks for busy people who want to learn faster and achieve more. I'm your coach, Jim Kwik. Free your mind. Let's imagine if we could access 100% of our brain's capacity.
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I wasn't high, wasn't wired, just clear.
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I knew what I needed to do and how to do it.
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I know kung fu.
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Show me
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how do you future proof your brain? If your brain is your number one asset that you have, you know, you grow older, but how can you prevent that decline and actually make it even better? And so I'm excited about this episode, so thank you for joining us. My name is Jim Kwik, your brain coach and the host of the Kwik Brain Podcast. I'm excited to be here in studio because we had an amazing conversation with our special guests, Luisa and Nicola. I mean, if I was to read her cv, it would take up a good part of this episode. Neurophysiologist, clinician, academic, founder of neuro athletics, human performance coach, podcast host. I mean, you do so many different things. Thanks for being on the show.
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B
Thank you so much for having me, Jim.
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A
I love geeking out about the brain and so we just. I was honored to be a guest on your show and maybe we could start off with what's your mission?
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B
My ultimate mission is to end Alzheimer's disease one brain at a time. And I'm doing that and I've been doing that for the past 10 years, so.
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A
Wow. I just got goosebumps. Many people know that I have Alzheimer's in the family and that's something that's near and dear to our hearts. So what got you on this path? I heard from somebody that you were a triathlete or were you?
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B
Yes, was. I was a triathlete. I raced for Australia. I went to London, Beijing and Auckland.
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And when did you figure out, like, the brain is a driver to your performance?
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B
It's funny because around 2011, I actually had an accident and I was hit by a car on my bike. And so I smashed my knees and my ribs and I had to forfeit my Beijing title. And that was really devastating to me. And for me to get back on the bike and run again was a, that was a myth. And the doctor said this is going to take a very, very long time. And we end. My coach ended up hiring Usain Bolt's running coach and he introduced, introduced me to the brain and he said, I'm going to give you an EEG scan. I had no idea what that was back then. 2011, and we did an EEG, and he started to talk to me about the mental aspects of the, of the. Of the race and the transitions and getting back on my bike. And that's when I became obsessed with. With the human brain.
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A
Wow. And then in terms of. So we're going to talk about future proofing your brain and if your mission is to be able to. Is in the area of Alzheimer's. And this is something that if anyone's watching or listening to this, if they had a family member or loved one go through it, you lose your memory. And, you know, my grandmother passed when I was seven of dementia, and when she started calling me by my father's name or repeat something she just said or, you know, these kind of things as a child is very. It left its mark for sure. It's very confusing, but it's almost like, you know, while I teach people to remember facts, figures, foreign languages, which is also great for that cognitive reserve that we talked about and on your show, remembering those moments of, like, who you are are, like, those turning moments into memory is so very important. What's your research found? I mean, a lot of people think that Alzheimer's is something that starts in their 60s. Have you found. Have you found hope? Because I think people want hope and they want help, you know, so you. There's so much data out there and so many studies that. That are out there. What are you optimistic in terms of?
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I'm extremely optimistic.
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That's great.
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I'm very transparent in what I say, when I say that this is a preventable disease. You know, you don't have to get Alzheimer's. You don't have to get it. And unfortunately, We've got around 60 million people worldwide that do have this disease, and that number is going to triple by the year 2050. I'm optimistic that we can lower that burden and we can bring that down, and hopefully, hopefully, maybe in a hundred years, not even know the disease exists.
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So some people might believe that this is something that's just genetic and it's inevitable. What would you say to that?
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That is not true. So, first of all, we have to define some terms. So dementia, a lot of people think, you know, my grandmother died of dementia, and we don't really die of dementia because dementia is just an umbrella term. Right. Alzheimer's dementia or Alzheimer's disease is a form of dementia. It's the most prominent form of dementia. And it's, you know, it's characterized by the loss of our cognitive functions. It's when we Start to, you know, lose our thinking and our processing speed and our memories. And we used to think that this was either a disease of old age or a disease of genetics. My grandmother had it. That means I'm going to get it. It turns out that only about 3% of that 60 million people that I mentioned earlier, their disease was driven by, through genes. And these are called genetic mutations, these kind of mistakes that happen on our genetic code. That's just 3%. So how do you describe the other 97% that don't have these genes that increase your risk? Well, we now know that this is now driven as well through lifestyle.
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So it's lifestyle wouldn't also include their environment also as well.
