Midlife Fountain of Youth: Brain & Body Action Steps
Louis Nicola 00:00
start with the basics and the three domains of neuro athletics, sleep, exercise, and proper nutrition. Start with that, just get consistent sleep, consistent quality sleep. That's what you just do that make that your goal to say to yourself every day, I'm going to aim to get seven and a half to eight hours of sleep of quality sleep, just start there. Then also say to yourself, well, I also want to make sure that I'm hydrating well, then I want to make sure that I'm doing some form of exercise per day. Just start there and then move on to nutrition. Maybe go and see a physician to do some blood biomarkers just start really lean.
Sarah Milken 00:45
Hey, peeps, welcome to the flexible neurotic podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Milken. Yeah, you heard that right. I'm a real PhD doctor. Long, long ago, like last fucking year. I was sitting in the midlife funk wondering, was this it for me? That day, I realized I needed to get off my ass and start my midlife remix. I dusted off my PhD wipe the menopause, sweat off my forehead, grabbed my golden shovel and started digging deep to all my midlife bitches. It's not just love coffee and hormones that get you through your midlife remix. It's action steps. Let's do this. Hi, good peeps. This is the next episode of The flexible neurotic Podcast. I'm Dr. Sarah Milken, the flexible neurotic. Today I have a guest who will make you rethink longevity and aging with real information. Based in real research. She trained at Sydney University as a neuroscientist and neurophysiologist. She is the founder of neuro athletics, where she serves as a performance advisor to professional athletes, teams, health tech companies and more. She currently lives in New York City and focuses on bringing a unique and fresh voice to the most complex machine in the world, the human brain through her podcast called The neuro experience, one of my favorites, her Instagram, Twitter and YouTube and her amazing newsletter that comes out three times a week. Her name is Louisa Nicola. Hi, Louisa.
Louis Nicola 02:21
Oh, that was such a wonderful intro. Hi, how
Sarah Milken 02:23
are you? Hi, I'm so excited to have you here. And I know that my listeners are just going to be like, Oh my god, I love this. I actually want to meet her. So I'm glad we're having like, a fake meeting. I mean, it's better than just instagram i This is sort of in real life, right?
Louis Nicola 02:39
i This is as as real as 2023
Sarah Milken 02:44
We're doing it. You're in New York, I'm in LA. So I'm happy that we're able to do this. I know you're super busy. The intention of this episode is to get the real talk and research about the essential things that we can be doing to slow down the aging process in midlife and keep our brains and bodies as youthful as we can and increase our longevity. I want to talk about how we can continue to grow our brains, muscles and bones through sleep, nutrition, exercise, hydration and supplements. I know you have all the goods. So here we go. Yes, you have a very cool background on how you got to this place today with your own company that specializes in the intersection of brain health physiology and performance called neuro athletics. I'd love for you to give us a quick glimpse of your teenage years and your passion that took you all the way to the Olympics will almost the Olympics so let's get into it. So
Louis Nicola 03:45
glimpse into my teenage years. Exactly. Look, I look I started as a swimmer. So I loved swimming. Every Australian is a is a good swimmer. I believe we have to it's like a mandatory to know how to swim. I was you know, an A, I would say I was a competitive swimmer. And then around the age of like 17 I found the sport triathlon, which I fell in love with and became extremely vigilant in that area. So I started competing, I was doing around 20 races a year competing to a high level. So I ended up qualifying for the World Championship Series, Beijing, London and Auckland. So that was my first thirst of high performance what it was like to train at the top level. You know, I was training 40 hours a week, and I was also trying to go to school and then I went to university. So that was my, that was my athletic would say stardom as a triathlete. And you would know that as a triathlete, you have to train and be the best at three sports. I say it's a 404 sport, sport because it's taking swim, bike, run and transition. So I still can't even
Sarah Milken 04:56
do one of those. Yeah,
Louis Nicola 04:59
Yeah, so it was, you know, it was incredible. I fell in love with it. I lived, breathed, breathe triathlon. And it wasn't until around 2011, I was going to Beijing, but two weeks prior, I got hit by a car. So I had to forfeit my title and not go, which was really devastating to me. But it was also kind of a blessing in disguise. Because I found, I think my true calling, which, you know, I went and studied medicine and science and really fell in love with the human brain. So neuro orthotics, which is my company, now we've got eight people on the team soon to be 10. And we go into corporate organizations, we consult with some of the best athletes in the world around neurology and neuroscience. So we do everything from the neck up, how to better perform on the field, on the court, on whatever your sport is, or how you could do that better by training your brain.
Sarah Milken 05:56
And I what I love about your work is that it's not just like, oh, this is what I think it's actually based in real research. And when I listen to your podcast, it's just going study after study after study. And you're pulling out the nuggets and making this sort of very complicated information, very relatable and palatable to the average person, not just like, you know, an NBA basketball player, but just the average person, like how can I take this information and apply it to my life? And that's why I'm so happy you're here, because I feel like there's so many women in like the midlife demographic or like, wait, what can I be doing to help myself?
Louis Nicola 06:34
Yeah, yes, absolutely. And that's the important thing, I think there's got to be a reason why we currently have an epidemic in Alzheimer's disease, currently 50 million people worldwide. So we know that there is an epidemic currently in neurodegenerative diseases. So we, we currently have 50 million people worldwide, that have Alzheimer's disease, that number is said to triple by the year 2050. And I think it's if we know that 97% of these cases are roughly 95% of these cases, are due to environmental factors, not the genetic factors, then why are we Why is it like that, and I have to really bring it down to the fact that it's education, people just don't have the education and knowledge to understand what the brain is. So that's what I primarily do. So the fact the fact that you think that I break everything down is music to my ears.
Sarah Milken 07:31
No, I love it. Because I in researching for this, I heard you say that, you know, we have what is it 20,000 genomes,
Louis Nicola 07:41
and 20,000 genes and around 25,000 genes in the human genome.
Sarah Milken 07:45
And then we can actually impact those by the things that we're doing in our everyday lives. And the fact that that statistic is now out there that 95% of people who have Alzheimer's don't have the gene for it. Yeah, it means the things that we're doing in our lives, like, I guess you talk about all we're gonna get into each of these, but it's like lack of sleep, nutrition, stress, all of these things. Were basically, I don't want to say setting ourselves on fire, but impacting it and influence it yet.
Louis Nicola 08:21
Yeah, absolutely. Everything we do influences our brain and physiology in a positive or negative way. When we know that we have these genes that are responsible for different disease states, you're born with these genes, okay, you may have certain genes that will predispose you to neurodegenerative diseases, certain forms of cancer, for example, it doesn't mean that you are going to get it just because you have two genes that say that are in the predisposition of Alzheimer's disease doesn't mean that you are going to get it it means that you have a higher probability that you might get it, but you may not get it. And it turns out that even if you don't have the genes, you can still get Alzheimer's disease because it's a neuro degenerative disease. It starts and accumulates over time and degenerates in your brain. And those degenerative processes can happen due to lack of sleep, lack of proper nutrition, lack of exercise,
Sarah Milken 09:20
it's just so crazy. I can't wait to get into the specifics. So you talk about how sleep is one of the most important pillars in your work on longevity? You say it's the highest performance drug that's the most underrated and can you tell us why sleep is so crucial?
