My Health Comeback Story

One way to deal. Even when you have a compromised brain, even when you have a true, like mental disorder or mental illness or mental challenge or a good diagnosis of depression or ADHD or anxiety, one of the best things you can do is learn to take control back of the gears of your mind. We can talk about things that will help the brain operate better, supplementation, exercise, nutrition. But at the end of the day, you've got to start forging thoughts that keep you in check and you need cues to help you do that. The number one thing I'm asked is, Brendan, what's the most important thing you did for your brain health? It wasn't anything else other than a good diagnosis. And then using my mind every day, challenging it, for example, even like with what I was struggling with, my hippocampus, being injured or not getting enough brain flow, what I was or blood flow, I would focus on doing memory tests every day for six months like I was there. You can do a lot of memory tests and brain quizzes and brain gyms on the Internet. And I was doing things like forcing myself to think, making my brain work really hard on problems, making my memory work really hard on tests, doing that every single day, making sure that I read positive statements to myself every single day because I knew if I didn't do those things, I'd just be on default pattern and my default pattern was injured. So it would lead to high levels of anxiety. Hey, everybody, it's Brendon Burchard. And welcome to your monthly tune up to get you highly motivated, highly driven, highly focused on taking the best care of yourself so you can provide the best excellent service to the world. And guess what? Today's adventures in brain health is brought to you by none other than my broken brain. I'm really excited to share with you some of the hot topics and the best lessons I've learned in dealing with multiple concussions that caused tremendous amounts of anxiety, lack of focus, frustration, anger, fear in my life and how I went about dealing with those different injuries. I'll share with you some of my favorite supplements, some of my simple routines and sleep, exercise, nutrition, that makes me my best. And I'll do all of this in hopes of helping you do the same thing I'm trying to do every single month, get you to your highest levels of performance so that in anything that you're doing, in all of your relationships that you have, maintaining your, you know, positive emotions, positive health. Because if we can get you at your best, we know you can provide your best service to the world. And I celebrate you. For all those who are new here, congratulations for spending some time on you today, spending some time on taking care of yourself and spending some time just thinking about where are you in your life and are you doing your best? Do you feel your best? Are you able to provide your best service? I'm so thrilled to be here with you guys live. I've got a big topic here. Even as I'm speaking with you, I'm hoping that I'm going to get all this in today. I mean, I know, you know, this personal development, professional development, it doesn't happen like once a year or two times a year. It's like ongoing. And so I appreciate everybody for being here with me. This high performance community has changed live. I changed lives. I did a live cast yesterday and a person was sharing with me on an interview I did. He said, Brendan, he said, I've done everything. I've read all the books, I've listened to all the CDs and audio programs. I've done everything in the personal development space. And nothing has been more powerful than getting in this high performance community where other people are holding me accountable. They're cheering me on, they're wanting to see me do my best. So much of my active brain health that comes from being around people like you, you know, I have to stay mentally sharp for you. I have to stay on my A game for you sometimes. The reason we start taking care of our health isn't really just for us and how we feel. It's so that we can provide our best service to the world. A big part of everything I do in brain health certainly wasn't for me because where my default mode would be, I'd be very comfortable in front of Netflix for seven hours a day with really bad food. It would be fantastic for about three days and I'd start hating myself. So I think that we all have a default mode that can be more comfortable and. But sometimes the charged life is beyond the comfortable life and we have to challenge ourselves to take better care of our health so that we can serve those around us, that we can love those around us so that we stay in positive mood and energy. I know you're all on that journey with me and that's why you're here. And I just want you to hear me say, I celebrate you for that. You know, a lot of people could be here today, but you're here to work on yourself. I'm going to bounce out of my phone because as clearly you will find part of my brain health is minimizing distractions. Because the more distractions, the more dopamine firing off inadvertently, sometimes keeping you up late at night, taking away your focus. So I'm going to focus just on you and celebrating you and thanking you here. Okay? Third big rule, See a nutritionist and know your food insensitivities. I know this sounds like, wait, he just went left turn on me. But no, a huge part of your brain health is your overall nutritional health. In fact, over almost everything impacting your brain comes from nutrition. Everything going into your brain comes from goes into your mouth. Think about that, right? You've heard of a mind body connection. Well, there's the brain body connection. Anything that goes in your mouth is likely to affect your overall physical health, right? What you eat takes care of your body. How you take care of your body is your brain, right? So we gotta get your nutrition right. And a lot of people experience a tremendous amount of mental fog and fatigue because they're eating things that they're allergic to. And this took a long time for most of us, I think, to come around to in the health space. And that's really important. So that if you haven't done recent, and I mean in the last two years, full workup with a nutritionist, I cannot recommend something more highly. I had a friend of mine, helps me run one of my companies. He's, you know, in his 40s and he just discovered he's allergic to eggs. He's in his 40s. He says, Brendan, every morning for 40 years I've had eggs. He goes, and you know, I always had. I always thought I had allergies to the rest of the world. You know, my eyes were always puffy in the morning, but, you know, by mid afternoon they'd come back and I had the sniffles in the morning. I just thought, you know, that's how it is for people. For 40 years, this person suffered not knowing what he's allergic to. But this happens for tons of people. Tons of people are suffering literally the mental challenges that come from things that they just shouldn't put in their mouth. I mean, literally, mental challenges. Anxiety can be associated with having things that you should not be eating, right? Allergens don't cause just mental fog and like runny noses or inflammation. Allergens also cause literally loss of competent capabilities. Allergens cause us to be less effective at work. It affects mood, it affects focus, it affects overall brain function and brain flow. Like it's a big deal. So if you don't know what you're allergic to. And you're eating it all the time. That's one reason the fatigue sets in. That's one reason you might be struggling with focus. And I know that might sound basic, but when I ask people, it's like 9 out of 10 have not been to a nutritionist ever. Ever. I'm like, you've never. That's crazy, have you? They'll take their car in to get their oil checked, but they've never gone to a nutritionist. I'm like, what the hell? This is the car. This is the vehicle. This is the vehicle to all of your joy. This is the vehicle to your lifespan. This is the vehicle to everything. So you need to be very attentive to what goes in it. So as an example for me, I was very allergic, for which I didn't know, to dairy for a really long time. Significantly allergic to it. But. Oh, my God, Cheese. Don't take away the cheese. I mean. Oh, I loved yogurt. Oh. Especially the sugary kind. That was horrible for me. Oh, my God. I love yogurt. Yogurt's healthy, right? Come on. I mean, I had all these crazy health habits that immediately stopped. Once I went to a nutritionist, I did a full panel. And so what I do is when I go to a nutritionist, you might do this. Go see your nutritionist. If you don't have one, find the best one in your town. And my favorite nutritionists to see are those who also treat athletes and work with athletes. So a nutritionist for your local football team, a. A nutritionist for your local baseball team. As an example, like, you want pros? And sit down with them and say, my goal is optimum energy for my body. What do we need to do? And tell them, do all the tests. I don't care what you got to pee on, what you got to poop in a bag. I don't care if you got to take the mouth swabs and you got to get 12 vials of blood. And yes, often many of those things are part of this process. Do