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Or so there's around, you know, I can tell you now about 15 to 20 different risk factors that increase your risk of getting the disease. But if we really get down to it, and because we don't have a lot of time, we have to think, well, what is stopping our brain from what is actually happening in the brain of Alzheimer's disease? Well, the thing that differentiates this disease from all of the other dementias are two proteins, right? Amyloid beta and tau. And amyloid beta lives outside of the brain cells, right? In the, in the fluid in the brain, the cerebral spinal fluid, this tau protein. And this is actually a new hypothesis for myself and what I'm learning, this lives inside of the neuron itself, under this axon. It's like the trunk, the tree. If you imagine the brain cell as a tree, the leaves are the, the dendrites, and then you've got the trunk and that's the axon. And then you've got these dendritic spines that come off the end of that as well, where the roots are, and they connect to every other, every other branch and every other tree in the brain. We've got 86 billion neurons, around 15,000 connections per neuron, which is huge. Imagine the wattage of your brain cognitive decline, okay, happens around 20 years before the onset of Alzheimer's disease. And pretty much that's like the pruning away of those leaves that occur, right, the pruning away of our synaptic connections. That's what ends up being mild cognitive impairment.
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their 30s or 40s.
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Yeah, actually look, it could start as early as 30. Right. Because our brain fully develop develops at around 25 to 30. So at that age, between 0 to 30, we're pretty much protected by age because our brain is still developing, it's still growing. And you know, you remember what it was like to be 25 and being able to maybe get away with 90 minutes of sleep. And we can't do that now, right?
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Yeah.
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So after the age of 30, we really are at the mercy of sleep deprivation, lack of physical activity. So these are the things that are part of the lifestyle factors that are increasing our risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. So let's start first with the fact that when we think about exercise and physical activity, around 90% of the US population or the 90% of the US adults don't meet the physical activity guidelines, which is 150 minutes to 300 minutes of physical activity per week. So this is a huge contributing factor to why so many people are at the mercy of getting this disease.
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150 to 300 a week.
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Yes.
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I mean that's, that's very.
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Do you meet those guidelines?
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Yes, but, but, but I mean, that's bare minimum of only like 20 something minutes a day.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Wow.
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And it's, and that's scary. Right. So we've got lack of physical activity, we've got sleep deprivation. A really, really phenomenal study came out in PNAS that showed that just as little as six hours per night can raise your amyloid circulating amyloid beta levels, the toxic protein that builds up in the brain. And, and that's just from one night of sleep deprivation. Yeah. The funny thing is, right, when you investigate these proteins, amyloid beta is not bad because amyloid beta is a protective molecule. It's there to pretty much protect the brain and it's, it's soft. Right. So when it's actually expelled from the neuron, it just sits there in the extracellular space. And when we go to sleep at night, we clear it out. So it's fine. Right. It can serve and protect us. It actually gets pushed out when the innate immune system is activated. So when we feel any Sign of stress. Remember, our brain doesn't know the difference between like a major stressor or like just a bad notification from an ex, right? It just signals stress. So when it signals stress, it shoots out this amyloid beta to protect our brain cells like a shield. And that's fine. But we go to sleep at night and we clear it out through the glymphatic system. If we don't sleep well at night, which is a major issue Amongst women around 45 years to 55, when they're going through that perimenopausal transition, they're losing a lot of sleep. Or even new mothers, for example, or shift workers. We don't clear out that protein. And so what happens is the protein builds up and it becomes hard. And because it's outside of the cell bodies, what happens? Well, remember the connections I told you about it, it sticks in between these connections. These connections cannot touch each other together and then we end up getting the loss of those connections. So it's not as if this disease is something that can just happen to you and that's it. It happens over a long period of time due to ongoing sleep deprivation, due to maybe drinking alcohol, due to lack of proper nutrition in our diet, due to stress.
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Is it true that, that. That Alzheimer's is type 3 diabetes?
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You know, it's a bit more nuanced than that. However, it can be. Now, I don't know if your audience knows this, but 70% of all Alzheimer's disease cases are female. So women are at an increased risk. The number one risk factor for getting Alzheimer's disease is age. The second is being a female. And we used to think that's because women live longer, right? And that's true. We live on average in the US 4.5 years longer. But that doesn't. That's not the only reason. It's also because of the hormonal transition that we go through during that stage. We, a lot of women get what we call a reduction in brain glucose metabolism. So every single person that on this earth uses glucose in their brain as a fuel source. It's our primary fuel source. We can also use ketones. But the brain needs glucose in order for it to survive and thrive. If our brain doesn't use that glucose effectively, meaning, like, if it doesn't get into the brain cell to be uptaken, to use as energy, then it just sits there in the brain and it's just like in your body, like, like type 2 diabetes. What happens if we've got all these little sugar molecules Floating around the, you know, in the brain, well, they get clogged up and you become a diabetic. It's the same for the brain. So we could say it's like type 3 diabetes. And that's just one aspect of it.
