#1 Neurologists: 5 Habits to Boost Brain Health & Prevent Alzheimer's

23:37But cognitive decline, definitely. and we're seeing quite a few in the communities. Right now, we're in community churches and we thought that we were going to see people in their 60s, 70s or later. We're seeing people in their 40s come to us and saying they're having cognitive decline. And when we test them, we detect the cognitive decline. Now, that doesn't mean that they have dementia. That might make them at risk for dementia down the stream, but we know that they're having these cognitive issues early on. And at the same time, it's incredibly positive because we catch it early. In the hospital and clinic, because hospitals and clinics are fantastic, but they're fantastic for sick care, which means you see people at the point of disease.

24:25Once they have dementia, once they've had stroke, once they've had heart attack, you see people way earlier in the communities when they haven't had that yet, but they're seeing the beginnings of it. Or if we detect the beginnings, That's the powerful work in the community.

24:39Mel Robbins:I love that. You know, one other thing that I read in your book, Dr. Aisha, is that there are seven stages to dementia. You've already taught us that Alzheimer's is a slice of dementia, even though they seem to be used interchangeably, and that we can be in the first stage, so preclinical stage, 20 years or longer. and I want to read to you from your best-selling book, The Alzheimer's Solution. This is on page 61. A person in stage one has no impairment, no memory disorder, or cognitive deficits, though, I'm going to say this word wrong, but amyloid? Yes. Okay, I said that right? Okay. You said it right.

25:23Mel Robbins:Amyloid plaques and tau tangles may be accumulating in the brain. Alzheimer's and other dementias begin to form years and often decades before they manifest. There may also be inflammation, vascular changes, and atrophy in certain parts of the brain, but not enough to cause symptoms. And this first of the seven stages of dementia can last 20 years or longer. Yeah, that sounds scary, doesn't it? Yes. I'm like, am I already in it? Like, probably, but... I think it kind of ties back to what I was saying earlier. I think if we think about brain health as a spectrum and not something as like healthy versus non-healthy.

26:09Yes. It will make sense. Now, are we all going to get dementia? No. That's the whole point of having this conversation, right? Okay. What we do is throughout our life, you're either living a life that is taking care of that magnificent organ or you're contributing to its damage. If you're doing things that are damaging to that brain, if you kind of like think about it, it's like a wear and tear. You have this beautiful machine, right? You have to oil it. You have to keep it away from moisture. You have to make sure that it's not exposed directly to the sun. You have to make sure that you keep it clean.

26:46I just got myself a cuisine art that makes your stand, and it requires a little bit of maintenance. I don't know why I'm bringing that analogy. Because it's a pain in the rear end of clean. That's why. Right? Yeah. If you kind of just let it be, then it's going to not work properly. Seeing who's for the brain, you really have to put in the work to take care of it. And so if we don't, even if we're in our 20s and 30s, like we were saying earlier, a bad night's sleep, not eating well, choosing a sedentary life, having poor relationships that is constantly creating stress in our life, not really pushing ourselves to learn something new, to experience something new and be creative, what happens is your brain starts accumulating these bad proteins that you just talked about, amyloid beta protein and tau tangle.

27:36And after a while, that damage really shows itself. Like when we actually do MRI imaging of our patient's brain, right? You can actually see white spots. We call it white matter disease. And that could be related to bad blood pressure. It could be related to high cholesterol. It could be related to loneliness and social withdrawal, not treating sleep apnea and not living a healthy lifestyle. So you can actually be in that stage for decades before the first symptom of like forgetfulness comes about. That's what we meant in the book.

28:08Mel Robbins:Now, if you've had concussion damage, because I keep thinking about the fact that so many people listen to this podcast within families, does that put you at greater risk for developing dementia or any cognitive decline later in life? It does. It does. And but there are different degrees. If people had a significant head trauma, of course, the risk goes higher. Yes. Or if you had multiple smaller head traumas, again, same thing. So I want people to know that the head trauma is a major contributor. and we have to take life with that in mind. We took it for granted that the brain was going to be fine because it's inside that bony skull.

28:51That bony skull has ridges and the fluid that covers the brain is not viscous. So it's not slow motion, doesn't slow the... It's literally bouncing off the bone. So we have to be careful with the activities we're involved in. Sadly, even I played soccer and surfed stuff to tennis. Even soccer players that do multiple headers, they've seen that that actually affects the brain. And activities like boxing and traumatic brain injuries absolutely contribute to that. Now, the good news is, if it's a few head traumas, like the things that Aisha just said, a few things that happened during a youth, we can reverse that.

29:30The good things that you do can significantly offset the bad things. I would rather that people don't do the bad things because we don't know when you'll be overwhelmed. but the two has to be taken into consideration. I wanted to add something. Yes, please. And I think this is really important and people might find it useful. When we expose our brain to something that could potentially harm it, we don't feel it when we're younger. We actually don't have any pain receptors in our brain. You don't? We don't. So that's why, I don't know if you've actually seen these neurosurgery videos where, you know, they have somebody's skull open up and they have their eyes open and they just kind of poke at the brain and the person is playing the violin to see which part of the brain they're touching.

30:14The brain itself doesn't have any pain receptors. The coverings do. But my point here is the brain has so much reserve and capacity to kind of make up for a deficit earlier in our life that you actually don't feel it. One of the reasons why people don't care about their brain health is like, even if they drink too much, even if they miss many nights of sleep, they're fine, right? They don't feel it. had it been your skin, if you keep on slapping your skin, you're going to get a bruise. You're going to be able to be like, oh gosh, I see it. I see the damage. But we don't see or feel the damage to our brain because it has such resilience, a very, very quote unquote plastic organ.

30:55It makes

30:55Mel Robbins:up for those deficits, but the damage is happening, unfortunately. Well, I love that you said that and here's why. Because common sense, I think we all know, if you're smoking, you're damaging your lungs. If you're eating ultra-processed food, you're damaging your GI tract and some of your other organs. If you are sedentary, you're not doing a lot for your overall health and your muscles. And what I'm gathering from this conversation and also from the lifestyle interventions you're about to talk about that are within all of our reach to be able to take better care of ourselves and our brains, that just like smoking damages your lungs, it's damaging your brain.