Louis Nicola 09:39
Yes, sleep is, like I said, the most underrated high performance tool that we have. And we it's misunderstood because we think that is just something that we have to do. And rightfully so it is something we have to do but we also need it. Our brain needs it for several reasons. Our body needs it to grow and regenerate So, the two main stages of sleep that are fundamentally the most important is the deep sleep stage, which is also this stage three sleep, it's when we're in our deepest stage of sleep, it's also known as slow wave sleep, then we've got REM sleep, this is rapid eye movement sleep. And these two stages, we go through a different process when we're in these stages. For example, when we are going into deep sleep, our body does many things, one thing it does is we get a lot of secreted hormones. So when we're in deep sleep, we secrete growth hormone growth hormone is responsible for protein synthesis, muscle repair, and recovery. So that's the first thing if we want to be recovering from our workouts, if we want to be inducing hypertrophy, you know, going to the gym and trying to get bigger muscles, sleep is critical to the regeneration of those muscles. So you you want to be able to recover, you must be able to get into deep sleep, that's the first thing, we also get the release of estrogen and testosterone, which is extremely important for both women and men. Another thing happens during that stage is our brain has time to clean itself. So we have this thing called the glymphatic system. And it's just like the lymphatic system in your body, but it activates within the brain. And your brain is made up of around 87 billion neurons. These are nerve cells. And there's a certain type of neuron chord, the glial cell as like the glue, it's actually comes from the Greek word glue. And they are sitting basic between the neurons and they stick together, it's you know, and what happens is, when we're in deep sleep, these little glial cells, they shrink in size. And when they shrink, it allows the brain to clean itself. So the cerebral spinal fluid now has time to wash through the brain. And when it's washing through the brain, just like a dishwasher, just like a washing machine, it's cleaning out all of the gunk, which is the debris, the toxins, the proteins that build up that we don't need necessarily, to accumulate. One of the proteins that builds up in the brain during this time is amyloid beta. And this is a toxic molecule that is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. So if you look at Alzheimer's disease patients, they have an accumulation of these proteins, tau proteins, amyloid beta proteins, so it's really important that when we sleep, we're cleaning these out, because we don't want them to accumulate over time and cause these plaques. So that's one of the reasons why we should be sleeping. The second thing is, we go into this other cycle called Rapid Eye Movement, sleep. And this is like our emotional first aid, emotional first aid in terms of if we're not sleeping, it's going to be really hard to manage your emotions the next day. We know even by looking at babies, for example, when a baby is crying, repetitively, what does somebody say? Are they just they're tired, they need to sleep or when they're just going crazy, they just need to sleep. It's because in a sleep deprived state, you cannot manage your emotions because you haven't had that REM sleep. And REM sleep is also extremely important for memory consolidation, and learning. So huge, huge, huge mistake if you're not sleeping.
Sarah Milken 13:32
Now, how much REM sleep should we be having? Like, what does the research say?
Louis Nicola 13:39
You shouldn't look at you know, I don't want to get mixed up in the numbers. But you should be generally looking at around 20 to 25% of total sleep time to be made up of REM sleep. However, what I'm finding is that a lot of the issue right now is people are really heavily reliant on wearable data. And oh my
Sarah Milken 13:57
gosh, you just took them you just like literally read my thoughts. I was like, What about the wearables?
Louis Nicola 14:02
Yeah, the wearables are great. And that gives us a starting point to understand what's happening in our brain. And in our body. However, it's not the be all and end all. We know that the most reliable data is going to be found within a hospital setting. You can't walk around with an MRI, you can't walk around with an EEG cap on. So this is the next best thing. But I would say that the validity is still around 85 to 90%. So you have to take it with a large grain of salt. But look, if you are monitoring your REM sleep every night, that's great. I do I sleep on a temperature controlled mattress. I also wear a ring I wear a strap so I I've got many different data points to pull from to understand how my sleep is.
Sarah Milken 14:47
Now, I know I know for me like I don't weigh myself on a regular basis because I don't want to become obsessed with the numbers. And I think that's part of the reason why I haven't adopted the aura or the whoop or any of these To wearable devices, because I have this fear of like, I'm going to be waking up to be like, Oh, wait, how did I sleep? How did I do this today? How was my heart rate? How was this? Do you find? I mean, I know you're monitoring it for all of your big athletes. But what about the average person? Like, is there kind of is there any data on over kind of analyzing and over? Kind of explaining everything? Like, are we not living our lives? And we're just looking at data?
Louis Nicola 15:31
Yeah, that's exactly right, you hit the nail on the head with that one, sometimes we are doing that. And the problem is, it's causing more stress than good. Because what I find is that a lot of my athletes stress when they see their HRV heart rate variability in the morning, and they base their entire day on their high HRV. Even if even if they feel great, my HRV, this morning was quite low, I have a standardly, I have a very high HRV.
Sarah Milken 15:59
Let's define, let's define what HRV is for the listeners.
Louis Nicola 16:03
Yeah, it's, it stands for heart rate variability, it's basically looking at the variation of your heart rate in terms of, we have, when we look at the nervous system, we, the nervous system is comprised of the central nervous system, and then the peripheral nervous system. And we have something you know, and I'm not gonna go too technical, but we have a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system. And this is responsible for our sympathetic nervous system is it gets activated, when we're really stressed out, a call it the fight or flight, nervous system. And sometimes that happens, it's activated when we run when we eat, when we go to the gym. And when we're really stressed emotionally, mentally, physically. And then we've got the parasympathetic nervous system, which it gets activated during rest restful periods when we're calm. And at any given moment, we're toggling between the two. You know, right now, I'm probably parasympathetic ly dominated, because I'm calm and I'm sitting down, so I'm not exerting much energy. But if I get up and go for a run, I'm going to be sympathetically dominant. So we're always trying to toggle that you imagine a seesaw between the two. And the HRV, picks up on Okay, well, our heart rate goes really high during sympathetic tone, and then it goes really low during parasympathetic. And it basically gets the variation between the two and it gives you a number. And the higher the variation, you want variation, you don't want to have a standard heartbeat. You don't just want to have 60 beats per minute, all day, every day, you want to be going between the two. So
Sarah Milken 17:45
how do you balance that? Like, if you have athletes, I mean, I've listened to your podcast where you say like an athlete, you'll know how an athlete's gonna perform based on his or her HRV, you know, the morning of? So do you think there is that self fulfilling prophecy, like maybe the we shouldn't be looking at it, or maybe someone else should be looking at it and maybe not reporting it to us until after the fact?
Louis Nicola 18:12
Well, this comes to it's just like getting a patient history from somebody, you can look at someone's DNA rapport and make an assumption, however, you have to do a really thorough patient history to really give a great diagnosis. And this is the same with an athlete, there has to be a trained person, which is why neuro athletics has a certificate called it's a level one neuro athletics coaching certificate. We coached trainers and athletic trainers and you know, some physicians on how to understand these metrics. Because an athlete shouldn't be doing that, at that level, they should just be able to rely on their coach to tell them, hey, I had a I had a bad score this morning. What should I do? So it is a self fulfilling prophecy? It's like, do I rely on it? Or do I just rely on how I feel
Sarah Milken 19:00
right now, that's part of the reason I haven't gotten into it. But I also feel like, there you know, there's great benefit and understanding generally sort of what your body is doing it just so that you can figure out like what's next for you and what you can supplement with. Now in terms of going back to the sleep thing, for midlife, Peri menopausal and menopausal women who have tons of hormonal stuff going on, what can we expect with our with like the REM sleep situation? I mean, are we going to we're all over the place and what can we do?
Louis Nicola 19:35
Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, it's, there's this amazing doctor named Richard Isaacson. And he believes that and he's one of the foremost experts on Alzheimer's disease. He lives here in Manhattan. He's got like a five year waitlist to get into see him if you do have Alzheimer's disease, but he mentioned that perimenopause is low level brain damage. Because you think of some of the symptoms that happened during perimenopause and menopausal women, it's brain fog, irritability, hot flashes, hormones are starting to die down all of these different things, which can equate to brain damage or brain disease states, like cognitive decline states, so many things happen. And unfortunately, as we age, just man or woman, it doesn't matter what you are, as we age, we do get a decline in many different things. One of them is sleep. So our sleep tends to be disrupted as we age. This is due to Yes, hormones, lack of hormones that are getting secreted. But also, as we get older, we've got more stress, stress, the parasympathetic nervous system, when that's activated, can get activated during sleep, which will cause us to wake up. Take a new mother, for example, new mothers just don't sleep. I know that for you know, you just see for the first five years of in a child's life, the mother is not sleeping. But then as you get older, you've got more stress. Maybe you've got a mortgage, you have worrying about your kids, you're worrying about whatever life
Sarah Milken 21:12
Yeah, I actually I have teenagers now.
Louis Nicola 21:15
Wow. Yeah. So thank you probably up, right.
Sarah Milken 21:17
Oh, no, what my thing is, is that having an 18 and a 16 year old, it's just older kids problems. You know, it's like I've both have driver's licenses, should I fall asleep before they get home? Do I wait until I get the text that they're on their way home? So a kind of you're right, it never stops. It's kind of, you know, my husband has no problem sleeping. He's just like, lights out. Me. I'm like reeling all these different scenarios in my head.
