Change Your Brain: #1 Neuroscientist’s Exercise Protocol for Peak Energy and Focus
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Each friend male and welcome to the male Robin's podcast. I just finished recording the conversation that you're about to hear. I don't even know how to describe what just happened in the studio.

You're about to go on a journey into your own mind. This is a conversation so powerful and shockingly personal with the incredible neuroscientist doctor, when this is oki doctor is zuko SHE just left like the door jush ut. And now i'm sitting here, my head is spinning.

She's gone to teach you the astonishing ways you can transform your life just by taking care of one thing, your brain. This conversation is packed with everything that you love, ground breaking research, my blowing takeaway, deeply personal stories that are truly going to head home. But here's what I didn't.

There were tears, lots of tears, and get this. SHE brought a human brain, a real human brain, into the studio, and I held IT. This isn't just another episode. This is a conversation you're going na, remember and thank yourself for listening to for the rest of your life.

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Hey, h friend, male, I am so excited that you're here. IT is always an honored to spend time with you and to be together if your brand new. Welcome to the meller Robin's podcast family, and I also want acknowledge you for something.

Thank you for choosing to spend time listening to something that could truly help you live a Better life. I just think that so cool. And today's guest is someone I ve been wanting to sit down with ever since I started this podcast, who are talking about doctor went sizii.

Doctor suzuki is a world renown neuroscientist and the dean of the college of arts and sciences at new york university. SHE is a leading researcher known for her ground breaking research in the areas of memory plasticity and the simple things that you can do every single day to improve your learning focus, memory and brain power. She's also a pioneer in researching and moving your body and exercising ing improves your brain health.

And what I love about doctor suzuki is that she's just one of those kind of people that you want to hang out with. She's super cool and SHE makes neuroscience easy to understand you so passionate IT and SHE has this unbelievable ability to make neuroscience personal and profound. So please help me welcome doctor wendi zu ki to our boston studio.

Thank you for having me. I cannot tell you what expand I am of this podcast and of your teachings and on odd able. And thank you. Yes, absolutely.

Holy cow, I have a brain crush on you. So that's that's a really amazing compliment. Thank you. And what I love about the work that you share is that all of the stuff is free and accessible, and things that you can put to use as soon as you listen to this. Yes.

you named the thing. That is also my favorite thing. You don't have to have lots of money or or influence. You just need to decide to do these things in your life today, and you have access to the power of neurobiology to change how your brain works.

I have to say, if you are listening to this and not watching youtube, SHE is bloating with energy and vitality ality. And I am so excited to dig into this because you not only walk the talk as you say, but you can feel IT in the energy that you bring just by how you're moving through your data day life.

And one of the things that I also love about your work is that some of the simple changes in the science that you're about to share with us today can act somebody's mood or focus or well being starting today. absolutely. Can you speak a little bit to that like what somebody might .

expect the media impact? yes. So I mean, um what you're gonna learn is really about the power of neurobiology, the power, the news biology of movement on your brain, of meditation on your brain.

I hope we get to sleep in your brain. I know you talk a lot about the power of social connection. We are social animals. There are so many circuits in our brain that evolved so that I could see what your energy level is.

Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you excited about this conversation? And I think that everybody watching will say that we are both really excited about this conversation.

We can tell that because there are brain area specific to helping us interpret that facial expression. That is why I love being a neuroscientist. IT is teaching me about myself about how to be Better in this world, to feel Better in this world.

And um this is also why I love being dean of a large undergraduate college like new york university college of some science, because on the brain health team, I want every single one of my students to have a big fat, fluffy brain and to be able to soak in all of the information, all the education. That is my mission. S dan.

what is a big fat, fluffy brain?

Well, a big fat fluff. Y brain is a brain that has constant, when I call positive brain plasticity going on. So brain plastic is the human brains, amazing ability to change and grow in response to the environment.

Positive brain plastic is growing in the positive direction. Unfortunately, there's also negative brain where things can shrink and get smaller and and functionality can disappear. But imagine that certain choices that you make in your life can prove the brain's anatomy, physiology and function. And that has been the focus of my newer scientific research for the last thirty plus years.

That is so cool. And you know, when I hear the word plasticity and neuropathy and the fact that your brain can grow, are you talking about like you can actually get bigger or smaller? Are you talking about the like in can change what you mean like for a Normal person like me? yeah. When you say your brain can grow positive or negative.

yes, so let's take the positive. My brain can grow in the positive direction. Certain brain areas. In fact, my very favorite area, the brain called the hippocampus, critical for ability to form and retain new long term memories.

That is one of only two brain areas in the human brain, where brand new brain cells can be born in adult to you and I are already growing brand new shiny hippo camp cells. And one of the wonderful magical secrets that will talk about later is the fact that physical activity can actually help even more hip a campus cells grow. And yes, that means that your memory will get Better. So not just cells growing but um positive brain plastic also means that the connections between the news that are already there can grow so you can have more connections and that also we know can correct to Better performance, say in your prefrontal cortex for an attention .

is your listening to doctors to zoo? I'm sure you're having the same thought i'm having right now, which is, boy, I wish I had taken a class from you in college. I mean, you are so exuberant about the topic that I cannot wait to just start to peel away the layers. Why is IT important? Just at a top level, baseline understanding to care about the health of your brain.