31:39Mel Robbins:Just like alcohol is damaging your liver and you may feel the hangover in your body, it's damaging your brain. And just thinking about it holistically that this organ that is literally what's keeping you alive is affected by everything you do, but we're not thinking about it. And that's why this is so important. incredibly well said it and i would go as far as say you probably affect the brain more because remember really oh it's a three pound organ but it consumes 25 percent of your body's energy it it is the most vascular organ you would think that the heart is the most vascular the brain is the most vascular organ in the body so we're talking about smoking so smoking affects the lungs, the vasculature of the brain is affected significantly more because there's more of it.

32:33When blood pressure affects the peripheral organs, the brain is profoundly more affected because of the vasculature. When you're having alcohol, it directly kills neurons and more than killing neurons, affects the connections between neurons and affects sleep and everything else. So we usually say if you take care of your brain, you've more than taken care of the the rest of the body because the brain's demands are, it's resilient, but its demands are tremendous.

33:01Mel Robbins:Thank you for saying that. I'm so grateful that you're here. I'm also grateful for our sponsors. So I want to take a pause so we can give our sponsors a chance to shine. I also want to give you a chance to share this episode with your family because everybody in your family deserves this life-saving information and don't go anywhere. We have so much more to dig into with Dr. Aisha and Dr. Dean when we return. Stay with me.

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35:57Mel Robbins:Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are here with two world-renowned neurologists, Dr. Aisha and Dr. Dean Shirzai. We're talking about memory, dementia, and the brain health framework that you need, an exciting new research, and a protocol that can help you slow down, pause, and even reverse brain decline. All right, let's just jump right back in. My next question is, Dr. Dean, how much control do people have over their cognitive future? More than any other organ. Your brain is at your control. It's there to answer to you constantly. Your brain is growing constantly and it's growing in relation to what you do to it.

36:40and it's also shrinking in relation to what you do to it.

36:43Mel Robbins:Oh, I don't like that. When you said shrinking, it made me feel bad. Because you know what it made me think about? It's like, this may be too much information, but you think about hydration. We all need water. If I go to the bathroom and I see that the urine's a certain couple, I'm not hydrated, but I'm not thinking that my brain needs water. And if I'm not hydrated, my brain's shrinking a little bit. And I think that's a really compelling thing to think about. It is. is beautifully stated. And it's compelling because it's visual, but it's even more real for the brain. So nutrition, sleep, and stress management creates the environment for the brain to grow or shrink.

37:23The two things that grow the brain, and by growing, I mean connections between neurons. Your neurons can have two connections.

37:31Mel Robbins:Oh, they're pulling out a visual. I'm excited to see this. Okay, let me describe this for the person who's listening. They're holding up just a kind of a white board and you've got two blue dots on either end and then they're connected, these two blue dots, by just two red screens. Yes, and the screens, the blue dots, the blue things are imaginary. It's the neurons. Okay, so the blue dots are neurons. And the connections are the axonal connections between the neurons. What are they called? The axonal connections. Axonal connections. Yes, that's how they communicate with each other. That's how we actually think.

38:03It's the communication between neurons.

38:05Mel Robbins:Got it. Now, do I need the neurons to be connected in order for my brain to grow? Oh, absolutely. In order for your brain to even survive. So brain health requires your neurons to be able to connect to each other. Yes, and these connections can be made at any stage of our life. That's the cool thing about it, you know? We may not be able to grow many brain cells, but we can make so many connections between the brain cells that we already have. Each cell can make as little as one or two connections or as many as 30 ,000 connections. Depending on how you take care of it. Hold on, you're holding scissors, so I don't know what you're about to do.

38:45Well, this is what happens. If you haven't eaten well, if you haven't challenged your brain, if you haven't exercised, your neurons are connected, a couple of connections, right? A couple of axons. And one night you had too much alcohol and one of the strings is cut.

39:00Mel Robbins:Oh my gosh, he just, it was so sad. So if you're listening, he just cut one of the strings, and now these two neurons are hanging on by one thread. Yeah, and then another day, you were just walking or you were playing sport, and you had a head injury. And the other... Oh, my God, they're not connected anymore. They're not connected. And not only are they not connected, and most of the time, they never connected. And that's it. It's gone. That's so depressing. It is. But here's the... Is that what you mean by you're shrinking your own brain? Correct. Because you're killing the connections between the neurons.

39:35Absolutely.

39:36Mel Robbins:Okay, they've got another visual. Let me explain this to the person who's listening. So now they're holding up a second visual. It's, again, two neurons, but this time instead of two strings, there's like tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of strings connecting them. Correct. And this is not even a good representation. This is probably 50 connections. We're talking about 30 ,000. 30 ,000. Now, this is one neuron and then connected to another neuron. Now, this is because this person has kept their brain active. they've challenged themselves, they've exercised, they've kept good nutrition and all of that.

40:06Mel Robbins:So you, by doing that, have created the conditions for the neurons in your brain to grow and connect and communicate with each other, which increases the health of your brain. And thousands of studies have shown this, too. Imaging studies, to pathology studies, that people that have challenged itself, that have kept their brain healthy, have way more connections. Now this brain, let's say the same thing as the previous one. One night they drank and one of the strings got cut, right? Okay. I still don't like, I don't like it when you cut it because I feel my brain going, don't do that. Yeah. One brain.

40:40And then another day they had head trauma. Another one broke. Guess what? Still, all the rest of the connections are there. Right. Let's see a bunch of other things happen. Now he's cutting a lot.

40:51Mel Robbins:There's a lot of strings hanging down. But you still have the connection between the two. And here's the beautiful part. Not only are those connections continuing the work, the fact that they're connected actually later on allows these two nines to make further connections again. That's an incredible story. That's an incredible hopeful story. By the way, those connections can be made at 80, 90, even 100 years of age. Now, if you have dementia, can you continue to make connections? Yes. You can. You can. But the thing is, if you have advanced dementia, by then the mechanism of destruction through tau and amyloid is so profound that it's difficult to reverse.

41:32But I think... You can slow it down.

41:34Mel Robbins:The really important thing about this visual, and it's so powerful, is that as long as you don't destroy it all... Yes. ...and the neurons stay connected through the lifestyle and research-backed things that you're going to tell us to focus on, you can help your neurons in your brain make more connections, even if you've done some damage earlier in your life. That's a very empowering statement. And we see it clinically in our patients. Say, for example, if someone has had a mild stroke or if they've had traumatic brain injury. In stroke, what happens is some of your brain cells die and they never come back.