Louis Nicola 21:44
Oh, my mother does the same. And well did the same when I was when I first got my license when I started to go out and I you know, but I always say to her, she had a good with me because I was an athlete. I never went out and I never drunk. So she had a really good with me. You know, like, you
Sarah Milken 21:59
lucky Mom,
Louis Nicola 22:00
I'm like, wow. But before then, you know, at around 1516 I was going out and into parties, not to clubs, but um, she would be up all night. And she'd just be like, where are you? So I understand that. So that's what happens as we get older. And unfortunately, it's it's sucks. So the brain is, what happens is your brain begins to atrophy. It begins to atrophy at the age of 30. And then we see a steady increase in that if we're not sleeping. And then what's happening as we also get older, we're self medicating with alcohol.
Sarah Milken 22:31
Yes, you just read my mind again. Yeah. So
Louis Nicola 22:35
to calm ourselves down to get rid of all of the stress of life, of just being older that I remember in my early 20s, compared to now I was not even considerate of life worries as I am now. And it's just, it's just inevitable. Thankfully, because I was an athlete, I don't drink. But yeah, it's we're self medicating with alcohol. Alcohol can completely deteriorate the brain in many ways, but not just that. It actually blocks us from getting into sleep, especially REM sleep. So when there's this thing where we know where we need to sleep, our sleep is already disrupted just due to lifestyle events, and just due to the natural brain aging process. But then we're also self medicating because we can't handle the stresses with alcohol, but alcohol is going in and saying, No, alcohol is a sedative. You know, ethanol is a sedative. So it's sedate you so it knocks you out doesn't allow you to sleep, so then you don't sleep. And then you wake up and due to lack of sleep, you are maybe sleep deprived, but you wake up and you haven't slept, you've just stay you just think you've slept, you think you've slept so you feel bad. And so because you feel bad, you're then prone to eat more. So you ate hot, you have cravings, your ghrelin and leptin, the hunger hormones get disrupted, so then you want to eat more. And due to you eating more due to a disrupted sleep that then messes up the cycle. So what is this you've said, you know, self fulfilling prophecy, it's a cycle that needs to be broken.
Sarah Milken 24:07
I know that there are statistics where you talk about how you know I don't drink either just for a million reasons. One of them just being like I don't like the way it makes me feel. I don't like it wakes me up in the middle of the night you know all of these things, but I also know that there's research that shows that like if you drink I think you said it was seven drink even seven drinks a week, whether you drink them all on one day, or all on different days. Has Did you see like last in your system for how long? Like brain deterioration did this
Louis Nicola 24:46
real on Instagram, and it brought up one of the best studies that was done on the effects of alcohol on the brain and moderate drinking has detrimental effects on the gray matter and white matter of Brain. And moderate drinking has now been classified as seven drinks per week for women, 14 drinks for men. Now, I see how a lot of my girlfriends are having drinks. Seven is like completely normal to them, because maybe they're having one glass of wine every night. Maybe on the weekends, they're having three or four glasses during the weekend, and then, you know, three during the week, so that equals seven. So this type of behavior is going in, and having an impact is actually killing off your brain cells. So I always say that no amount of alcohol is good for the brain. And I truly believe that. But it also would also caution that by saying that one drink is not going to do damage to
Sarah Milken 25:48
you. Right, one drink a week, though.
Louis Nicola 25:51
No, not even one drink a week, I would say one drink a month.
Sarah Milken 25:54
Wow.
Louis Nicola 25:55
Yeah, I do enjoy red wine. When I say I don't drink I'd probably average out one glass of wine a month. So
Sarah Milken 26:05
or with your dad, you say in Australia, because it's sort of part of the culture, you kind of run with it. But then you pay for it the next day, right?
Louis Nicola 26:14
I pay for it, because my body's just not used to it. And my dad always gets really expensive wine. So I'm like, All right, that I'll take like this. Because when I go home, he's like, okay, my daughter's when I he goes out and he'll spend you know, $200 on a bottle of wine. So I'm like, Okay, this is going to be a good way it's worth it. I'll have that one glass. And don't get me wrong. I'm not staying away from alcohol, just because of the detrimental effects on the brain. My body just doesn't enjoy it. I don't wake up the next day feeling great. First of all, even with my glass of wine. I don't need anything to calm me down. That's not my advice. Unfortunately, I do have a chocolate vise. Why? Yes. So that's something I have to monitor.
Sarah Milken 26:57
Now you talk about how marijuana and certain sedatives and alcohol create a sedated state but not real sleep. So if someone is taking an Ambien or Xanax to sleep, and they were to wear an aura ring, does it show that you're not in RAM?
Louis Nicola 27:19
Yes and no. That's where I say that the validity of these of these wearables is still not there yet. When you're having THC, a lot of people report, well, I feel calm. And of course you do. It's meant to help you activate that parasympathetic state. So you do feel a depressant. So you go into that calm state. But as I mentioned, it doesn't help you sleep, it doesn't actually help you stay asleep. It just sedate you. So your watch or whatever it is that you're using to measure may pick up on that you're in REM sleep. But I have to tell you, there is a lot of evidence that shows that you are not getting into the sleep stages with THC or alcohol.
Sarah Milken 28:06
Wow. And what about the Ambien and the anti anxieties, all the
Louis Nicola 28:12
Ambien is another sedative. And unfortunately, this is something that becomes addictive. You know, people start getting addicted, when they don't practice these sleep hygiene methods. You know, you should be practicing these it in your 30s even in your 20s. But you got to have a bit of fun as well. But if you as soon as you hit 30, that's my, that's when I say to people, that's where you really have to knuckle down on your health and wellness and
Sarah Milken 28:38
you have to get off. You have to like kind of put your big girl pants on and be like, Okay, I got to do what I got to do for my body. It's hard to do that when you're young. It's hard to do when you're old, too
Louis Nicola 28:47
hard to do it. You've got to you know, it's Valentine's Day, next next Tuesday. I've booked at a 5:30pm dinner. That's how old I talk. I've got to do. We've got to do 530 P Yeah, we can't be doing this 9pm thing that I used to do that in my own I unfortunately, that's not the way it goes. But yeah, so yeah, that's so that's sleep. So we now know that sleep is extremely important for the aging brain. And if you can practice these, you can practice getting into sleep, it will definitely pay dividends. Let's
Sarah Milken 29:20
talk about your sleep protocol. And let's go through each one. So the first one you talk about a lot is What mattress you're using matters. And I know you have the specific mattress that you love and that you promote. So let's talk about that.
Louis Nicola 29:39
So I've been using the Eight Sleep mattress for over two years now I fell in love with it. I saw the product and science says that in order to fall asleep and stay asleep, our core body temperature are literally at our internal core body temperature needs to drop at least two degrees. And there's really no way to do that. Unless you You are sleeping on a temperature controlled mattress. And because if you turn down the ambient temperature of the room with the air conditioner, that's just playing with the ambient temperature is not really going to bring down your core body temperature. So yeah, I sleep on this mattress, it cools me down as I'm going into sleep. And then I have an alarm on it. I say, Okay, I want to wake up at 6am. So it starts to heat the bed up. The reason why we wake up is because our core body temperature starts to heat up. So then it hits me up, and then I get out of bed. So
Sarah Milken 30:31
yeah, now I know those mattresses are really expensive. And they have an ultra like an alternate thing that you can use where it's a mattress cover that is temperature controlled and has a lot of the same functions. Tell us about that. I know that that's really expensive also, but maybe it's something that is worth it.
Louis Nicola 30:52
It's very worth it. And I do have a if you want to use my code Louisa, you can go and get one and you'll get like $250 off. But this is called a pod pro cover. That's actually what I have. I don't have the actual mattress, because I love my mattress. So I got the cover. So it actually sits on a doesn't
Sarah Milken 31:09
have that like weird feel, you know, when you were asleep? Like, I don't know, in a hotel or something. And it has like that weird crinkly, waterproof mattress cover feel to it. Like does it have any different kind of texture to it under your sheet?