it. I don't care if you think it's gross. I don't care if you take your time. And they don't say, well, Brendan, but that can cost hundreds of dollars. I'm like, yeah. And you know what's really expensive? Death. You know what's really expensive? A brain that doesn't work well. You know what's really expensive? You feeling fatigued so you don't focus and get your work done on time. There's nothing more expensive than Poor health. So go see a nutritionist. Get yourself taken care of. Know what you're allergic to, because that's often causing huge brain fatigue for people. And. Okay, I got to get going. I know. I'm just fired up about these things. Number four, make sure you do test your home for toxins and molds. If you have not done that, let's say, and you've been living in your home for more than five years since you had the last inspection done, get the inspection, but request somebody come and test your house for toxins and molds. There's companies that come out and do it for. For 100, 200, 300, 400 bucks, depending on the home and where you live. But to come and get that done is so important. So important. I mean, you look at some of the biggest names in the health space. Many of them were inspired to get into health because they had toxins and molds, and they felt horrible for 10 years. Their kids felt horrible for 10 years. And they did everything. They cleaned up their diet, they got healthy and everything else, but the environment around them was toxic. Now, what can you do about that? I mean, you could do everything perfectly. But if, you know there's mold in the attic or behind the shower, where you take a shower every day, or above the bedroom, I mean, you're going to be in a place where things aren't good and mold and toxins literally eat away at brain function. I mean, it just terrorizes your brain because often it hurts. It causes so much inflammation that blood flow and oxygenation aren't getting to key cells. It kills off cellular health, which you don't want a bunch of your brain cells dying all the time in negative ways because of toxins and mold. So if you haven't done a test and you've been in your home for five years, this might be a good thing to do, because in five years, a significant amount of mold can grow. We discovered it. We redid the basement at one of my houses, and when we redid the basement, we were pretty stunned to find that one wall had mold all up in it. Now, this particular wall, what had happened was there was a faucet on the outside kind of dripping into the soil. Ultimately got into the house a little bit. And the previous homeowners knew about it, and they just walled it off and didn't do anything. And it wasn't caught on the inspection. And had we had someone come in who just focused on molds and toxins, they would have found it for sure. But we didn't discover it until we renovated the house and it was like, wow, how much has that been affecting us? And you never know. So it's an important one. And you see all of these, this is basic stuff, but most of these things people don't do. Isn't it weird? I mean, how basic is that? Make sure your house isn't killing you. Seems like something we would all do. I don't know. Okay, number five, make excellent sleep, exercise and nutrition musts no longer optional high performers. Because I know if we can make sure you're getting that seven and a half to eight hours of sleep every night or at least on a regular basis. We get your exercise up where you're activating your cardiovascular system way more often and you're eating right for your body type, your DNA, your gut, your brain, your. Then you're gonna feel amazing. And guess what happens when you feel amazing, you get so much more done. I mean, you just do. Like when you feel great, you're ten times more productive. When you feel great, you're awesome to your spouse and to the kids. When you feel great, you're an inspiring figure to other people. When you feel terrible, all of that is compromised. Your marriage is compromised when you feel terrible. So stop compromising on your sleep, your exercise and your nutrition. You gotta go away from just what is natural, default or comfortable. And you need to go into a high performance lifestyle. And that comes from focusing on these things. They're not a question fraud. They're like musts. Like if you ever come to my event. It's kind of crazy how much we control what I have in terms of supplements, how I manage my sleep, manage my breaks. It seems crazy about how we have to go get this type of food or that type of thing, or this has to be delivered to my room at this time. All of that is so that I can serve you at my highest level. Because listen, we can all fake it one weekend with our health or with our energy for our spouse, but you can't do that month over month or year over year. They know. And the service you're providing your team, they know if you're wiped out, the service you're providing to your family, how you're trying to be as a role model, they know you can't fool them. So these are really important things and they're super simple. Let's take on sleep real fast. If you haven't read the Sleep Revolution by Arianna Huffington, a huge High Performance Academy fan. She's been to High Performance Academy, what, twice? Two Three times. Make sure you read her book. If you struggle with sleep, it's a super simple book to read and it will convince you like, oh. 50 years of indisputable research says that the average adult needs seven to eight hours sleep every night to be cognitively at their best, but also to avoid increased stress, anxiety, depression effects. So it's hugely important that you manage your sleep. It has to be a must. Like even last night, I mean, someone told me, Brendan Billions season whatever is out, you gotta watch it. And I was like, oh, okay, maybe we'll watch one episode with some dinner. Oh my God. I wanted to stay up till 3 or 4. I wanted to watch the entire season, but I was like, oh, tomorrow I have to do a good job for my people. That service sometimes makes you sleep. If you really care about providing your best to other people, you're just going to get better sleep. And it's important on the things of exercise, some simple ones for exercise, I'll talk about supplementation later. That can help with exercise. But the basics of exercise are we recommend the 2 by 2. That is twice per week do 20 minute really intense workouts. Best if they're weight driven, meaning either using plyometric your own body weight or using physical weights, heavy weightlifting, and then do an hour of cardio twice a week. That's the two by two. Two 20 minute intense activities. Two 20 minutes more endurance focus. Like an hour run or, or 60 minutes at the gym, on the bike, the treadmill and the rower. Right? Whatever it is for you. But that's just four times for a week. You can do that and your body's worth it. And an entire week, 24 hours times seven days, that's a lot of hours, right? Well, guess what? I'm only asking that we're getting 2 hours and 40 minutes of sustained exercise in. It's not a lot. So no one can ever say I don't have time. You don't have two hours a week. What are you talking about? You don't have two hours a week. If you don't have two hours a week to focus on your exercise, which is the temple, then I'll tell you, you don't have a life. You just don't. You've lost control of your life. If you can't find 2 hours and 40 minutes a week to exercise. But that's not my only recommendation. My recommendation is on top of those two by twos is that every day outside of those two by twos, you make sure that you walk outside for 30 to 60 minutes a day. That's a walk outside. Like, you know, there's a sun. It exists outside of the building, and sometimes you have to go see it. And when you see it, you feel better. Even if you're in Portland, Oregon, you can still feel pretty amazing by getting outside. It just puts fresh air in the lungs, and that's going to do good things for you. We'll talk about that later. And nutrition. I already talked a little bit about that. I'm gonna talk a lot about that in a few minutes. Okay. Number six, Use your mind to heal your brain. This is something that I learned a lot from Dr. Daniel Amen. He wrote one of my favorite books on this topic called Change youe Brain, Change youe Life. If you haven't read it, please read it. If you need a brain scan, I highly recommend Amen clinics. I'm not compensated for sharing this. I've had Full disclaimer. I've had Dr. Daniel Amen on my stages before to speak. I love what he does because he's the only psychiatrist in the world who has done over 100,000 brain scans and correlated those brain scans with cognitive tests and behavioral profiles. So a brain scan on itself. If you look up brain scans on the Internet, there's lots of people saying brain scans are stupid. They don't tell you anything that could be argued to be true. Just like anything could be argued to be true. Like if you, you know, scan somebody's, you know, their arm and there's a little crack in the bone, it might not actually bother them. You could see it on the X ray, but it might not actually bother them. Make sense? Well, the same thing might be on the brain. You might see something in the brain going on, but there might not be any other