42:14But with physical therapy, with a healthy lifestyle, with cognitive therapy, you can actually strengthen the connections between the cells that are already there. And sometimes they can take over the function of the cells that are lost. It's so wonderful to actually see people recover even after major injuries or major strokes when they start living a healthy life and implement these lifestyle facts.

42:40Mel Robbins:Can you bring that visual back real quick? Because I want to ask you a question related to stress and the visual that has a bunch of different connections. So let's say you've been taking very good care of yourself, but now you're in a caregiver role. And you talked about the fact that, you know, Dr. Aisha, when you were talking about the things that create damage to your brain health, one of the biggest ones is stress and chronic stress. And we now know that caregiving is its own form of chronic stress. And I was startled reading your bestselling book, The Alzheimer's Solutions, page 46. partners of those who develop dementia have a 600 % greater risk of developing the disease themselves compared to the general match population.

43:30Mel Robbins:And this isn't attributable solely to stress that shared lifestyle risks are also a major factor in the health outcomes of long-term couples. I'd love to have you just grab the scissors and just show us kind of like how stress And caregiving really can break apart these connections and neurons because you're so focused on somebody else, you stop taking care of yourself. So what caregivers are under tremendous stress, let's say their cortisol level is high, that kind of cuts off two or three different connections between cells. Let's say, for example, they don't get a good night's sleep. We know how common that is among caregivers.

44:09versus your brain didn't get enough time to cleanse itself and to function properly. Let's say four or five other connections got cut off. Let's say you don't have time to walk or to exercise. Forget about it. You have some other connections cut off. Let's say you never really get time to do something creative because you're just stuck in this constant, you know, mundane lifestyle of doing something over and over again. Creativity doesn't allow for your brain to grow at all. And then on top of that, just the sadness and this pressure of taking care of another person, the guilt that comes with it, the shame that comes with it, all of that actually just severs the beautiful connection between brain cells.

44:54And that's what puts people at a high risk. The other thing is when you live with someone who has Alzheimer's disease or some sort of dementia, Lifestyle matters too. So you kind of share the same environment too. You kind of eat the same foods that they do. Let's say, for example, if they were not eating healthy food, there you go. My connection severed. They were not really into exercising. There you go. You kind of follow that pattern. And as you can see, there's accumulation of all of these risk factors on top of the stress that you're experiencing and caregivers does a lot.

45:27Mel Robbins:I am so grateful that you brought this visual example. And if you're listening, what just happened is every time Dr. Aisha talked about those very real circumstances that caregivers are experiencing, she was cutting one of the strings that connected the neurons in your brain. And it was extremely compelling and dramatic to see the connections and the strings hanging down, because this is the first visual example that I've ever experienced that really demonstrates to you as a caregiver why taking care of yourself, getting sleep, eating right, staying connected to friends, that, you know, you hear the adage, put your oxygen mask on.

46:10Mel Robbins:It does matter because while you're caregiving, if you don't take care of yourself, your brain is shrinking. And there are things that you can do to stop that from happening or to build more neurons back. If you've been in a period of caregiving and now you're coming out of it so that you can. But this to me raises the stakes in why the interventions we're about to talk about matter so much. One other point that I have to make here. Yes. A large percentage of your population is women. Yes. Two-thirds of all caregivers are women. And two-thirds of all Alzheimer's patients and dementia patients are women.

46:55And they're usually caregivers when? In their midlife. They're going through menopause and everything else. That's not a sad thing. Here's the positive part of that. If they just are aware of that fact and they do one or two positive behaviors and activities in their life, that is a significant change in risk factor. So for women especially, they should know. Majority of the women that we deal with are, you know, they're taking care of their children and their mother. And then they're going through their 40s and 50s, like you said. As estrogen drops. in your hormonal system and the expectations that are put on you from the society, all of that takes a toll.

47:33Mel Robbins:Thank you so much for explaining that. I really get it. And I know as you're listening, you're getting it too. And I also know there's people in your life that you need to share this with. I'm thinking about my best friend from childhood, and her dad is going through cognitive decline. I'm sending this to her right now. There's somebody in your life that's caring for an aging parent that has a spouse that has been diagnosed or that's in the early stages of cognitive decline. This is such a life-changing resource. So please take a moment and send this to somebody that you care about, whether it's your parents, your aunt, who's not taking her health seriously, somebody that you care about at work, that's caregiving for somebody with memory issues.

48:18Mel Robbins:Even send it to the young people in your life and let them know it's never too early to start caring about your brain health. and what we're learning today is it truly matters. Alrighty, don't go anywhere. We have so much more to dig into when we return. Stay with me.

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52:05Mel Robbins:welcome back it's your friend mel robbins today you and i are here with neurologists dr aisha and dr dean shirzai talking everything memory dementia and brain health we're learning about exciting research and a framework that they recommend to their patients that can pause slow down, even reverse dementia. There is so much more I want to dig into, so let's just jump right back in. Well, I really appreciate your work because you have simplified the things that we need to focus on down to five things. Dr. Aisha, it's a word, neuro, N-E-U-R-O. Can you walk us through the five things that we should focus on.

52:49Mel Robbins:And if you're a caregiver, ladies, wake up like this is what we need to do to keep our brains healthy. Thank you for bringing that up, Mel. We kind of kept it simple for our patients and our community members to remember these five pillars because they make a huge difference. So N stands for nutrition. It's not about superfoods. It's about what kind of dietary pattern you choose, and I'd be happy to talk about it later. E is for exercise, moving. Movement is life. It's connected deeply to how we feel about ourselves and how our brain grows. U is for unwind, which is stress management, reducing bad stress, increasing your good stress.

53:29R stands for restorative sleep, which basically means the deep kind of restoring sleep that cleanses your brain and makes it ready to memorize and be creative. And O stands for optimizing cognitive activity, doing specific kind of activities, living a meaningful and a purposeful life, and engaging with your environment and your social life so that

53:55Mel Robbins:you can grow the brain. So doctors, you're saying all we have to do is focus on better nutrition, moving our bodies, unwinding, meaning just address some of the big stressors in your life, mindfulness, deeper rest, prioritizing sleep, and then optimizing some of the cognitive functioning in terms of just learning something or engaging in things that expand the way that you think. That's all we need to do to take better care of our brains? These are the core lifestyle measures that you can address. And yes, you can take care of your brain. This is how we can pause the onset of dementia? Let's put it this way.

