How Your Beliefs Drive Success & The Science Behind Keeping Your Brain Sharp

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Something You Should Know

Episode: How Your Beliefs Drive Success & The Science Behind Keeping Your Brain Sharp
Host: Mike Carruthers
Guests: Nir Eyal (author, behavioral science expert), Dr. Majeed Fatoui (neurologist, author)
Date: March 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Something You Should Know dives into two powerful themes:

1. The Role of Beliefs in Shaping Success – Behavioral expert Nir Eyal discusses how limiting and liberating beliefs fundamentally drive our choices, motivation, and outcomes.
2. The Science of Brain Health – Neurologist Dr. Majeed Fatoui challenges the inevitability of cognitive decline, explaining how lifestyle factors and simple, actionable habits can keep your brain sharp well into old age.

Listeners are guided to recognize how small mindset shifts and daily routines can lead to profound changes in personal success and cognitive longevity.

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Segment 1: How Beliefs Drive Outcomes with Nir Eyal

Key Themes:

• Beliefs as Tools, Not Truths
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Motivation
• Practical Strategies to Change Limiting Beliefs

What Are Beliefs? (06:01–07:30)

• Nir Eyal’s Core Premise:
  • “Beliefs are tools, not truths.” (06:01–06:03)
  • Facts are objective; beliefs are convictions open to revision.
• Many interpersonal and personal problems come from confusing beliefs with facts.

Common Limiting Beliefs (07:01)

• Frequent limiting beliefs include:
  • "There just isn’t enough time."
  • "It’s too late," "I’m not good enough," "I’m always late," "Stress is bad," "I have this diagnosis, so I can’t," etc.
• “These things, they’re not facts. They’re based on belief.” — Nir Eyal (07:01)

Belief vs. Fact: The Aging Example (08:07–11:07)

• Positive beliefs about aging:
  • “Growth is possible at any age.”
• Negative beliefs:
  • “Aging involves inevitable decline.”
• Belief shapes behavior: Positive belief => greater social, mental, and physical engagement.
• Supporting research: Positive views on aging correlate with a 7.5-year longer lifespan—more than diet, exercise, or quitting smoking.

Quote:
“A hallmark of these limiting beliefs is that they reduce our motivation and they increase suffering, whereas a liberating belief increases our motivation and reduces our suffering.” – Nir Eyal (08:32)

Hope and Human Potential: The Rat Study (13:10–16:49)

• The classic rat experiment shows:
  • Rats rescued once swam 240x longer due to “hope” of salvation (from 15 minutes to 60 hours).
  • Their physical capacity didn’t change; their beliefs did.
• “All of us have these hidden opportunities, these hidden possibilities that we can’t even imagine unless we change our beliefs of what’s possible.” — Nir Eyal (16:27)

Real-Life Example: Serena Williams (20:14–22:14)

• Serena’s coach fabricated a positive statistic about her net play.
• Believing she was good at the net, she played more aggressively and won Wimbledon that year.
• The insight: We already “lie” to ourselves with limiting beliefs; swap them for more useful, liberating ones.

How to Shift Beliefs – Practical Process (22:32–25:17)

• Turnaround Technique:
  • Actively challenge your default belief by asking if the opposite could be true.
  • Build a personal “portfolio of perspectives”—try different beliefs and see which are most productive for you.
• Our brains prefer passivity and resist changing beliefs (helplessness is the default); learning hope and agency is an ongoing effort.

Beliefs, Motivation & Achieving Goals (25:17–27:14)

• Motivation isn’t just a straight line of desire and action. It’s a triangle:
  1. Want the result
  2. Know the behavior
  3. Believe it’s possible.
• Lacking belief undercuts sustained effort—even when you know what to do and want the benefit.

Quote:
“If I don’t believe I have any chance of getting the benefit, getting the promotion, getting the raise, I’m not going to be very, very motivated… So motivation is not a straight line, it’s a triangle.” – Nir Eyal (25:50)

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Segment 2: Keeping Your Brain Sharp with Dr. Majeed Fatoui

Key Themes:

• Challenging the Myth of Inevitable Cognitive Decline
• Preventative and Restorative Brain Health
• The Five Pillars for a Younger, Healthier Brain

Is Mental Decline Inevitable? (30:45–31:45)

• Normal aging causes only minor, manageable decline (2–3%).
• Severe cognitive decline or dementia is largely not inevitable:
  • “There is no need to lose cognitive decline to the point of not being able to function.” — Dr. Fatoui (31:14)

The Real Causes of Dementia (31:58–33:16)

• Only about 5% of cases are purely genetic or “disease.”
• “Late-onset” Alzheimer’s and most age-related decline are influenced 90% by lifestyle and environmental factors.

Quote:
“What happens to grandparents is about 5% disease and 90% lifestyle factors, medical conditions, childhood environment, and so forth.” – Dr. Fatoui (32:50)

The 14 Modifiable Risk Factors (33:27)

• Landmark study: 45% of dementia cases preventable by addressing 14 risk factors, including:
  • Diabetes, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, air pollution, hearing/vision loss, social isolation, poor education, and more.

Five Pillars of Brain Health (34:50–37:15)

1. Physical Exercise

• Grows the memory center (hippocampus) and reduces disease pathology.
• “The more fit you are, the larger will be your hippocampus…” (36:20)

2. Proper Sleep

• Fewer than 6 hours per night can shrink the hippocampus by up to 50%.
• Chronic insomnia impairs the brain’s natural cleaning and repair.

3. Healthy Diet (Mediterranean recommended)

• Less processed food & trans fat; more fruits and vegetables.
• “People who eat a Mediterranean diet can keep their brain up to 18 years younger.” (36:02)

4. Meditation & Slow Breathing

• Regular, simple routines (e.g., 10 minutes daily) can reduce destructive brain plaques.