symptoms, and they might just be fine. So in some ways, people say brain scans are stupid. Sure, anything can be argued to be stupid. But what Amen Clinics have done specifically is they give you psychometric profiles, they give you cognitive tests, and they give you behavioral quizzes, and then they correlate that with what your brain looks like. Well, they've done that a hundred thousand times, and they're the only clinics in the world that have done that. So they have this nice, strong suggestion of what it means when this behavior is matching this brain pattern. When this brain pattern is matching this behavior. Oh, these are probably what the symptoms are. And this is this proven course of treatment. No one else has done that. They might just run a brain scan and be like, well, I think this so that's why I'm a very big bullish recommender of Amen clinics. But everybody has their own thing. You gotta find your own doctor. I personally have been treated by Dr. Daniel Amen, including recently. That is something, one reason I like his clinics specifically. But there's lots of other places to get your brain scanned. I just recommend you find somebody who's done it and treated things, and treated things not just with a bunch of prescription pills, which I have nothing against as we'll talk about. But I think it's important that you work with somebody who has a psychological background, either in psychiatry or some other medical field that will help them make a good diagnosis for you. But I say all of this because one thing I learned from him was that the most important thing is even if your brain, if you had some brain trauma, one of the most important things you can do is really start focusing on your thoughts, really start dealing with that negativity, really start noticing when you have anxiety, really start practicing mindfulness, really start doing meditation, really start urging your mind because your thoughts have a physiological interaction, right? Negative thinking, negative thinking, negative thinking sparks off more anxiety and anxiety in the brain. All of a sudden the amygdala is hyper crazy. And all of a sudden, no matter how well you do on everything else, you just feel out of sorts, freaked out all the time. And as a pattern going on over and over and over and over again, it can really affect your mental health. So it's really important that you start controlling thinking through setting up intention cues and doing everything you can for your thought processes. Becoming a positive thinker isn't like a nice thing to do or isn't personal development hypey. It is critical to mental health. So work on your mind. Do things that cue you to have positive thoughts and emotions and experiences throughout the day. Start stacking those up. Because when you have positive thoughts or emotions or experiences, that's firing off good hormones and more specifically specific molecules in your brain like dopamine or vasopressin or oxytocin or serotonin. And those things, when those are going at the right levels in your mind, those are great for mental health as well. So make sure that you use your mind to heal your brain. The number one thing I'm asked is, Brendan, what's the most important thing you did for your brain health? It wasn't anything else other than a good diagnosis. And then using my mind every day, challenging it, for example, even like with what I was struggling with, my hippocampus, being injured or not Getting enough brain flow, what I was, or blood flow. I would focus on doing memory tests every day for six months like I was there. You can do a lot of memory tests and brain quizzes and brain gyms on the Internet. And I was doing things like forcing myself to think, making my brain work really hard on problems, making my memory work really hard on tests, doing that every single day, making sure that I read positive statements to myself every single day. Because I knew if I didn't do those things, I'd just be on default pattern and my default pattern was injured. So it would lead to high levels of anxiety. One way to deal, even when you have a compromised brain, even when you have a true, like mental disorder or mental illness or mental challenge or a good diagnosis of depression or ADHD or anxiety, or one of the best things you can do is learn to take control back of the gears of your mind. We can talk about things that will help the brain operate better supplementation, exercise, nutrition. But at the end of the day, you've got to start forging thoughts that keep you in check. And you need cues to help you do that. So simple things like do you have a list of positive statements or affirmations or quotes that you read to trigger your mind to start thinking from a positive frame? Do you maybe read out loud something that's positive every day to physicalize that in your body? Do you have situations set up throughout the day? We're gonna have positive experiences so that you're just constantly dipping in and out of the dopamine well, in your brain that makes you happy. Because if we can get that going again, then it's like, oh, your focus comes back a little more dopamine, a little more vasopressin, a little bit more oxytocin or serotonin. Those things can significantly shift your mood and thus your focus and thus your intention. But it all begins with how you think. So I think that's so important. Have you monitored your thinking patterns? Have you ever done that? I mean, on Sundays, do you sit down and go, how was my thinking this last week? Where did I overly stress? Where was I negative? Where did I feel a lot of anxiety? What were the mean things I said to myself and other people? What were some of the patterns of thinking that were scarcity driven or fear driven? Like, start monitoring your thoughts, not just in the moment, being mindful and present. That's great, we gotta do that. But at the end of the week to really think back to the situations throughout the week that bothered you and ask what's my thinking pattern here? What's my thinking pattern? You know, I'm really having this same struggle week over week with my spouse. What's the thinking pattern that I have right before that argument, during that argument, and after that argument? That's not serving me or her? Okay, let me think about that. That process of reflection. That's what I mean by using your mind to heal your brain. Does that make sense? Okay, number seven, set up the environment and your friends so that you win. Your environment is everything for you to win. Like, what's in your cabinets right now that are affecting your health? Do you have good food in your house or bad food in your house? What's in the fridge right now? Stuff that's going to kill you or help you live a little longer. What have you been consuming recently? Things that make you feel energized or things that deplete you? That's the environment. Where do you tend to go on a regular basis just because it's convenient? Right, for food? As an example. I'll give you a great example. There's an unbelievable, like, bar and grill near my house where almost everything they make is comfort food. Super bad for you and so tasty. And I used to walk by it all the time. I change where I walk so I don't go by it as much. I also did something else. I found myself because it was so close. It was so easy to go, go over there, get some food from there. I was like, okay, I need to replace that ease. What else could be ease? And I found an app in my local town here that I can just boop, boop, boop, boom. Food's delivered to my house just as fast as I could probably get it over there. And so now I've got healthy things I'm choosing from. It's still ease. Now I don't even need to leave. So that's setting up environment. I mean, can you get good food yet from your phone? I mean, are you setting up an environment where it's easy for you to get things that allow you to be healthy? And most importantly, have you set up an environment with friends and other people? Because the only lasting thing that has been proven over and over and over to help you live long isn't your particular diet. Well, it is a little bit. But more correlative than that is positive social relationships. Out of every longevity study ever done, that is always the primary, number one thing that kept people alive the longest. When you ever hear about these crazy stories of someone who, like, smoked cigars living into their 90s healthfully. I bet they had a lot of friends and good social relationships. People who smoked or drank or did something terrible that we know actually kills people early, but somehow they made it long. It's easy to say, well, it must be genetics, but look at their social environment. And usually they have an incredible peer group of friends who they connect with all the time. Friends are the ultimate dopamine drip. But most people have one or two friends and they never see them. This is why we're experiencing a tremendous amount of growing levels of, you know, basically treatable or preventable mental illness and treatable or preventable social anxieties is because, look, all that stress you're building up. One of the reasons you're building up all that stress is because you don't have friends to vent with all that stress that's building up. One of the reasons all that