54:35Take nutrition alone. If you eat a nutrition that's healthy and it's simple, it's not any, you don't have to buy anything from anybody. These are simple things from any grocery store. We work in Crenshaw. We work in Central LA. Things that you can find anywhere. The studies have shown, mine's a study, that just good nutrition reduces your chance of Alzheimer's by 53%. 53 %? Your brain is incredibly forgiving and resilient. And I mean that in a physiological sense, because this brain doesn't hold guilt or memories of blame or what did you do? It recognizes the thing that's in front of it. So if you put the right thing in front of it, it literally overnight changes.

55:18Mel Robbins:It's sort of like a plant. So you might have a sad plant in the corner, but if you give it a little sun and some water, it'll perk right up. Is that what you're saying? That's the perfect analogy. Now, Dr. Dean, before we go deeper into each one of these habits, because once you said 53%, like that was incredible just talking about nutrition. Can you share more about why each one of these five habits matter so much for your brain health? Absolutely, because they're cumulative. At the same time, you could do one or two of them and you would still benefit. But if you do several of them, and there's a study that actually shows this, when people did one or two of these habits, they reduced their chance of Alzheimer's by 30 % or so.

55:56When they did four of them, they actually reduced it by 60%.

56:00Mel Robbins:60 % reduction? Yes. By following these five simple habits? Correct. And it's powerful because it's cumulative. So if you do just walking, we're not talking about some kind of marathon running. Just daily walk. you've reduced your chance significantly. In fact, one Harvard study showed that if people walked, brisk walk, 25 minutes a day, just a brisk walk, 25 minutes a day, they reduced their chance of Alzheimer's by 40%. Wait, hold on a second. Yes, yes. I mean, that just sounds... It's honestly insane that you could reduce your risk of Alzheimer's by 40 % by taking a 25-minute brisk walk. How many days?

56:44Mel Robbins:Just every day? Five days a week. Well, and if you're listening to this podcast and walking right now, you're doing a twofer. You're not only learning, but you're also doing something that improves your brain health. You know what else is cool about that? It's free. It's free. You're right. Absolutely. And whenever we talk to our patients, we try to create this picture of you accumulating these coins or, you know, like creating a brain bank account. We actually have a model here that if you want to pull out the marbles. So basically have two jars in front of us. Okay, great. So we've got, so if you're listening, I want to tell you right now what's happening.

57:23Mel Robbins:There are two big mason jars and one of the jars is about half full of clear marbles. and the second jar only has like a little bit of marbles. So I'm just going to take a guess that the person on the right that has just a few marbles in there partied a lot, didn't get a lot of sleep, has had a lot of concussions and is caring for people. And so it feels like a lot of the connections between the neurons have been destroyed. No judgment, no judgment. No, no, never. Yes, the one on the left is about half full with marbles. This is somebody that's eating better and that kind of stuff. So the jar that has less marbles is someone who really didn't invest in their brain health too.

58:03So say, for example, they didn't take that dietary pattern seriously or they didn't take sleep seriously. So they really don't have a lot to lose over here. And say, for example, if they have one night of bad sleep, I'm going to start pouring the marble out of the jars. Now you have less, right? And then let's say, for example, another time they just decided to kind of just let go and just eat a lot of, you know, unhealthy food, junk food, and not really getting all the blueberries and good fats in there. And then we're going to lose some more, more of a care. And now your luck with very little.

58:43Now, the person who has actually invested in their brain and they've accumulated all of this positive energy and protection for their brain, let's say something bad happens to them. Even if they actually start having, say, for example, they've had a small little brain injury. They're going to lose a little bit of marble here. But guess what? They still have a lot there. Yeah. They're really not going to run out of that cumulative benefits for their brain health. So this is essentially a concept of cognitive reserve.

59:15Mel Robbins:Oh, I got it. So the more you focus on these five lifestyle changes that we're going to unpack for you, the more you're investing for the future so that if something happens, caregiving for a couple years, if something happens, you have a reserve of healthy deposits in your brain to get you through it. Now, does the opposite also work? You haven't been good. You're now listening to this or watching this, and you're like, uh-oh, because I know that this is an episode that so many of you are going to be sharing with your parents and your grandparents and your brothers and your sisters, and you may have received this in the family group text chain, and now you're listening thinking, oh my God, I'm screwed.

1:00:01Mel Robbins:What am I going to do? Does it work the opposite, meaning every night's sleep, you're now starting to deposit? Okay, Dr. Dean. That's a beautiful segue. The reality is, let's say you're 50 years old or 60 years old, and you have this little reserve. Yes. But now you start with nutrition, and you're eating a very healthy nutrition. You remember, 53%. We are talking significantly first. Now you're walking every morning and doing some leg exercise as well. We'll get to that. Now you have all of this. none of the marvels are coming out of the brain. That's good because it's spilling over. Good health.

1:00:42Now you're actually managing your stress. And then you're sleeping better. And now also you're challenging your brain. You're creating relationships. You're socially active. You're doing creative stuff. That's a full bang to come in your 60s.

1:01:00Mel Robbins:You know what else I loved about this is that we've all seen those videos online of grandmothers and grandfathers at the gym pumping weights to prove that if you start at any age, your muscles can respond. And what I love about this visual is that even if you're listening right now and you have not done a good job of taking care of yourself, you can start today and it will make a enormous difference in your brain health and how you feel. And more importantly, what you're saying is based on the research, we're going to go through each one of these five things that you want us to focus on, you can pause dementia.

1:01:40Mel Robbins:You can slow it down. You can protect yourself from getting it the earlier you start. Absolutely. It kind of ties back to that question you asked about why should people worry about their brain health in their 20s and 30s? This is why. Well, and I also love this because there's so much noise out there about longevity and people injecting themselves in this thing and that thing and the other thing and like all this crazy weird stuff. And you're just saying, hey, there are five things that based on all of the research, based on all of your expertise, this makes a significant difference. One of the things that I think is super cool about you is that during your neurology training at Columbia University, you became a professionally trained chef.

1:02:26I did.

1:02:27Mel Robbins:Why? Because I spent a lot of time in my clinic talking to my patients about nutrition And I felt so disempowering to kind of just pat them on the back and say, eat healthy. What does that even mean? Eat healthy. It means different things for different people. Or, you know, I always took pride in being very evidence-based and I would bring up mine diet or Mediterranean diet. But what does Mediterranean diet mean for someone who lives in Crenshaw, Los Angeles, California? And so I thought, no, I think I need to know this better because at the end of the day, it's you in your kitchen. It's you in front of your fridge making decisions about what to put in your body.