Louis Nicola 31:26
No, it look it's it. They've they also provide a cover on top of that. So you're the pod pro cover on your mattress, and then they have an actual tight cover that goes on top and straps it in. And then you put your sheath on it and it feels amazing. Yeah, so you put the mattress cover on. And then they actually give you another cover that goes on top, which helps push it down and then you put your shirt on so you can barely feel it.
Sarah Milken 31:51
Wow, that's amazing. And you know what the other interesting thing was, is you talk about how, you know, if you're sleeping with another person in the bed, you can control your side and they can control their side.
Louis Nicola 32:02
Yeah, absolutely. So you can actually split the night that comes with an app. So you split it in half, and you can control the temperature of your side. And they can control the temperature of their side. So you don't have to worry about you know, I'll my husband is a hot sleeper. And you know, he wasn't really cold and I get too cold, you can split it in half. So it's a really smart, that's what it is. It's a smart mattress, smart technology. But what I love the most is it picks up on your your biometrics, so it knows when Louisa is in deep sleep. So it'll drop the temperature of the bed two degrees, because it's like, okay, Louise is in deep sleep, we want to keep her here as long as possible. Let's drop the temperature by two degrees, then it picks up on the fact that I'm in REM sleep. It'll bring it down a bit more. And I think that's extremely smart. And I think that that's the way the world is moving towards a so many different pieces of technology. Now, another great thing that people can include is I masks, eye masks a great way need to be blocking out as much light as possible to fall asleep and stay asleep. So these II masks serve that purpose. If you can do it, you should sleep with an eye mask.
Sarah Milken 33:15
And what's amazing is you there's actually research studies, I've heard you talk about them on your Instagram that actually show how much more effective your sleep is just with that little mask.
Louis Nicola 33:28
Yeah, absolutely. I did do a study and it showed you can get an increase in sleep total sleep time, and an increase in this deep sleep and REM sleep stages just with an eye mask alone. And that's predominantly because it helps blackout any light that comes in right
Sarah Milken 33:43
I mean, I have blackout shades but of course I'm sure there's like a little tiny corner you know, it's not that Yeah. Now you also talk about traveling with your own pillow.
Louis Nicola 33:54
I travel everywhere with my own pillow.
Sarah Milken 33:57
Love space for pillow. Like I can barely fit my shit anyway.
Louis Nicola 34:03
Yeah, I travel with Delta, you know, they allow baggage on there. Plus, I travel once a month so delta know who I am. They're like, Oh, Louise is back here again. It's like I'm in a relationship with Delta Airlines. So I take two suitcases which is really shocking. Really, it's really bad but you don't explain it to
Sarah Milken 34:21
me my husband? Yeah, I should be using carry on. I'm like the carry on. It's just my makeup. Oh, I know. Yeah happened.
Louis Nicola 34:29
I've got like three different hair pools. So within that I put all of my my things you know equipment when I travel to see an athlete have to take equipment with me so I have an equipment bag that I have my clothes back so I have room in there for a pillow.
Sarah Milken 34:43
Oh my gosh, that's amazing. But you know when I can't bring my pillow I sleep with a silk pillowcase. I don't know what your thoughts are on that. So if I can bring my pillow which is most of the time because my makeup is filling up half the bag. I'll bring this silk pillowcase and just leave a note for housekeeping in the hotel like Please don't take my pillow case. Oh, I love that. I did leave my pillow case in New York and the hotel actually sent it back to LA. So you also talked about I know, you also talked about the room temperature, and how even though it doesn't change your core body temperature, it does affect sleep. And you say that it should be kind of in a certain zone. What should the temperature zone be in your bedroom?
Louis Nicola 35:26
65 degrees. Wow, right. And 18 degrees Celsius? That was way off. I'm sorry, guys.
Sarah Milken 35:32
No, that's okay. I mean, I couldn't tell Celsius. Even I couldn't even take a stab at that one. I like yeah, no idea. Our regular homeostasis body temperature is 98 degrees. On our core body temperature to fall down two degrees, you say, right, yeah,
Louis Nicola 35:48
yeah, at least two degrees, two to three degrees and novel mostly asleep.
Sarah Milken 35:53
So that's what the mattress cover, or the mattress is doing for you.
Louis Nicola 35:58
Yeah, it's so that you imagine just sleeping on a cool bed. So you would get cold. And sometimes I do get cold. But let's talk about what if you don't have a mattress, you can do something like a really great little hack is keep your feet, no socks on and keep your feet outside of the sheets.
Sarah Milken 36:16
I do that sometimes. Yeah, I start with socks on because when I get into bed, I'm watching TV or whatever. I'm kind of cold. And then my husband's like pulling the socks out from underneath the covers, because I've taken them off and they're floating at the bottom. That's hilarious. Now you also talk about bath taking a bath, Epsom salts, magnesium, lavender oil, and we're kind of working up a sweat. Tell us a little bit about that.
Louis Nicola 36:43
So I mentioned that taking a hot bath can help you relax you and get into sleep. When you do an Epsom salt bath you're putting in magnesium and magnesium really can help calm down the nervous system. And when we're having trouble falling asleep. That's probably the biggest reason why, you know, why are we having trouble falling asleep? Oftentimes, it's because we've got a racing mind or we haven't calmed ourselves down and we're still anxious. A hot bath is absolutely incredible for that, especially if you fill it with Epsom salts.
Sarah Milken 37:18
And the so so you so you can't like get in the bathtub, start to sweat and then get into a cold shower and get into bed? Well, you could, if that does that kind of do the opposite of what you're what you're supposed to be doing.
Louis Nicola 37:32
No. So the reason in terms of core body temperature for the hot bath is we have this thing called homeostasis, which is our body's ability to mean an internal equilibrium in our environment. So it's always going to bring it down. If we get really really hot our bodies smart to just try and bring down our core body temperature. So if it goes really really hot as in, like when we get into the hot bar, their core body temperature is going to go up. When you get out of that it's going to naturally decline and it's gonna go past that homeostasis. So you actually going to drop down in core body temperature, and then over time, it will bring it back to equilibrium. So that's the science behind why a hot bath prior to bed will help with temperature control.
Sarah Milken 38:15
Wow. Okay, so maybe midlife women need to take a hot Epsom salt bath before bed. Now let's get into supplements for a second, I know that there are a lot of key supplements that you use with your athletes to help slow down the aging process and keep our brains in the most optimal shape they can be. And I know vitamin D is a big thing for you. And yeah, in the research, so tell us how you know vitamin D works. How Why is it good for us? And how does it help with our sleep?
Louis Nicola 38:45
A vitamin D is one of the best things that we can be taking with for our health. And vitamin D is misunderstood. It's called vitamin D, but it's actually a hormone. And we have vitamin D receptors everywhere, but we actually have a lot of them on our brainstem. And it turns out that the areas that they are on our brainstem is responsible for sleep. So sleep can also be very closely linked to vitamin D. So if we have low vitamin D status, it's also involved in many different genes. So that's an important thing as well. But not just that, if we have low vitamin D, you're not just affecting skin health, cardiovascular health, brain health, you're also affecting your sleep health. So it's really important to maintain vitamin D levels in the form of vitamin d3. I take 5000 I use which is international units per day. Bring that down. If I'm traveling, if I'm in Australia, I'm generally in Australia during summer, and I'm getting so much sun so I don't really need to take it but when I'm here in New York, I do take a lot of vitamin D.
Sarah Milken 39:58
Now I've read that the Vitamin D says that you need vitamin K to absorb the vitamin D, what is the research?
Louis Nicola 40:06
Okay to? Yeah, it's, it helps in the synthesis of the vitamin D pathway. I'm currently not taking vitamin K. But this is, let me caveat, caveat this by saying that everyone should do a comprehensive blood panel and a workup prior to like, just supplementing with anything, I wouldn't suggest that anybody should go out and supplement with anything. But I've just pulled up my stats on the deficit. So it turns out that in the United States, if you look at it, around 40% of the population is vitamin D deficient. And it's crazy, right? So for most people, daily supplementation of 5000, I use to 7000 I use can actually bring your levels up to around 30. So if you go and get your blood levels checked, and it comes back with a vitamin D status below 30, then you are generally in that in that category of vitamin D deficient, so you'd want to be bringing up those vitamin D levels. And the what I usually talk about in my neuro athletics newsletter, is this one study that was done to build people's vitamin D backup, and it was done using 5000. I use per day.