That's such a great question. And my answer is that the human brain is the most complex structure known to humankind. Not understands brain, not muri queries brain, but your brain, males brain.

When these brain, every single one of your listeners brain, imagine that the most complex known to human kind, and everybody has, since they do well, since they don't know, do well, that is so unique to you. IT defines how you see, feels, smell, laugh about the world. And its unique to you.

The reason why you need to take care of that brain is really about taking care of who you are as a person. Your personal history is in there, your future decisions are in there. And IT truly is an awesome thing when you think about the structure of the brain. And that is part of my nerdy, north scientific reason for doing all the things I do to make sure I do take care of my brain.

So how was the person who's listening to us right now feel different in their data day life if they were to prioritize their brain health as much as we tend to focus on the things we eat or taking care of our muscles? What would happen if you .

did this so many different things? You would have lower levels of depression and anxious, higher levels of energy. Your focus would be Better, your memory would be Better, your um creativity would go up. All of these things come from the studies that have been done both in animal model systems and in humans about the effects of positive brain plasticity and bringing those elements into your life.

amazing. I would love to hear you share how you got interested in the brain and becoming a neuroscientist in the first place.

Yeah, I have a very specific origin story of how I decided I want to become a neuroscientist. IT was my first day of my freshman year at U. C.

Berkeley, and I walked into a first year seminar class called the brain and its potential, had no idea who taught this class, but I thought the title was interesting. And I remember walking into the class is only fifteen students. And I saw this professor at the front of the classroom, and I describe her as kind of a neuroscientific beyond, say, SHE had like control SHE.

SHE was fierce, but in a very positive, welcome, mean way. SHE controlled that classroom. And SHE started telling us about how the brain was the most complex structure known to humankind.

Then he put on these gloves, and slowly and dramatically, SHE had a hot box in front of her, and SHE dramatically open the lid of that hot box, and SHE pulled out a real preserved human brain right there in front of all of us. Students had never seen one before, and the gasp in that classroom was possible. And he told us about brain plasticity, which turns out he discovered SHE, discovered SHE, discovered her name was marine diamond.

SHE was the very first female P. H. D.

In neon ati. Conferred by U. C. Berkeley ever. And in the one thousand nine hundred sixty SHE in, our colleagues discovered that the adult male branch was study, rodents at the time could change and grow in response to what he described as an enrichment vironment, which was, I like to describe the disney world of rat cages.

You compare the rats and disney world of races compared to move a shoe box condition, both rats got you free food and water. But um if the adult brain couldn't change at all, which was the dogma of the time, then those experience should have no effect on the brain. This is where he discovered that the other covering of the brain, the cortex, actually grew in response to the this new world of rare cases.

That was one of the very first demonstrations that the adult brain could change because of the environment that you live in. And he told us that, and i'm like, okay, beyonce, y of neuroscience, the cool est thing i've ever seen, this is a human brain. I won't be just like her. And so that's when I decided I want to be a nth scientist.

And I even Better, because your doctor, when he s zuko an, I love that. How did you start studying the impact of exercise on the brain? Yeah, you tion earlier that there was this big shift that happened in your life, yes, that had you completely transform from the inside out, what I felt like to live your life, what happened?

So I was trying to get tenure at new york university. It's a very stressed thing and take six years. And basically, you have six years to show that your world class scientist, and if you pass the test, you get a job for life.

That's ten year. But if you don't, you fired, and you have live in humiliation. And so you know, for these six years of my god and I going to be fired or going to be part of the club. My strategy wasn't the best one. Um IT was well.

did you get tenure? I didn't get tenure.

but still my strategy wasn't the best, which was i'm just gonna and but my head down, i'm not going to do anything. I'm living in manhattan and I love broadway. But no, i'm onna do that. I'm going to have friends. I'm just going to work and i'm just gonna have my research lab.

So I did that for many years and I was very happy and I didn't have very many friends and I I was feeling left gic and I too much take out and and I was bad um and the thing that started the boat turning around was I gave myself a vacation. I went on vacation by myself because I had no friends and I went on this river rafting trip to peru, and IT was beautiful, and we were rated every day, and there are these try athletes on the trip. And IT was so much fun, but I quickly realized that I was the weakest person on this trip.

Upper body strength was not my 4 at that moment。 And I came back thinking, okay, I don't want to to feel that way on a trip like that. I, I want to keep going on trip like that.

That was exactly what I needed. And to help me not feel like the weakest personal, the trip, the most obvious thing for me to do was this, just go to the gym. Let's just add that into my just work all the time, work aholic.

And that's what started the shift that regular gym going, started me feeling Better, and I started eating less, take out and added and added until I realized I did an experiment on myself. Oh my god, I feel so much Better. Which let me back to looking at the neuroscience of that, because I was focused on another former brain plastic, which is memory formation.

And foremen new memories changes your brain. And that is really the most common former brain plasticity, and is getting back to my roots, back to marine diamonds experiments when I went to the gym and changed my life. Because IT turns out that in the disney world of rack cages, you can ask, what was IT was IT the ride was IT the social interaction? IT was the running wheel that was in those cages.

