#2047 Brain Literacy - Harps (PT1)

let me know. So these work, These episodes are a fair bit more work, which I'm happy to do, but it'd be great to hear whether or not you vibe with these kind of more We're not going to do them all the times that I'm panic, but a little bit more academic, a little bit more educational, a little bit more teaching than coaching, and a little bit more kind of downloading information and nulle than it is specifically

inspirational motivation. So today I'm going to do a deep dive into the single most powerful, confusing, brilliant, and occasionally uncooperative piece of tech that you own or I own, and that is our brain. Your brain, my brain. So I guess before we dive in I should unpack the title, which is brain literacy. So what does that mean? Thanks for asking? So it's it's what is it? It's basically

the you understanding how your brain works. It's you understanding what it does, how it works, how you and it can relate because it's not you and you're not it, but you're kind of intertwained. So understanding it not in a medical or necessarily necessarily an anatomical or academic or a physiological sense, but in a way that helps you think and live and choose and feel and behave better. So it means knowing the fundamentals, like that your brain

is a prediction machine, not a reality machine. That most of your reactions are automatic, not in the moment, not intentional. They almost happen, like a lot of our reactions happen almost despite us, not because of us. If that makes sense. That stress changes what's happening in your brain. That habits are wiring neurological wiring, not will power. That thoughts aren't facts, just thoughts, constructs, just stories. Sometimes the story turns out

to be true. So I guess something can be a thought or an idea or a belief and also a fact. But in general terms, just because we think something doesn't mean it's true. I guess it's also understanding your brain is allso so knowing that you can train it, and you can calm it, and you can consciously manipulate what your brain is doing and how it works, you can rewire it over time, and also understanding that your your brain's job is not happiness, it's survival. It's protecting you,

it's safety. And it's also knowing that self awareness, understanding you, the understanding of the self that's in the middle of your life. I know that's a bit philosophical, but that changes behavior. You understanding how you work, you understanding your responses, and you starting to open the door on understanding your mind and brain. We maybe will dissect and separate those later. That's more important than motivation from a creating behavior, a

change and real world change on planet you. So brain literacy isn't it's not neuroscience trivia. It's about you understanding the mechanics behind your thoughts and emotions and behaviors so that you can work with your brain instead of being confused and frustrated and controlled by it. So I guess in simple terms, it's knowing brain literacy is knowing how your brain functions well enough to improve how you function.

And I guess it's important that we all have a basic understanding of how our brain works, because like, it's the author of your story, it's running the show, it's running Planet you, it's the operating headquarters on planet you.

So because every thought that you and I have, every feeling that we feel, every decision that we make, every habit that you and I repeat, and every relationship that we navigate is filtered through this kind of one point three kilo if you're in America, three pound, give or take this lump, this prediction machine, this lump of meat

that sits between our ears. And when we understand how it works, the wiring, the shortcuts, the biases, the alarms, the habits, the patterns, we stop taking everything personally and start seeing it mechanically. Yeah, a bit more objective, a bit less subjective. We stop blaming ourselves for being weak and broken and start recognizing old wiring survival responses and that long established not always good for us, often destructive

automatic programming. And once we get it, once we understand it, like we can't develop, we can't work with we can't solve, we can't mitigate the thing that we don't understand. So once were understand or begin to understand our brain, we can begin to work with it, not fight it. We can calm it, we can we can work at training it, rewiring it, and ultimately steer our life with far more clarity I guess, and control and confidence and self awareness.

So for me, learning about the brain, you learning about the brain, Understanding how our brain works, brain literacy. It's not just interesting, it's really really important, and it's also kind of life changing. It's liberating. So our brain runs, our body, shapes our personality, creates our reality, stores memories, controls emotions, forms habits, and makes about ninety five I don't know what the exact number is, but over ninety they say about ninety five percent of our decisions before

we're even where we've made them. So much of what we do and how we do it is not even really conscious. It's almost just this as I always talk about, it's this autopilotness, this groundhog day, where we just we don't even really choose consciously, we just respond automatically. And most of us have never really been taught about how this stuff works, and honestly, I'm still solving this problem. I'm still learning this thing. And part of the reason I want to do some of these sessions with you