1:03:04And if I'm not specific and if I'm not empowering, I'm not doing anything. So I'd be in the ICU in the mornings at Columbia Presbyterian. And then, you know, right after work at 7 p.m., in my scrubs, I would run down to, you know, the cooking school in New York City. And I got my degree in two years. And I've been teaching my patients and my communities how to cook.

1:03:24Mel Robbins:So let's put us right at that spot that we all plan what we're eating, which is standing in front of the fridge with the doors open or standing in front of the cupboard with the door open. What do you want us to have in our fridge or our cupboards in terms of the options and what we should focus on for better brain health? So when you look at the different studies that have been done that show what kind of foods matter for brain health, it's not one or two foods that stand out. It's not a superfood of the day because we all hear that in infomercials and people stock up on specific foods. It's the kind of dietary pattern that you have, the different types of food that you eat.

1:04:09And whether it's the MINE diet or Mediterranean diet or all these dietary patterns that have been studied extensively, it's a variation of the same seed. They're mostly plants. So you have your greens, leafy green vegetables. You have your cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower. You have nuts like walnuts and almonds. You have seeds like flaxseeds and chia seed. You have lagoon, which are phenomenal, beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh. Then you have coffee and tea that are so potent in their anti-inflammatory compounds. You have spices that give flavor and have anti-inflammatory effect.

1:04:45All of this, if it's in your bowl, if it's just soup, or if it's a sandwich, they're great. And like we were saying, studies have shown that people who eat a healthy dietary pattern, my diet, they reduce their risk of Alzheimer's due by 53%. But even if you actually take some foods that stand out, like for example, Studies have shown that people who add one serving of leafy green vegetables, like spinach or kale or collard greens to their diet, right? It could be raw, cooked, frozen, whatever. If they ate that on a regular basis, they had a brain that was 11 years younger.

1:05:19Mel Robbins:What? What? Yeah. Just one lame spinach or kale or collard green salad? Just open the bag, fistful of spinach, put it in your soup, or just toss some olive oil and some lemon on it and just eat it. And your brain looks 11 years younger. It looks good on neuroimaging and it functions better as well. How wonderful is that? Just greens. Even if somebody is listening to this podcast and the only thing that they take out of this episode is just eating leafy green vegetables, I've done my job. I think that's extraordinary. It really is extraordinary. And then you add other things on top of it. Like, for example, if you eat beans on a regular basis, they have so much fiber, they have complex carbohydrates.

1:06:03Everybody's scared of carbs, but complex carbohydrates are important for you. Your brain runs on glucose and if you give it the right kind of carbohydrate, it functions beautifully. So when you eat lentils and beans, they provide protein, they provide complex carbohydrates. It's good for your brain. It's good for your gut. It actually manages your insulin levels, your glucose levels. Because at the end of the day, there are four things that start impacting your brain health when it comes to nutrition. Inflammation, oxidation, glucose or sugar, dysregulation, like prediabetes and diabetes, and then lipid dysregulation or fat dysregulation, which means bad cholesterol, too high LDL.

1:06:44All of this kind of starts damaging the brain. And what you eat impacts all four of these things. So I would love for the person who's listening to make sure they're having some green leafy vegetables, to make sure that they're having some nuts or seeds. Maybe they can put it in a jar on their counter, add some walnuts to your oats for them to eat whole grains like oats, brown rice, let's say quinoa. for them to actually have some anti-inflammatories in the form of blueberries and strawberries and raspberries, because these are gluten compounds that cross the blood-brain barrier, and they actually fix the inflammatory changes and the oxidative damage in the brain for them to drink some coffee if they can handle it or some mean tea.

1:07:24And, you know, I know it sounds cliche, but when they say eat the rainbow, there's something to it. These colored compounds, the fruits and vegetables that you eat, They really provide the right kind of environment for your brain to grow and thrive.

1:07:37Mel Robbins:I also love that kind of cliche thing, but it's really true to just shop the perimeter of the grocery store because that's where the vegetables and the meats and the fish and all the good stuff are. So, Dr. Dean, let's move on to exercise because you have said, well, both of you have said that your legs protect your memory. I don't want to compare exercise to any other of the neurofactors, but we're beginning to believe that exercise is central. You have to move. You have to create a life of movement. Because when you move, both aerobic and anaerobic, both exercises that make you tired and exercises that strengthen your muscles, both are now found to be critically important.

1:08:20When you move, believe it or not, it's the number one factor that affects your emotions. whether it's anxiety depression it's it's incredibly potent i'm not saying as a replacement for medications but as a powerful adjunct it's incredibly important but on the brain itself when you move it creates a chemical such as bdnf gdnf and vjet these are growth factors that grow the vasculature that grow the connections between neurons they're incredibly powerful when you move It's the biggest pump in your body. It's not your heart. It's your legs. Legs push the blood to the brain. So they've done studies that people who moved regularly had better blood flow to the brain.

1:09:03When you move, it actually helps with the cleansing of the brain later on because your lymphatic system, which is the cleansing mechanism, works better. The list goes on and on and on. I don't care if you're going to be... Nowadays, it's popular to say zone one and zone this or that. Forget about that. Do a brisk walk. The zone stuff is for people to sell their programs. Eat salad, greens, and walk a brisk walk 20 to 25 minutes a day. That's nothing extraordinary, but it's extraordinary as far as what it does for your brain. Now, the strength exercises are even more powerful, especially leg exercises.

1:09:45When I was younger, even when you and I worked out, I said, don't skip leg day. I hated leg days. But leg days are important. Let's start from the other end of the life spectrum. When you're older, the number one reason that people end up in an emergency room is falls. In fact, we lost our healthy, incredibly healthy grandma, Aisha's mom, just recently within the last month because of a fall. We lost my mom originally because of a fall and injury. And then COVID was a subsequent factor. But falls are incredibly common. Guess what stops falls? Legs span. Now let's get a little closer at a younger age.

1:10:24Leg strength builds brain volume. What does that mean? It grows your brain. So there's a study, there's a twin study, and there's no better studies than twins because genetically they're identical. So it's not genetics. Right. Often even environmentally they're the same, right? Often. They did studies in MCI patients, mild cognitive repair pre-dementia, seeing there's a control group, one sibling, did leg strength. The other one did stretching. Not that stretching is bad, but compared to leg strength, they looked at the percentage of MCIs that went on to develop dementia. Those that did leg strengthening exercises reduced their chance of Alzheimer's by 47%.