All you had to do was given that a running weill, and they got the vast majority of all of those positive brain changes. And like, oh my god, i've discovered my own disney world of rat cages. It's my gym down the .

block what was the moment where you had an epiphany as both Wendy trying to get herself back in shape and off the kind of miserable track versus doctors? Suzuki going, oh my god, I got to a study exercise and is like, when did you have that marry? Like.

I did have that moment. And IT was a year and half in to my starting to go to the gym. And I was feeling good.

I was never, yeah.

I was sitting at my desk. And I mean, what I was doing, I was write a grant very hard. It's just like a horrible, stressful thing to write a grant.

And IT was so memorable because as I was seeing, they're writing a grant. I had this thought that went through my brain that had never gone through my brain before, which was g. grant.

Riding went well today. That was good. That was a good session. I you never think that i've never gonna get this grand a be granted less and um but I had that thought and I thought, well, am I just having a good day? I doesn't amazing thought for me to have yeah and I thought, well, you know what?

The one thing that i've changed in my life recently, fit last year and a half, has been my physical activity. And then I started thinking about what why did grant riding go Better that day? And two things came to mind, my focus.

And I felt like my focus was Better during that grant writing. But I also have hundreds of journal articles on my desk trying to pull together my multi million dollar idea. And you need memory for all those details is like, I think that was Better too.

Gosh might might focus and my memory are Better. What's going on here? I was staying memory my own lab.

And then it's like, could the exercise is is that what's happening to me? And so IT IT wasn't on a hung in a study exercise is like, could that be IT and IT actually send me to the classroom? Because when you want to learn something new, you always have to develop new classes. I decided to create a new class called, can exercise change your brain? I was gonna wer my own question, could exercise my .

brand here a genius? You created a class? yes. yeah. Help you answer the question because then the class creates a format where you've got to dig into the rest.

Yeah, I mean, two for one, right? I had to do IT anyway, and I might as well answer the question that I was trying to answer. And then I thought, will wait a second. If students are coming to my classroom every day.

What if we all exercise together? And what if I do is study and test them at the beginning, the class, and at the end of the class, but will all exercise to get this to all turn IT into an experiment. So I ran my administrator and I said, can I have money to hire exercise and structures will all do exercise together.

And SHE said, no. And like, oh, and then went back to my desk and thought about IT. And then I went back and I said, would you pay for me to get teacher training if I learn how to teach an exercise class? And he said, yes.

And so I went to the gym and I learned how to teach the favorite class that I was going to in the gym called intensity, that combine physical movements from kick box and dancing, yoga and martial arts. Red, a very new york class. A, yes, you do.

yes. So SHE SHE helped change my brain. And h so I got training from petition. I trained for six months. You know, I my cats could do intensity really well because I I did IT so much in my apartment and I went back and I taught this class. And so I turned the music on and um and they did IT they did IT with me and so many things change in that moment the invisible wall between the talking head of the front of the classroom and everybody else disappeared because when you're shut in affirmations with professors like, oh, you are one of us we can with together um and the level of engagement that I got from those students that first we sweater for an hour and then we did an hand a half of interactive discussion about what do we know about the effects of exercise on the rain is set my bar for interactions that I want in every single classroom and I .

going to I love that story for so many reasons because I would imagine that was hugely out of your comfort zone yeah. And IT illustrates the power of just leaning into something. And I also illustrates the fact that no doesn't mean no. I just means now I ve got to find another way .

yeah and you did and the funny question that I had to ask my colleague, because if i'm onna do an experiment, I need a control class and so i'm not the only one teaching an elective class. I had to go to my, literally the guy that runs a lab next to mind. I like, are you teaching your your elective class? You suggest and I know they they meet for exactly same on the time.

And like, do you make your your students exercise during class? Like, no. And I said, would you mind be been the control? Because I would take thirty minutes to have them do all the cog test beginning at the end. And he said, OK, i'll i'll be your control class. And so I had my very first experiment.

Doctors is OK. Before we get into all the research on exercise, i'd like to go back to something that you mentioned about your professor, who was the mentor. He told the story about the hat box, because I saw that you brought a have box.

And maybe my team is planning prank on me because I see that IT is now behind you on the shelf. So i'd love to take a quick breaks when hear more from our amazing sponsors. And when we come back, I want to talk to about what is in that hat box.

We're going to do that after a short break. Do not go anywhere. Doctor s. Zuo ki and your body mile, rob, you're going to be here looking for you after a short break.

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You've been there, i've been there. The women you know have been there. So why? Why do you keep settling for uncomfortable bross? I'm over IT are to you over.

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Stay protected this respiratory season and stop by or schedule today that scene subject to availability and for ages three plus state age and health related restrictions may apply. Welcome package friend mall. You and I are spending time today with the incredible doctors suzuki, so doctors sizii, you just told us the story about your professor who inspired you to become a neuroscientist, and you told us a story about how he had this hat box. You know, when you walked in you were Carrying a box.

I, yes. And um actually, mm, um that box shows that my undergraduate adviser is not the only one that has a hot box. Can I show you? yes.

And by the way, when you're done listening to this episode, go check out the youtube episode because you'll be able to watch everything that's happening. Doctors is UK standing up and he has gloves, ruber gloves on top of a hat box. yes. okay. So what do we got here?

Okay.

what is .

putting that loves on? I want to show you that my have art.

okay? Oh.

this is a real preserved human brain .

of like, I look like inner person that was in a human being.