Sarah Milken 41:23
That's interesting, because I was also going to ask you about this loading thing, because when I went to a cardiologist, my first cardiologist a bunch of years ago, she was like, Sarah, your vitamin D is really low. But if you just start taking 2000 a day, you'll never hit the minimum. Like threshold. She gave me a prescription to take one pill a week for I don't remember six to eight weeks. That was 50,000. Yeah. And then she was like, once you get to this level, then you can kind of continue at your 2000 or 5000. After that. Is there research in that?
Louis Nicola 41:59
Yeah. So I'm not for the one that you get from? Was it a date? Like, what was it d3?
Sarah Milken 42:08
Remember? I mean, I'm assuming it is?
Louis Nicola 42:10
Well, no doubt that it is because, yeah, most of the ones that are given to you in from a prescription is not the vitamin d3.
Sarah Milken 42:20
Got it? So there isn't a basis for this loading thing.
Louis Nicola 42:24
I mean, yes, and no, but I would say that it's dependent on how well I don't think that that's the best way that's like loading your system or overloading it one day out of the six to eight weeks. I don't think that that's the best thing to be doing.
Sarah Milken 42:37
Okay. Okay. I just thought that that was like an interesting kind of way of going about it. Now in terms of fish oil. I know fish oil is huge for you. So tell us about it.
Louis Nicola 42:48
absolutely obsessed with fish oil, I think that everybody should be having high dose omega three fatty acids. So omega three fatty acids come from fatty fish. And they're comprised of EPA, DHA, and ALA, and the EPA and DHA is wildly popular for the brain. And by popular I mean, essential and critical for the brain's maintenance. And I think that so your brain is made up of fats, a little bit of proteins, and water. And the predominant fat that it's made of is the DHA, fat. So you're generally when you're having I've actually got my fish oil, right. Oh, wow, I take two grams of each per day.
Sarah Milken 43:33
What does that come out to? Because I know that my I have to look at my capsules again, but it's like, it's one capsule that has both in them. Yeah. So are you taking 1000 milligrams, or 2000 milligrams? So you're taking 2000 milligrams twice a day of each taking?
Louis Nicola 43:53
Four grams a day? Yeah. Wow. Okay. That's the actual like, right, that you should be taking it for brain health and your cells, okay? You imagine these little, these little circles, okay, that are responsible for everything that we are, they need to be moving around in fluid. And what this does is it penetrates the cell and helps with cell membrane fluidity. So your cells are able to move around more freely when they're penetrated in the cell membrane with EPA and DHA. Not just that, there's been several studies to show the efficacy of EPA and DHA for Alzheimer's disease patients, it can go through and ameliorate the different plaques and tangles made up of amyloid beta. It can go through and ameliorate these these proteins. So that's really great. There's a clear link between cognition and omega three fatty acids. I just think that you can't have a brain health program without having high dose EPA and DHA.
Sarah Milken 44:53
Now, if you're going from starting at zero, would you go to four milligrams a day or would you kind of see start at two and work your way up. Like are there side effects.
Louis Nicola 45:05
This is not a creatine loading phase, the only thing that I would recommend is it can have thinning of the blood. But that's in really high doses. That's You're talking like in, you know, probably like 10 grams a day. So, yeah, four grams a day is, is gonna be great for you. And if you want to really good, I don't know what you're currently taking in terms of brands.
Sarah Milken 45:26
Yeah, I could remember and I would tell you,
Louis Nicola 45:29
yeah, the best brand.
Sarah Milken 45:32
Yeah, I think it's Nordic Naturals.
Louis Nicola 45:34
So I'm taking one from momentus supplements. And the grading of these have been triple certified. So most supplements because they're not regulated by the FDA. They can just go unregulated, they go out and you don't know what you're getting in these supplements. So some companies go out and get certified. And the company that I have has actually been certified three times. So you know, the purity. And the quality is in there
Sarah Milken 46:00
was a brand is getting momentous. Now do all of your supplements come from that brand, all of my supplements is that the brand that Andrew Huberman uses also? Yes. So I know, is crazy. But whatever. Well,
Louis Nicola 46:14
you and I are actually advisors to the company.
Sarah Milken 46:17
Got it? Got it. Got it. Okay. Yeah, that's good to know. Now the ALA part, that is that the sort of fish oil wall is that the wall not part of it.
Louis Nicola 46:27
That's the, that's the algae part of it. That's the one that can come from plants, such as flax seeds and chia seeds. So it's much harder to achieve the Omega three status needed for brain health by just taking the ALA alone. Now, let's also talk about that omega three fatty acids, there's also omega six. And these are the types of, we need to be having a ratio. And it turns out if you've got a very high omega six fatty acids circulating throughout your bloodstream, it negates the effects of omega three fatty acids. So you can't just take all this omega three and still eat processed foods and junk foods, you need to have a you shouldn't be eating processed foods and junk foods, but you've got a comes with another safety profile as well. So if
Sarah Milken 47:17
you're taking omega threes and still eating crap, then you're not getting the benefits of the Omega three is correct. Got it. Okay. And people who are vegan what what's the deal with fish oil? They just they're taking?
Louis Nicola 47:31
No, they're taking the ALA they're doing a lot of flack, a lot of chia seeds. A lot of flax seeds. A lot of Walmart's got
Sarah Milken 47:40
it. Okay. Yeah, it was funny, because when I had my blood tested, the doctor said to me, like, do you eat a lot of walnuts because they feel like your ALA is higher than most people? And I said, Yeah, actually, I put walnuts in my Oh, wow. Morning.
Louis Nicola 47:51
Wow. Okay. It actually showed up.
Sarah Milken 47:55
Yeah. And I was like, okay, that's weird. But my husband's ala was low, but he doesn't eat walnuts. So I thought that was kind of like an interesting thing. Now, in terms of nutrition, obviously, that's a biggie, I know that all of your clients go through major blood testing to figure out like, what your body needs and all of that. But I want to talk about protein, because everyone's protein, protein, protein, protein, you know how much protein you should be eating? Some people say it's a gram per pound of body weight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I want to know for you, based on the research and based on the audience of this podcast, midlife women, what should we be eating in terms of protein? We're most of us are not professional athletes.
Louis Nicola 48:40
Yeah, it doesn't matter. Because we, as women, as you know, we need to have a certain amount of protein in our diet a day, you should look to have at least 1.2 grams per kilo of body mass as a maintenance, I believe, you know, I'm not I have to say, I'm not a nutrition expert. I don't, I tend to not talk about nutrition, because it's so it's not in my field. But I've done, you know, I'm very close friends with Gabrielle Lyon, and she's, yeah, she's the authority on protein. And I haven't even looked at her maintenance. But I believe, you know, I've done a podcast with Stu Phillips, who mentioned around 1.2 as a maintenance. Got it? Yeah. So if you're 75 kilos, I think that's 166 pounds. You want to be having at least 1.2 times 75. Killers
Sarah Milken 49:35
got it. He knows there's there's so many products out there like drink this drink and you'll get 42 grams of protein like does your body know if you're eating chicken protein or if you're eating protein from a bottle or if you're having a protein shake because I'm always really confused about that.
Louis Nicola 49:55
So to my knowledge, I believe it comes down to yes it comes down to the quality Do you have the protein but it comes down to so the protein is made up of amino acids and you your body consents, I believe what the amino acid contents is within all of these types of proteins. So it's getting a well rounded, you can get proteins that doesn't have certain amino acids. So I think it comes down to how many amino acids per gram of protein that's going to be given to you. Again, I'm not a nutritional Pro.
Sarah Milken 50:32
No, I'm just curious because like, believe me, there are times where I'm like, Oh, my God, I just can't eat one more piece of chicken like I'd much rather drink this vanilla thing that tastes like a protein, you know, tastes like a vanilla milkshake and says it has 42 grams of protein. But I haven't been able to find information that's like, yeah, that's okay.