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So there's, there's movement, there's sleep, and then. So what role do would you say that diet? If people are eating, you know, a lot of high sugar foods or processed foods, inflammation, what is it contributing?
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That's a contributing factor too, because what's a really good analogy is what's good for the heart is good for the brain. So you think about cardiovascular health, right, or cardiovascular disease. What accumulates in, in your bloodstream in order for those plaques to build up in the arteries and for it to clog? Well, we have to have a high fatty cholesterol diet. Okay. Now I'm going to be really like nuanced with that as well. But if we go and do a, an order from the doctor and we get our labs taken and he'll do something called a cholesterol panel, we can look at things such as LDL cholesterol and apob. And if they're really high, that can also affect the brain because the brain is the most vascular rich organ in the entire body. We've got all these blood vessels in the brain. If they're not healthy and durable and flexible and clean, then they can clog up too, and they can cause vascular dementia, another form of dementia. It can cause, obviously, Alzheimer's disease. It can cause strokes. So what we eat is really important, but equally what we don't eat is important. Right. So as you know, I remember digging deep into the nutrition of brain health and realizing how important certain foods, such as polyphenols, which are found in berries, are for your brain because they lower inflammation, but also equally fatty fish. So a lot of people now in the US are not consuming enough fatty fish, which is made of omega 3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA. But not just that. Even if we do, have you seen this documentary called Seaspiracy?
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Yeah.
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So you think you eat a lot of fish, but what is the fish filled with? Right. So it's getting access to clean food as well. Around 70% of your brain is made of fat, and around 60% of that 70% is made of DHA, which is a form of omega 3 fatty acids. So we also have to think we're not getting enough of the nutrients that our brain needs to, to survive and thrive. So it's about what you're not Putting in your diet, that also counts.
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All right, so we talk about food. Fish. That's clean, right? Berries. What about. Let's go back to exercise and sleep. What are your two favorite exercises and two favorite sleep. Go to Whether it's tools or techniques that move the needle for you or that you would work with a client.
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I have a saying, and that is thick thighs save lives.
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Right.
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The larger the legs, the larger the brain. And this came from a wonderful robust study done on identical twins. Okay. They took around 700 twins, right? Identical, yeah, Huge.
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Okay.
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And they tracked them over a 10 year period. And at the start of it, what they did was they took images of their brains. Okay. MRIs, and they gave them cognitive tests to figure out what is their global cognition scores. Over the course of 10 years, they got one twins specifically to work on leg power and leg strength.
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So like deadlifts and squats or.
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They did all of that. And particularly when you think about power, it's just the, the product of speed and strength. Okay. And how much leg power does one twin have? And over the course of 10 years, what they found when they rescanned their brains, the. The twin that had larger leg muscles, larger, higher strength and a higher power in had increased global cognition scores and larger brains. Literally the gray matter of their brains was thicker. Right. Than the other twin. And they equated this back to the twin having larger leg muscles. So my favorite exercise is A, resistance training, but B, it's training my legs.
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Yeah.
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Because I know that I'm gonna get the biggest bang for my buck when I'm at the gym.
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What about aerobic or high intensity interval training or.
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They're amazing too. And I, I think all form, like every single form, whether it's high intensity, whether it's aerobic, whether it's resistance training or neurocognitive training, like with balls against the wall.
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I've seen some of your videos.
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Yeah.
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Impressive.
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These all serve the purpose of building a better brain and staving off mild cognitive decline and dementia. Where we look at aerobic training is when we're running for long periods of time and we're getting that constant flow of blood to the brain. We're releasing bdnf, and that's brain derived neurotrophic factor. So that's a growth factor for the brain. And that's important because that can actually go into the hippocampus of the brain and grow new brain cells. So that's really brilliant. Right. But not just that you're getting this constant flow of Blood to the brain. So imagine just fertilizing dopamine and serotonin,
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endorphins, all these neurochemicals.
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Yeah, but equally high intensity interval training or just getting your heart rate up to that really 90% of heart rate zone is so beneficial because what you're doing is you're getting this influx of, of something called lactate. And lactate is a fuel source for the brain. This is why I'm always telling ladies and also men as well, you know, when you're in maybe at around 50 years old, we want the cleanest fuel possible. And lactate is such a really, really clean fuel source for the brain.
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What would you say is like something that people eat on a regular that they might not associate to, you know, having negative consequence to their brain?
