A short Mindvalley/YouTube talk by Ronan Oliveira explaining three ways intermittent fasting can improve cognitive function: (1) reduced digestive energy demands after ~12 hours frees energy for the brain; (2) longer fasts (e.g., ~16 hours) increase fat-derived energy (supplying more brain energy than carbs); (3) fasting reduces food-based distraction/procrastination. The speaker also promotes a 28-day Mindvalley quest and a free one-hour masterclass with Vishen Lakhiani.
Chapters
Did you know that people who fast have faster brains? Stick with me until the end of the video. I'm going to show you three ways in which intermittent fasting can improve your cognitive abilities. You may not have experienced that, but you may have experienced the opposite. Remember the last time you went for a all you can eat sushi or for a Thanksgiving dinner, give me some bologna, salami and ham toast with butter and strawberry dance. That moment that you eat so much, you kind of regret how much food you put into your body. And then you try to do something very cognitively demanding after that, you see clearly that your brain is not at the best shape, super sharp to resolve something that is complicated. There are three main reasons how fasting can improve your cognitive abilities. The first one is that the digestive process just takes a lot of energy. And that digestive process after you have a meal can take up to 8 to even 12 hours to be completed. It's not only after you eat food, but you'll be using a lot of energy to process that and deliver the nutrients from the meal up to 12 hours later. And so once you cross that 12 hours mark, then you have more energy. That was before that digesting food. Now we have this available for your cognitive abilities. Now you have better brain function. The second reason is that if you fast for a little longer, maybe if you go for 16 hours of fasting, then you start to increase the amount of fat that you use to transform into energy. And when you transform fat into energy, this provides more energy to your brain than when you are burning carbohydrates. The results that your cognitive abilities go up and, and the third way is this. How many times haven't you used food as a way of distraction or as a way of procrastinating? You know, sometimes you have that project that you are kind of dreading to start working on. And then before you really start working on, you decide, I'm just gonna have a little snack. And then you go and you take some minutes to prepare, some minutes to eat, and some minutes. If you were fasting now you don't have that excuse anymore. Now you don't have that. I'm just gonna prepare a little snack to eat so you have more space that is undistracted that it can then dedicate to tackle the things that are important to you and to provide you all these cognitive benefits and more. I created a 28 day quest for Mindvalley on intermittent fasting. And we added this to your Mindvalley membership. It will take you through all the practices and how to start and optimize your intermittent fasting so you can improve your cognitive abilities and also get all the health benefits that come together with it. If what you want right now is just an introduction on how a few ideas on how to get started with your own fasting practice. We put together a one hour free masterclass where Vishen and I come together to teach you the sustainable ways to start your fasting practice and adapt this practice to your own lifestyle. To watch the masterclass, you can just go to the link in the description. Click that right now and you have access to this whole hour that get you started in your own sustainable and efficient intermittent fasting practice. I'll see you in the masterclass.