is because I'm learning as I'm teaching. I'm consolidating and clarifying information as I go with you. So we're really, I mean, this is introduction to your brain, one oh one, this is the fundamentals. You're not going to come out the other side of neuroscientists. Neither am I. But we're

just stripping it back. So no jargon, no neuroscience flexing, just clear, relatable, Oh that makes sense, explanations of why your brain does what it does, and more importantly, how you can work with it consciously rather than being dragged

around by it by your old wiring unconsciously. So we're going to explore why your brain sometimes works against you, how much of your thinking is automatic, why you repeat patterns, why what stress does to your operating system, and how your brain can struct your reality and whether or not we can truly rewire it. So for the purpose of this episode, I've decided to explore ten what I think

are important, powerful, fascinating brain related questions. So keep in mind that you're going to forget most of what I share a So this for some of you might be something that you come back and revisit. You might want to listen through. You might not want to listen, or you might go fuck your educational series, Craig, stick it

up your clacker, not interested. But for some of you, I know some of you want to understand yourself and understanding yourself, understanding your mind, understanding your actions and reactions, your biases, your default setting, why you do the way you do, why you do life the way you do. A big part of that is trying to understand your own brain. So this might be something that you revisit. Maybe you come back and take notes and do a deeper dive on some of the ideas and concepts that

I present here. So question one of my I think I've got ten is what is the role of my brain? So the role of our brain is to run the human system, you and me. That's to unplanet you. It's in charge. So it's the control center that keeps you alive, it helps you navigate the world, and it creates the experience that we call us or you call you, I call me. At the basic level, the brain regulates the essentials heartbeat, breathing, temperature, hunger, hormones, and unity, movement and

survival responses. It's constantly scanning our external and internal environments, predicting what's happening, what might happen, what we think is going to happen, and adjusting everything physiologically, psychologically, emotionally, adjusting everything according to what we think is happening or will happen.

But it also does not just in that moment, in the moment kind of predictive intuitive survival stuff that it does the high level stuff thinking, planning, learning, remembering, imagining, problem solving, creating meaning. It builds stories, expectations and interpretations. It decides what matters or it predicts what's dangerous, what's possible, and who you think you are identity. So, in short, the brain's role is to manage the body, interpret the world,

and create your reality. They're probably very key things. It's both the hardware and the software, the engine that keeps you alive and the storyteller that shapes your life. But question two is somewhat philosophical, but it's a really good and powerful question and relevant, and that is can I manage my brain or does it manage me, And the answer is you're probably going to guess what I'm going

to say. The answer is both. So your brain is the automatic pilot, and you're the pilot in training, learning how to take the controls. On the one hand, your brain absolutely manages you. It fires before you think, It predicts stuff before you're aware, it reacts before you've even got the full picture or the context. And it keeps you alive using systems that you can't consciously access. Heartbeat, fear, responses, habits,

all these things that happen autonomically. Impulses, cravings, hormones, endocrime system, nervous system, stress, chemistry. So that's the brain in action. But you also you also have the capacity to manage the manager. So every time you pause instead of react, every time you question a thoughts instead of believing it, choose the uncomfortable but useful option or practice the new behavior,

that's you taking the controls back from the autopilot. So you can't stop the brain from running its programs, but you can rewire them. You can train your attention, regulate your reactions, rewire your habits. Not quickly, by the way, it takes a while. Update beliefs, change beliefs, challenge beliefs, choose better behaviors. Calm your nervous system again takes a while, takes training, takes patience, takes courage, and you can build a smarter what would we call it, internal operating system.

So the brain manages you by defaults. You manage the brain by intention, and that's the work. That's the work. Is you learning to manage your brain. You learning to be the operator of this thing that's just happening all the time anyway. So I'll say that again, the brain manages you by default. You manage the brain by intention, and that's the work, that's the opportunity, that's that's the upgrade. So question three, how do I keep my brain healthy?

