Kwik Brain: 10 Keys To Unlock Optimal Brain Health (Episode 3)

Welcome to Quick Brain, bite-sized brain hacks for busy people who want to learn faster and achieve more. I'm your coach, Jim Kwik. Free your mind. Let's imagine if we could access 100% of our brain's capacity. I wasn't high, wasn't wired, just clear. I knew what I needed to do and how to do it. I know kung fu. Show me. Let's jump right into this. What are the top 10 keys to Optimal brain health. Now, when we're talking about your Kwik Brain, it's not just about mental intelligence. Yes, you can memorize facts and figures and formulas and foreign languages. That's all wonderful. But what about mental fitness? A younger, more agile, vital, sharper brain that has endurance and energy, that even if you're not using one of these mechanical strategies, step-by-step tools that we're teaching you in this podcast, that you're able to just remember things because your brain is just in shape. I remember years ago, I walked into the office at our learning center and the phone rang and I picked it up and the woman says, I love you, I love you, I love you. I'm like, whoa, who's this? And she tells me this story, how she's one of our online students and she had gone through our memory program. And a couple weeks later, she just It's kind of funny. Have you ever hid something so well that you forgot where you put it? Or maybe it's like a password that's so clever, but you don't even remember what it is. So she was given a family heirloom, a necklace from her grandmother, and it was given to her, not her mother or her 3 sisters. And she was entrusted with it and she hid it in her home and she couldn't remember where she put it. Can you relate to this? You know, someone who misplaces things all the time. And she looked for a year, 2 years, 3 years, and she thought it was stolen. She could not find it. And then after going through our program, a couple weeks later, she wakes up in the middle of the night around 2 o'clock in the morning. She runs down 2 flights of stairs, goes into the basement behind the boiler and pulls out in this little crevice. What is it? Of course, it's the necklace. And I remember telling her that the program that she went through didn't tell her specifically how to find misplaced things. And this is exactly what she said to me. She said, Jim, I don't know what it is, but after following that protocol, after going through your course, I feel like my brain is 20 years younger. I could remember things even without using the strategies. I remember names more. I remember where I put things. I mean, thank you so much. I feel like I've gotten my brain back. And this is what I want to illustrate here. That's really about mental fitness. Yes, you will learn how to use all these strategies, step-by-step tools, but who doesn't want a fit, more agile, a sharper brain that has energy, that has endurance, that has Vitality to it so you could remember, you could focus, you could learn, and you could apply the things that you need to in your daily life with greater ease and less effort, with less stress. And that's really what this episode is really about. I'm going to share with you my favorite top 10 keys for optimal brain health and fitness. Because here's the thing, we've discovered more about the human brain in the past 20 years than the previous 2,000 years. And what we know is we're Grossly underestimating what it's capable of. And we know that memory, for example, only 1/3 of it is predetermined by biology and genetics. That leaves 2/3 in your control, which is mostly your lifestyle. And so what I want to do here is give you the 10 lifestyle hacks, or elements if you will, keys to unleashing what I call your Kwik Brain. Now, in future episodes, I'm going to teach you exactly how to memorize this list. Forwards and backwards, in and out of order. It's a technique that I teach people in Hollywood and executives how to give speeches and do scripts without notes. But right now, take notes if you need to, and I'm going to go through rapid fire the 10 keys for unlocking what I call your quick brain. In no particular order, I'm going to go through it starting with 1. 1 is a good diet. And so we know that you are what you eat. We did a whole episode on the top 10 Key foods for your brain. And you're— I hope you enjoy that. And you can listen to that also as well. But you are what you eat. So certain foods that are really good, make sure you reference that episode. Number 2 is killing ANTs. ANTs, automatic negative thoughts. That was termed by Dr. Daniel Amen, who wrote one of my favorite books, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. We had met because he interviewed me for another great book, which you could put on your book list, as one of the episodes is how to read a book a week. So add this to your book list, your to-read list. Everyone should have a to-do list. and a to-learn list. It was Use Your Brain to Change Your Age. And he did a whole chapter on my work saying that these techniques, when you employ it, could stave off a lot of brain aging challenges and actually make you younger. In fact, it was on the COVID of Time Magazine where they had these, what they called the supernuns, these women living 80, 90, and above. They wanted to