The Neuroscience of Calm: Harnessing Your Brain’s Optimal State with NuCalm

Well, the consequence to the human species is we are all today deficient in GABA.

Right.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid is the body's primary inhibitory neurotransmitter that's designed to shut down the adrenal cortex, slow down adrenaline, and allow you the onset of sleep and the continuance of sleep when you get up in the night to go to the bathroom. Wherever your brain is oscillating at a certain frequency, your body is doing something commensurate with that frequency. So for example, if your brainwave is at 1 hertz, You are in dreamless, light, deep sleep. This isn't up for debate. This is mathematics and physics. It's really simple to understand.

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. And your question for today's episode is, how do you access your calm? I believe calmness today is currency. It's really peace of mind. And it's really hard to learn under stress, under fear, when you're feeling lonely in these kind of angst states. And we always talk about All learning is state-dependent. And I'm very excited to have with me a very dear friend, the CEO of New Calm, Jim Poole.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thanks, thanks for being here, buddy.

So always a pleasure. You're one of my favorite humans. This is a really important topic. It's poignant. It's important to each of us. It's important to our kids, our spouses, our families, our employees. Stress today, Jim, is at such unconscionable levels.

Yeah.

And we know this. We know this to be true. We were already in the second great age of anxiety prior to COVID. So, we were already in a state that wasn't healthy, that was uncertain, that was confusing, and filled with anxiety. Now, 2 years plus of COVID everything we thought was normal is not normal anymore. So, the amount of stress is incredible, and we can feel it if we stop and we take a breath. And we reflect on today, the fabric of today's society, we know that we're holding on by a thread.

So in this episode, I want to bring to our audience, uh, some tools. One of them happens to be NuCalm, your patented technology, which I'm very excited about, which I have been a fan of for more than 5 years since meeting you at CES, Consumer Electronics Show, uh, 2 years in a row. It was, uh, 2017 and 2018, and I believe you were awarded as one of the, uh, the amazing products of the Yeah, for the best of CES. Amazing, which is astonishing. And I want our audience to hear more about it. And even if they don't end up using this tool, which I think everybody should if they are able to, because it's one of my go-tos, it literally is, I feel like it's an unfair advantage to be able to have this technology, to be able to rescue my nervous system, to be able to recover, to be able to sleep better. These are some of the promises of this technology. And specifically I'm referring to like the app which makes it so easy to be able to access these kind of states. But then people are gonna get some real practical knowledge and wisdom out of this conversation about how to be able to reduce stress and find their calm. Because we know that chronic stress, it is shown to be able to shrink the human brain. When you're in fight or flight, you are being held hostage basically in your survivor brain and you don't have access to your creativity, to your executive functioning, to your ability to solve problems, which is, you know, really what we're here to do. able to do. And so maybe you could give our audience who are watching around the world some context. Um, how, how did you get involved? And I mean, was it your dream? I mean, how did you get involved and, and to be a leader in this space?

The quantum physicist, neuroscientist, naturopath, which is a mouthful, Dr. Blake Holloway in Texas began a quest to invent A solution to give people the opportunity to downregulate their stress response without drugs.

That's amazing.

It's amazing. And the complexity of the brain requires a complex solution. We've been at this for 32 years. I got involved 14 years ago. This was at the interface of the investment community kind of doing poorly. In 2008, my consulting firm did the largest acquisition in the history of the dental industry for Credit Suisse. So I was running a company in California. And then in 2009, mid-2009, it wasn't M&A anymore. We were doing triage therapy for a portfolio of products and companies that were suffering. In that time, for however this works and however the universe has intentions for us, Dr. Holloway found a way to our consulting firm and a relationship was born. And it was incredible. I was taken by him really simply. One, I think his Southern drawl, his Texas accent, put me off guard, you know, being an East Coast kind of banking guy. I have a pachyderm about me. Secondly, the brain is so fascinating.

Yeah.

