Habits that Damage Your Brain 😵‍💫

What do you think are some of the common habits that people all over the world now are engaging in each day that have been detrimental to their brain health?

This actually leads to the I. The I is implementation management.

Okay.

And so the idea here is that is the things you're doing, which would include your habits. About university studies suggest about 40% of our day is spent habitual.

Yeah.

Like mindless. We're just going through a routine, but we're not thoughtful about it because we're on autopilot, right? And so implementation management is managing your, your actions and your own behaviors, which would include your habits because that's habitual. And so the idea is you create your habits and your habits create you. And also habits could also be get giving you a negative result, certainly, as well. There are certain things that we're doing that we could stop or do less of, right?

Okay.

The choices. And then, you could always do the opposite. You could start something new or do more of something that's positive. I would say the diet, right? What you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. So I would say on the opposite side of all the brain foods that we talk about, like avocados and blueberries and so on, I would say, you know, the processed food, refined foods, the, you know, a lot of chemicals in foods, the high sugar, you know, the glucose spikes, that's something that can be detrimental to our brain, right? Second thing, negative self-talk. When we say, why me? Why does this always happen to me? Why am I not enough? I'm not that smart, whatever it happens to be. People at events, they say that to me. all the time because they know I'm a memory coach. And they say, you know, they come to me and say, Jim, I think I'm getting too old. I'm just— I have a horrible memory. And I always say the same thing: stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them, right? And so the idea here is negative self-talk could be detrimental. Third thing, being sedentary, right? We live behind screens. I don't know about most people, but I do. And we're not moving. And the number one reason, I wanna remind everyone, the number one reason we have a brain, its number one function is to control our movement. And as your body moves, your brain grooves. And so, I would say something that's negative, a negative habit is not moving.

Yeah.

You know, they say sitting is the new smoking, but when we exercise, we create, you know, BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factors, which is like fertilizer for your brain, for neuroplasticity. Exercise creates dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, you know, these important neurotransmitters and substances that are really good for cognitive health and cognitive performance. When we move, we create blood flow, you know, so that's more oxygen to your brain. I mean, there's so many benefits, changes, it reduces stress and so on. So being sedentary. I would also say being around negative people, it's not good, so much good for your brain. We all know that sometimes you spend time with people and I don't know if you ever noticed, like some people, It seems like batteries are included, but there are a few people that batteries just were not included. And they take all your energy and your drive and your motivation and your creativity. So I would say who we spend time with is who we become.

Yeah.

And being around people that are not who you want to be like, or aspects of them that they don't inspire you. I mean, we all need people to cheerlead for us, to be kind to us, to encourage us. And if you haven't found that person, be that person. Be that person for somebody else. Be that person, especially for yourself. So a negative peer group. And again, those people could be your family. It could be your friends, people closest to you. And they could be sincere, but they could be sincerely wrong too. They could have good intentions. Maybe they're like, why are you always listening to those podcasts and reading all those books or whatever? And maybe they don't want— deep down, there's a secondary gain. They don't want you to outgrow them because they don't want to be separate from you. So it can be good intentions, or maybe they don't want you to get your hopes up, or, you know, and they're trying to protect you. With our friends and family, sometimes the people that care about— that we care about most are the ones that hold us back because we give them permission and we give up our sovereignty to their expectations and opinions. And I want to remind everyone, you could love your family, but they don't They don't have to be your peers. Like, when I say have a positive peer group, I'm saying self-selecting individuals that their opinion affects how you feel, you know, and affects your standards, right? Meaning, I have this rule that just don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from. Don't take criticism because, like, a lot of us are fearful of other people's opinions and expectations. But if you want to do anything in your life, you know, there's this judgment that comes around it and people have their opinions, especially on social media. And we could decide and hold that internal reality that we will work on having the people around us that we could identify with, that they can relate to, that inspire them. And I certainly have people like that also as well.

Yeah.

So yeah, going back to the habits, this is just all about implementation. And so implement— implementation management is managing the things and getting yourself to do the things you need to do, um, even if they're difficult.

You mentioned some of the, um, habits that people are engaging with that are maybe sabotaging their day-to-day lives in many ways, that are stealing their life away without them realizing. If we flip that, And think about, like, you have so many habits you recommend to people. We covered loads in the first conversation, but I don't know if I said to you, Jim, what are 3 of your favorite pro-brain habits that people could do? Yeah, how would you answer that?

Let me give you a few more of the negative habits, and then, and then, because that'll inform the, uh, the positive ones.

Sure.

So we talked about A bad brain diet is probably not good for your brain. Definitely negative thinking is a habit, habits of thought. Not moving is a habit, being sedentary. So obviously the opposite of all these make a difference. A positive peer group is good, but a negative peer group could affect your words, your actions, your thoughts, your character, your habits. A dirty environment, that's a— I mean, we don't think about our environment as much, but our external reality affects our internal reality.

Yeah.

So you notice, like, you clean your desk, put everything in the right folder on your computer, you have clarity of thought. But a messy environment, it reflects— you have to use so much energy to hold where everything is.

Yeah, for sure.

And I feel like that wouldn't be a good use of our brain. So a negative habit would be sustaining a dirty environment. Head injuries, I would put that up there because I get to work with a lot of extreme athletes or You know, UFC fighters or football players and, you know, hockey players that have had head trauma. Not learning something is not good for your brain. So, it'd be like, just, you know, if you're not learning, you're not growing, you're not challenging. And so, like, our brains are like, it's an organ, but it acts like a muscle. It's use it or lose it. And so, I would say not learning every day could be not, you know, could affect your brain. And that's a habit. And then being stressed all the time could affect our brain. Whatever emotional stress, financial stress, whatever the stressors are, chronic stress has been shown to shrink the human brain. And so not having coping mechanisms, for me, you know, so though to answer your question, like habits that have really helped me of late, I would say spending more time in nature.