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Well, look, I have to say every single individual is different people. You know, it surprises me, Jim, that still in 2026 that people still don't realize the effects that alcohol has on the brain. Because a lot of people just think, well, one glass of wine's not going to kill me. Right. And it might not kill you. However, one glass of wine can really dramatically change the way that you sleep at night. Right. And that one shift in sleep can cause an increase in amyloid beta levels during the day.
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So there's a difference between somebody who's drinking at night saying it helps them sleep and it's actually just not, it's not supporting their REM or their deep sleep.
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Exactly. And while we're on that, marijuana, marijuana is also definitely not helping you sleep, but something that people are, I would say, not consuming, I would say on a daily basis as well. And people don't realize the importance of hydration, People don't realize the importance of electrolytes. Like your brain literally uses something called the sodium potassium pump in order for it to communicate with each other. Sodium and potassium are electrolytes. They're so beneficial for the brain and for the nervous system to actually function.
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For somebody that is very concerned about, maybe they have disruptive sleep, either they have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep or you know, even at six hours, if, if you know those are, there's all those negative consequences. What, what's your favorite science based ways of supporting sleep?
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So the first thing I do is I focus on consistency. It turns out that consistency actually outweighs the quantity of sleep. So sometimes people think, oh, I got nine hours last night. But if you get six hours one night and nine hours the next night, it's not really counterintuitive.
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Right.
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And some of the best longevity studies are done on sleep consistency. So the first thing we want to do is we want to figure out what time am I going to be asleep every day? What time will I wake up every day? Because that's going to set your circadian rhythm and your body loves just being on a clock.
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Even on the weekends?
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Even on the weekends.
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It's not always easy, but yeah.
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So if we can figure that out, great. So what's the next move? Well, are you having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? Either one or the other. A lot of depending. Again, depending on where you're at, what stage in life you're at. A lot of women, like I mentioned, are having problems, you know, staying asleep because of hot flashes. Right. 60% of perimenopausal and menopausal women will experience hot flashes at night. Then men as well. Equally around the age of 70, when we start, when we. Well, when men start to notice an increase in their prostate, they're starting to wake up between the hours of 2am to 4am so some of the best strategies I have, first and foremost is really investigate what the problem is, get to the root of the problem. Because you are different to me. Even if it's two men or two women, we're all different. What's the problem? Second thing is how do I mitigate those problems? I always sleep in a. I sleep on a temperature controlled mattress, I sleep in a dark room. I wear a mask every night. I do supplement with magnesium L threonate because that for me really puts me in a deep sleep. And I'm trying to do whatever I can to optimize the timing as well
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as people have an alarm clock to wake up, maybe even happen in the beginning. Alarm clock to go to bed.
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Yeah. And I do. And it's a set to like my time to start winding down at night. That's when all the lights come off and I try hard to not do anything that's going to activate my nervous system, which is emailing.
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Yeah. Because it puts you in that executive functioning like it's fun. So just like when we talk about food, what not to do, the marijuana, the alcohol, but also for sleep, what are you not doing? So is it not being on your devices or not being.
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Well, whatever. Exactly. What not being on your devices? Not really looking at screens now funny story, I wear, I do wear my blue light blocking glasses at night. Now is that doing an enormous benefit? Well, maybe not, but it's something that's routine for me. Right. So. Yes. So it does have maybe a 1% effect. I have a really good set of blue light blocking glasses. But if I am looking, you know, watching a movie or something, which is rare for me, but if I do, I am wearing my blue light blocking glasses at night. But I'm a reader and I read fiction at night.
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I do too.
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Yeah, yeah. Non fiction is, is my daily thing. But I do read fiction because it puts me in this state of like, you know. Yeah, yeah.
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And it's just been shown that people who read fiction actually sleep better also. And I don't read business books or science books at night because it puts me in my executive brain. I start thinking about things, but I find it very. And also people do. It helps to mitigate some stress. And there's so many benefits on fiction reading anyway in terms of EQ and empathy and storytelling, imagination, problem solving, seeing things from different perspectives and that.
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But your ability as well. And people think that it's just about the two hours or three hours before bed and. And I've also seen that if I stop eating at least two and a half hours before bed, I increase my sleep scores. Because, you know, when you eat, you've got a lot of food that's getting a lot of blood flow that's getting directed to your digestive system and helping your food digest and marinate and that's keeping you up as well. When we eat, we activate our sympathetic nervous system. So if we eat too close to bedtime, it's going to take a while for us to calm down and activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Peristalsis will, will take place around 90 minutes. So you want about two hours to two and a half hours prior to going to sleep to stop eating completely.