1:11:07Actually, 47 % leg strength.

1:11:10Mel Robbins:Hold on. I just want to make sure that as you're watching or listening, that you really got what Dr. Dean just said to you. So, so far, and this makes sense, that your legs are critically important because they're an even bigger pump of blood than your heart. And when you have good leg strength, when you go for a walk, 25-minute, brisk walk five days a week, you reduce your risk for Alzheimer's by how much? So the siblings who exercised and had stronger legs, 47 % of them actually had normal memory testing after that period. And it wasn't even extensive. It was just a six-month study, and they exercised for about 30 to 45 minutes.

1:11:56And they were doing things like resistance training, leg press, lunges, and squats. How many days a week do I have to do this?

1:12:04Mel Robbins:Three or four times a week. That's it? Yeah. Like, why wouldn't you do this if you knew that you decreased your risk for Alzheimer's significantly. And if you have any type of mild cognitive impairment, the study is showing that you might actually reverse it. Yeah. Well, then that's what I'm saying. Like as a whisper, I'm like, really? Yes. The speakers in our hands just yelling at the top of our lungs to say this is such a wonderful way of taking care of your... And even if you're 80, even if you're 90. Yes. you don't have to do leg presses with weights on your shoulder. I tell people do mini squats.

1:12:42You're watching your favorite show. Make that your leg day. Stand up. Your couch is behind you. Don't go all the way 90 degrees. Go 60 degrees and do a few of those. Write it down. Anything you find following on your couch. But you've started. You've started in a place, not a gym, where you have to get all dressed up. In your own home, in front of your favorite show, you just did 10 squats. Or if you're waiting for your microwave, If you're warming something up, instead of just like standing there, just hold on to something and do some mini squats for 60 seconds and you'll see the back fits.

1:13:16Mel Robbins:It's as simple as this is incredible. Dr. Dean, let's move on to the third one. We've done nutrition. We've done exercise. The next one is unwind and it's about the intentional effort to de-stress. Correct. There's a reason why you is in the middle of neuro. As I said earlier, stress management is central. But here's the thing. There's good stress and bad stress. And good stress is critical. There's a reason that you have 86 billion neurons and a quadrillion connections. If it was reproduction and getting food, you would stop as a bacteria. They do a great job. They get food and they reproduce.

1:13:56It's for more than that. That drain demands good stress. It needs to be challenging. In fact, studies have shown that people who are very mentally active and then they retired and then for the next two years they didn't do anything, guess what? The steepest decline then.

1:14:12Mel Robbins:But we've seen it. Like you've probably seen your parents retire or somebody in your family retire and they were active and alive and interested and engaged. And then two years later, it's like, who are you? Yes. But the ones that maintain the level, the same level of activity, but maybe around things that they always wanted to, they maintain the cognitive capacity. So about, though, the unwind, why is it important to really take minimizing the bad stress, the constant pressure, the negative self-talk, the endless perfectionism and the to-do list, the things that we do that we may be able to dial down?

1:14:51Mel Robbins:Why is unwinding that stress really important and how do we do it for brain health? Because stress used to be a one-time thing or less frequent, right? Tiger was after you. Right. You either died or stressed. Right. Or both. And then now in the modern world, every single system in your body is affected because when you're under stress, your body is telling you, I don't have enough energy to spend on this, this, and this. These are luxury states. My entire focus is going to be on survival. Yes. And everything shuts out. That's why people in chronic stress have higher degrees of cancers. Immune system is lower, right?

1:15:30So that's why it's critical to address stress centrally.

1:15:35Mel Robbins:And how do you recommend when it comes to brain health, Dr. Dean? What is one important thing that somebody should really start to think about or to do in their life for better brain health when it comes to stress? Very, very non-neurological way. Make lists. Okay. Identify bad stressors in your life. meaning activities, behaviors, and thoughts that are not driven by your purpose, that are external to your purpose, that don't have good timelines, that are just taking over your life and you have no control over them. Literally write them down specifically. The other side of the paper, write the good stressors.

1:16:12The activities that you would want to do or you're doing that have meaning for you, that have purpose, that are well-defined, that have clear timelines of victory, write those down specifically. And your life purpose should be reducing, eliminating, and delegating the negative stress, increasing, empowering, and tooling, and strategizing towards good stress.

1:16:33Mel Robbins:But I love the fact that you're talking about lists because you're right. We do tend to manage it all in our minds. And we began this conversation by you saying that we are living in a moment in time when there's so much bombarding you that your speed of retrieval for what matters is slowing down because you have to wade through all this junk that the world is throwing at your brain. And so making the list forces you to get on paper what's actually going on in your life. If you really get intentional around dialing down the stress, what are the implications for slowing down dementia or growing a better brain?

1:17:13Mel Robbins:Like what happens? At purpose. Good stress is activities, behaviors, and thoughts that are driven by your purpose. Let's just take that one component. Studies have shown that people that were purpose-driven have significant better brain health. I want to make sure that I demystify the word purpose. In my case, purpose is neurologic. Purpose has direction. Purpose is a well-defined thing that I'm going towards. When a life has got that kind of vector, that kind of direction, that kind of power pulling it, and you've organized it well, it is the ultimate in good stress. And it makes sense because, you know, if you think about when you get in a rut in your life, where you're just in a period where everything is work, where everything is taking care of other people, and then you start slipping into these habits where you're wasting hours every day on social media and just doing dumb things that actually kind of stress you out and make you depressed, you start to tell yourself, well, I don't have time to volunteer at hospice.

1:18:11Mel Robbins:I don't have time to go to church or synagogue or mosque this weekend. I don't have time to work in the community garden. And the list and getting everything going on in your life and crossing off some stressors also opens up space for you to find a Thursday night to go back to book club. And I kind of think about this like, do you have something you're looking forward to every week? And that direction is really important, you're saying, for your brain health. Yes. Dr. Aisha, let's talk about our rest. How can the person listening improve the quality of their sleep? It's so important. And I feel like a hypocrite right now talking to you about restorative sleep because I flew in from Los Angeles last night and I haven't had a good night's sleep, but I'm caffeinated.