Yes, this is a real preserved human brain. Her name is Betty, and she's the most photographed preserved human brain on the east coast. Can I give you some class?

You, yeah. Okay, I think OK let me love O O K. That .

Normal .

to be nervous .

about you. Every time I picked this human brain up, I think this was somebody's life, this, this was somebody's whole personality here. And I feel so lucky that I get to have this best man that has been in our department for over twenty six years.

So IT is preserved in from, although hai OK, but but IT does represent this person. And so IT is I I pick IT up with reference every single of night. So can I ask you to stand up and come over here so we can share over.

Oh, okay, hey, I don't. I don't want a dropper. Oh, it's lighter. Oh, no, it's not. It's heavy than I fire.

yeah. Look so here to right.

This was in a person. Yes, but look good. Okay.

I can definitely .

look so. SHE is pulling up her the top of the brain is just as everybody's brain do that.

But you can that supposed right, mister? But i'm just playing a part. You can see how deep the folds of the outer covering go. You know how much surface area is is represented in this for the thing, if I put IT out is probably .

as big as this dining room take meeting took way. yes. And what is in are those like tubes is the number food.

These are folds of um uh uh sheet of what called the other cover, the new cortex. And we get more bang for our buck because it's folded in a rat cortex is completely smooth. Sorry, rs, you don't have as much computing power as you do from all of this. Yes.

it's it's kind of like I can be heavy.

Yeah well, there's a lot densely pact in there. This is controlling everything from our breathing to our movement, to our memories, to the way you feel right now, holding a human brain for .

the very so weird, well, only because I don't think about my brain and to think that there is something this heavy, I would say i'm trying to think of an object like it's literally like a um like um if you were to put not a half gone but a corner milk your hands got about the right I think .

that's right. It's like .

three pounds yes yeah yes. And if IT is like two chicken breast bone in like in terms of the size, it's like in my full palm. Now where where is the front of in front of love here? yeah.

Then proto low visual space al functions, where things are in space, excitable of primary visual cortex.

is bank here before we see from the back of the city.

from this part of the great, if this part of the brain is damaged, you you were .

blind walk. So when parent or grandparents says I got eyes in the back of my head, they weren't kid. Like, almost like for real, like back there, yeah, they have their .

visual cortex in the back of the head. They are seeing from the back of the head. absolutely.

If you had a concussion, yeah, would you see damage to the surface? Or yeah.

you know, sometimes IT IT causes A A Bruce kind of thing. But what I always tell people is have you have that experience when you bank the back of your yes stars? It's because you are physically stimulating the visual cortex and that physical stimulation is causing visual imaging of the stars that that's not happening. That's not Normal vision.

Of course, this is every human beings brain, pretty much the same color.

Yes, this is the tempo lobe here, the last lobe. okay? And if we fool IT over.

oh god, what is .

bottom? The b is the start of the spinal cord. So I do, yeah, I got cut off. So sorry, OK. And then this thing I like.

I shouldn't looking at this part .

of this is all good. It's good. This is a cereBellar critical for a fine motor movement so we can walk smoothly because of our cereBellar.

But I love the bottom part of the brain, because right here is the bottom part of the temporal lobe. And write below this cortex here, and below this cortex here. That's for the hippo campus set, your favorite part of my favorite part. You can see IT from the surface.

but it's right below this area, right here. Okay, where is that annoying little, a mingle la. Part that is creating fighter flight, a part that keeps us in an alarm state of protects us. But where is that?

IT is right in front of the hippocampus, an omen shape structure right about here, but below the surface. Guy, so the hippo campus is like a um a curve structure like this. So here and here and the middle a is just my fish that sits right here, the front of the temporal lobe.

So okay, wow. And what is like this here looks different .

than like the stuff and off of the this brain. So OK IT looks a little bit different because there's a little bit of damage. But can you see this, this x right here? That is the arctic north? No way.

Yes, yes. And the tic kaas m kaas m means cross. So the cross you see right there is the crossing of all the fibers from one side of your visual fear going to the other side of your visual cortex.

Now, is that why this ran and question? But is, is, is that like when somebody has a stroke, is that what it's impacted .

if the um what the whole brain gets impacted in different parts. So the stroke es that cause motor experiment, you can move your move ARM anymore ah it's damaging the ARM motor area, your motor court.

That's why doctors is the body and I going to walk, you were moving our body. How does that cause just the movement itself in the limbs triggers information that goes up into your brain is not how that works yeah .

that's a great question. Um the the the exact mechanism of how doping and serotonin is is triggered with physical activity is not that well known but I go back evolutionary to the fact that we are physical beans despite the fact that all of us are just and shares all the time and and that is um that is a long term survival mechanism. That's why IT makes us feel good because we are made to move our bodies. And um I guess we could just take a Better IT of IT more because we're not move in enough but that you get every single time .

that is so cool.

The other things are we get to go back to the bottom. M, um this is um the brain stem area right here, right before the the special court. This is that area that controls our heartbeat or respiration. And so brain stem damage IT, this goes that your heartbeat will no longer be that that is lethal, but such a critical part of the brain.

I am still shocked by what just happened in the studio. And honestly, I feel like it's time for me to take these gloves off and go give my hands a good wash. I'm going to go do that. And let's take a quick pause. You can hear award our amazing sponsors.