Louis Nicola 50:52
I ate everything. The only thing I don't eat his pork. And that's just not a religious thing. I just don't like,
Sarah Milken 50:58
I'm not a big pork or lamb fan. I don't know why.
Louis Nicola 51:01
Well, I have a lot of red meat. And not a lot of I mean, I'll have I love chicken. Yeah, I actually I also have protein powders. So I'm doing a lot of protein. And that's just maintenance. I'm not even lifting heavy.
Sarah Milken 51:17
So now in terms of the proteins, obviously, there's a million different kinds, what is the research show? And what type of protein powders Do you like for the body?
Louis Nicola 51:27
So I have proteins for different reasons. I have my morning protein, for example, I have I love having oats with protein as a porridge. And the best one that mixes well is a plant based protein. So I'm having a plant based protein in the morning. But if I'm having an actual protein shake, to meet my macros, to meet the requirements of getting that, you know that that dosage, and I will have one of my proteins from momentus, and it's a whey protein usually on
Sarah Milken 51:57
it. Okay, so why is the plant protein different? Is it a protein? Is it just a protein? The one that's in your exactly?
Louis Nicola 52:04
I don't know, I think it's got less, I think it's got a different amino acid profile than the whey protein. And also, I'm not sure how I think it doesn't penetrate the cell. As fast as what a whey protein does. I it's what I think. Okay, I'm gonna have to I'm seeing Gabrielle next week.
Sarah Milken 52:24
So I we need to get the lowdown on that. Okay, what about veggies in greens? Like what are your thoughts on greens, powders, and all of that in terms of the bioavailability to the body.
Louis Nicola 52:37
So when there was one of the best studies that was done was this mind was the creation of this mind diet. It's a one of the biggest studies done on Alzheimer's disease patients, and they showed that just you know, when you get a group of Alzheimer's disease patients, just looking at the nutrition aspect of everything, sleep nutrition exercise, you can actually change or slow the progression down of Alzheimer's disease by 63%. So just to count if and nutritional alone was a huge thing for these patients. And the mind diet, when you look at it, when you look at it, it's predominantly made up of green leafy vegetables. I think that these micronutrients, leaves, grains, all these vegetables, I think they play a huge role in brain health. So I'm huge on them, I think that everybody should be including them in their diet. I'm not for the carnivore diet, the carnivore diet and Paul Saladino believe that plants are toxic and have these phytochemicals. And I don't believe that for a second so
Sarah Milken 53:40
now what about I mean, eating plants is great and eating leaves and all of the things but it's more work it's a pain in the ass. You're trying to, you know, figure out how to work it into your you know, your diet. What are your thoughts on like the Greens powders,
Louis Nicola 53:55
I don't have a greens powder. I don't think I need one. And that's because I get my micronutrients from actual vegetables and foods. But I don't think that they're bad. The only thing that I would caution is where are you getting it from? What's the manufacturing process? And how pure is what they're saying that how pure are the ingredients within it?
Sarah Milken 54:15
Right? Because I know there's athletic greens, I think there's maybe Organa phi like there's a bunch of different ones and I didn't know if you knew like, which ones had been like the most certified like this momentous, for example, make greens powders.
Louis Nicola 54:30
They don't. Okay, they don't. Yeah, got it. Okay.
Sarah Milken 54:34
So let's talk about hydration. I know it's one of your main pillars for your athletes and your patients. We underestimate the importance of it. Most of us are not getting enough hydration. And you say that there. It's not just about drinking water. It's about a few other things and about the amount so let's get into it. Tell us about it.
Louis Nicola 54:53
Hydration is wonderful. Our brain needs to be hydrated at all times we need to be having, I believe a gallon of water water per day. So your brain operates using water we have it's been predominantly made of water. And a lot of us are walking around in a dehydrated state. And we're always wondering why our cognitive abilities, our ability to think and react, why they declined. And some of the times it could just be due to you just not drinking enough water. But there's another aspect of hydration, which people don't really look at, and that is the electrolyte profile. So in order for our brain cells to work, the way that they work is one neuron fires an electrical signal, and it goes down the axon, and it goes out the dendrites and those dendrites connect with another neuron. And that's how we generate signals in our brain. And in order for that to happen, it needs electrolytes, it actually goes through this sodium potassium pump cycle. And sodium and potassium are electrolytes. So even if we're not sweating, we need to be having a high amount of electrolytes in our diet, sodium, potassium, selenium, and this is also when you sweat, if you are sweating, you're not just sweating water, you're sweating out. sodium, potassium, selenium, zinc, all of these things that you should be replacing. So I'm having an electrolyte drink every day. I'm actually having it right here.
Sarah Milken 56:16
Love it. Now, I heard you talking about a specific brand. And the brand that you you mentioned is the same brand that I use. It's the element. Yes, lm n t. Yes. Thank you for spelling that because I was going to do that. Because it's confusing. It's actually LM and T instead of spelling out the word element. Do you have a favorite flavor?
Louis Nicola 56:38
No, but for the first time ever, I'm going to try. I've have it sitting up there. It's a chocolate flavor.
Sarah Milken 56:43
But I know that's the one I haven't tried yet. Because there's three of them. There's like chocolate salted caramel mint. So I was like, Oh, I don't know which one? Yeah,
Louis Nicola 56:53
I haven't tried it yet. But there's a watermelon one. Isn't there a watermelon one?
Sarah Milken 56:58
Yeah, I have a raspberry one. I have a lime one. I have an orange chasing one. And I have an unflavored one. So like last night, I realized that I hadn't had one of the packets and for the day. So I was like, Okay, I got to just get one down. And I just wasn't in the mood for a flavor. So I just down the unflavored one, and it has like a little bit of a texture to it, obviously, because it's like salts in magnesium and all of those things. But I feel like if you just down it with a straw, and it's just part of your routine, it's okay. Like it's totally manageable. Yeah, it doesn't,
Louis Nicola 57:35
it shouldn't really matter about the flavor. But I think right now I'm having maybe the strawberry one.
Sarah Milken 57:41
And so what's important about these little packets is they have all of these electrolytes in them. It's not just like flavoring your water, or putting like some kind of weird chemical in it, it actually has the electrolytes. And I don't know if all the powders do I'm not sure.
Louis Nicola 57:57
Yeah, this one actually does. And look, I find it to be great. And it does the job.
Sarah Milken 58:03
And I also love how in your research and when you're talking you talk about you use this water glass analogy to describe how we deplete our brains during the day we you explain that to everyone? Yeah, I always say that you
Louis Nicola 58:17
wake up every day with a certain amount of energy. And that you can equate that to imagine you wake up everyday in your glasses for and every time that you think a thought produce an action, write an email, you're taking a sip from that drink. And over the course of the day, depending on how much you sip, you're depleting your energy. And if you're not sleeping well, if you're not hydrating, well, if you're not exercising your brain actually choose for every sip that you take, it's like a gulp, it takes a lot of energy to produce that one action. So you end up with your glass empty by around 2pm. And that's the analogy that I use for working on your brain every day. So you can become more efficient at the sips.
Sarah Milken 59:09
And I also remember you talking about how there was a study where people were dehydrated. And it showed that they were like off by 2% in their cognitive performance or something crazy like that.
Louis Nicola 59:23
Yeah, they were, I think there was a 2% decrease in hydration led to a 29% decrease in cognitive performance.
Sarah Milken 59:32
Raizy. And I think most of us know that we're dehydrated.
Louis Nicola 59:36
Yeah. And we may not like you know, you and I sitting here we may not feel like we're dehydrated, but we probably are.
Sarah Milken 59:43
Wow. Now in terms of like this whole buzz with IVs like, Oh, I'm going to this one stop shop and my local store and I'm getting an IV drip of all of these vitamins and this that and the other. Like I do that I don't do it on a right regular basis, but if I'm feeling shitty, or my kids are feeling kind of and then I make everyone got them, are we just peeing it out? Is there validity to them? What's the deal?
Louis Nicola 1:00:10
It depends on what you're having in your IV. I don't think that clinically, there is much efficacy around getting a nutrient IV or a vitamin IV. So I don't do them. And there's even not a lot of efficacy around the NAD IVs.