5. Brain Training / Learning

• Staying mentally engaged and learning new things helps protect brain function over time.

Restoration vs. Prevention (37:33–40:54)

• Many interventions (especially exercise, sleep, diet) are both preventative and restorative, even if some brain changes have already happened.
• The brain can heal and adapt—sometimes, even with large injuries or losses.

Quote:
“I see people with large strokes who recover... This is what I call the invincible brain. Our brain has a huge capacity for growth and recovery.” – Dr. Fatoui (42:55)

How to Apply This (46:24–47:42)

• You don’t need extreme measures:
  • Walk 3,000–5,000 steps/day or 3 hours’ exercise/week
  • 7–8 hours’ sleep
  • 10 minutes meditation/slow breathing daily
  • Continuous learning
• Noticeable improvement is achievable in as little as 12 weeks.
• “Many patients say a fog has been removed… you will notice your memory is a little sharper, you think a little faster.” – Dr. Fatoui (47:36)

Holistic Health: The Brain–Body Link (43:53–46:24)

• All body organs interact: “To have a healthy brain above our neck, we need to keep our body strong below our neck.”
• The brain is best understood as a garden: with care, it grows and thrives; with neglect, it declines.

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Notable Quotes & Standout Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote / Moment | |-----------|-------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 06:01 | Nir Eyal | “Beliefs are tools, not truths.” | | 08:32 | Nir Eyal | “Limiting beliefs reduce motivation and increase suffering; liberating beliefs do the opposite.” | | 13:10–16:49 | Nir Eyal | The “rat hope experiment” illustrating belief’s radical influence on persistence.| | 20:14 | Nir Eyal | Story of Serena Williams’ transformation via (false) positive feedback. | | 25:50 | Nir Eyal | “Motivation is not a straight line, it’s a triangle… you need to have the belief.”| | 31:14 | Dr. Fatoui | “There is no need to lose cognitive decline to the point of not being able to function.”| | 32:50 | Dr. Fatoui | “What happens to grandparents is about 5% disease and 90% lifestyle factors…” | | 36:02 | Dr. Fatoui | “People who eat a Mediterranean diet can keep their brain up to 18 years younger.”| | 42:55 | Dr. Fatoui | “Our brain has a huge capacity for growth and recovery.” | | 47:36 | Dr. Fatoui | “Many patients say a fog has been removed… you will notice your memory is a little sharper, you think a little faster.”|

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Important Timestamps

• Limiting beliefs defined; their insidious effects – 06:01–08:07
• Difference between fact, faith, belief – 08:07–11:07
• Aging, positive/negative self-perception, and real-life outcomes – 09:47–12:37
• The rat experiment’s lesson about hope and persistence – 13:10–16:49
• Serena Williams and believing new stories about yourself – 20:14–22:14
• Practical turnaround technique for shifting belief – 22:32–25:17
• Motivation triangle/why belief sustains effort – 25:33–27:14
• Brain health: myths and reality – 30:45–33:16
• Preventative factors for dementia – 33:27–37:15
• The five pillars for a younger, healthier brain – 34:50–37:15
• Restoring the aging brain; the body-brain connection – 37:33–46:24
• Simple daily actions, results in 12 weeks – 46:24–47:42

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Actionable Takeaways

To Unlock Success Through Belief:

• Challenge limiting beliefs—ask if their opposite could be true.
• Understand that most “facts” about what you can or can’t do are actually beliefs that can be revised.
• Motivation and willingness to act require belief in your possibility to succeed, not just desire or knowledge.

To Maintain a Sharp Brain:

• Integrate the “five pillars” (exercise, sleep, diet, meditation, brain training) into your routine.
• Prioritize consistency over intensity—12 weeks of modest daily effort yields real results.
• Remember: improving brain health positively impacts general health, and recovery is possible even after setbacks.

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Memorable Moment

Mike Carruthers (16:31):

“I hope to God that somebody saved that rat and let it live out its life on a farm in Vermont after doing that.”

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This episode compellingly argues that neither your success nor your cognitive future is set in stone. What you routinely believe and do—often far more than luck or genetics—will decide your trajectory. Now, as Nir Eyal says, that’s really “something you should know.”

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Transcript

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[Mike Carruthers]

Today. On something you should know how you may be throwing away up to $1,500 without even realizing it. Then how to stop your limiting beliefs from sabotaging your success and happiness.

[Nir Eyal]

Many of these limiting beliefs that we have you know I'm not a morning person. I'm always late. Stress is bad. The world is dying. I'm too old, too young, too fat. It's too late. The HAL hallmark of these limiting beliefs is that they reduce our motivation and they increase suffering.

[Mike Carruthers]

Also, how to get someone to do you a favor and is memory loss and cognitive decline inevitable? Not necessarily.

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

45% of dementia cases in the world can be prevented by addressing 14 factors and those 14 factors include diabetes, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, air pollution, hearing loss, vision loss.