stress is building up is because you don't have somebody who, when you vent with them, they cheer you on anyway. Like, if you don't have positive relationships in life, that's going to affect your mental health and ultimately your overall brain health. So I think you know all that. But aren't these some of the basics that people don't practice? Well, these are some of the basics, and I would just say if you haven't done some of these, it's going to be hard to talk about supplements now and think that that's going to solve the problem for you. First, I'm going to share, since we're talking about brain health and I shared, that you need to use your mind to take care of your brain. We're going to share a quick short video on how your mind works, and then we're going to come back and get into some physical things that you can do as well to help with your health. How does the mind work? This is a tough question. If I figured this one out, I think I would be a billionaire. Right? How does the mind work has been the question of everything we know, human philosophy, to psychology, to modern studies of neuroscience, just trying to figure out, how do you tick? How do you think what's going on in our heads? I think that's a great question, and obviously that was just my way of stalling to try and get this answer. I think that how we think is always framed really in four ways, how our mind actually works. We can talk about all the neural mechanics of it, the biology, from the hormones and the molecules released in our bodies to the actual operational components of our neurons, to exactly what Parts of our brain fire off what types of thoughts or control what types of movement or sort of development in our body. And all that is really great. There's a lot written on that. So let me just contribute some four simple ideas about how the mind really works, because I like to make it a little more simple than some people because at the end of the day, the question about how does the mind work? I think it comes down to this question of how can we learn how it works in a useful way. To us, it's really great to learn about all the different synapses between our neural pathways. It's really great to understand how myelin works and what controls our DNA structure and everything else like that. But at the end of the day, what's useful for us, And I think the first thing we need to know about how the mind works is it is so incredibly driven by the current information at hand. And we don't give enough credit to that, right? We often think, well, the mind is completely past conditioned. Your past conditioned how your mind is today and it conditions to everything that you're going to do today. But that may or may not be true based on the environment, the circumstance, the situation you're in. The situation has a lot to do. The social circumstance or the physical environment that you're in has so much to do with, with how your mind works, right? You know that it's so basic, right? You could be sitting, watching a horror film and you could be watching it and you'd be fairly comfortable in your house. You're, you're on your sofa, you're consuming some popcorn, Everything's going pretty good. You're like making fun of the actors. You're like, I wouldn't have tripped there and got killed, right? You can be comfortable and peaceful watching a horror movie. But let's put you in the actual situation. And now your mind is flipped out and you're terrified and you're running and you're tripping all of yourself because fear is driving you. Adrenaline, cortisol, you're fired up, you're terrified and you make the same mistakes. The difference was the situation. Where were you? Where were you at peace? What was the physical circumstances around you? So I think like to think of the first part of how our mind works is it takes in information about where we're at. It takes in information to how we feel in that, that circumstance that we're actually in information. Think of your mind as a consuming and projecting organism, if you will. It's not really an organism because we can't see it or feel it or touch it. But let's just say that the mind, it's consuming and it's projecting and what it's consuming around us makes a big difference, right? You know this. When you're around negative people, your mind works differently. Suddenly you can easily become negative yourself. You can easily become sort of a gossip. Your mirror neurons are firing off and you're sort of mimicking or conforming to what's around you. And later on you're like, I'm not usually like that. What happened to me, it was just the information coming in. It had a lot to do with how your mind started focusing and how it started operating. So I always tell people, be cautious about what information you consume by what physical environments or social situations you enter, because those things shape how you think, how you feel, how you behave, your overall psychology. But now what happens? Okay, some information comes in. So what? Well, the second part of our mind that's so powerful is not only can it consume information, but the most powerful part about it is now it interprets it. It interprets information. It says, is this good? Is this bad? Is this safe? Is this dangerous? Should I approach? Should I not? Should I deal with this? Should I not? What does this mean to me as a person? Does this mean, you know, I'm. I'm good as a person? I am bad? Does it mean the world is good? The world is bad? Interpretation happens. It tells us what to do. Should we deal with this or not deal with this? All these questions, right? Any amount of information, but people interpret it different. And that's a big telling point about how our mind works. You put seven people on a street, they all witness the same information. Car A smacked into car B. But all seven people will tell the story of what they saw happen differently. Because their mind was conditioned differently from their past. Their mind took in different parts of information. Some people were more auditory. They heard something that pointed their focus in one way. Other people are more visual. It made them pay attention to something. Some other people have a bad memory, so they interpreted something differently. But all seven people might interpret the same thing, the same physical, real world event differently. And that's the power of the mind interpretation. We could all see the exact same thing, but interpret something different. That's a good thing. And sometimes it's a frustrating thing. I mean, think about the last fight you got in with somebody you loved. It was probably really a fight about interpretation. They felt disrespected. But you're like, I didn't say Anything that would disrespect you. And now you're fighting about who's respected. And it is only a game of interpretation. Part of the mastery of learning how to understand other people's psychology is simply understanding how they interpret things. Do they interpret things as positive or negative, as things they can deal with or they can't deal with? As things that mean they are safe or unsafe, challenged or unchallenged, good or bad? All of those things shape our mind. Well, if we take in some information and we interpret it, what happens next? And by the way, I don't mean to make this a linear conversation, but all these things are happening at the same time, right? You're getting information right now, and you're interpreting it. You're getting this information from me, and you're like, this guy's an idiot. It means nothing to me. Or you're saying, you know, right now in my life, this is valuable to me. I don't know how you're interpreting it. We have intentions for who we want to be as people, for how we want to relate with other people, for what we want to create and contribute to the world, and those are our dominant intentions in life. Who do I want to be? How do I want to interact and relate with other people? And what do I want to do? Those are our dominant intentions. So that can form a very powerful aspect of our mind that can actually overwhelm the other things. So let me give you an example. Let's say something terrible happens. Some information comes into the world. It's terrible. We could all interpret it as something that's fearful and driven, and. And all of a sudden, everyone starts to run from it. Say, for example, a burning building. Burning building. That's information. There's a building, it is on fire. Right? Interpretation. People say danger, they run. But other people can have the intention that supersedes their interpretation. They can say danger, and every part of their body can say run. But their intention is to be a servant. Their intention is to be a hero. And their intention overrides their interpretation of danger. And they run in the building to save people. Our intention of who to be can rewrite our past history because maybe, you know, you were in some bad relationships, you got hurt a lot, you had a lot of frustrations. You know, people didn't treat you well in the past. It would be easy to see anything that someone does as an interpretation, that they're threatening you or that, you know, they're minimizing you. But if your intention is to remain open to Love. Your intention is to remain open to relationships. Your intention