And so, when you're dealing with the brain and talking about applied neuropsychobiology and quantum physics and brainwave function, how can that not intrigue you? So, that intellectual curiosity. But, it was this statement that hooked me. He said, Jim, I've invented a technology that quickly, safely, and predictably relaxes the mind and body within minutes with no side effects. I'd never heard that statement before.

Okay, and so fast forward to today. How does your audience, how do your customers, uh, people using the technology, um, what does that look like now?

It's an amazing journey. From 2009 to 2021, This was a $6,000 highly regulated FDA Class III medical device.

Okay.

And, it was 4 components and it was not easy. And, we all know if something is not easy, the human consumer is not going to make it a habit. They're going to find reasons not to use it. And then, in 2019, Dr. Holloway invented something called a biosignal processing disc. I never heard of this before, but it basically leverages electromedicine invented by Nikola Tesla and George Okhotsky in the 1930s. And, what he did was he found a way to present the brain with nutrients predominantly GABA-A and GABA-B. Interestingly enough, Jim, and we're all aware of this at some level, our food supply has become less food over the last several decades. And, there's always a consequence to this. Well, the consequence to the human species is we are all today deficient in GABA.

Alright.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid is the body's primary inhibitory neurotransmitter that's designed to shut down the adrenal cortex, slow down adrenaline, and allow you the onset of sleep and the continuance of sleep when you get up in the night to go to the bathroom. That disc changed the landscape for us. And, in 2021, we launched a subscription model lowering the price 99%.

99%.

You can't change the world if you're asking the world to pay you $6,000 for a complicated medical device.

Right.

So that's what we did.

So it makes it very accessible and affordable for most people. And tell me a little bit— we're actually wearing one of these discs right now. So what is it actually doing?

The disc is really quite amazing. We started with a chewable tablet with a stimulation device. Then we moved to a transdermal cream, which was absorbed on your neck with a stimulation device. What we were trying to accomplish is really simple in theory. We were trying to supersaturate your brain with GABA.

Mm-hmm.

But, the body, for all of its infinite wisdom and ability to extract nutrients from food, does a really bad job with supplements. We have not evolved to the supplement world. So, there's a lot of things at stake: metabolic processes, digestive, liver, crossing the blood-brain barrier, activating the vagus nerve. There's all of these complications. This disc circumvents all of it. We're using vibration, resonance, and biomodulation. Like a tuning fork to present your brain with the actual frequencies of what used to be in the cream. It sounds amazing and it sounds too good to be true. And, you certainly— many of us have to suspend our disbelief, but we've been using this for 3 years clinically and it simply presents your brain with GABA, which turns off the adrenal cortex.

Our audience are very familiar with— they'll see me wearing these discs at live events because I'll have just finished a NuCalm session or Or sometimes on video where I'll still have it on, and it's my way of keeping my calm. Now, the technology is not just based on this disc, correct? Right. So, tell me the, the other, the other part of it.

This technology is built around vibration and about tuning the brainwave function of humans. Now, I don't know how much of your audience understands the brainwave continuum, but there are 41 hertz in the range of brainwave activity. Which is commensurate with actual behavior. There are 5 categories. There's delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma. Now, some of us have heard of delta— that's deep sleep. Some of us have heard of alpha— transcendental meditation, being in flow. Wherever your brain is oscillating at a certain frequency, your body is doing something commensurate with that frequency. So, for example, if your brainwave is at 1 Hz, you are in dreamless, like, deep sleep. This isn't up for debate. This is mathematics and physics. It's really simple to understand. We are going to use very complex physics, very complex mathematics and algorithms in a software, and we present this underneath music. So for you and I and all the people who listen to it, we hear music, but music cannot change the mental state of a human being. Music is incapable of bringing your brainwave function, for example, to theta. Which is the healing zone. It cannot do that. It can take you up a little, it can take you down a little, it can't sustain you there. So there is about 1.5 gigabytes of mathematics in every NeuroAcoustic journey. So when you listen to something like NuCalm Rescue, there's 1.5 gigabytes of information going to your brain. And what we're doing, like a NASCAR pace car, is we are presenting your brain with a pattern. And NuCalm is really easy to understand the pattern. We are slowing you down. Most of us are like this all the time, even when we try not to be, because our to-do list and all the fear and anxiety and stress and expectation and confusion and overwhelm, all the things that are going on in our life, we're— it's almost incapable of downregulating the stress. And the way to do this is to slow down the brainwave. Now, mindfulness has been around for 3,500 years. Meditation, yoga, tai chi, deep breathing— these are all extraordinary methods to downregulate the stress response. The challenge is that they take time and energy and persistence and practice.