But when we come back, you and I are gonna cover the specifics on how moving your body improves brain function and it'll give you that big, fat, fussy brain that doctor suzie has been telling a fat to stay with us. You know, others. One thing that I know about you because you listen to this podcast that you have big ambitions. You care about your goals.

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Welcome back. Its friend mell Robins and u and I are spending time with the amazing doctor, Wendy suzuki, who is now going to do a deep dive into how exercise improves pretty much everything when IT comes to your brain function and brain health. So you have now taught the class, you've done the experiments, you've written the international best selling books on the topic, what does the power of moving your body do to your brain?

Every single time you move your body, you are releasing literally a flood of newer chemicals in your brain. That is the physical thing that happens. And i'm not talking about run a marathon.

I'm talking about even taking a walk. A ten minute walk gets that flood of newer chemicals going. Is IT different.

If you do get your heart, wait up. Yes, IT is. But the power starts with a ten minute walk.

That is, one of the take comes from our conversation today. Mail is the neurochemical flood starts with a ten minute walk. What is in that flood of neurochemicals dupine serotonin na journal and dorfman growth factors?

The first three to me, certain what's like it's going to make you feel great just given your brain this flood of neurochemicals that I like to call a neurochemical bubble bath for your brain. And I I love that image because if you move regularly, think of IT as a regular bubble bath for your brain. These new chemicals that are making you feel good. The great doctors go to that is what's growing those brand new hip cample cells. The power of exercise comes from that new chemical bubble bath.

I love that image. I love the image of being outside for just a ten minute walk. Every one of us can find ten minutes, and you can imagine that flood happening. And I also, i'm personally a bad person. You say, bub, like a bath in my brain, and bubbles are fluffy. And I don't know that I wanted a body part to be big and fluffy, but now I do want a bigger fluffier in that it's ten minute walk at a minimum causes that flood of really positive chemicals. And this goes back to what you were saying, which is neuroplasticity and growing your brain works in the positive, yes, and not doing these things, I suppose, works in the negative.

Well, you know that the negative comes from the most common negative brain plasticity drivers, very familiar to all of us. Stress, chronic stress, chronic anxious, are two things are that will, that will cause retraction.

So is the flood of all of those like superpower, you call them chemicals.

mico transits.

Flood of all chemicals relieve anxiety. Is that why taking a ten minute walk, if you're feeling anxious can make you feel Better? It's because the release of the chemical.

yes, the most common drugs that one gets proscribed for depression or anxiety are releasing forms of northern and dopamine, ian search. So this isn't a natural way to get that. It's free. You don't even have to change your cloth so that that is just the magical power of moving your body for your brain.

I love that how does exercise improve focus?

Improve focus is the most common positive effect that has been reported from studies of exercise on the brain. Easier to find improved focus. We know it's affecting the profond cortex um and the mechanism of that and what exactly is happening is less clear than some of the other brain areas.

We think that growth factors are also involved and that in involves not growth of new brain cells from the cortex but new synapses. You get an immediate positive effect of focus from that same ten minute walk and with long term regular exercise, your baseline levels of focus and attention go up. And that's where you expect to get, you know, real physical change in your brain.

I personally notice an increase in energy, which I always find to be weird, because i'm usually dragging even one tired. I feel this boost of energy. Can you explain why exercise increases your energy?

One of my favorite findings is in groups that were sign the exercise condition um the motivation to exercise increased in them. So more exercise improves motivation exercise and that the energy piece that you're talking about is likely due to the flood of dopamine seton's that go to your brain, you feel more energize when you're happy and went the reward that you get with dopamine. Yes, you are. So i'm gna say that it's probably most likely due to a those same new r chemical we've .

been talking about. Well, I was just thinking about this morning. So this morning the alarm goes off at five thirty five.

We've got a huge day in the study. I'm super excited to meet you and to talk to you. And as I was rolling out of the hotel bed, my husband was down here with me.

He's like, really going. I got to go exercise, say, but you have a huge dance. Like, because I need to be energized. And I know that if I go exercise at six o'clock in the morning, when I walk in that studio, I will be a different person. And so IT was something that I realized i'm doing, especially on days that I want to perform.

Yeah, me too.

And can you explain a little bit about why if you've something big going on today? Yeah, starting your day with exercise is a really .

smart thing to do well, so IT is, uh, going back to that wonderful flood of newer chemicals, you are starting your day in a good mood. You improved your focus and attention, which we all need for a big day. You are also increasing your address in in your body with with exercise.

What I love to do to supercharge that that a drill on boost every morning is hot, cold contrast shower. So I do my regular hot our, but at the end I push IT all the way to maximum cold and boost. Okay, was hard the first time I do.

So it's but once once you get used to IT, that's a natural, a gentlemen boost. And that is like I need that. If I forget, I go back into the shower. No, I do. I do go back into the shower to get IT if I I forget IT because just like you, you need to be up, you need to be ready for that day and that together with with exercise are are really powerful um ways to get that energy up.

So doctors is UK. I want to stop you right there because that is a second huge free take away. We talked about the time, minute.

Yes, we have talked about this flood of neurochemicals that you can get by moving your body. Now you are talking about a habit that you have as a neuroscientist, just where you end every shower by spin in the dial. That amazing steave that you feel tired.