is to trust people. You let your intention to have healthy, positive, powerful, deep relationships you can let that can override your past. That's another power of the mind, intention. And then, of course, what do we do with all this? All this comes in. Well, the mind shapes our initiative, our behavior, what we're actually going to do. And our mind is shaped by what we have done, right? If you've acted for all of your life as a coward, that conditioning has gotten into your mind, right? The habit of running away, of not speaking up for yourself, of remaining silent, of not asking for what you want, of not taking initiative towards your dreams, suddenly is added up to a mind that says, I'm weak, incapable and unworthy. But if you found yourself taking action throughout your life, having a lot of initiative, your mind develops a greater level of self determination, self regulation, the ability to say, oh, I can direct myself today, I can direct my mind and my thoughts today. And initiative. We forget this is such a powerful shaper of. Of mind, right? Your past habits shape your current thoughts. And once you become aware of that, now we can put it all together and understand a lot about how the mind works. The mind works because it focuses on things. And as the brain is focusing on things, the mind starts shaping up some thoughts, interpretations about what things mean all around us and what we should do with it. Our intention kicks in and says, great, I got this information. I feel this way about it. What's next? What kind of person do I want to be? How do I want to overlay my consciousness to this so that I can act as who I want to be, relate how I want to relate, and do what I want to do. And then we either take action from that or we don't take action from that. And our initiatives start adding mind and strength to our mind. And that all becomes the momentum of how we think today. So your mind is shaped by what information have you consumed in the past? What have you seen, experienced, saw be part of? What physical realities have you been in, social realities? And how did all those add up to shape a worldview, shape the way that you interpret things, the way you interpret yourself, the way you interpret other people, the way you interpret even why you're here, thinking about your intention? How clear have you been in the past years about what you wanted to think, feel and do that shaped the power of your thoughts, whether or not you feel like you have agency and control in your life or other people do? Because if you haven't had Any intention for yourself? Guess what? The world's had plenty of intention for you. The world's told you who to be, the world's told you how to act. The world's told you what to do. And if you let everyone else's intention override yours all the time, your mind becomes weaker, less confident, less strong, and ultimately your actions. There's no better yardstick of measurement of a human being than their actual initiative. The actions, what have they done? What do they do on a daily basis? Are they taking action? Are they moving forward? Or are they just stuck? All of these things begin to shape your mind, and I hope that gives you an idea about how your mind works. And once you kind of understand those things, you start paying attention to them. I'm going to consume and be part of information, physical environments that activate the good parts of me. I'm going to interpret things in positive ways for myself and for my life and for my health and relationships. I'm going to set powerful intentions when I ever go into a situation so that I'm clear about what I want. So my mind is focused on generating the reality I want to experience and taking action so that your mind feels stronger, more confident and more capable. Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com and to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com, click on Private Group to apply to see you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well, just go to progressmode.com I'm asked all the time and this was from one of you all in Instagram said, hey, Brennan, I'm wondering, if you could only take five supplements, what would the five supplements be that you would take for overall brain health? Okay, as I go into this, a couple things. One, I have nothing to sell you in any supplementation right now, so I'm just going to share with you. The question was specifically, Brendan, what would you do? And you might want to consult your own nutritionist before you make any decisions about these types of things. When we talk about supplements, I'll also say that I think that all of these, I'm not going to give any recommendations of how much to take on anything because it depends on the person, your body weight, what you consume elsewhere. Like I could say all day long everyone should take a B vitamin, but that might not be true depending on how you eat. So because I don't know your nutritional profile, I don't know your family history, and I am not a medical doctor, I can't give you specific recommendations for yourself. But I'm going to answer the question, damn it. And the question was, well, Brandon, if you could only take five, what would you take? Okay, if I could only take five, here's what I would take personally. For optimum brain health, number one, I would take curcumin, a supplement specifically for curcumin. Now if you haven't heard of curcumin before, you've probably heard of how it's usually given out to people. And I'm going to basically go straight into, make sure if you get a supplement for curcumin, you get a supplement that is specifically curcumin. What I mean by that, you've heard of turmeric before and everyone's like, oh my gosh, you got to take turmeric. Turmeric, Turmeric. Well, curcumin is a chemical compound found in, in turmeric and it's the chemical compound that is the best for anti inflammatory and antioxidant. So it's an incredibly powerful chemical compound, but it's just a little bit of turmeric. So what happens? A lot of people take a ton of turmeric, but the real benefit, the good stuff in turmeric, the best stuff in turmeric is actually called curcumin. Okay, so if I could take anything, this is a absolute must. It is an anti inflammatory and it has been proven in dozens and dozens of studies to help with cognitive load, with stress, with anti inflammatory properties that it has. It's an incredibly powerful, powerful chemical and I love it. And people who take it, they're like, oh, I feel the difference automatically. That's usually not because it's doing anything specifically to help with brain function though there have been quite a bit of studies showing more and more and more how curcumin does interact and help with blood flow specifically to the brain. And usually the more blood flow to the brain the better because it also has antioxidant capabilities. It's just overall good for cellular health. And it's a super, super awesome supplement. I don't have again, Anything for sale. And most of these I'm going to go fast like that. I'll give you an overview, but you can go look at this up on like WebMD. You can look it up on dozens of websites. Just go type in curcumin benefits and then you read and you assess whether it's right for you to take as a supplement and as always, consult your doctor. So many disclaimers, it's exhausting. Number two, Omega 3s. I cannot fathom my life without taking Omega 3s again, anti inflammation. But it's also something that's really important for overall cellular health. I recommend very highly that most people would take an Omega 3 supplement unless they happen to consume quite a bit of fish and chia seeds and walnuts and every other thing that you might find some Omega 3 in, but for most they're not getting enough in their diet is my personal opinion. And for me that's definitely true. And especially if your joints, if you're always feeling like super stiff in your joints, that's usually an inflammation issue. And inflammation is the enemy. And that's why these first two particularly deal with that. Inflammation is the enemy in Alzheimer's, Inflammation is the enemy in cancer. Inflammation is the enemy in almost every disease that we study. It's the enemy. And we have to do something about that from our overall health perspective. And then if I'm supplementing, these two are really important. Here's the most important thing for brain health when we talk about omega 3s. You want to pick an omega 3 that is high in DHA. But DHA is the one you want a lot of. And I don't mean like 300 milligrams, I mean like 800 milligrams. Like you want one that has a lot of DHA because that one's been specifically correlated with positive brain function. So that's an important one for me. Number three, Rhodiola. Gotta have it. Why would I have that? Rhodiola is an adaptogen and adaptogens do a lot of things. One, they're really good for decreasing stress, right? Adaptogen. Think about it like it helps you adapt to stress. Okay, Good way to think about rhodiola. It's plentiful, it's healthy. I like rhodiola because it also as an adaptogen, it helps me focus and it increases overall energy and physical performance too. So I love adaptogens. That whole. If you ever heard of like ginseng and rhodiola and astragulus, I think