[Mike Carruthers]

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something you should know Fascinating intel, the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your your life today. Something you should know with Mike Carruthers

[Mike Carruthers]

if you would like to get a raise without asking your boss, you might find one in your kitchen. Hi, I'm Mike Carruthers. Welcome to something you should know. The average American household wastes hundreds of pounds of food every year. According to the U.S. department of Agriculture, a family of four loses about $1,500 per year on food that never gets eaten. Groceries that sat too long in the fridge or got shoved to the back of the shelf or were tossed out because of confusing expiration dates. And it's not just leftovers. Across the US about 30 to 40% of the food supply, the entire food supply goes uneaten. It's the result of loss and waste from from the farm to the table. It's interesting that we're pretty careful at the grocery store, at the checkout line about how much we're paying for food. But once that food gets home, these small losses really add up. A wilted bunch of lettuce here, forgotten leftovers there, and all those dollars go straight in the trash. The good news is being aware of this problem and making some obvious small changes in how you shop, store and plan your meals can dramatically cut waste and quietly put cash back in your pocket. And that is something you should know. What you believe, your beliefs quietly run your life. What you believe about yourself, what you're capable of, what you deserve, what's possible, all shape the choices you make and the risks you're willing to take. The problem is that many of us treat our beliefs like facts, but they're not. If you believe you're bad with money, you avoid investing. If you believe you're not leadership material, you don't apply for that job. If you believe something is impossible for you, you never even try. And that belief becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So where do these beliefs come from? Why do we cling to them even when they limit us? And more importantly, how do you change them? Nir Eyal has spent years studying the intersection of psychology, behavior and human potential. He's taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and written multiple best selling books. His latest is called Beyond Belief the science backed way to stop limiting yourself and achieve breakthrough results. And he's here to explain how to identify the hidden beliefs holding you back and replace them with ones that actually move you forward. Hi Nir, welcome back to something you should know.

[Nir Eyal]

Hi Mike, great to be here.

[Mike Carruthers]

So to kick off this conversation, let me just ask you to state your case, state your premise of what it is you're trying to get across to people.

[Nir Eyal]

Yeah. My assertion is that Beliefs are tools, not truths. Beliefs are tools, not truths. And that most of our interpersonal problems, our personal problems, our political problems, come from this misunderstanding of what beliefs are, are that beliefs are not facts. Facts are objective truths. They're true even if you don't believe in them. Beliefs, however, are convictions that are open to revision based on new evidence. And we could live a lot better lives if we held these beliefs lightly and recognized these hidden, limiting beliefs that we all carry around with us, that hurt us, that hurt our relationships and make the world a worse place. And that we would be a lot better off if we turn those limiting beliefs into what I call liberating beliefs.

[Mike Carruthers]

Great. Well said. So give me some examples of limiting beliefs that many of us may have that we don't necessarily realize are limiting, but they just are beliefs.

[Nir Eyal]

The most common one I hear these days is there just isn't enough time. That's probably the most common one. But I hear, you know, some version of that. It's too late. I'm not good enough. I'm not sure how to do this. This hurts. The world sucks. Exercise is terr. I have this diagnosis that prevents me from doing it. You know, I'm a Sagittarius. I'm not a morning person. I mean, all these things, they're not facts. They're based on belief.

[Mike Carruthers]

I sure don't want to meet that guy.

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

God.

[Nir Eyal]

Well, this was me, actually. You're meeting that guy. Because this is exactly what I have learned over the past several years. That I used to have these beliefs that I thought were facts and they weren't. They were just in my head and they were keeping me down.

[Mike Carruthers]

So these beliefs that we have. Well, wait a minute. If somebody says some of those things that you just said, like, you know, I have this diagnosis, or, you know, it's too late because I'm 85 years old and I don't think I can make the Olympic team. You know, those aren't beliefs. Those are truths.

[Nir Eyal]

They can be. They can be, right? But most of our life decisions are not based on these truths. That truths are objective. Right? The world is more like a sphere than it is flat. That's a fact. Doesn't care what you think. Then we have matters of faith. Faith. Matters of faith are convictions that do not require evidence. But beliefs are these things that we base our decisions on that don't have fact behind them. They're about something that happens in the future oftentimes. So, for example, should I marry this person? Should I take that job? Should I buy this product. These are all things that are not our decisions we make, that are not based on fact. They are based on beliefs. And many of these limiting beliefs that we have, you know, I'm not a morning person. I'm always late. Stress is bad, the world is dying. I'm too old, too young, too fat, it's too late, whatever you might have these limiting beliefs. A hallmark of these limiting beliefs is that they reduce our motivation and they increase suffering, whereas a liberating belief increases our motivation and reduces our suffering. So most of our. If our. Most of our life decisions are based on these beliefs. We better get them right now. They are. The definition of a belief is that they are open to revision based on evidence. Of course. We, you know, they are not blind faith. So we do need to take into account, you know, what reality tells us. But for the vast majority of our decisions in life, it is really a matter of belief. And so when I hold a belief, let's take for example, aging. We know that people who have a negative view of aging live seven and a half years less. Now, to put this in perspective, seven and a half years, this effect of just having positive versus negative beliefs around aging, that effect of seven and a half years is a bigger impact than the effect of diet, the effect of exercise, or the effect of stopping smoking. But for all we hear about diet, exercise, and smoking, we almost never hear about changing your beliefs. Well, what, what, what does a negative versus a positive belief around aging sound like? A positive belief around aging might sound something like, growth is possible at any age. Okay, that's a positive belief around aging. Growth is possible at any age. A negative view of aging might be something like, aging involves inevitable decline. Now, which of those is true? They're both true, right? They're both facts. But someone who has a positive view of aging, that growth is possible at any age, how will they behave differently? Well, a person with a view that says, I can grow at any age is more likely to go out and garden, to see friends, to contribute to the community. And it turns out that those behaviors, it's not magic. It's not that beliefs magically change your cells. It's that beliefs change your behavior and your behavior changes your biology.

[Mike Carruthers]

But you could hold both of those beliefs at the same time.