Sarah Milken 1:00:28
And is there efficacy on any of them? I would not know. I don't know. Because there's some of them that are like NAD glutathione mean? Yeah, good eye on and I'm like, Okay, but what are all these?
Louis Nicola 1:00:41
Yeah, I don't think that there is actually any proof that the glutathione IVs can penetrate the cell.
Sarah Milken 1:00:49
Got it? Okay. I just had to ask that. Now, in terms of theories of brain aging, I mean, obviously, these are midlife listeners, I'm a midlife woman. I know, you say there's 12 of them. But you focus on three, what are the three that you focus on that we should be focusing on?
Louis Nicola 1:01:06
So one of the theories suggests that we have a natural decline in brain aging, just because we're getting older. The second theory suggests that we have a low efficacy of dopamine receptors in our frontal lobe. So dopamine is that motivation molecule that pushes us to do more, to be more to be vigilant and to achieve goals. And as we age, we have a decline in the frontal lobes ability to release that. So that means that as we age, it gets harder and harder to be motivated and to be more goal orientated. And I believe that I mean, look, there's around 15 theories to the brain aging process. The third one is we have a lower efficacy of white matter. So our brains can pre comprised of both gray matter and white matter. And the white matter is the insulation, it insulates the axon of the cell. And as we age, this declines, so it's part of our information processing speed, and transmission and transduction of electrical signals. And these also decline as we age. So the way that we think and process information is declined as we get older. So to combat these brain aging processes, we can do the things that always speak about sleep, exercise, and nutrition.
Sarah Milken 1:02:27
Okay, let's get into the exercise for a second, you talk about a study, it was a mice mouse study in 1999, where the mice who performed daily aerobic activity grew two times the number of neurons in the hippocampus, what's going on there? What have we learned from that? And how much exercise do we need to stave off Alzheimer's by 20 years?
Louis Nicola 1:02:49
Yeah, so it was one of the first studies done back in the late 1990s, that showed that a wheel running, when you do this, you release many different hormones. And one of the great things about exercising is you get a robust release of this neurotrophic factor, which is called BDNF, and it is a growth factor for the brain. And what they found was when this was released, due to aerobic physical activity, it penetrates the hippocampus and helps with the growth of new brain cells or new neurons in that particular area. So doesn't help with growing brain cells across the cortex just in that specific area. So exercise is good aerobic exercise can help slow the aging process down. And the theory around the Alzheimer's disease and the link there is that when we experience neuro degeneration, one of the first things to go is this head hippocampal function, it's the neurons within there that start to die off early. So you want to be exercising to help grow those back.
Sarah Milken 1:03:57
Now with exercise, there's the cardio piece, and there's the strength training piece. So where does each part fit into that.
Louis Nicola 1:04:08
So Strength Training offers a whole bunch of different benefits. So when you are a strength training, you're going to be releasing many more Maya cones and Maya cones or muscle based proteins. So when they're secreted from the skeletal muscle in response to exercise, they can go through the bloodstream travel up to the brain cross the blood brain barrier, and they have an effect on these particular areas in the brain that are responsible for cognition. So let's talk about dosage. How many times a week should you be doing this? Well, general rule for strength training is around three days a week. So you want to be trying to do three days a week of exercise in that specific realm. And then three hours a week of aerobic
Sarah Milken 1:04:51
does your heart rate have to be at above a certain level for it to sort of count?
Louis Nicola 1:04:56
Well, I mean, you can you don't have to do anything hard for the row. You just have to be able to have a conversation, but you also got to be feel like you're working. So I generally say like, if you've got a heart rate monitor, maybe stick to around 65% of your maximum heart rate.
Sarah Milken 1:05:10
Got it. Okay. And in terms of like, this is like the $40 million question for midlife women, it's hard to figure out how much weight you really need to be lifting. Because if you're doing like five pound weights, but your body could really be doing 15, then maybe you're not really doing anything for yourself. But you don't want to overdo it either. So how do we figure out where we should be in terms of weights, resistance reps, all of that.
Louis Nicola 1:05:41
So there's studies on these Maia kinds show that you should be working at around a 70% of your one repetition max or around 75% of one RM. So if you're able to lift 100 kilos for something, then you want to be generally doing around 75 kilos for six reps. And you want to do around four to six exercises per muscle group.
Sarah Milken 1:06:06
Okay, so four to six. I can't do the kilo math, but I could do it later in my head. But you're basically saying that three times a week, it's 90% of one repetition, Max
Louis Nicola 1:06:19
75% of one repetition, Max. Okay, so
Sarah Milken 1:06:23
that means, like, you can lift it, lift it, Lift it, lift it, like how do you determine that.
Louis Nicola 1:06:30
So your one repetition, Max is the amount of load that you can pull to, uh, you can only do one rep. So you have to do this with a qualified trainer. And you can just practice and warm up and then practice what your one rep is until you go to failure. And then whatever that is, that's your one RM for that exercise on
Sarah Milken 1:06:48
it. So when you hit rep six, and you can't do anymore, then you've hit your 70% range.
Louis Nicola 1:06:55
So let's just say that your one repetition Max, is 100 kilos, okay. Okay. Do you understand what that means? Yes, that means that you can lift yet that's your failure. So what you want to do is you want to get 75% of that. Okay, so in fact, the scent of that is 75 kilos. So that's going to be your load that you use for those six reps.
Sarah Milken 1:07:16
Got it? Okay. Yeah. So if I can do six reps, I'm making this up of 12 pound dumbbells, like then what am I doing three sets of those and then do is okay, but do I increase the
Louis Nicola 1:07:32
weight each time? You know, you, you want to stay at the same weight, if you can for around two weeks until you adapt to it, and then maybe go up from there.
Sarah Milken 1:07:43
Got it. Okay, because I feel like a lot of us are working out, but we don't know exactly where we should be at.
Louis Nicola 1:07:49
Yeah, exactly. It's hard. But just you know, just as long as you're getting just think to yourself, as long as it's hard. And as long as it's doing the effort, then that is good.
Sarah Milken 1:08:02
Now, do you rest in between sets? Or do you just keep going?
Louis Nicola 1:08:05
I generally like to have around a one minute rest between each set. Okay,
Sarah Milken 1:08:10
because there's I know, there's different theories on that, like whether you should rest or not rest? And what about stretching? Like some people are like, That's bullshit. And some people are like, no, it's necessary.
Louis Nicola 1:08:21
Yeah, I'm for stretching. I'm for yoga, as well. I'm for mobility. I spend a lot of time unfortunately in this seat. So I'm stretching all day, every day. It's, it's amazing for you.
Sarah Milken 1:08:33
Now you talk about there's centenarians, who you've they've done research on them. And they did at least two hours a week of zone two level cardio, what does that even mean? Zone
Louis Nicola 1:08:44
two cardio for three hours a week. So centenarians are these individuals that live to 100. And above, and when you look at the studies that we're done on these, they have a lot of mitochondria, more mitochondria, than the average person. And so this zone to training, when you're engaging in zone two, which is around 60 to 65% of your maximum heart rate. You're training the mitochondria of yourself. And so that's the theory behind aging. Well, and sticking between that, that range.
Sarah Milken 1:09:19
Wow. So we're going to spend half our day exercising things so that we can stay young, basically, right.
Louis Nicola 1:09:26
Well, knowing exactly. You're gonna spend 40 minutes a day.
Sarah Milken 1:09:30
I don't know. I guess it just seems like the whole day would you have 40,000 Other things to do? Now in terms of creatine, I know that creatine is like a big thing and a big topic right now, and everyone's talking about it on social media. So and I know that it's a big part of what you talk about. So I know that we talked about fish oil, vitamin D, but I think that kind of creatine sort of fits into its own category because it relates to the cognitive training meaning, I mean, the cognitive performance and the physical performance. So I would love for you kind of to give us the background on creatine and why we should take it as long as our doctors approve it, right?
Louis Nicola 1:10:13
Yeah, creatine is amazing. It's one of the safest supplements, and that you can take, and it's the most widely studied supplement you can take, I take it every day, I take five grams. Turns out that creatine isn't just great for the body and the muscles, it's also good for the brain. It's involved in cellular energy production. So we have, we need it throughout the day, our body's needed, our brains need it. So a lot of people are afraid to take it because they're afraid they're gonna get bloated. But if you're generally looking, and dosing at around five grams a day, we don't see those effects.