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A
And then it's darker for you and a little bit. You said temperature controlled mattress.
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Temperature controlled mattress. You don't have to do that depending if you're a hot sleeper or a cold sleeper, but even just making your room as cool as possible, especially now.
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So we talk about when you go to sleep, keeping that consistent exercise. Is there a when for you? Is there any difference between people who do it in the morning, afternoon or evening?
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Yes.
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And I imagine working at working out at night might be very stimulating. It is.
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B
It activates your sympathetic nervous system as well. Remember how I spoke to you about your circadian rhythm and doing everything in accordance to that, your cortisol, which is our stress hormone. But it's a really good one if it's not always raised right. It's highest in the morning. So that's when we get our peak. So we really want to be exercising in accordance to that. So for me, I'm exercising as far away from sleep as possible. And it turns out that actually the more that we engage in high intensity interval training, actually the tireder we will be and the deeper the sleep at night. So it actually serves you well to exercise during the day and exercise in the morning at least.
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A
What about ketosis like a ketogenic diet or intermittent fasting? Do you have, is there data on that?
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B
There is and there's data on terms of improving sleep. Well, that's obviously individual, but when it comes to actually these longevity studies, I actually am not for intermittent fasting when it comes to women depending on where they are on their life cycle, especially for women who are, you know, optimizing for fertility. So I don't think that that is the, the best thing. But in terms of a ketogenic diet, there's a, there's some wonderful studies that look at this being one of the most beneficial diets or the Mediterranean dash diet, which is highly like, you know, it's got a lot of meat and fish and vegetables as well, could be deemed as ketogenic. It is really good for the brain because you are getting that influx of ketones. Right. And ketones serve as a, another fuel source for the brain. The brain cells uptake ketones much more effectively than glucose. So if we can get our body in that state and if we can tolerate it, then that's great. But it's a really hard diet to adhere to.
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A
And then just the one other thing is, because we're talking about it is off camera, social connections.
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Yeah.
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How important is community or the depth of a relationship with friends?
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B
And one of the most important things, in fact I think I would put this alongside it really is sleep, exercise, nutrition and quality of our close connections. And this comes from the 80 year follow up study from Harvard University where they basically looked at long term brain health outcomes of centenarians and they figured out that the ones who have the greatest brains or the healthiest brains are the ones who maintained the quality of their close relationships. And I think this comes down to a number of factors. A your mirroring neurons, obviously you know, being able to sit in front of somebody and know your brain knows that you're safe in order to be able to communicate effectively, know that you at night that you've got somebody to go to, you've got somebody to cry to. But also I get asked often, Jim, what's the Fastest way to get cognitive decline or Alzheimer's disease. I'm like, if you want to age someone's brain faster, get them talking to the same people, get them not exploring the world, not having a political debate, not exercising. And if you look at the quality of your close relationships, what do they do? Well, they stimulate you. Yeah, right. They provide safety. You've got someone that you can walk around with and go and get coffee with. Seeing you things, talk about your deepest desires, but also talk about your past experiences. Like someone that you can do that with every single day, 20 minutes a day even, is a real strong factor.
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I love it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
For someone who's concerned for themselves or family member, friend about cognitive aging, what would your message be to them?
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B
My message is you have to fall in love with your brain and make your brain your best friend. And if you do, treat it like a bank account every day and you give it what it needs to survive and thrive. Think about what it takes for a child to build their brain. Well, you know, a baby is sleeping, what, 12 to 16 hours a night. It's getting fed by somebody else, it's getting love by somebody else. And their brain is growing, it's developing. They have a lot of cognitive space to be who they are. Treat your brain this way so when you are 80 or 90 years old, you know who you are and you can remember what got you to this stage in the first place. So that's all I can say. Treat your brain like you would treat your newborn child.
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What you nourish flourishes for sure.
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Yeah.
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A
Luisa, thank you so much. How do people stay number one, stay in touch with you, stay connected to you, and also go deeper in your work.
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B
So I have a podcast, the Neuro Experience. I hang out a lot on Instagram, Louisa, Nicola, and I have a a weekly newsletter on a substack called Neuro Athletics.
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How do people get that?
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B
They can go to neuroathletics.substack.com Very cool.
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I challenge everyone actually to do this, to take a screenshot wherever you're consuming this right now and make sure you follow Luisa. Tag her, tag myself, and share one thing that you learned or maybe a commitment that you're going to make after this conversation. That way, your fans, your followers, your friends, your family members get to benefit from that. Because you tag us, we get to see it. And I'll reshare a bunch of them. And thank you so much.
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B
Thanks, Jim.