The Exercise Neuroscientist: The Shocking Link Between Exercise And Dementia! Coffee Is Destroying Your Brain! Our Brains Have Been Hacked! - Dr Wendy Suzuki

**Wendy Suzuki** (0:00)
In this box is a real preserved human brain named Betty. And I think you should hold it.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:07)
Oh my God, it's wet.

**Wendy Suzuki** (0:09)
And now we're gonna go through all the tools and tricks to make your brain as healthy as it can be. Are you ready?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:16)
Wendy Suzuki, a neuroscientist and professor at New York University.

**Wendy Suzuki** (0:21)
First hand research on the brain is helping to improve memory, learning and higher cognitive abilities in humans. Let me start with exercise.
All the research shows, the more you exercise, the more change in your brain we noted. Every drop of sweat counted. And the best kind of exercise that you can do is...

**Steven Bartlett** (0:40)
What about things that we consume? Food, drink and alcohol.

**Wendy Suzuki** (0:43)
If it's on the Mediterranean diet, go ahead.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:46)
Coffee. And then my memory's not great.

**Wendy Suzuki** (0:50)
Most people feel that, but there's four things that you can do to make memory stick. Number one is...

**Steven Bartlett** (0:56)
Is it true that if we have less friends, then our brain will shrink?

**Wendy Suzuki** (1:00)
Yes, loneliness damages the brain.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:02)
Can you see if someone's in love in the brain?

**Wendy Suzuki** (1:04)
Yes, in the side here. A lot of the reward areas are activated.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:08)
Doesn't that mean then that if we don't fall in love, the love part of my brain gets smaller? And would that make it more difficult to love in the future?

**Wendy Suzuki** (1:14)
That's a great question.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:17)
Wendy, do you have any brain routines?

**Wendy Suzuki** (1:19)
Absolutely. So every morning I like to...
Oh, and then I do the most powerful tool that you can do to protect your brain from aging and neurodegenerative disease states, which is...

**Steven Bartlett** (1:32)
Congratulations, Diary Of A CEO gang. We've made some progress. 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe, which is down from 69%.
Our goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode.
You just said to me that much of your work is focused on making sure people have big, fat, fluffy brains. Yes. Why does that matter?

**Wendy Suzuki** (2:13)
It matters because a big, fat, fluffy brain is a healthy brain.
And my whole first book, Healthy Brain, Happy Life, was about how I learned to use all the tools and tricks and magic of neuroscience and psychology to make my brain work better. And I so needed it at that moment. My life got better. I got happier. It is a pathway to a happy life, I think, having a very healthy, big, fat, fluffy brain.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:44)
Do you think people appreciate the importance of their brain?

**Wendy Suzuki** (2:46)
No. I think they ignore it all the time.
And I think that is part of my message to everybody, that the human brain that is the one in your head right now is the most complex structure known to humankind. Not Einstein's brain, not Marie Curie's brain, but the one in your head. And when you think about that, it gives you more of a self-appreciation of all of the computations that is taking for me to see you and appreciate your face and be able to remember your face next time I see you when I go to my Diary Of A CEO podcast and choose an episode.
All of that is such a complex structure. You start to appreciate your own kind of brain functioning more. I think that's a very important thing to do.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:38)
Why don't we appreciate our brains? Because we appreciate a lot of other things.

**Wendy Suzuki** (3:42)
Yeah.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:42)
We spend a lot of time on our like our muscles.

**Wendy Suzuki** (3:44)
Yeah, our abs.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:46)
Yeah.

**Wendy Suzuki** (3:46)
I think that that's a great analogy. And part of my goal is to kind of shift the focus from focusing on certain body parts to focusing on what our brain is doing for us, what it can do for us, and what we can do to change our environments to get to that big fat fluffy brain, to get it healthy, to get it happy, to get it growing.

**Steven Bartlett** (4:10)
If I achieve a big fat fluffy brain, how would my life be different? I'm saying me, Steve Bartlett, I'm a podcaster, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm in relationships, I've got friends, girlfriend, family.