[Nir Eyal]

You can. And in fact, they are both facts. But which one do I reiterate to myself? Which one do I choose to remind myself on a daily basis? Do I say to myself, ugh, I'm having a senior moment. And then what does that do? As soon as I tell myself I'm having a senior moment, I move less, I think less. Now I'm diverting my attention towards the negative versus the positive and so that affects my behavior.

[Mike Carruthers]

But you also have to be realistic too. Like, so I can feel like I can grow at any age, but if I go down to the high school track and you know, run 10 laps, I'm going to fall over and die from a heart attack. Most likely because I'm 80, I'm not 85, but somebody that old, you see, I mean, you still have. There are some limits to this, it would seem.

[Nir Eyal]

Well, so here's the thing. So what does it actually do in terms of our day to day life? So I'll tell you exactly what happened when I went to the track field at a high school and I met a group of 70 year olds in Singapore called the Singapore Strong Silvers. Now this group of guys, they have an Instagram account and people call them the grandfluencers. And I'm telling you, I saw these 70 year olds doing more push ups than the 20 year olds. No kidding. They were doing some of them 60 push ups when the 20 year olds were quitting at around 30 push ups. Now they clearly we all have limitations. We have limitations based on, you know, on physics, right? You can't change the laws of physics just because you don't believe in them. Those are facts, but beliefs are convictions open to revision based on new evidence. So most of us carry around these limitations. Oh, a person my age, well guess what? A person your age who believes they can't do it, doesn't even try. Whereas those Singapore Strong Silvers, because they have had these positive views about aging for years and years, they do more and they, they prove to all of us that our limits are far beyond what we think they are.

[Mike Carruthers]

So I realize I just did something in this conversation right now. I took an extreme example, a ridiculous example of you can't be 85 and join the Olympic team. And so therefore I'm trying to negate everything you've said, which I think a lot of people do. Well, you know, here's an extreme example. See, it's not true. And so nothing that you say is true. And people who do that completely miss the point. Well, I didn't miss the point, I got the point.

[Nir Eyal]

But you know what I mean, they missed the opportunity. That's a very astute observation. Because what I'm saying and what the research literature shows is that we are capable of things that we can't even Imagine. And if you can't imagine it, you can't do it. I'll give you a, a wonderful example of this that came out of a study from the 1950s. There was a, there was a researcher by the name of Kurt Richter, and Richter was testing the stamina of wild rats. And he takes a wild rat and he puts it in a cylinder of water and he counts with his timer. He, he counts how many minutes a wild rat can swim in a cylinder of water. Okay, at about 15 minutes, he observes that the rat gives up, drowns. Then he takes a new group of rats and he takes a new rat, he puts it in a cylinder of water and he starts his timer. And at about 15 minutes, when he knows the rat is about to give up, he reaches in, pulls out the rat, dries it off, lets it catch its breath and plunk. Puts it back inside the cylinder of water. And now with that conditioning, he does this a few times. With that conditioning, he wants to observe how much longer the rats can swim for. So the rats originally rat Swam for about 15 minutes. So now I'm going to ask you, with this intervention, how much longer do you think the rats swam for? You know, there's a trick, you know, there's some kind of, you know, amazing result here. How much longer than the 15 minutes did they swim for, do you think?

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, I would have normally said another five minutes, but as you just said, it's going to be some amazing number. But I would have guessed had you not said it's going to be an amazing number. I would have guessed another five minutes.

[Nir Eyal]

Another five minutes. Okay, so now they're swimming 30% longer. It wasn't even close to that. Let's go even farther. Maybe twice as long. Maybe they, they, they swam for double the time for 30 minutes. Not even close. Maybe four times. Imagine what would happen if there was some kind of intervention that made you have four times the stamina. You could swim a marathon for four. Run a marathon for four times longer for, than, than you thought possible. That would be absolutely amazing. That would be earth shattering if we could figure out such an intervention. But that's not what happen case that the rats didn't go from 15 minutes to 60 minutes. No, they went from 15 minutes of swimming to 60 hours of swimming. No, 60 hours. They became 240 times more persistent when they knew that something might save them, that salvation might be possible. Now what changed in that intervention? Nothing in their bodies. They didn't suddenly have more physical stamina. Nothing in, in the experiment changed Their environment didn't change. It was same exact cylinders. Something we think changed in their brains. Now we can't ask rats what they believed, how their beliefs changed, but we think that the promise of salvation, that hope was now possible, caused them to persist, caused them to keep swimming. And so what's amazing about this study, and I think what it demonstrates, is that the power of belief unlocked something that was already there. It wasn't magic, it wasn't woo woo, it wasn't vibrations. It was that they had this power all along, but that they were limiting themselves as to what they believed was possible and they gave up after 15 minutes. So all of us have these hidden opportunities, these hidden possibilities that we can't even imagine unless we change our beliefs of what's possible.

[Mike Carruthers]

I hope to God that somebody saved that rat and let it live out its life on a farm in Vermont after doing that.

[Nir Eyal]

I hope you're right. But I don't think that was the case. Yeah, probably it was the 50s, we don't do that stuff anymore. But back then the rats are already dead, so at least we can learn from them.