Do I really want to get the shower? And then, dr, like, you turns IT up cold, and now he really cold work. How long do standard? yeah. And do you actually let IT hit your head, or you cheat like I do and you hit a shoulder?

So, um I let IT hit everywhere. But I now i'm used to IT the first time IT only a tiny little shell now. But you get used to IT. And now now it's longer.

I could do IT much, much longer um and now very much more sensitive because different places you take showers have different holders of the water so so yeah I I like IT when places are really cold. So I could really myself because the colder IT is the bigger a drillin boost that you get. And so now i'm sensitive to what that feels like in me. So the cold doesn't bother me. What i'm kind of addicted to is the that comes with me.

So for the person listening, if they wanted to try this, yeah and they're onna do IT today, our first thing tomorrow morning, and you turn the shower to cold, yes, how long would you want them to try to stay in there? And what does that feel like yet when that a general and rush hits? Because I think when you do at the first time, your immediate reaction is get out of the shower is what you are waiting to feel, or is that to get out of the shower thing and then you stay fer a second or two to feel this like hit body, what are you looking? Force the person listening can try this at home .

yeah so IT is a shock, as everybody imagine, the very first time and so you do feel shocked and you wanna kind of try to stay as long as you could handle. But if you felt the shock that at the point get out, you know, uh, dry yourself off. That is gonna last, i'm going to say easy.

The rest of the morning you are gonna feel that a general. I mean, that's why I do IT. If I only lasted for two seconds, I wouldn't bother to do IT. I do IT because this is a boost of physiological adjournment that is natural from this cold and and and IT stays in your system. And I feel the energy difference when I do that .

in case of tidal, the way that i've developed. This is a habit in my life, because I agree with you. It's shocking both what IT feels like and IT is shocking. The difference that you feel like I can go for a super sleepy to laser or focus by simply turning the dial on the shower in the way that I do IT is once you put the conditioner in your hair, when you go to .

rent IT out during the shower.

cold, ha, wow, that's a good long twenty seconds about but it's a way to really try this and get the brain changing and life affirming and focus increasing benefits. You're talking about that so cold. How does movement and exercise improve your memory exactly .

when you move your body? And here there is a level that's very important, a robic activity that is any kind of movement that gets your heart rate up. Dancing, uh think uh um power walking.

Those count for a robic activity. A robic activity is critical because there are the these growth factors that you need to get that hip campo growth. They come from muscle movements so you have to have enough muscle movement.

They come from release of key tones from your liver. And um these growth factors get released kind of perfectly go up into the brain, go directly to your hippocampus and go into that partly hiba campus where new brain cells are being born all the time. For anybody, whether you exercise or never exercise, you get new brain cells.

But with more exercise, more growth factors get released and more new brain cells are born, and those new brain cells grow and integrate. And the cool thing we know about these new brain cells that are born in a dota is there kind of like teenage brain cells that they're really hyperactive and they want to get involved in all the memory circuits that the hypothecating pus involved in, so they make your help campus work Better. And we know an enormous amount about the physiology, the detailed physiology of the power of those brand new adult, a cample brain cells.

What type of memory doesn't help because you know like you think about memory is I am one of these people that I think due to chronic anxiety and undiagnosed A D H D, I don't have a lot of memories from my childhood, at least not that i'm conscious. I know they're like in there somewhere, but I can't quite access. I was there for my food but can't quite remember a lot of IT, and I know that's a very common thing. So is that impacting that kind of memory or the short term working memory that you need if your learning a new subject and .

you ve gotta take a test? Yeah, IT is affecting your ability to form new long term memories for facts and events. All of the things you learn, all the students learning stuff in school right now, that is because you have a working hippocampus.

And more shining your hippo camp cells will make those memories easier to form that kind of memories for facts and events. Also, I need to emphasize that the hippocampus is critical for spac memory. Your ability the way find is also really, really dependent on the particular kinds of.

what does that mean? Facial memory.

special memory, means how to get from here to the subway, how to get up from one place to the other, where the supermarket is relative to my childhood home. That memory or or learning a new route highly, highly dependent on the happy ampas.

Have you done any research on the impact of exercise and dementia or alzheimer like you know like how I don't even know the technical way you describe you that type of memory .

impairment. So you know I haven't done direct uh, research. A lot of my research has done in Younger populations for the reason that I want to change the movement patterns in Younger people because the longer and the more you move your body, the Better off your brain is in older age.

What we haven't said, which is key to understand, is that the profounder cortex and hip c campus are most suspect to both aging and neurodegeneration disease states. That is, cells die. Synaptic kind of melt a away in these two brain areas OK.

Oh, so that means that I am moving my body, get a robic exercise. I'm making these two key vulnerable brain areas as big and fat as fluffy as possible. I'm not curing aging or dementia, but i'm Steven IT off. That is the power of long term regular movement in your life related to aging .

is somebody's listening to this. They are thinking factors is, O, K, I am living that life you described of you in a lab with no friends, and I am alone on a raft trip in the river of life, and I have not been exercising for decades. Is IT too late? No, it's never .

too late to start moving. And the reason I say that is that we know people that have mild cognitive impairment, which is on the way to more severe a levels of dementia, put on an exercise program, you can see the improvement in them. So never too late. Movement is gonna continue to have this great thing is always there for its amazing. I love that.

sir, tell us what to do. I'm imagining you in your exercise clothes, doctor suzuki, tell us what kind of exercise.

okay, so what kind of exercise? What I would recommend. And and this comes from studies that i've done in my lab.