I always Say that wrong. They're all from the adaptogen. They're all adaptogens. Rhodiola would be my favorite. It gives me an effect, I feel, and it's been studied so much. If you ever go to the store and you just look up brain supplements, a ton of them have rhodiola because it's proven effects there. Number four, PS100, phosphatidylserine. Always a hard one for me. If you hear PS100, they're referencing phosphacidylserine at the 100 milligram level, which is very common to recommend. That's why they just call it PS100. This is a phospholipid that is incredibly powerful for. Let's see, let's just call it cell membrane communication. Okay. Fancy way of saying it helps the synapses in your brain communicate a little faster. It's like oil for the pistons in your brain. Okay. So it helps with neural connection and neural communication. It also has some wonderful side effects, which is decreasing cortisol in your body. Cortisol, as you know, is the stress hormone. So this is incredibly powerful for decreasing a little bit of stress, but also optimizing focus and increasing cellular communication. As many of you know, I'm speaking a little bit in metaphor here, but I think you get the idea. This is an awesome supplement. This would be in my top five. Next is ginkgo. This has been found to increase memory, to increase mental alertness, focus and sharpness, and boost overall mood. Phosphatidylserine lowers cortisol, so it's been found to increase mood for that reason. Well, ginkgo also does it naturally. This would be my top five. If I could choose five only, that would be for me. It might not be the same for you. Right. Other ones I might recommend, like my runners up, would be acetyl L carnitine, which is often. You'll see that in tons and tons of brain supplements because it has an energetic compound in that. It helps you feel a little more energized, but it also is incredibly powerful for cellular health. Ginger, I'm sure you've heard a lot about. That also decreases inflammation and is very good for digestive health. And a lot of what's going on in your brain is also coming from your gut. And so probiotics, Ginger. Those two together would make my. Rounding it out. If I had to say, these would be my runners up, this would be the order of things that I would take personally for overall brain health. Now, again, lots of people have opinions about supplements. I really believe with supplements, without a nutritionist and without a lot of self experimentation, some of these you might go, okay, I took Omega 3s. Doesn't mean anything to me. And I'll be like, oh, I see you're taking 400 milligrams. I mean, a lot of, you know, tests have been. A lot of clinical trials or clinical tests have been done at the 1 gram and above level. So there's this thing called minimum effective doses, right, for your body and what you consume. A nutritionist can help you figure that out. Because for you, ginkgo, hey, maybe you can take 200 milligrams and you're good to go. Like me, you give me 200 milligrams of that. Like, wow, I mean, I'm sharp, right? But other people, they might need 500 milligrams. I don't know what it is for you. And a lot of supplementation is self experimentation. Here's the one thing I would share with you. Self experimentation should be something that you don't do. Like one weekend where you say, well, you know, Brendan, I took rhodiola for two days. I didn't feel anything. Just like a lot of nutritional changes. You need to give it time, right? You need to give it time. Some of these can have an immediate uplifting effect. Like for most people, if they've never taken phosphatidylserine, I just always call it PS100. If you've never taken PS100 and you take it, you're probably going to feel it and go, huh, Wow, I like this. But for some of these, you might not notice curcumin at all for four or five days and then you just feel better, right? So it just depends on your supplement dosage and the consistency in which you taste. Take it. The most important thing I will share, which is, I hope obvious, is number one, always consult your doctor. If you change anything that you're doing in your nutritional profile, seek a nutritionist. But also, this is a huge one and it's so simple. And it's. If you're going to test something out, really test it. What testing it means is once you source it well, which is important, right? Care where you get it. Care where you get it. And then keep a journal. And you need to track this change over a period of weeks, not days. And that's what's important. You could all go get this when you recommend something like this. Supplements in the supplement world, they often call it a supplement stack, but this would be called A supplement stack. You could take the supplement stack for one or two days and maybe you notice or you don't. But if you take a supplement stack for a series of weeks, you feel very different. It just takes a while to get a new habit, as you know, but also to feel a nutritional change. That's why it's so important all your nutritionists will say stick to something for a couple weeks before you judge it. And make sure you journal on a consistent basis. It's so important, I cannot tell you what an epic fail it would be for you to change something in your nutrition and not actually journal about that experience. You need a journal about how you felt mentally, physically, emotionally on an ongoing basis when you try any change in any health routine. It's the most important reason why people don't stick to their changes in a health routine is because they're not tracking it. And if you don't track it, you kind of lose the motivation. You kind of eh, you don't pay attention. But that simple act of tracking something can completely change your life. So these are things you might ask your nutritionist about. These are things you might actually look up online to see what would be the recommended dosage for you in your particular situation. As always, especially with these types of things. A lot of brain supplements, this is important, please listen. A lot of brain supplements are anti inflammatory and what that means is it might increase the blood flow in your overall body. It might do something that will interact though negatively if you are, let's say pregnant. It might interact negatively if you are on any kind of heart supplementation or heart medication, especially anything that you might already be taking from a medical standpoint that is thinning your blood. You need to be very cautious of all brain supplements because most of them are things that increase blood flow and that dilation that happens in that process. If you're taking something that has been prescribed to you by a doctor that is also doing that, you could experience low blood pressure and you could experience a very unsafe situation. So if you are taking a lot of of prescription pills from any doctor, before you do anything like this in self experimentation, please consult your doctor. It's hugely important. So if you take a lot of prescribed pills from a doctor, never change up your supplement routine without consulting that person first. It's hugely important. I hope I've disclaimed that enough as we go through here. Okay, let's start with food. Some great brain health foods. We'll whiz through this and get some more questions. Some simple ones. Number one, and number two, first, eat more greens. Right. You need a very green based diet. Your body loves that. We want to keep your body a little bit more alkaline than acidic. We also know that from most of the nutritional profiles that are healthy for our body, those are come from fruits and vegetables, but specifically vegetables. So have more greens on your plate. I always love. If you look at your plate, we want most of your plate to be greens. Yeah. And so even if you have meat, it's more of a condiment to the greens than it is the other way around. Right. And that's really important to understand that. More greens, less white breads and starches. Okay. Number two, salmon. Okay. Salmon's one of the, like, magical fish. Salmon's nutritional profile for humans is amazing, particularly because of the positive fats, the good fats, in other words, and the omega 3s. Hugely, hugely, hugely powerful. Great brain food. Third and fourth, blueberries and avocados, super self explanatory for most of us. Blueberries very, very, very good. Avocados very, very good. Because some more fats that are healthy as well as some very antioxidant properties for both of those will really help. Avocados also help with inflammation a little bit. So these are really good products to have. Number five, eggs. Here's the thing. If you're allergic to eggs, don't have them. If you have no problem with the eggs industry, then have them. Eggs in general are incredibly nutrient dense products. Dr. Daniel Amen. I said, what do you eat the most of, do you think is really important? He goes, fish and eggs. I said, that's it. He said, fish and eggs are so important. But you have to both. For many people, eggs comes with a value problem. They don't like how chickens are raised, particularly around the world, and they also might be allergic to them. So make sure that, you know, number six, beets, incredible for antioxidants, incredible for energy, incredible for a