[Mike Carruthers]

But wow, I mean, that really is incredible. I'm talking to Nir Eyal. He is author of the book Beyond Belief the Science Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results. Whenever you start something new, like a new business idea, you always doubt yourself. You think, ooh, this is exciting. But your brain says, yeah, but what if it doesn't work? When I started this podcast, I had no idea what would happen. But look, at some point you either launch your idea or you don't. And that's why tools matter. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses worldwide. They're behind 10% of all E commerce in the US from major brands to people just getting started. They let you build a professional online store with ready to use templates and they're packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions and page headlines so you don't have to do everything yourself. And if you get stuck, Shopify's award winning 24. 7 Customer support is always there. Which makes those what if moments a little less scary. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.comSYSK go to shopify.comSYSK that's shopify.comSYSK. you know something that is oddly difficult? Finding a therapist, not the idea of therapy. I think most of us agree that's a good thing. We've all had times when talking to someone could have really helped. But actually finding a therapist who's available, who's taking new patients, who takes your insurance, and is someone you'd really like to talk to, yeah, that's a little trickier. And that's where Rula comes in. Rula is a healthcare company that makes it a lot easier to connect with licensed therapists and mental health professionals who actually take your insurance. You see, they work with over 100 insurance plans, and the average copay for a Rula patient is about $15 a session, sometimes less, depending on your benefits. Which makes therapy a lot more realistic for people who've thought about it but never quite pulled the trigger. And Rula doesn't just match you with whoever's next on the list. They actually help you find therapists based on your goals and preferences and what you're going through right now. Plus, many appointments are available as soon as tomorrow. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high quality therapy that is covered by Insurance. Visit rula.comsysk to get started, and after you sign up, you'll be asked how you heard about them. So please support our show and let them know we sent you. That's r u l a.comSYSK because mental health care should work with you, not against your budget. So nir your rat example is, I mean, it's just incredible. But what about some examples of human accomplishment that doesn't involve vermin?

[Nir Eyal]

Okay, I'll give you another example. And the research literature is just full of them. But this is an anecdote that I love that comes from Wimbledon, that when Serena Williams was playing in Wimbledon, she was psyching herself out. She was convincing herself that she wasn't any good when she rushed the net. And so her coach Patrick came up with an intervention and he came up to her and he told her, look, when you rush the net, you score 80% of the points. And she says, what are you talking about? You're crazy. I'm terrible at the net. He says, no, no, the statistics don't lie. This is what's going on. 80% of the time when you rush the net, you score a point. And she says, well, okay, I guess, you know, if the statistics are what they are, then, then, then great. That's fantastic. It's the best news of the day. Turns out this was a total fabrication that her coach had made this up. And yet, because she now had this new belief that she was good at rushing the net, she performed better and ended up winning Wimbledon. That year. Now, her coach, Patrick, you know, when people approach him and said, how could you lie to your athlete like that? He said, well, look, the lie became reality. And he's, he's saying something very insightful there. You know, the biggest critique of my work is something similar to what you were just saying earlier is that, you know, are you telling people to lie to themselves? Are you telling us to gaslight ourselves? Well, here's the news flash. You're already lying to yourself. You already gaslight yourself, but you're gaslighting yourself with your limiting beliefs. We tell ourselves constantly how we're not enough, how we can't do it, how well, there's conditions that prevent us. And some of that is fact, but most of it is just a cage of our own creation. So what he did, what Patrick, her coach, did, was take her limiting belief, which was also a lie. She was lying to herself, telling herself that she was bad at going to the net. And he replaced it with a more liberating belief that served her under the principle that our beliefs are tools, not truths.

[Mike Carruthers]

What is the process, though, of. It's one thing to point in an example and say, okay, well, see, it worked for them. But that, but how do you pull this into your life and use this as a process to decide, do I do this? Do I not do this? How does it work in everyday life?

[Nir Eyal]

Oh, it's wonderful. That's a great question. Because our, our hidden beliefs are by definition hidden to us because these limitations, they feel like facts. And so the, the brain has this immunity to change. Just like our, our bodies have an immune system that if you get a splinter in your finger, it creates an infection in order to neutralize the pathogens. So your body wants to. Of anything that that's not supposed to be there. And that's what our brains do. We hate changing our minds. We hate updating our beliefs. It's very uncomfortable because it turns out that our default state is passivity. We used to believe in something called learned helplessness, and this kind of made the rounds in the psychology community. It was kind of accepted as gospel for years and years. The work of Seligman and Meyer. Turns out a few years ago, they completely changed their minds. We now know that helplessness is not learned. Helplessness is our default state. We always will go back to that default state of what has been safe in the past. Especially when we're stressed, especially when we're under pressure, we default to our initial state. If we think about how we're born, a baby is Born completely helpless. It has to learn hope based on agency, based on feeling out its environment. It learns what it's able to do. And so knowing that, that our default state is passivity is hopeless. We have to teach ourselves agency. We have to constantly update these. So these hidden, limiting beliefs, we need to think of them almost like our face. That we all have a face. We carry it around with us all day long. We can see other people's faces, but we can't see our own unless we have a mirror. Unless we, we. We reflect. So, you know, I could prove this to you. You, You. If. If you think about the closest people in your life, I bet you can think of the limiting beliefs that pretty much everyone you know has, right? That, that they all have some kind of limitation. But your own, it feels like a fact. It feels like it's a truth when it's also just a limiting belief. So the practice has to be taking out those limiting beliefs and assessing, is this belief serving me or is it hurting me? And then what we do to make it very practical is we do a turnaround. Now, a turnaround asks us to do something completely ridiculous and uncomfortable, which is to ask ourselves, could the exact opposite be true? Could the exact opposite be true? That person was trying to hurt me. That person was not trying to hurt me. I'm not a morning person. I am a morning person, whatever the case might be. You can take out that belief. And the goal is not to change your mind. You're not going to change your mind. You're just collecting a portfolio of perspectives, just different options, different lenses with which to see the world through so that you can try them on for size and see which ones serve you better, regardless of whether they are true or not. Because you're not going to know if they're true until you actually try them out.

[Mike Carruthers]

We haven't really talked about it and only have a minute or two left. But the whole idea of goals, aspirations, of things, I suspect that this plays a big part in that, that we get what we believe we can get.