Correct.

And what's even stranger to me is we don't understand intangible. The human brain is wholly incapable of understanding what I can't see, touch, feel, smell, or taste. So when you tell me, Jim, this is how you should meditate, I don't understand. I don't even understand what the outcome is. So when I don't understand the outcome and I'm meditating, I don't think I'm achieving that goal. And then many people just give up. This tricks the brain, slows down the brain, knowing that when you were in theta Your body is healing. So, the method of action of our entire platform is in the form of neuroacoustic software. This disc is a catalyst. It's a support mechanism because we do a lot of work with stage 4 cancer. We do a lot of work with the United States military. We do a lot of work with people of all diseases, addiction. And, when you are in that state and we present stimulation, through physics, the adrenals will override that. That's why neurobiofeedback and transcranial direct current stimulation have never been predictable, because it forgets a simple premise: the brain and body communicate with chemical messaging and electrical messaging. So, if I just commandeer electrical messaging and I don't address adrenaline, I will never have a predictable outcome. The genius of Blake's invention was he understood how the brain would compensate. And, he understood if I manage the biochemistry and I manage the electrical signaling, I'm taking you to that healthy place.

Now, this is a technology that I wanted our audience to hear about. Full transparency, I'm an advisor for NuCalm and I'm very proud because I would never promote something that I specifically didn't use. Our family, our team, everyone in our team uses NuCalm on the daily. And, it's one of those things where We always, we make it almost a requirement for people to disconnect to be able to reconnect to themselves. You know, I feel like when I do a 20-minute session, I feel like I just got a few hours of sleep, which is remarkable. Now, this information is not intended to diagnose or treat any kind of diseases. Talk to your medical professional. But I wanted to make this available to everybody. And you can find out more about this by simply going to jimkwik.com/nucalm. Now, NuCalm is spelled N-U-C-A-L-M. And we'll put that also on, on the page in our notes at jimkwik.com/notes. But it's jimkwik.com/nucalm, N-U-C-A-L-M, to be able to find more information. And also, you're providing something, a very special discount for our community also as well.

Absolutely.

And so all the information will be there. You could use code KWIK, K-W-I-K, to be able to get this special offer that's not readily available. Now, Some people who don't want— maybe they're not able to invest in this. Now, you made it extremely affordable.

Yes.

I want to talk a little bit about these, about the brain and how the brain evolved. Like, what's going on during times of stress when people are, you know, they're watching what bleeds, it leads, and they're put in this state of fear and they're feeling lonely? It's really hard to live your best life, much less learn anything, when you're coming from that place of, uh, you know, maybe despair, or you feel, uh, like you're you have anxiety, you know, or you're— or you have a level of sadness? How are you going to study? How are you going to read? How are you going to remember things? Uh, with, with this, I mean, it gives you— you have the ability to choose, you know. You choose the states that you want to be able to focus, to be able to recover, uh, to be able to find, find calm.

Humans are incredible. Yeah, our brain capacity, our ingenuity, it's amazing. But what we don't understand, and we're not told, we're not taught this, there's a reptilian part of our brain, and this is a survival mechanism, and it's 40 million years evolved. Think about how much neuronal circuitry and perfection is built over 40 million years of learning. This machine knows how to do its job, and this machine governs what's called the autonomic nervous system, the stress response and the rest response. And in that continuum is also fear, stress, anxiety, depression, and worry. This is a really important aspect of our life. When I look at how we're built and the challenge of being human, to me, I simplify it to resource allocation. The reptilian part of our brain is managed by the amygdala, literally an almond-shaped piece in our midbrain. That's basically in the temporal area of the brain, right? This part of our brain is what separates us from primates. This part, the prefrontal and frontal cortex, that aspect of our brain is 4 million years evolved. So, I assure each and every one of you, when you find yourself being distracted by stress or anxiety or fear or worry and you think, oh, I'm not good enough, or why can't I control this? You're not. You never were in control.