find out how these women were doing so well. And they found out half of it had to do with their faith and gratitude, emotional gratitude, but the other half Is they were lifelong learners, which added years to their life and also life into their years. So the number 2 thing is killing ants, automatic negative thoughts, because your brain is like a supercomputer. And I actually did this because with a name like Kwik, you know, I had to be a runner back in school, right? And even though I had learning challenges from a brain injury, I was very interested in physical health. And I was reading this book on how to run a marathon. And there was one chapter of it said this verbatim. Your brain is like a supercomputer, and your self-talk is a program it will run. So if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you programmed your supercomputer not to. And here's the thing: you know you want to avoid negative self-talk. Some people they fight for the limitations. If you fight for limitations, you get to keep them. People will tell me, "Oh, I'm too old," or "This runs in my family," or "I just didn't have the education," or "I'm not that smart." And that's the challenge. Your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk. So avoid ANTs, automatic negative thoughts. Number 3, I would say exercise, exercise. And this makes sense, but you have your brain primarily to control your body. And so as your body moves, your brain grooves. As your body moves, your brain grooves. And in a future episode, I'm going to talk about certain exercises you could do that actually helps you to grow Your brain, actually grow bigger brains. It's a study done out of Oxford University. It was absolutely amazing. Anyway, when it comes to exercise, it's very, very clear. The research proves that when you move and you exercise, anything that's good for your heart is going to be good for your head. And so exercise is one of the best ways that you could actually feed your brain the oxygen, the blood flow. And people who exercise and are more physically active will do better on mental acuity tests, focus tests, memory tests, and so on. So move. Number 4 is brain nutrients. Brain nutrients. Because maybe you have a very fast lifestyle and you're traveling and you're not getting the nutrients you need out of your diet. And so you could supplement. Number 5, and we're halfway there. The 5th key is a positive peer group. A positive peer group. Because here's the thing. Your brain potential is not just reserved to your biological networks or your neurological networks. It also is your social networks because as we know, who you spend time with is who you become. Who you spend time with is who you become. They say we're the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with. So a positive peer group, who are you spending time with? Notice that these are all common sense, but they're not all common practice. Let me say that again. Some of the things that help us the most, they're common sense, but they're not often common practice. A coach sometimes is not the one that knows more than you. Sometimes they know what you're doing when you're doing it well and gets you to do it more often and calls you on the things that you're not doing. So as I'm going through the rest of the remaining of these 10, think about the areas that you're maybe neglecting because it could be this one thing that you take care of and it unleashes your full potential. Number 6 is a clean environment. We know your external world is a reflection of your internal world. And you know this, when you clean your room, you clean your office, you clean the desktop on your computer, don't you have more clarity? Don't you have more focus? So a clean environment promotes good brain health. And then number 7 is sleep. And this is a big one because you know when you exercise, that's not when you're building muscles. When you're exercising, you're working out, that's where you're tearing them down. It's when you're resting And you're sleeping, that you're recuperating and you're regenerating. And so sleep is so important, especially to have a quick brain. If you want better focus, you need to sleep. If you want to be a clearer thinker, you need to sleep. If you want to make better decisions, you need sleep. If you want a better memory, you need to sleep. That's where you're consolidating short to long-term memory. So remember that. Number 8, and we'll go deeper in all these areas in future episodes because we could do an episode on each of these. Number 8 is brain protection. What does that mean? That means Avoid accidents, avoid extreme sports if you can, because your brain is resilient, but it's also very fragile. And you don't want to get concussions. You want to wear a helmet because you want to protect your most valuable asset, which is the supercomputer between your ears called your brain. And then finally, 9 and 10. 