Mm-hmm.

Because I'm not on my screen. Nature is very healing, clean air, better lighting. I feel grounded. It reduces my stress. I also could do that with my family. So, it's family time or walking the dogs, things like that. So, I would say that's good. I would put one more negative habit on there besides the things we've talked about in the last episode, like touching your phone at night or in the first thing in the morning, all those things. Um, anything that would affect your sleep, you know, that's— that any habits that would negatively impact your rest and recovery at night.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and that could be a habit of drinking caffeine later in the afternoon. It could be, you know, being on screens, you know, certainly also as well. Um, it could be ruminating, which is a habit of like all the things you need to do or all the things that that worry you. And I'm not saying, again, it's easy to mitigate these things, but the self-awareness is a starting point for all change again. So good habits for me, being out in nature, going to bed at the same time is so very important to me. I mean, I'm— I don't know, it took me like— I'm turning 51. It took me— Like a long time to get to the point where I'm just okay with going to bed at like 9:00, 9:30. And, you know, so like for me—

Welcome to my world, man.

Yes.

I love it.

I love— I mean, and a lot of this, the impetus was having a 1-year-old because, you know, we're just exhausted and he wakes up in the middle of the night. And so we want to sleep closer to when he's sleeping. But the idea here is prioritizing your sleep. So nature, going to bed at the same time each night, even on weekends. And no one's perfect about it, but it's made a big difference in my life. And then the last thing I would say for my brain, and there's tons of stuff that on our podcast, in the book, like literally I could spout off 200 different habits.

Yeah.

The habit of looking for joy. I mean, I have this question, this thing I talk about called the Dominic question. When I was with Will Smith, I train a lot of actors how to speed read scripts. memorize their lines, be focused on set. And this dominant question and ideas, like, we have 60,000 thoughts on average a day. A lot of those thoughts come in the form of questions. And there's certain questions we ask all the time that we don't consciously and unconsciously. And those questions determine our reality. And his dominant question, we found out, is, how do I make this moment magical? And he gets answers, right? And then I was like, okay, my dominant question is, how do we make it better? So, how do we make this question better? And he was like, okay, instead of, how do I make this moment magical? How about, how do I make this moment even more magical? With the presupposition being this moment's already magical.

And this is a question he consciously asks himself, or he's programmed himself to ask?

Both. Oh, no, I don't know if it was programmed, but he— and it explains a lot of, like, you know, like when we're shooting in Toronto, a superhero film, and it was like 2 o'clock at night. It was a night shoot, and it's not very glamorous. It's cold. It's in February in Canada. But his family and I are in a tent, shivering a little bit, watching the screens. And he's— during the break, he's making us hot chocolate, even though there's a crew that would do that. And he starts telling us stories and cracking jokes. And I, you know, that's— That's a result of that dominant question. How do I make this moment even more magical? And I would just, and I'll talk about the power of questions in another letter that's coming up for Limitless in the acronym. But the idea here is that one of my habits is just trying to find more joy, more magic. And I think what we look for, we're more likely to find. It's like that, what's that, that red car experiment?

Yeah.

It's like, you see, If I asked everybody, like, in the past 24 hours, how many red cars they saw on the way to home or work, you're like, I don't know how many, but I— you probably saw them, yes. But if you offered somebody, you know, $100 for every single red car they saw, they'd be very clear in seeing the red cars. And I feel like there's a lot of things we could be grateful for at any given time, but we're not asking those questions.

I think that's such a key point when we think about joy or gratitude, or how do you make this moment magical?

Yeah.

Like, literally in the last week, My daughter has been doing this game with me. Like, I don't think this game existed when I was at school, but it's something to do with when you see a Mini in the road, like the car, a Mini, you sort of give someone a gentle punch and you say a few things. Now, it's nuts because I didn't know there were that many Minis on the road.

Right.

But suddenly you're playing that game, you're seeing Minis everywhere. And now when I'm not in the car with my daughter, I am seeing Minis everywhere.

Wow.

Those minis have just not suddenly appeared on the road, right? It's your awareness, you know, the intention has been put out that you're looking for minis.

Yeah.

And it's the kind of same thing with negativity or positivity, right? You can train your brain to start looking for joy. You can train your brain to be grateful.

Yeah.

But you've got to set the intention.

I love that. I, I think, and I think everyone would benefit from making that a habit. And habitual things like even asking that question is, what can I be grateful for, you know, in this moment? It just sensitized you to see more minis that's always there, but we weren't paying attention. Your brain primarily is a deletion device, is trying to keep information out. If we let everything in, there's a billion stimuli that would overload us, right?

Mm-hmm.

But when you ask questions, we activate that reticular activating system, which is like a spotlight, you know? And so you start seeing what you're asking for. And, you know, I think that's a great habit to be in. You know, gratitude habit is so good for your brain 'cause it gets you out of fear and gets you out of stress. 'Cause again, chronic stress shrinks your brain. Chronic fear, you know, will make you more susceptible to colds, the flus, the virus, will compromise your immune system.

Mm-hmm.

But I think gratitude is an incredible antidote. And so you can even do a thought experiment. It's like, You know, what if the only things you had in your life tomorrow were the things you expressed gratitude for today? Like, wow, that would change things for me. At least, like, I'd be expressing my gratitude for all the little things because I didn't want to lose— I wouldn't want to lose them the next day. But also, the act of expressing it as a habit, I'll feel, you know, the benefit that comes with it also. Mm-hmm.