[Nir Eyal]

Absolutely. That's a great point. And in fact, I think the way we look at motivation towards those goals is completely wrong. That I used to look at goals, and I think most people look at motivation as a straight line. So if I want this benefit, I have to do this behavior, right? It's classical economics, right? If I, if I do this, I get that. The problem is there's a missing link here, because if it was easy enough to just know what to do, which today we all Know, you know, if you don't know how to do something, ask Google, ask ChatGPT. You can find the answers of how to do something pretty easily these days. And even if I want the result so I can do the behavior and I want the benefit, many times I don't do it. If it was that easy, we would all have six pack abs and we would all be multimillionaires. But it's not that simple. The reason it's not that simple is that there's something missing that I can have the, I can want the benefit and I can know what the behavior is that I need to do. But if I don't believe, then I'm not going to sustain my motivation. And sustaining motivation turns out to be the most important trait in who actually accomplishes their goals. So for example, if I don't believe that I will get the benefit, let's say I have a boss who I don't think has my best interests at heart, well, how motivated am I going to be to continue to work with them? If I don't believe I have any chance of getting the benefit, getting the promotion, getting the, the raise, I'm not going to be very, very motivated. And, and conversely, if I don't believe in my own ability to do the behavior right, if I think I'm limited in some way and so I won't be able to do that behavior to get the result, well then I'm also not motivated. So motivation is not a straight line, it's a triangle. You need to know what to do the behavior, you need to want the benefit, of course, but you need to have the belief. The belief is at the bottom of the pier of the triangle that holds it all together.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, this is fun and really eye opening. It makes me think, I'm sure makes everybody listening think about what things do I think of as facts really are beliefs that could be holding me back. Nir Eyal has been my guest. He has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He's written several bestselling books and the one we've been talking about today is Beyond Belief, the science backed way to stop limiting yourself and achieve breakthrough results. There's a link to that book in the show notes. Nira, this was fun. Always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you.

[Nir Eyal]

And likewise, I love the questions because many times people just say okay fine, I like that you push back because it's the greatest gift someone can give you is to change your beliefs and help you see reality more clearly.

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[Mike Carruthers]

We've all seen it, maybe even experienced it. The forgotten name, the misplaced keys. The moment you walk into a room and then don't remember why. As we get older, we're told that cognitive decline is just part of the deal. The brain slows down, memories fade, and for some it progresses to something far more serious, like dementia. But is that really inevitable? Is mental decline simply the price of aging, or are there things we can do to prevent it? What if your brain is far more adaptable, resilient and capable of renewal than you think? Dr. Majeed Fatoui is a world renowned neurologist, adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins and author of a book called the Invincible the Clinically proven plan to age, proof your brain, and stay sharp for life. He argues that much of what we assume about brain aging is, is outdated and that there are specific science backed ways to protect and even strengthen your brain over time. Dr. Fatoui, thank you for being here.

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

Thank you very much for having me on your podcast. I appreciate that.

[Mike Carruthers]

So I would imagine most people believe that brain decline is inevitable as you age. Just because every other part of the body declines as you age. You can't run as fast. You can't do a lot of the things that you could do when you were younger because the body seems to slow down and somewhat deteriorate. So one would assume that the same thing is true for the brain. Is it inevitable that your brain will decline?

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

A small amount of decline happens with aging, about 2%, 3%. But it depends on how well you take care of yourself and how well you take care of your brain. There is no need to lose cognitive decline to the point of not being able, able to function. You may be a little slower in remembering things, you may be a little slower in using an app or setting up a podcast, but you should be able to have a full life, enjoy life to the fullest.

[Mike Carruthers]

But some people who have cognitive decline, whose brains don't work as well as they used to, they have dementia. It's a disease in some cases, right?

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

Yes, that's an excellent question, Mike. Only about 5% of people, based on my experience of having seen thousands of patients, have a predominantly genetic reason for having a disease. There's an overlap of a disease process and the wear and tear that happens with aging. For example, your ability to walk is fine as you get older, but you just walk a little slower. However, some people may have a muscle disease and they really can't walk. The percentage of people who have a muscle disease is very small. And the same way the percentage of people who have a pure disease process that affects their brain is very small. Now let me clarify something. There's an early onset Alzheimer's disease and there's late onset Alzheimer's disease. Early onset Alzheimer's disease is a disease, is a pure disease. It's like 90% of it has to do with the genetics and you could slow it, you could make it a little less severe, you could postpone it a little bit, but it's a disease. What happens to grandparents is about 5% disease and 90% lifestyle factors, medical conditions, childhood environment, and so forth.

[Mike Carruthers]

So in the cases where cognitive decline is because of environmental factors or lifestyle factors, then you would Assume you could do something to prevent that.