1:18:58Sleep is something we don't talk about enough. And it's always an afterthought, isn't it? It's like, oh, I'll sleep later. It's as if you're taking away time from such a precious thing and you're being selfish to go to sleep. But sleep is a time when your brain actually does its most important task. Two things happen when we sleep. The first thing that happens is you actually start cleansing your brain. There's a very elegant system that gets activated when we go to the deeper stages of sleep. It's called the glymphatic system. And it is made of a type of a fluid that literally washes your brain and gets rid of the debris.

1:19:36and there are very specialized cells. There are these tiny cells called microglia. These are the janitor cells of your brain. They get activated. You know how when you're in a building and during the day there's business and people come and go, there's a pile of trash that accumulates in the trash cans. This janitorial system, you know, comes into the building and then it cleans up. So when you come back the next day, everything is spotless and clean and it smells great. That's exactly what happens when we go to sleep. Your brain gets rid of all of this debris, the amyloid beta protein that has been associated with Alzheimer's disease, the tau tangles, and so many other things.

1:20:12They get washed away. The second thing that happens is your memories get organized from short-term to long-term memory. You know how during the day when you come up with ideas, you write them, you scribble them. You were scribbling on some papers in the corners, and you probably have some post-it notes in your computer in your office. When we go to sleep, all of this information gets beautifully written into a nice Word document. It goes into the right file and then the folder and then the cabinet. I'm giving examples. So you know where it is the next day. You're not like thinking about like, oh, what was that thought that I had?

1:20:46Where did I put it? Oh, it's neatly in the right file, folder, cabinet. I can retrieve that. That's what happens in our brain. The defragging system of the brain actually gets activated during deeper stages. So when we don't sleep, when we don't get at least seven to eight hours of deep sleep. When we don't hit those deeper stages of sleep where this process gets activated, when we keep waking up over and over again because we have to go to the bathroom or if we have sleep apnea or if we have restless leg syndrome or if we are worrying constantly and we keep waking up because all of these bipodics, these bipodics, they accumulate in the brain.

1:21:27And over a long period of time, they've seen that people who have major sleep, disorders, chronic disorders, they are at a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

1:21:38Mel Robbins:Well, it makes perfect sense. And it also ties back to what you were talking about earlier about the speed of recovery, that if you're not getting a deep, restful night's sleep and you can't go through that phase where the brain cleans out the garbage, you're having to sift through it all day long. And you also aren't filing away anything that happened in the long-term memory. Is there any recommendation that you have for your patients in terms of like just one thing that you could do starting tonight that might help you get a better night's sleep? There's so many things that you hear on the internet about sleep.

1:22:14One thing that is extremely helpful and it has been validated by sleep specialists and scientists is choosing to wake up the same day every day. Just set a time to wake up the same time every single day. Why? Because say, for example, if you decide to wake up at seven in the morning or six in the morning, even if you haven't had enough sleep the night before that, you're going to slowly and gradually fix that. Your body will need to sleep more. And so you don't have to assign a time to go to bed. Just wake up at the same time. There's so many other things as well. And it's dependent on the person as well.

1:22:50So for example, going for a walk first thing in the morning, it resets your circadian rhythm. It It actually exposes you to sunlight. It gets you to exercise a little bit more. So you kind of get tired during the day to go to sleep. And then there's some environmental factors as well. Making sure that your room is dark, making sure that your bedroom is only for sex and sleep and it's not living room or a dining room or a social gathering place, that it's cool, that it's not noisy. All of these environmental factors make us. And then for stress management, that in itself is a huge topic. but cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia works really well.

1:23:27This is something that people can get help from with a psychologist or a sleep specialist, and it kind of helps you shut down that noise that is associated with stress.

1:23:36Mel Robbins:What I love about the walk first thing in the morning in terms of resetting your circadian rhythm is it's a twofer. See, I like to bundle things. If you do a 25-minute brisk walk first thing, we reset the circadian rhythm and we reduce our risk by 45 % for Alzheimer's based on the research. See, I'm listening. You got it. Let's talk about the final recommendation of the five things in neuro, and that is O, optimize. Optimize is good stress, and it is critical. Your brain wants to be charged. Your brain wants to be creative. The ultimate byproduct, the ultimate purpose and direction of brain is creativity.

1:24:14Creativity is central, and creativity means pushing the brain to do new things. And study after study shows that people who kept their brain active late in life actually grew their brain. There are some really cool studies, two studies. One is the nun study. The nun study is that several hundred nuns dedicated their body, their brain, their tissue, their blood cells, and their diaries to science. And after they passed away, their brains were autopsied and analyzed. And they saw that some of the nuns, they all did pretty much the same thing. Some of the nuns, despite having significant pathology, lots of shrinkage, lots of little amyloid and tau, as well as a little microvasculature, they were normal during life.

1:24:59Another group that had very minimal pathology, had pretty full brain, and they had Alzheimer's right before that. And it wasn't genetics. So what's going on? Why is this group that has so much pathology yet normal, this group that has minimal pathology and already succumb to Alzheimer's. After doing much of their work as far genetics and study and blood tests and everything else, they looked at their diaries. The group that had significant pathology yet was protected, their diaries demonstrated incredibly complex language. They had greater vocabulary. What does that tell you? Idea density, that means they challenged their brain.

1:25:38They learned more. They pushed themselves to study more, to learn more, to have more vocabulary. Idea density is a lovely, lovely concept. I said, I'm a terrible guitarist, but if I ever have a band, I'm going to call it idea density, which is going to be even worse. But nonetheless, it's an incredible concept. The group that succumbed in spite of normal had much less sophisticated vocabulary, had challenged their brain much less.

1:26:01Mel Robbins:So what are the top recommendations of things that you can do to challenge your brain? Because I'm sitting here thinking about some of the people in my life who are like always doing Sudoku or the crossword puzzle or passing word? Like, are we doing word games? Are we reading? Are we learning new skills? Are we learning languages? Like, what is the biggest bang for the buck in terms of keeping your mind active and optimizing the brain's natural desire to create, to grow, to learn? E, all of that ball. But reality is, the more complex, the better. We did a meta-analysis. We write papers. We did a meta-analysis a couple of years ago, looking everybody else's papers who gave it to us, and we've looked at the bigger data.