This is the thing that really fascinates me. And I'm you know, when we know, like we all kind of instinctively and inherently know that the brain is the epicenter of us from a physiological and day to day living and functioning point of view. Some people might argue the soul is the epicenter, but I'm not speaking spiritually or philosophically. I'm speaking scientifically and physiologically here. So I'm surprised that

we don't care about our brain. We might say we care, but we don't seem to practically behaviorally show that we care about our brain as much as we should. You know, just look at people shoving drugs into their body, fucks up their brain, people under sleeping. I know, there's a few variables around it, fucks up your brain. People eating bad shit fucks up your brain. Drinking too much booze fuckx up your brain, or at the very least impact

your brain negatively. All of these things, and there's a few others that we can't always easily control, like stress and anxiety has a detrial effect on brain chemistry, neurochemistry, and cognitive function. Right, So keeping our brain healthy it should be something we think about. So it's not complicated, but it needs to be consistent. So think of it

like compound interests. So it's the small things that you do every day, the habits that you build to create a calmer, smarter, more resilient brain or system over time. So in this whole question of or process or challenge of keeping our brain healthy, and this is all research based, you know this, so and no surprise for me to say this. The first big piece is movement. So exercise is as close as we can get to a miracle drug for the brain. I spoke about this with doctor

Bill yesterday or the day before. It boosts blood flow, supports learning and memory, sharpens focus, improves mood, and dramatically reduces the risk of cognitive decline. So the next not surprising, non negotiable, or super important factor is sleep quality. Sleep is like when we're sleeping. It's when the brain basically repairs itself, clears waste, consolidates memories, and resets our emotional system kind of like just hits the replenish button. So yeah,

we need sleeper is super crucial. I know that that's not, you know, a revelation, but it kind of. It's very very protective and restorative for the brain. And then there's fuel or food. So your brain is sixty percent fat, incredibly metabolically active. In other words, it uses a lot of calories. A little known fact is that it uses Your brain uses about twenty percent of your daily calorie intake. So let's say you had two thousand calories in a day.

That little motherfucker in your skull uses twenty percent of two thousand calories is four hundred calories, so four hundred of your two thousand calories, So it uses about twenty percent of calories, so four hundred of those two thousand in this theoretical example would go just for brain fuel. So, like I said, your brain sixty percent fat. It's incredibly metabolically active, and it relies heavily on great nutrition. If it doesn't get great nutrition, even if it gets the calories,

it can't work as well. So AMEGA three is antioxidants, polyphenols, whole foods, And of course your brain is largely water also, so it needs to be hydrated, so well fed, well hydrated to keep it working well and ultraprocessed crap, albeit still lots of calories. But it's kind of like putting really shitty fuel in your car. When your car needs ninety eight octane and you're putting ninety one octane or eighty one octane, it'll kind of go, but it's certainly

not going to run. So you're putting something in it, but you're not putting in the optimal fuel for that particular system. And it's the same with your brain. Also, we know stress is a factor in terms of brain function. Brain health. So managing stress is ruual. And again, this is a multi dimensional thing, isn't it me saying manager stress? That doesn't help I understand that because there's no solution in that, but just highlighting the fact that stress is

an issue. Stress itself isn't the problem as in a one off, but it's the unrelenting, constant, unmanaged stress, constant anxiety, constant overthinking, constant all those physiological symptoms that are attached to that overthinking that's what does the damage and the inflammation, that's what does the damage to the brain over time. So you know, slow breathing, movement, recovery, rituals, healthy boundaries, any kind of meditative practice, whatever meditation looks like for you.

For me, and we spoke about this the other day, for me, meditation has been on a motorbike. So the thing that would excite a lot of people's nervous system or switch on there, you know, their sympathetic nervous system through the roof, For me, it actually makes me calm, It actually gives me joy, It actually weirdly relaxes me. And in terms of keeping your brain working, well, don't forget learning so constantly training our brain just like we train our biceps and our quads and our back and

all our bits and pieces. Our brain loves to be stimulated. It loves to learn. Might you might not necessarily love it, but your brain stays young by forming new neural pathways. And that happens when we expose ourselves to new ideas, new lessons, new information. So our brain, like our biceps and triceps and quads, our brain needs to be stimulated.

There needs to be some what would the analogy be, almost like progressive overload to keep it adapting, to keep it creating those new neural pathways, to keep it healthy. So read stuff, practice stuff, ask questions, solve problem, explore new things, have new conversations with new people, expose yourself to different ideas, stay curious. We're nearly there. Also we know from keeping your brain healthy point of view, human connection matters a lot, and it matters more than people think. Like.