First, we did studies in people that are um low fit, so they they move their bodies less than twenty minutes a week for the last three months. And we put them on an exercise regiment, a robot exercise forty five minutes three times a week. K IT was a spin class, forty five minutes spin class.

The point is that was a robot. Um they did that and compare to forty five minutes three times a week of um power scrawl competition in my lab. So that was the nor robic no control experiment.

And what we found is that three times a week, forty five minutes a obie activity would improve their mood, improve their focus and improve certain forms of hip Campbell function. So is an effective, yes, if we saw in three months and there is a number for everybody, three times a week, forty five minutes, that's a durable thing. Three times a week, forty five minutes, you get brain effects. Now you say, well, I I don't, but I don't work out that little. And so we did the next study in kind of MIT people already working out two.

three times a week. Okay, so mid fit. Yeah, trying to see if I actually fit that category.

好， two to three times a week you working out. And that could be lifting way. I could be going for a long walk, right?

IT could be yoga class, yes o so we asked, what will change their brain and we said, okay, you could go to this spin class as many times do you want during the week and uh, so we had people staying actually a three times a week and those that went up to seven times a week. The take home from that study is that the more you work out, the more brain changes you got. And that's great.

It's democratic. You earn what you get. So IT works on a continuum, and I used to say every drop of sweat count, but then turns out there's a lot more people than I realize that don't sweat.

So now I say every turn of the exercise bike root wheel counts. What i'm doing count. Walking, dancing, uh, a gardening, all of that counts.

And the inspiration is just do IT a little bit more. You're gonna get the benefit. It's not like it's not going to account IT is going to account. Just find a way to get in into your life, importantly, in a way that you enjoy and the way that you onna do.

If somebody is wheelchair Brown or they are a black injured or they are combating of illness, they are very secondary. Is there some kind of something that you can do and imagine like if you're feeling yourself, it's a very arroba activity so you are moving your body, but you recommend somebody start yeah if they are sending this episode to someone that they are worried about and the person who is listening to this is thinking, I can't do any of that right.

right? For most of us that we might send this to, it's that there is lack of a have a of movement. And there I I say so many times, walk in counts.

Do you walk? I walk? I walk to the car.

Can you walk a little bit more? Can you park the car father away? All these things that you are already going to do.

Can you take the stair up so that IT doesn't feel so much like jim going that is you know off putting to to people and I understand that but IT turns out that you know maybe to walk with with a loved one, a walk with your pet um maybe IT is a walking museum. Maybe you love the museum. okay. Well, there i'll walk around. There are so many ways to be creative about getting movement into .

anybody's life. What I really love about your message and your research is the visual of this flood of neurochemicals and the fact that so many of us reach for something in a bottle and you have something in your body that you can unleash. And i'm not shaming anybody at all because medications save lives.

They're a very important tool in the tool kit. But don't forget about the one that's actually designed by your own body. And when you understand the science, IT makes your resignation over the fact that you've let yourself go or you don't have a lot of time. Or what difference is a ten minute walk or turning the dial to cold to get the blast of a general IT actually makes a profound difference.

IT does make a profound difference. Little things that that's the thing. You don't have to completely change your lifestyle. Fact, you might be scared. I completely changed my life, but IT started with that first class that I went.

I still remember with a hip p dance class and my terrible hip hop answers, but I still went and like, even though is terrible, I still feel Better. IT might be different for you. IT might be.

I love this park, and i'm just gonna around this park that's near my house is convenient. The park not going anywhere. It's always gonna there. What is that thing that you can do that that will be easy for you to do to move your body?

How does, uh exercise improve longevity and decrease your risk for disease?

So I have to turn to my friend um Robert willinger when you talk about longevity ah because his wonderful studies at harvard that he overseas shows how important social connection is for a lunch after that is the number one thing and of course physical activity that increases your heart rate and and um you know decreases your your um uh your propensity for getting car of vastar lar disease.

That's great too but for longer gevalia IT is social connection. And so taking those walks with a friend, including your pets, you know all those things, I I like to multiply all these effects that come from great science. My father, a very smart guy who was an engineer, and one day he drove back from the seven eleven, that's only about eight blocks from our house.

He would go there to get this afternoon cup of coffee. And he told my mom that he he had a hard time find his way back home. That's the spatial memory I was talking about, but so dependent on the hyper campus.

And as a hippo camp l expert, when my mother told me that I knew immediately there was a problem with a hippo campus h that is the structure that is uh, first affected in dementia, including alzheimer's dementia. And that is what a that is what he ended up being diagnosed with. I wish I could say so.

Therefore, I had him immediately on an exercise plan. He was in his early eighties, maybe late seventies, when that happened. I can't remember exactly his age.

He was a little bit lovely on his feet. He did like going for a walk. So he would he would go do that. But there was a little bit of danger. As we all know, with older people there's uh a little risk taking again going back to social interaction.

The more or time that I could spend with him, the more time that we can get him together with family where he came alive and he could think can talk about, you know all the memories that he had um is a great way to go as japanese americans and third generation japanese americans. My parents for second generation japanese americans, other japanese americans out there won. No, we don't say I love you to each other, not because we don't love each other, just you don't have to say that it's just not part of our culture.