1:26:42And we saw that three things matter. Complexity, purpose, and challenge. And what does that mean? Activities that have a purpose for you and have complexity, meaning multi-domains, and you're pushing yourself are by far the best. Does that mean we could be doing a puzzle as a family? Those are great, but learning a musical instrument. So when you're learning guitar, you're reading the notes, that's your language centers. You're processing it. It's your frontal lobe. You're visually processing it. Your occipital lobe. You're actually being creative. It's your parietal lobe. You're emotionally involved.

1:27:17If they're listening to me, it's bad negative emotion, but for me, it's good emotions. You're emotionally involved. It's your limbic system. And your dexterous, it's your motor cortex. It's the entire brain being active at the same time. And that's complexity. It's purpose because I love the music. And what you do is, If for a couple of weeks you learned a Beatles song that has four chords, next week do five chords. That's pushing yourself forward. If you're learning dancing, if it's a three-step dance, next week do five-step dance. So real-life activities are much more meaningful because they serve your purpose.

1:27:53Mel Robbins:Wow. Anything else that counts? Reading books, book clubs, staying active? Because I know people are going to be like, well, how do I engage my brain? I'm 70. I'm 80. I'm this. I'm the other thing. All of those. All of those have complexity in them, right? Right. But if you're reading, read, recite, and rewrite. That gives another level of complexity. So you just read a book, not a whole book, but a chapter. Now think about it, process it, rethink it, and rewrite it. That brings the entire brain into effect. If you're a book club, it's amazing because now you're social. Yes. So it's the social interaction, the conversation, the thinking, the processing.

1:28:30There's an incredible thing about dual tasks. So example, if you're on a treadmill, people that exercise on a treadmill and then they listen to a Mel Robbins podcast, which everybody should do, they actually did significantly better than just exercise alone.

1:28:46Mel Robbins:So you get a twofer if you're walking on a treadmill and you're listening to a podcast because you're expanding your mind and it makes you think about new things and you're moving your legs, which we now know your legs pump all this blood to your brain. And it's one of the most important things you can be doing. When you're exercising, not only is more blood going to the brain, BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factory that grows the brain, is also being pumped at a time that you're learning something. So it's more than two for it. Yeah, so it's critical that we do these kind of things. Basically, anything you're doing it, doing it a little more complex, if you're going to do it in a social setting even better, that's your brain-growing activity.

1:29:24Mel Robbins:Well, the thing that I'm so excited about is that it's never too early. It's never too late. I love that your brain isn't judging you. Your brain is like a plant wilting in the corner. It needs some water. It needs some sunlight. It needs proper nutrition, exercise. It needs you to manage your stress a little better, get a good night's sleep, and to be engaging it in ways that you can learn and create. And those things alone significantly improve your brain health. It pauses dementia. It can slow it down if you're already there. These are things, the people that you love and that you can start doing right now.

1:30:06Mel Robbins:I have learned so much from the two of you. It is so cool what you're doing. Dr. Dean, Dr. Aisha, what are your parting words? 20 years from now, you're not going to remember this conversation, but your brain is going to remember the changes that you're going to make today and tomorrow. And that's what matters. It could be a walk. It could be joining a book club. It could be joining your children or your grandchildren to play games once or twice a week. Those things will determine how you are going to be you in this beautiful story of your life. And your 75, 85, 95, 105-year-old will thank you.

1:30:48Beautiful. I don't know if I can top that.

1:30:52Mel Robbins:You'll contribute to it. Yes, exactly. A cathedral was not built right away. It was one brick at a time. People forget that because they think it's not enough. It is enough. When you're standing in front of TV during your favorite show and at the beginning, just standing and making small steps in place, that is profoundly powerful for multiple reasons. One is your reward system, which is built on dopamine, is both reward and movement. There's a reason why dopamine affects both of those. Now you've created the foundation, the first brick that everything else can be built on. That's as powerful as the entire building.

1:31:33You've just started. Just do that every day. If you just add one serving of greens a day, that's not a brick. That's a wall. That's a wall. Wall of a fort. Now you see that the cathedral, these are cathedrals you're building with small, simple, incredible bricks of daily activity that will change your life, your family's life. When they talk about genetics, it's not genetics. It's shared the habits. You've just changed your children's habits and your parents' habits. You've just built cathedrals in your communities. That's our purpose in life.

1:32:10Mel Robbins:Well, Dr. Dean, Dr. Aisha, ladies and gentlemen, the sure's eyes are here. It is a real privilege in life to be in the presence of someone's genius. And it's so moving to see your passion and the gift that you have for boiling all of this down in both a simple way and in an urgent way. I believe you when you say that there are small things we can start doing and our loved ones can start doing right now that will forever change your brain health. and you have taught me so much today. I'm sharing this not only with my family group chat with Chris and the three adult kids, but the larger ones with cousins and aunts and uncles because everybody deserves this information and research and these simple recommendations and the reasons why they matter so much.

1:33:13Mel Robbins:It's literally your life and you've just put the power back in our hands to improve it. So thank you, thank you, thank you for the work that you're doing and thank you for flying all the way here and spending this time with us to help us improve our lives. And I want to thank you. Thank you for making the time to listen to something that 1000 % is going to improve your life and the life of absolutely everybody that you love that you share this with. I am convinced that the way that you take care of your brain is going to determine how you feel in your life. I learned so much. I know you did too.

1:33:48Mel Robbins:I want to thank you for listening and watching all the way to the end. I also want to thank you for sharing this generously because we all deserve to have access to this information and the reasons why the things that these amazing doctors are recommending are going to work. And in case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And paying attention to and taking your brain health seriously, there is no doubt based on the research and everything you learned today, that that is the way you create a better life.

1:34:19Mel Robbins:Alrighty, I will see you in the very next episode. I'm going to welcome you in the moment you hit play.

1:34:28Mel Robbins:That will either slow down, pause, or even reverse brain... That will either slow down, pause, and even reverse brain decline. What you're about to... Hold on a second. Do we want to do the... And everything that the two medical experts that you're going to meet are going to recommend. They have spent decades studying neurodegenerative disease. Oh, my God. Dear God. Okay, here we go. They are also a married couple who have trained and worked at some of the most prestigious agate... Prestigious, okay. I'm so grateful that you're here. I'm also grateful for our sponsors. So I want to take a pause so we can give our chance.

1:35:09Mel Robbins:exciting new research and a protocol that can help you slow down, pause, and even reverse brain decline. Even reverse brain decline. Well done, you two.

1:35:26Mel Robbins:Wow.

1:35:30Mel Robbins:Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write, and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Sirius XM Podcasts.

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