Hmm.

The reptilian part of our brain has a 36-million-year head start. The best way to articulate this is when we wake up. When we wake up from deep sleep, if we sleep a normal sleep schedule, cortisol is at its highest level in the morning. To wake us up from delta.

Mm-hmm.

The first thing that activates in our brain is not this, it's the amygdala. It's finding out, what can I worry about today? What anxiety can I think about? Who did I disappoint? What conflict do I have to resolve? Who, what, why, where? Where are all the holes? That's unfair. We shouldn't have to live like that. And when we are in that state, fear, stress, anxiety, depression, or worry, All the oxygen-rich red blood, the life force of our thinking, is pushed to that area of our brain.

Mm-hmm.

There is nothing here for you to have cognition, for you to think clearly. This part of our brain, ladies and gentlemen, is our patience, our presence, our executive functioning, our emotion, our personality. This is where we want to be. So when we engage in mindfulness, breathing, meditation, yoga, tai chi, NuCalm, other types of technologies. The outcome is not the journey. The outcome is physiologically pushing oxygen-rich red blood to this part of your brain. You will find that when you are in a mindful state, you are responsive to a stress stimulation and not reactive. So if there's one thing your audience takes from this, please know that you are battling every hour of every day. A 36-million-year head start by our protection survival mechanism. And what it has at its disposal to protect itself is all of these anticipatory aspects of our thinking: fear, stress, anxiety, depression, and worry. And the more we can get into a mindful state and manage stress, the more we are present in our life. So, you are an expert in learning. You cannot learn when there is no oxygen-rich red blood in my frontal cortex to create cognition. It does not exist. You can endeavor to persevere all you want. You will consolidate nothing that you try to learn when you are not in a state of learning, which happens to be a certain frequency, 15 to 20 hertz.

So some of our audience probably want to see this if they're watching this on a video, and I encourage a lot of people to watch this on YouTube or their favorite video platform. Can you give a little tour? Uh, now this is Right on your— right on our phones, right?

Yes. So we spend a lot of time and energy taking very complex science to make it easy.

Okay.

There's a lot of technology in the world that will never reach the human consumer because it's too hard to use. So this is really important to us. You have a disc on your wrist. It's really simple. This is a very simple product to use now. Disc on your wrist, inner left wrist, left wrist, left heart. Okay. Eye mask. We're visually stimulated by light. In fact, 80% of the cerebral cortex is your visual cortex. You cannot relax sleep, meditate with your eyes open. And then, headphones and an app. 1.5 gigabytes of mathematics and algorithms, pitch and frequency matrices, binaural signal processing, isochronic waveform, you get the idea. It's very complex because we're tricking and pacing your brainwave through an app. This app has 6 different channels. It has NuCalm Rescue, Reboot, and Recharge, all designed to take your brainwave function from a stress response into this deep theta restoration cellular recovery. And then we have Focus, Ignite, and Deep Sleep. So you choose your track, you lie down, nothing happens for the first few minutes because we're preparing you to take you to a really healthy place. And then about 5 minutes, 6 minutes in, you notice your respiration slow down, your body become heavy, your mind wanders, and you get into that sweet state. You're in there for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. This morning I did it for 40 minutes. You get up, You don't feel groggy. This isn't a nap. We're levitating you just above deep sleep in the healing zone of theta. When you get up, you feel mentally clear, you feel physically relaxed, you feel available to yourself and present in the moment without judgment.

Hmm.