Sarah Milken 1:10:47
That's interesting, because that was gonna be one of my questions for you is like the puff about it. Now creatine is a powder, is there a supplement? I mean, but is there a calm?
Louis Nicola 1:10:57
I don't believe Sauron? I don't believe so. I don't know. I don't think so. Okay, so
Sarah Milken 1:11:02
when you take creatine powder, like, are you making a whole thing of it? Like you're mixing it into a smoothie? Or it's the kind of thing you can kind of mix in water and down it? What What's the deal on that?
Louis Nicola 1:11:13
Oh, you just mix it with water and you're down it. Some people like to have a pre, like as a pre workout, I usually tend to have it in the morning before I go and
Sarah Milken 1:11:22
lift. And do you find it? You don't take it? Um, no, I
Louis Nicola 1:11:27
do feel like when I do take it, I have more. I can push more data, which is amazing, right? Yeah.
Sarah Milken 1:11:34
So basically, five grams of creatine per day can help with our cognitive performance and our muscle strain. And what about bone density? Does it play into that?
Louis Nicola 1:11:47
I mean, I'm when your bone density can get affected when you do weights. So you're pulling on the, on the bone and on the tendons. So that's going to actually help so it all helps. Yeah.
Sarah Milken 1:12:00
Okay, great. So creating basically also has been shown that with women in menopause and post menopause, that it can actually help us with increased inflammation to decrease it and then contribute to the reduction of protein synthesis and a response to certain anabolic stimuli. So basically, it seems like it's like a almost like a magic supplement that not a lot of us know about.
Louis Nicola 1:12:28
It is everybody, I believe should be taking it. I'm getting my my parents on to it.
Sarah Milken 1:12:36
I know I was actually thinking about it and also talks about how there haven't been negative effects with creatine supplementation with menopausal women. It's also created better mood because you're restoring brain energy levels. I mean, it sounds kind of like the magic
Louis Nicola 1:12:51
drug. It is and it's misunderstood because many women are just afraid to take it.
Sarah Milken 1:12:56
Wow. Okay, as we wrap up, I just want to ask you, what is your bottom line advice for midlife women listening, wanting to age well, increased longevity and our thinking, Wow, I love that episode. But that sounds like a lot of things.
Louis Nicola 1:13:11
Yeah. Start with the basics and the three domains of neuro athletics, sleep, exercise, and proper nutrition. Start with that, just get consistent sleep, consistent quality sleep. That's what you just, if that make that your goal, to say to yourself every day, I'm going to aim to get seven and a half to eight hours of sleep of quality sleep, just stop there. Then also say to yourself, well, I also want to make sure that I'm hydrating, well, then I want to make sure that I'm doing some form of exercise per day. Just start there and then move on to nutrition. Maybe go and see a physician to do some blood biomarkers just start really lean.
Sarah Milken 1:13:54
Okay. Now if listeners want to find you, where can they find you,
Louis Nicola 1:13:58
you should come to Instagram I hang out there a lot Louisa Nicola. Or you can go and check out the neuro Experience podcast. And you have an
Sarah Milken 1:14:05
amazing newsletter that comes out three times a week, I always look at that and you talk about the latest research. I love it. So I want everyone to think about the stuff they can start doing today. One small step towards improving our lifestyle choices and sleep, hydration and nutrition and supplements, the meeting of the brain and the body. I want to thank Louisa for highlighting the tools and strategies on how to take self responsibility and improving our health and lifespan. Thank you Louisa Nicola for saying yes. And becoming a new friend of the flexible neurotic podcast.
Louis Nicola 1:14:40
You are amazing. Thank you so much for having oh my god, thank
Sarah Milken 1:14:43
you so much. I can't wait for everyone to listen. Hey, peeps, it's me again. I listen to this episode with Louisa Nicola founder of neuro athletics where she serves as a performance advisor to professional athletes. leads teams, health tech companies and more and today she's our midlife brain coach. I wanted to summarize the golden nuggets for you to have actionable items to start using today. I know that when I listened to a long episode, I'm like, oh my god, I love that. But then I can't even fucking remember the specifics. This is why I come back and do a golden nugget summary. In this episode, we do real talk and real research nuggets about the essential things that we can do to be slowing down the aging process and creating the Fountain of Youth for our brains and bodies in midlife and keep our brains and bodies as youthful as we can and increase our our longevity. Golden Nugget number one, finding your true calling a blessing in disguise Louisa a total athletic superstar triathlete was totally devoted to triathlons before a devastating setback hit in 2011. Just two weeks before a competition in Beijing she was hit by a car forcing her to forfeit her title bomber right. But hey, this gave her the chance to find her true calling the human brain. She totally geeked out which I loved over neuroscience at her university in Australia and went on to start her own company neuro athletics. Now she's the go to girl for neurology and neuroscience consulting for some of the world's top athletes, financiers and corporate organizations. Golden Nugget number two, Alzheimer's, everything we do influences our brain and physiology. Let's talk about brain health because you know what they say a healthy mind means a healthy life. And with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's on the rise, it's more important than ever to take care of our brains. Did you know that Alzheimer's affects a whopping 50 million people worldwide. And that number is expected to triple by 2050 Oh my god. But here's the good news. We have more control over our brain health than we think. Louisa tells us that environmental factors like diet, exercise and sleep actually account for 97% of Alzheimer's cases, while genetics play a much smaller role than we once thought. So basically, our lifestyle is the biggest factor in determining how our brains age. So let's make brain health a priorities ladies, let's nourish our brains with healthy foods. Stay active, lift the dumb weights and exercise get those z's in with asleep to keep our brains clean and clear. Because when our minds are sharp, we can tackle anything that life throws our way. Golden Nugget number three Sleep, sleep sleep. The biggest, most underrated high performance tool that we have and that we have in our midlife toolbox. Did you know that sleep is like a secret weapon for high performance, especially when it comes to Alzheimer's prevention. See when we sleep our brains clean out all sorts of gunk and junk including the pesky amyloid beta proteins that can cause plaque buildup and lead to Alzheimer's. Plus REM sleep is like a superhero for our emotions and cognitive function. It helps us consolidate memories learn new things and keep our emotions in check. So if you want to be a superhero to and midlife, make sure you catch some quality sleep, Golden Nugget number four supplements, greens and all the in betweens. You know what's super important about your overall health, nutrition. That's what and I'm not just talking about eating your veggies, although it's definitely part of it. Louisa is all about making sure you also get enough vitamin D which is actually a hormone that regulates sleep, and helps keep your skin heart and brain in tip top shape. But wait, there's more. Louisa also recommends taking fish oil to give your brain an extra boost and making sure you're getting enough fish oil and getting enough protein with the help of a nutrition expert. And did you know that a healthy diet can even slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease? The mind diet full of green leafy vegetables It's especially helpful for keeping your brain sharp. Finally, don't forget to stay hydrated with plenty of water and electrolytes. Yep, even sodium and potassium. Your brain will thank you for it with optimal function and performance Golden Nugget number five alcohol in the brain why they don't mix. Did you know that drinking alcohol can actually harm your brain. Yep, there was a really interesting study that showed how even moderate drinking like seven drinks a week for women and 14 for men can damage your gray and white matter in your brain. But here's the thing for some of us seven drinks a week might seem pretty normal like having a glass of wine every night or a few drinks on the weekend. But this normal behavior could actually killing off our precious brain cells. So while Louisa doesn't think any amount of alcohol is good for the brain. She does say it's okay to have an occasional drink once in a while she does too, without worrying about causing damage just trying to keep it on the lower side. Remember to drink responsibly and always protect your brain cells. The gold is dripping off his nugget rabbit music there are three things you can do first, fucking subscribe to this podcast second, share it with some midlife friends who like midlife shit. And third, write an apple review. writing reviews is kind of annoying, it's an extra step. But guess what? It really helps the podcast grow. You think your little review won't matter but it does. If you went to a show and everyone said my clap doesn't matter. Then there would be no clapping you all matter. DM me, you know I always respond. Oh, and of course follow my instagram at the flexible neurotics da love you talk soon.