lot of cellular health as well. And seven, chia chia seeds. Go grab some chia seeds, throw them in your morning shake. It'll give you some good fats as well as omega 3s. Okay? And then flaxseed for both digestion and your omegas. These are like superfoods for the brain and for many of them for cellular health and any cellular health is good for up here. I think these are the basics. And why do I show you this? Because I'm kind of fanatical about these things. If you came to my event, people ask us, brendan, what do you eat? I say, well, every meal that I have, every meal at every event, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, there's a huge bowl of spinach and a huge bowl of blueberries. I eat a lot of salmon, depending on where I'm at. Not every hotel, not every place do I order the salmon. But most often I do avocados every single day. Eggs, probably every other day for me, Chia goes in my morning shake, et cetera. So, in other words, this is a part of my life and it helps me. I don't get tired. I feel like my brain is optimized and these things help. Okay, optimal brain function. We're going to go into different areas for brain function. We're going to energy and focus, and hopefully that will serve you. These are some basic supplements that are very popular. And again, my goal here isn't to cover everything for you because you can look it up. And I know I'm running out of time, but I hope this will support you in thinking through some things that you might go research. And I'll go through the threes very quick. First and foremost, if you want more energy like you want more mental energy, begin with exercise. Before anyone tells you to go and take something, begin with exercise. If you're not as smart, if you're not as mentally capable as you're struggling with focus and stamina throughout the day, begin with exercise. Before you take anything, exercise, everything. And if you haven't read the book Spark, read the book Spark, because it'll be an entire book written by probably one of the, I would say, most informed folks in terms of how BDNF and brain optimization is correlated with exercise. It's a hugely awesome book. Just read the book Spark. Start with exercise and then I'll go faster. Okay, number two, ginseng. Another adaptogen. I love ginseng as a optimizer of physical and mental energy. There's probably been one of the most studied supplements of all time, ginseng, coming out of China, used for thousands of years as an adaptogen to decrease stress and increase overall vitality. Incredibly, incredibly powerful. Please note, if you are a athlete competing at levels in which you are tested, some adaptogens you should not take, and that is because they believe it gives you an unfair advantage. So if you ever hear the word adaptogen and you're a college athlete or a professional athlete, where you have blood tests taken for your competition, consult your coach about any banned substances. Amazingly, to me, ginseng is one of those, along with cordyceps for some sports, which is crazy to me because you'd have to take so much to give you that type of edge. And they allow so many other crazy things. But I digress. Number three, quercetin. Quercetin is that famous chemical compound that's found in blueberry skins, right. And other fruits and their skins that is often prescribed by old school medical doctors to help with allergies. But in sports, science has been shown to give a boost of endurance and energy in longer term performance sports. So cycling as an example, so running as an example. Profound effects of, you know, 250, 300 milligrams as an example of quercetin. You'll notice a boost of endurance throughout your workouts. Very common, popular for brain function and energy. Number four, CoQ10. Very important for cellular health, but also a little bit magic in helping the body metabolize and create energy from different sources. Overall, CoQ10, hugely important for that. Go a little faster. I know, Acetyl l carnitine. I spoke about that earlier. If you talk to weightlifters, they'll be like, oh yeah, I gotta get my acetyl l carnitine. And they take a ton of it because it does help overall the body repair, but it's an. Basically it's specific and important to help the brain convert things into energy. I'm trying to think of the fastest way to say it. It will help your mitochondria activate, be faster and your brain energize. Okay, good. Number six, chaga. Number seven, cordyceps. I reveal both those at the same time because they're both mushrooms. Okay, so you've heard about the big movement in chaga coffee, right? You probably heard about that. Like take kava and put some. Or take coffee, put some chaga in it, it will even you out. That's a mushroom. Chaga. And cordyceps is also a mushroom. Cordyceps is very popular also in physical endurance, physical energy, you know, famous stories from back in the seventies of certain nationalities taking a ton of cordyceps to give them an edge in physical exertion. All great for energy overall. And number eight, maca. I love maca's a true wonder supplement. I mean, look it up. I gotta go faster. I know, I apologize. I hope this is helpful to you all. I'm trying to give you my favorites. I'm not making recommendations to anyone specific again based on where you're at, but these are some of my favorites. If I'm looking for optimizing these and the way people go, how do you do this? I just have all of these in My cupboards. And I know myself after testing now for, like, you know, 14 years, I know myself well because I've tracked it. So certain things that I might be doing I might supplement with. For example, if my friend says, hey, let's go and run seven miles tomorrow, I'm gonna take a different supplement stack that night and that morning, because that's a very specific thing, right? Oh, seven miles, that's long. For me, that's a really long run. So I'm gonna take specific things right before that that helps my body repair as I'm moving through that process, specifically with inflammation and. And energy production. So for me, if I'm going to go do that long of a run, I'm going to make sure that I have these two. That I have this one, this one, and this one. Okay. So I just know myself. You need to discover yourself, too. And what I'd love for you to do is find what are the ones that work for you. You might have completely different ones up here that I don't have. There's a universe of supplements and foods that you can take for performance. Here's some of my favorite focus supplements. Number one is block time. This is not a supplement you take. It's a decision you make. And what that means is you've got to have block. Like, most people aren't struggling with focus. They're struggling to have a block of time to work in. That's their challenge. They're not putting themselves in that block of time in which nothing else happens but this thing called focus. Focus is not something you have. Focus is something you do. Got it? And so for most people, they need the block of time in which they can actually do the focus. So most of my life and the advances in my career came from this concept of block time, where every day there's blocks of time in which things happen, and that's when those things happen, and nothing else happens during those time. And matter of fact, if you interrupt me when those things are supposed to be happening, I'm a growly bear. Like, ask my wife. Like, this is supposed to. Right now. I'm supposed to be working on this thing right? Right now. And I make sure that there's no notifications on my phone or on my computer that would disrupt that function that I'm going to do right? Then it's hugely important. Hugely important. And for those who have children, make sure you got to do a good job training your kids when it's appropriate to come into your life and interrupt you, especially if you stay at home. I don't pretend that's easy, but it is something that needs to be a conversation in the family so that you can have sanity, which your kids love when you are sane. Okay, number two, Ginkgo. Maybe the most studied supplement related to brain function in terms of focus and memory. Very, very powerful supplement to take. Number three, Rhodiola. Again, an adaptogen. PS100. I talked about that. Oh, wait, I'm gonna come back. That last one. I don't wanna go too fast. Caffeine. Okay, let's talk about caffeine. I know people are just like, oh, he's finally talking about coffee. How did we possibly make it two hours before the kid talked about coffee? So let's just jump into caffeine. Caffeine is a wonderful tool for focus. Coffee is a wonderful, wonderful drink. It's like a magic thing. It helps people. And there's dozens and dozens of studies and almost every meta analysis of coffee has found the coffee is very helpful for most people. It's very helpful for dozens of reasons. Especially if you struggle with anxiety and depression. That, that's an incredibly powerful tonic to help you. In fact, most people who have depression should be taking coffee is kind of the recent kind of conversation around this because the long term studies of effects showed that it helped them over a period of time. It doesn't mean you won't be sad or depressed that day. It just means over a period of time it did help with overall mental