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

You're absolutely right. And that's the whole point. Now the paper was published in a prestigious journal, Lancet, by a group of international researchers, about 40 of them. And it looked at what factors increase the likelihood of dementia. And they concluded that 45% of dementia cases in the world can be prevented by addressing 14 factors. And those 14 factors include things like diabetes, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, air pollution, hearing loss, vision loss, feeling isolated, and poor childhood education. Now that doesn't mean that only 45% can be prevented. Based on the data they had, they came to that conclusion. For example, it was difficult for them to evaluate the effects of sleep, the role of insomnia, which we know is a strong factor for cognitive decline with aging. Now, I have been seeing patients with memory problems for about 30 years and most patients who came to see me improved with this 12 week program that I put together. And the program is based on identifying factors that have the potential to shrink your brain and promoting factors which have the potential to grow your brain. So let me give you example. Many studies have shown that obesity is a risk factors for cognitive decline through shrinking your brain. And on average, it's very important to keep in mind, on average, people who have a larger belly have a smaller brain. Now just to be clear, doesn't mean that every person who's obese has a smaller brain because they don't have other risk factors. So for example, if somebody has chronic stress, that is a major risk factor for shrinking the brain and especially the part of the brain for memory which is called the hippocampus. Now the things that can shrink the hippocampus include obesity, diabetes, hypertension, poor diet and sleep apnea. These are just some of the factors that can literally shrink the brain in a dose dependent manner. And hundreds of studies have shown this. It's not just one or two study here and there. There's consensus in the literature about those factors shrinking the brain. On a positive side, there are at least five factors that literally grow the brain, especially the part of brain called hippocampus. This part of the brain is roughly the size of your thumb. You have one on the right, one on the left. And so exercise, physical exercise grows the hippocampus. The more fit you are, the larger will be your hippocampus and the less likely it is for you to develop Alzheimer's disease. Second is proper sleep. People who sleep fewer than six hours a night have a high possibility of shrinking the brain by about 50%. The hippocampus can go to half its original size if they've had chronic insomnia for 20 to 25 years. Poor diet. People who eat a diet that's high in trans fats and high processed food on average have smaller brains. And those who eat a Mediterranean diet have a slightly larger brain, especially hippocampus. People who eat a Mediterranean diet can keep their brain up to 18 years younger. Yeah, so the other two are meditation, slow breathing and brain training. So those five pillars of brain health have been shown to increase the size of your hippocampus in a dose dependent manner.

[Mike Carruthers]

And so are those things, those five things that help prevent your brain from shrinking, do they also treat your brain once you've shrunk your brain or is this all preventative stuff you have to do in advance?

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

You're asking the great questions, Mike, I must say. So there are things that can reduce and mitigate the abnormalities that have happened to the brain due to what we call Alzheimer's disease. Let me just step back and explain something a little more clearly. So there are two baskets of things that can shrink your brain. One basket is a disease process, the Alzheimer's disease footprints. And the footprints are the collections of these proteins that aggregate and form these things called amyloid plaques and tau tangles. You can think of them as like a little piece of gum or piece of pebbles that become insoluble inside the brain. They attract inflammation and that shrinks the brain. And then there's another basket of life related factors that shrink the brain. For example, when you have insomnia, the natural rinsing and cleaning that usually happens, the brain does not happen. And so as a result, these chemical byproducts accumulate and that causes a problem. Similarly, when you have obesity or if you have poor diet, there is increased inflammation just because of the food. And that inflammation can shrink the brain. So the two baskets are, look at Alzheimer's pathology and life related pathology. And every person has a mixed bag of these two things which I call a soup of problems. So for example, I, I'm doing everything to prevent the things that will shrink up my brain because I know all the Factors, all the 14 things I mentioned and other things. So I eat right, I sleep right, I train my brain and all those things. Now the question becomes comes which of the factors, which of those five pillars of brain health can reduce the pathology, which of them can increase brain resilience and which can do both? Exercise does both, Exercise reduces, actually exercise reduces the plaques and tangles in the brain. Incredible. And exercise grows epicampus so exercise good for both. Insomnia is treating insomnia. Sleeping well actually works more on reducing the pathology. It, it sort of improves the rinsing in the brain and reduces the collections of these plaques and tangles. Poor diet does. No, healthy diet does both. When you eat healthy, you have, for example, fruits and vegetables that are high in antioxidants and that reduces inflammation in the brain. So even if you don't have any pathology in your brain, your brain is going to be healthier. And if you do have pathology, then it reduces some of the inflammation. As I mentioned, people who eat a Mediterranean diet have brains that are up to 18 years younger in terms of collections of these plaques and tangles in the brain. And then stress really works on reducing pathology. So it's so fascinating that if you do slow breathing exercises like breathe in with a count of six, hold for a count of three and breathe out and just do that for 10 minutes, that has been shown to reduce these collections of amyloid plaques in the brain. Isn't that incredible?

[Mike Carruthers]

What about drinking? We've heard that, you know, drinking kills brain cells, which conceivably would mean that it's bad for your memory and bad for your cognitive process. Is that true?

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

Yes. And that's why I sort of emphasize the five pillars of brain health. There are major things that affect the brain and there are minor things. For example, what supplements? No. Is this supplement I'm going to eat, take, and suddenly I will never get Alzheimer's disease?

[Nir Eyal]

No.

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

So there are things like air pollution. If you live in New York or large cities, the air pollution is going to be bad for you. So breathing that air is going to be bad for, for you. However, our brains, our bodies have a lot of resilience. And in an ideal world, you have zero bad things happening to you. But in real world, you can't have a sterile life. You know, you'll have stresses, you have financial problems, you drink once in a while, you eat bad food once in a while. Fortunately, our brains have a healing mechanism. That's what I think I find amazing about our brain. Our brain has got repair kit. One of the molecules in that repair kit is called bdnf, brain drive neurotrophic factor, which actually increases when you exercise. So if there are minor wear and tears are the healing mechanisms in our brain. Fix those things. So if you drink two glasses of wine. I'm not promoting wine. I mean, I think ideally you should never smoke, you should never drink, you should never do drugs, you should never be stressed. You should sleep, you know, perfectly all the time. But the thing is, if occasional things happen, our brain have a healing mechanism. Now, I don't want to go on and on and on, but as a neurologist, I see people with large strokes who recover. I mean, sometimes kids have a problem and you have to eliminate and actually aspirate half the brain. And they still do. Well, this is what I call the invincible brain. Our brain has a huge capacity for growth and recovery.

[Mike Carruthers]

Good Lord, that's incredible.