But when my father had this dimensions diagnosis um cause you know IT I want to start saying that but it's very awkward. When you're an adult child and you've never said I love you to your parents as an adult, do you just like blurted out it's like, what should I do? I had a long internal conversation about this, and I realized that I should ask permission, like, let's talk about IT.

And I didn't want to, because you have dementia, I want you. I was like, let's keep you. Like to just ask you. But I wanted do for my mom and my dad. And I would call every sunday. And when I called, my mom would always and to the phone, and I would tell her rather a week, and then you would hear the phone to the ad, and I tell him all the same stories. And but this sunday I decided i'm onna. Ask, you know whether we can start saying I love you for the first time in our whole adult life so I started out Normally and at some point in the middle I said, you know, mom, um we I realized we never say I love you at the end of these conversations, what do you think about saying I love you? Sound silence on the other end of the phone.

So what if SHE asking me.

you ever asked me that before? And of course, I was just terrified that he would say no, because SHE might. I mean, he said he may not be comfortable.

I I didn't know. I'd never asked her that question before, but after what seemed like hours, I was just a few seconds say, he said, I I think that's a great idea. I, oh, okay, great.

And so we kind of finished up our conversation. And then both of us realized at the same time, I think that we had nothing more to say to each other. And we both knew that we had both agreed to say this thing.

I kind of describe IT. As you know, I felt like two lions kind of circling each other. What's what's gonna happen? Who goes first? And, you know, was my ask.

So I said, OK, I love you. And, uh, he said, I love you too in our very disney voices, so we can get through IT. And so I had a conversation with my dad, and I was little less awkward with him because I knew my mom said yes.

I I knew my dad would say yes. And so we agreed with my dad. I said, we said, I love you, hung up the phone and person into tears, because I had kind of changed the whole family dynamic of generations of not saying I love you.

And that was the a tipping point in my family kind of history, from not saying I love you to saying I love you. But the the reason I started telling the story is that the following week I called back again in my love with my mother was significantly less awkward, but my fathers said, I love you first. And he remembered after a whole week, he was in the middle of dementia, he didn't remember anything.

But he remembered that we had agreed to say, I love you. And he said at first, and because i'm a neuroscientist, that study's memory, I know why, and it's because emotional residents makes hip camp defended memories stick, and his ppa campus was not working well. But the emotional resonance of his adult daughter, asking for the very first time to say I love you IT formed a new memory in my dad. And that that was obviously something that always remember, because the last time I spoke to him, we also sit out of you.

It's so beautiful. Oh my god, I cried over the brain for cry out loud. I I. I'm really .

proud you thank .

you for recognizing what you needed and also recognizing what your parents needed yeah and asking for IT yeah and the story demonstrates something you said earlier， which is. The brain is the most like, interacted, complicated, amazing, beautiful thing about a human. Yes, and you have the ability to change IT for the Better. And for anyone that's listening ing, that feels like you are in a family dynamic that you wish would change, all that takes is one person to do IT. Yeah, what a gift yeah, you gave to your parents and .

to yourself. Yes, IT was. And I still enjoy that gift in my regular conversations with my mother. So yes, I think about that that day often.

What did IT teach you as a scientist to have that personal experience?

IT really brought home how precious our memories are. IT defines who we are. IT defines our personal histories. And and if you lose that personal history, you still have your same personality characteristics. But that's what so sad to see as the family member those memories slip away. Um but when they come back or when one is is created a new, you celebrated in a different way. So IT IT really kind of brought all my science home to me.

Beautiful, so beautiful. I am so struck. By what a profound experience to suspend to be with you. And you know, one of my missions is to take the smartest people in the world like you and some of the most complicated research, and to try to make IT personal and useful. And you have done that for us today. No, thank you in a way that not only I know that I personally feel so much more empowered and motivated, but I have a bigger reason for why this truly matters. And is there anything that you wanna say to the person listening as your parting words?

So my party words for everybody listening to this podcast is that you have a beautiful brain. We all have beautiful brains. That is the message that I try and bring. And the recommendations that I give are so that you can keep that beautiful big fat and fluff y brain going as long as you can.

Well, you certainly empowers us to do that. IT is such an honor to meet you, to get spend time with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being with us.

The honor is mine.

Thank you so much. And for you, I just wanted to say, in case no one else does that, I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a Better life. And IT has been such an honored to spend time together today and to learn from doctor sauk.

I and I know that if you take to hurt everything SHE just shared with you, not only from her brain, but her heart, that you hold the keys in your hands to take Better care of your brain, which will lead you to living a Better life. And I truly hope you do. I'll see in the next episode.

Right now, you want to speak quiet, Kevin. Kindergarten teach you, Kevin.

Yes.

yes, like just .

fine cracking .

in IT down. Yeah, it's like you, right? It's like the way I sami truck when he turns out like, yes, oh, gotcha.

I like that. great. help. Okay, great. Okay, great.

yeah. no. I love IT and it's great. great. Oh, and one more thing I know, this is not a blue per. This is the legal language.

You know what the lawyers right? And what I need to read you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend.

I am not a license therapies, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapy or other qualified professional. Got IT good. I'll see in .

the next episode stitch.

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