That's how easy this is to use. The ideal time to use NuCalm is between 12 and 4 on a daily basis when the natural biorhythm wants to take a break. We here in America, when we want to take a break, we don't accept that. We go get Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy, we just persevere. That's not listening to your body, and that cumulative negative consequence will lead to an eventual disruption in your sleep and eventual disease years and years later by not listening and taking care of your body.

So how I use NuCalm myself is I use 3 probably the most. I use Recharge. That is where at this time, usually around 2 or 3 o'clock, sometime after lunch, and I, if I feel a little bit of a lull I'll take a 20-minute brain break, if you will, to listen to my NuCalm. I put on my patch, I do the recharge, and I put an eye mask on, and I feel like a new human being after it's done. 2 of my other favorites is Focus. I mean, who doesn't want to have greater levels of attention, focus, concentration? And that's usually where I'm doing my deep work. I'm like, maybe I want to do a 90-minute focus, deep work in anywhere from my 30 minutes to 90 minutes. Maybe I'm writing, maybe I'm creating, and this helps me get a complete edge. And the other one that I use frequently, and this is— I'll probably use all 3 in a day, is the one— is sleep, is a deep sleep. Because who doesn't want to get that deeper, more restorative sleep? It's something that I put on speakers, right? I don't use a headset for that. I don't need a patch for it.

Right.

And I don't need a patch for when I focus either. And I just have it by on my nightstand. And, you know, on my nightstand, I'll have like some water, I'll have my Oura Ring, I'll have a journal, I'll have a fiction book, and I'll have a speaker specifically to play Deep Sleep. And I find this is amazing. Even when I travel, I'll get solid sleep because I have this asset, this incredible something. Again, I call it an unfair advantage. I just feel like since I've been using this since 2017. People ask, like, you know, I give it to all, you know, our clients subscribe to it as well. We have our team using it. And, uh, and who doesn't need right now, uh, more, more resilience, you know, more resourcefulness, uh, be able to choose how we want to be able to feel on a regular basis.

It's an amazing tech at an amazing time. And it will literally change your life, and it'll put you in control of you. That's probably the biggest gift this can do for humanity— put us back in control and allow us to be the best me. Yeah, it's not going to make me a professional athlete. It's not going to make me an active special forces operator. It's not going to make me a doctor. It's going to make me the best me.

And yet many of those individuals that use, use NuCalm—

Yes.

To be the best A doctor or active military, um, a best athlete, they can be also.

We've been working with professional athletes since 2011. We've been working with the active DOD, Special Forces operators, the FBI, Border Patrol since 2013. Everybody suffers the same consequence of being human. We all have to manage stress. And, for that elite force where you have to take split-second decisions, could cost you your life, You want to be present here. You do not want to be controlled here with fear. What I love most about it is it's easy and it's mobile, and I travel all over the world just like you do, and it's the predictable tool that allows me to get the best out of me.

Yeah, well, I appreciate you doing this because we've known each other and spent so much time, you know, different places around the world that I know you doing this as a place where it's, it's a mission for you and your team.

Yeah.

You know, it's something that you feel more obligation to be able to get this out to more people, and that's one of the reasons I want to sit down and have a conversation with you about it. So again, if anyone is at least interested in finding out more, go to jimkwik.com/nucalm. That's N-U-C-A-L-M. And you could use code KWIK to get a special deal and, and try this. And I encourage everyone just to try it for like 30 days. And if it doesn't dramatically, you know, support you in what you want to be, what you want to do, the things that you want to have and share with the world, And, uh, you know, just let, let them know, and they— I'm sure they could cancel at any time.

We can.

Yeah. Jim, thank you so much, buddy. I appreciate you. Thanks for being on the show. What are your final words to everyone listening?

It's really simple. Take care of yourselves. We're in a really unique time. We're not weak. We're not cowards. We're stressed. And if we don't take care of ourselves, we can't be there for the ones who need us and love us. us the most, and they need us all the time. So do whatever that is, but make stress management part of your routine, because if you don't, stress will get the last word, and that's not fair.