9 is new learnings. The good news is you could grow older, but you could grow better. That recent studies show, like neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. Neurogenesis is saying— genesis is birth, neuro like the brain— you could create new brain cells to the day you die. Neuroplasticity is saying your brain is like plastic. And it's not that Einstein had a bigger brain. He had— his brain actually was a little bit smaller than most people, but he had more connections in certain areas because he would do these thought experiments. And we have an episode that's coming up all about strategies of genius. And how he did these thought experiments and put himself in certain brainwave states. And that's plasticity, neuroplasticity. Now the key for plasticity and genesis, neurogenesis, is nutrients and novelty. Nutrients and novelty. Novelty meaning you want to add stress and stimulus to something like your body, like working out your body. You add stimulus to it, but then nutrients is you have to feed the muscle also. You have to feed the muscle and after you grow it. So that's how you grow your muscles. And so nutrients is very important and new learning. So new learnings is number 9. And finally, number 10 is a big one, but it's invisible for a lot of people. It's called stress management. Can you relate to this? Do you have more stress than you're used to or more than years past? So high levels of stress, especially in this digital age where we're always distracted, we suffer from digital, they call it digital distraction, digital dementia, where we're outsourcing our brains to our smart devices. So what are you doing to be able to lower your stress? Because when you're stressed, you go into fight or flight, right? A saber-toothed tiger is attacking you, you create cortisol and adrenaline, which is good if you need to protect yourself or run. It's not good if you need to take a test. It's not good if you need to study. It's not good if you need to give a presentation in front of a room and you're scared you're gonna forget what you have to say. And so stress management is very important. Again, I'm gonna go through these 10 really fast. Number 1 is a good diet. Number 2 is killing automatic negative thoughts. ANTS. Number 3 is exercise. Number 4 is brain nutrients. Number 5 is— what is it? Good. Positive peer group. Number 6, clean environment. Number 7 is sleep. Number 8 is brain protection. Number 9 is new learnings. And finally, number 10 is stress management. And again, in a future episode, I'm going to show you how to memorize these lists forwards and backwards so you could even give a presentation on stage without using Any notes. And when you do them all, notice which ones you're neglecting. Maybe it's sleep. Maybe it's you're not spending time with positive people. Maybe you're under too much stress. Maybe you're not protecting your brain. Maybe it's you're not getting the nutrients, right? The omega-3s and the B vitamins and so on. Maybe you're not managing your diet, or maybe you're not really managing your thoughts. And so it could just be one or two things that if you're struggling, you feel like you're behind, fix those one or two things. You want to do them all. Again, people are looking for the magic Brain pill, the magic memory limitless pill. But maybe it's not a pill, maybe it's a process. Do them all and you will level up your learning, you will level up your life with your Kwik and Fit brain. Want to double your brain speed and memory power? If you'd like to learn rapidly and get ahead faster, I'd like to give you my brand new Kwik Brain Accelerator program. You will discover exactly what I teach my clients to learn, read, and remember anything in half the time. There is no charge. It's my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. That's kwikbrain.com, or simply text the word podcast to 916-822-7246 and we'll send you a direct link. That's 916-82-BRAIN. Growing up struggling with learning challenges from a childhood brain injury, It's been my life's mission to help you have your very best brain so you can win more every single day. Now, want more Kwik Brain? Here are 4 ways to fast-track your results and lock in what you just learned into your long-term memory. Remember FAST. F-A-S-T. The F stands for Facebook. You're not alone on this journey. I invite you to join our free private online group. There you can connect with me, your fellow brain lovers, links to resources, And even submit your questions for me to answer in future episodes. Go to quickbrain.com. That's K-W-I-K brain.com. The A stands for apply. Act on what you learned today. Remember, knowledge is not power; it's potential power. It only becomes power when you use it. So use what you just learned. The S stands for subscribe. Don't miss the next episode and other free brain training. And finally, the T. T stands for teach. You want to learn faster now? The key is to lock it in right away by teaching it to someone else. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Here's a simple way to do that. Leave a review on iTunes. Leave a review with your biggest takeaway from this episode. You could also post and share this podcast on your social media. It helps us spread our mission of building better, brighter brains. And of course, tag us So our team can properly thank you. #KwikBrain, K-W-I-K Brain. Mine is @JimKwik, K-W-I-K, on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. So what does FAST stand for? Facebook, apply, subscribe, teach. I'll see you in our next episode of Kwik Brain. Until then, remember, you are faster and smarter than you think.