Good relationships are literally protective for your brain. They protect cognitive function. They keep your brain, believe it or not, bigger and healthier while isolation while social disconnection while loneliness literally shrinks your brain and can be associated with cognitive decline or in other words, your brain not working as well as it could or should, and of course I

need to. I can't finish this section without talking about the obvious brain killers, you know, smoking drugs, excess of alcohol, chronic anger. People don't think about that, chronic anger. You're getting yourself into a state all the time, producing all of those stress hormones all the time, which produces inflammation in your brain and in your body, which is super destructive, super inflammatory, super super negative impact on your body. And of course sitting on your ass for years at a time.

We'll chuck that in as the final one. And none of this, you know, our brain needs movement, our body needs movement, and none of this is fancy. It's just daily kind of brain friendly living. All right. I'm not positive about this next section, but fuck it, I'm going to do it anyway. You may or may not resonate with this. I was trying to think of, how can I explain, explain on an interesting way, on a pretty fundamental level, the anatomy and the physiology. So, in other words,

what's in the brain and how it works? What are the bits of the brain where are they? That's the anatomy. The physiology is how does it work. And I know for some of you this will be confusing, some of you fascinating, maybe enlightening, But here we go. So I've come up with a bit of a metaphor. Imagine your brain as a massive, old, but upgradeable house that you've lived in your whole life. You didn't pick the floor plan,

you didn't choose the day corps. You just woke up here one day as a kid, and you've been learning the layout of that place ever since. So this house has a few key rooms that run the whole operations. So downstairs, near the front door is the security office in this place. That's the amygdala. We call that. Generally, we see that as the emotional epicenter of the brain. So the amigdalar, it's got motion senses, alarms, and a

guard who's very enthusiastic but not always very accurate. He thinks every noise is a threat designed to keep you alive but not comfortable. And when he senses real danger or sorry, when he senses danger, real or imagined, he slams the shutters, locks the doors, and sends panic signals through the whole house. And often that dude does that, the security dude, the amigdala the security office in our metaphor, he does that for no logical reason, but because of

a perception. And which is why you know our overthinking can turn into all these this cascade of physiological problems. And also why we can we can. We have the capacity to literally invent a problem out of thin air, and while there is no real problem, it actually becomes a real problem for us as an experience, not because in our external world there's some kind of danger, but because our internal world, in our internal world, there's a story, and that becomes a problem. So right next to the

security office is the memory filing room. We call that the hip of campus, and that's where new memories get sorted, labeled, and stored. When the security when the guard in the security office panics, the memory team can't work properly, which is why fear and stress often shut down clear thinking and learning, which is why performing under pressure is such

a skill. Like if you see somebody like I guess my story out of this is when my training partner died at the gym, mark when he temporarily died when he had a cardiac arresque cardiac arrest and he was on the floor and all of the things that happen when somebody is dead on the floor were happening. All of those physiological changes. Not a very pretty sight. And in the middle of all of that, everyone in that room, thankfully other than me, everyone panicked, nobody was thinking clearly,

nobody was helpful. So people who are normally quite capable and quite confident and competent in certain situations, they become the opposite of that. So being able to perform under pressure, being able to perform in the middle of stress, being able to perform when things aren't going well is something we need to hopefully try to develop. So upstairs in our house, with the bright lights and big windows, that's the executive office. We call that the prefrontal cortex. So

that's where all the smart stuff happens. So this is the smart part of the house. It does the planning and the reasoning and the critical thinking and the decision making and the emotional regulation, the long term thinking, and it's incredible, but it can be slow to activate. And if the security office downstairs hits the alarm, the executive office often gets low down instantly, So no meetings, no decisions,

no logic, just survival mode. So when the amigdala, remember the emotional epicenter, When that goes nuts, then quite often the prefrontal cortex where logic and decisions and critical thinking happen, that goes offline and it just goes into survival mode. So down the hall from that is the habit workshop, the basal ganglia. Now this is where your routines and default behaviors are built and stored. And once something becomes a habit in your brain, it's like installing automated lighting.