health. Health. And almost every meta analysis done on coffee shows that it is a positive tonic. Now with that said, people say, Brendan, why don't you take it? Because for me, I have an anxious brain. I have, you know, I'm right there on adhd. And so for me, I don't want stimulants. Things that are stimulants for me make me more anxious. And so if you're already highly stressed, pouring caffeine on top of it makes you a little more bleh. Like this. Not everybody, but most people. So if you already have an anxious mind and you know it, the job isn't to stimulate it more. Right? And that's something that is only you can discover that through self experimentation. But one thing I do know is if you are someone who has a highly anxious mind and you love your coffee, just go decaf for a while and see, I don't want to take away your coffee. I mean, that's like taking away someone's guns. My God, don't do that. But if you do have an anxious mind and you do struggle with focus and you are somebody who's super excitable. I'd love for you to move to decaf for the next eight weeks and see how you feel. You'll have a little bit more emotional regularity that isn't so highly stressed. Too many people who are stress cases are consuming more coffee throughout the day and not realizing that that's actually leading to less positive outcomes for them. I'd rather have you like Zen Buddha, focused and chill if you have a hyperactive or highly anxious brain. Now again, I'm not your doctor, but it might be useful to have that conversation like, oh, I wonder what happens if I just remove these and try these for a couple weeks. What might happen? Because for some people, if you have these and you add that, it might like if I did all of, if I had a lot of caffeine and I had that, I don't know what would happen. I'd probably be the president, but I don't know, I'd be kind of, I'd be all over the place. I would just. I'm just saying, not for everybody. So again, you have to consult your doctor. Okay. Okay. For mood, here's the number one and number two friends. So many people go, I have a bad mood. And they go to the aisle in Whole Foods called supplements. I'm like, you know what? Go up and talk to somebody at Whole Foods like what we. What I mean is that humans in the longest term studies of what makes us happy and live long, it's positive relationships. You gotta get around your friends. I talked about it earlier. It's so important. I can't even over. I can't overly stress it. So here's a simple thing to do that could change your life today. Bust out your calendar and call your five closest friends and decide when you're going to see them in the next 12 weeks. That's it. Just schedule that sucker right in there. If you got to fly to Vegas together, fly to Vegas together. If you're going to go see them for lunch, put it in the calendar. But if I come to your house and I look at your calendar and there's no friends in the upcoming three months, surprise why you don't have a better mood. Duh. Right? It's that important. And number two, vitamin D. It's why getting outside is so important. But also most people who recommend supplements for brain health. One of the go to brain health supplements for mood and overall brain cognition and function is vitamin D. I work inside a tremendous amount. So I have to force myself to get outside and to take supplements of vitamin D. For me personally I'm 5000ius a day. That might be crazy for you depending on where you live and what your overall nutritional profile is. For me, because I have a high stress job, I have high expectations, it's important for me to supplement with vitamin D. And you won't. You might not know your vitamin D until you go get your blood work done with your nutritionist. Number three, a B complex that a lot of people's mood has a direct effect of their brain function whether or not they are getting sufficient B1, B6 and B12. This is hugely important. If your beef, especially for those who like me, have a very, very, very high green based diet and don't consume a tremendous amount of, of meats or dairy or other things that have a lot of B vitamin, then I think it's important that you consider supplementing or asking your nutritionist on it. Number four, five htp. Sort of a wonder drug in that. What five HTP is is it's a precursor for serotonin production in your brain. What this means is it's actually one of the few things that will help accomplish serotonin production in your brain. When you have serotonin that's that effect where you feel like, ah, like relieved and connected with somebody and lower stress and you're just a little bit more calm and cool throughout the day. When you have increased serotonin production, not everybody needs it and you might not know it but if you're highly anxious or you're highly anxious and you have trouble with sleep, a lot of holistic practitioners will recommend five HTP and it's something that you can take. You know 100 to 200 milligrams can really impact folks. If you are prescribed it and someone recommends it or you see it in a herbal tonic or a herbal capsule. Promoting sleep, just make sure that you take it well before sleep. Meaning you don't want to be taking this like an hour before you go to bed. So because there is a little bit of stimulant effect that happens as serotonin is chemically produced. And so you wanna make sure that you don't take it too close to bed. And that's a big mistake. A lot of people think that oh, this will help me with that. But they take it too close to bed and like most things, taking it right before bed isn't good anyway because you don't want your digestion working on a bunch of supplements at night. So people don't understand. It's like there are a lot of good supplements that can help with sleep but if you take it right before you go to bed and, and most people, they eat way too close to bed. So now they got a big bowl of Thai food in their belly and now they're putting 17 capsules or something on top of it. So now it's like no wonder you're not sleeping because you're busy farting all night. So I'm just saying be wary of taking too many things too close to night. I'm just fantastic. I don't know if they're here or not. I'm just making sure. St. John's Wort, another one that has been found to lots and lots of studies on St. John's Wort to increase positively mood as well. And let's see, anti inflammatory. I'm going to go through this fast but here's a list that you might write down and again consider in terms of if you're into supplementation, which is what I promised to talk to you about. All of these, I've experimented with all of them. I've taken quite a bit throughout my life to help decrease inflammation because I don't like feeling stiff in my joints but also in my brain. So fast ones. Okay, we've talked about a few of these. I'm going to go very quickly through and give you the list so you can write them down and okay, there we did. Okay, I'll go back again and try to hit that last tenth one. Okay. All of these have been found to support anti inflammatory properties in the body and thus the brain. Right? All of them. So we talked about curcumin, we talked about ginger. Boswellia is a very, very popular supplement that's found in almost not in a vast majority of brain supplements because it has such a profound anti inflammatory but also antioxidant capability that is super popular. That would probably have made if I had one more runner up of the top five I would take that would have made it as well. It's a plant and so none of these are like weird things, right? Spirulina, super positive green supplement that you can take. Cayenne pepper, same thing. All these are anti inflammatory more or less. The only ones that I just don't stay, that I personally don't take a lot of is garlic because I don't like how it makes me feel. Devil's claw, I don't like the indigestion I can get from that. Sometimes spirulina I don't take a lot of that because I consume so much greens already. Cayenne pepper, I tend to have that only if I want that spicy flavor in something that I'm consuming. I hope that helps. Rosemary, I love to put it on anything I can. I just love the smell of it. I love the flavor of it and I hope that supports you. I personally am a person as I hope you guys can hear. I promise to talk about these topics because I was asked specifically about my personal things. But I hope you hear. I'm somebody who also consults a lot. I talk to my doctor, I talk to my nutritionist, I talk to holistic practitioners and I'm a self experimenter. I try a lot of different things too in consult with them to find my right thing. When I was going through depression and I had a very, very, very difficult two year period with that, that was for me, suicidal tendencies. The simple and most important things that I got disciplined about was seeing somebody and talking to somebody. Because those feelings, those moods, those thoughts, they need an outlet. Seeing and talking to somebody was huge, ensuring my sleep and nutrition was at its absolute best. And three, increasing my communication with my social support, friends, family, others who I spoke to as much as I possibly could. Even though, like you said, you don't feel like it, it's not. If you feel like it, it's do you need it and you do.