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

Incredible. Incredible. I mean, I look at the MRIs, half the brain's not there, and the kid is playing. It's like, how could this possible? Like, if you don't have the right part of the brain, the left side shouldn't work technically, but, you know, the kid is running around and playing and, you know, seem to be fine.

[Mike Carruthers]

So really leading a healthy life. What we've come to know as a healthy life, eat right, sleep right, reduce stress, that kind of thing is very good for your brain.

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

Yes, absolutely.

[Mike Carruthers]

So it isn't magic, it's just in some ways it's just common sense to, you know, be good to yourself and do what you know is right rather than what you know is not right. But I guess there is a tendency to maybe. Well, I'll worry about this later when I'm old. You know, I don't need to worry about this now, but I imagine the sooner you start, the better.

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

Your brain is an organ made up of cells. They need oxygen, they need nutrients, they need vitamins, and they have operations, just like your heart has cells and the individual cells need oxygen, they need energy, they need glucose, they need vitamins. And so if you have a high stress life and the cortisol levels are high, adrenaline is high, your blood pressure is high, those cells cannot function. Those cells in your heart and your skin and your brain cannot function optimally. What I find interesting is that the same things that are good for your brain are also good for your heart. And those same things, with some minor variations, are also good for your liver and for your kidney. One of the things most people don't appreciate is that all your body organs are in a dynamic network of interconnections. Like if you have liver disease, ammonia level goes up, affects your brain. If you have kidney problems, nitrogen urea levels go up, affects your brain. If your heart is not functioning, forget it. You don't have enough blood, your brain can't work. If your lungs are not functioning, then not enough oxygen, your brain won't work. Your muscles produce something called myokines which are these hormones that are protective for the brain. And so in order for us to have a healthy brain above our neck, we need to keep our body strong below our neck. As you said, it's common sense. But I think the problem is I give a lot of lectures around the world. I've been like, to 40 countries. I teach at Johns Hopkins, I teach at Harvard, and everywhere I go. What I find interesting is that people don't realize the brain is an organization. To most people, the brain is like this mysterious black box. Many people think that the brain is like a computer that gets old and rusty with aging and that there's not much they can do in reality. I think people need to think of their brain as a garden. If you take care of a garden, you know, the plants grow. If there are any fruit plants, they produce fruits, the weeds will not be there. And if you neglect that garden, the weeds grow and the plants won't grow, and it's a mess. And if you take care of the garden by remove the weeds and water it properly, give fertilizer regularly, you'll have a beautiful garden that blossoms. And the same applies to your brain.

[Mike Carruthers]

So you had mentioned a few moments ago about how you could do things like slow breathing, but how much you have to do it every day for 20 years, or if you do it for a week, you'll notice a difference or give me a sense of that

[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

again, that's a great question. I've been studying these things for a long time. So I have taken care of many patients, and I've come to appreciate that 12 weeks seems to be the sweet spot in order to see noticeable improvement in your cognitive function with lifestyle modifications. First of all, you don't have to run a marathon. Just walk 3,000 to 5,000 steps a day, or just walk, exercise three hours a week. You know, make sleep a priority, sleep seven to eight hours, do something like meditation or slow breathing, 10 minutes a day, and get a habit of learning things. So if you do five things that are part of your daily routines, you really don't have to do anything extra. You don't have to, like, buy equipment or buy expensive supplements or do anything extraordinary. Just make those five pillars of brain health a simple part of your daily routine, and you will notice that your memory is a little sharper, you think a little faster. Many patients, they say a fog has been removed, and 12 weeks is not years.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, there's a lot of good news in what you've said, because if people understand and know what the risk factors are for cognitive function, then you're armed with the knowledge and then you act accordingly. I've been speaking with neurologist Dr. Majeed Fatoui. The name of his book is the Invincible Brain. The clinically proven plan to age, proof your brain and stay sharp for life. And there's a link to that book in the show Notes. Thank you, doctor. The next time you make a request of someone, whether you're asking for a favor or a commitment or help with something, add a simple phrase like but you're free to say no. Psychologists call it the but you are free compliance technique, and research shows it's significant significantly increases the chances that someone will say yes. A meta analysis of over 40 experiments found that simply reminding people that they're in control of the choice makes them more likely to say yes. And this was in context from giving money to completing surveys. In one classic study, adding a freedom reminder phrase like that boosted compliance from about 10% to nearly 50%. The psychology behind it is pretty simple. When people feel their freedom isn't threatened, they experience less resistance and are more willing to help. So the next time you ask for something, try Can I ask you a favor? But you're free to say no and you might be surprised how often the answer is yes. And that is something you should know. It would be really helpful if you would help spread the word about this podcast by telling someone or sharing this episode with someone. People actually like to get recommendations for podcasts because you know there's so many of them. It's nice if somebody actually recommends one and so you could recommend this one. It would be appreciated. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.

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[Dr. Majeed Fatoui]

Times

[Vulgar History Podcast Host]

Ah, the Regency era. You might know it as the time when Bridgerton takes place or the time when Jane Austen wrote her books. But the Regency era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history. And on the Vulgar History podcast, we're going to be looking at the balls, the gowns, and all the scandal of the Regency era. Vulgar History is a women's history podcast, and our Regency Era series will be focusing on the most rebellious women of this time. That includes Jane Austen herself, who is maybe more radical than you might have thought. We'll also be talking about queer icons like Anne Lister, scientists like Mary Anning and Ada Lovelace, as well as other scandalous actresses, royal mistresses, rebellious princesses, and other lesser known figures who made history happen in England in the Regency era. Listen to Vulgar History wherever you get podcasts.