You don't think about it, it just happens. So good habits feel like helpful upgrades. Bad habits feel like wiring errors that you can't undo, even though you actually can. And then there's the control panel, the autonomic nervous system that quietly regulates breathing and heart rate and digestion and body temperature without thinking in inverted commons, without the prefrontal core text needing to come online and make these decisions, so that all just that happens despite you, not because

of you, and all behind the scenes. These are behind the scenes jobs that you don't notice until something goes wrong. Then we notice the shit out of it and scattered through the house as the renovation team. That's neuroplasticity. So every thought, every repetition, every reaction becomes a blueprint for a tiny remodel. It's slow but relentless. So use a room enough and it strengthens. Avoid it long enough and it weakens. So learn something new, as I was talking

about before and keeping our healthy, our brain healthy. Learn something new, so train our brain and we literally build new circuitry and the person. And the interesting part is you're not just the person living in the house. You're also the apprentice builder and the trainee site manager. You can teach the security office not to freak out at every noise. You can strengthen the executive office so it stays open during those tough traumatic times. You can clean

up the memory room by sleeping well. You can redesign the habit workshop one behavior at a time, and you can guide the renovation team by choosing what to practice and repeat. So the brain House, the brain Dash House, will never be perfect, but you and I can absolutely learn to run it better. And once we understand the different rooms, the wiring and the systems, we can stop being dragged around by the house and instead start shaping it into something that we can actually survive and thrive

in something we can live well in. All right, Question five is why does my brain sometimes work against me? So let's start with a big, uncomfortable truth. So, your brain isn't built to make you happy or joyful. It's not built for happiness or fulfillment or personal growth. It's built, as I've said to you before, it's built for survival, for safety, to keep you safe. So that's how it

comes out of the factory. That's the factory setting. So when your brain in inverted commas works against you, it's usually not trying to ruin your life. It's trying to save your life. It's trying to protect you by using I guess ancient software. In a modern world, there aren't too many sabertoothed tigers. There aren't too many threats that were imminent threats two ten thousand years ago. It's different now, obviously.

But your brain's first job is literally to keep you alive, not to help you thrive, not to help you innovate or become a bloody ig Instagram superstar or podcast or success or. Your brain's job is literally key you alive. And so that's what it does. It prioritizes predictability over possibility,

familiarity over improvement, certainty over growth, safety over progress. And that's why you can desperately want to change but still cling to old habits, and why you avoid discomfort even when you know that that discomfort is probably the thing that you need to be doing or leaning into or embracing. And it's why you can overthink, catastrophize, freeze, procrastinate, and self sabotage. So the brain's not trying to punish you,

it's trying to protect you from perceived risk. The problem is your brain can't tell the difference between a real threat and actual legitimate, genuine threat, a social threat, an emotional threat, and what we might call a growth opportunity that just feels scary to survival wiring. Giving a presentation might feel like meeting a tiger, not for me, but maybe few. Having a tough conversation for some people feels like just immersing themselves in danger. Trying something new can

feel like a threat to stability. But I guess here's the kicker. The same brain that tries to keep you safe, that same brain is also trainable, so you can manage it. The security guard in your head. The amigdala can learn the difference between danger and discomfort. The prefrontal cortex can be strengthened, Your automatic fear responses can be what can they be recalibrated, recalibrated, and your habits can be changed. We can create new neural pathways. Those habits can be

reprogrammed and rewritten. So when your brain seems to be working against you, remind yourself it's not broken, lazy, or defective. It's just doing what it was built to do. It's just doing its job. But based on an out dated rule book. Your job is to create a new one. Alrighty, So I've just hit the pause button here because I'm looking at the time and I'm realizing I didn't know that this would take so long. So I'm going to make this two parter. So I'm going to call that

the end of part one. I'll be back tomorrow to you know, hopefully getting something out of this. I just think it's really important. Maybe it's just to me, maybe because I'm just fascinated with the brain and the mind and the intersection and human behavior. And maybe it's because I'm getting old and I think, fuck, I want my brain to work as well as it can for as long as it can, but maybe you want that for you too. Nonetheless, I'll be back tomorrow, same bat channel for part two. See then,