“With great pain, comes great wisdom.” —Ecclesiastes
For my first Purist podcast, I enlisted the great Dr. Wendy Suzuki, neuroscientist and professor of neural science in Arts and Science at NYU, to break down what fascinates me most: the brain. Suzuki is that rare scientist who speaks simply about the most complex organ that controls memory, thought, emotions and every bodily function. She discusses with me how to achieve a squeaky-clean brain, and how to make the brain strong.
“Think of it as a muscle,” she has often told me, and through a good Mediterranean diet (eat the rainbow), good sleep (a minimum of eight hours), positive affirmations (“I have a beautiful brain”), and most importantly, physical activity, you can grow and strengthen the brain. Why is exercise so critical? Because at any age, you can create new brain cells in the hippocampus, which forms and retains memory. The more new brain cells you have, the better protected your memory is from aging and from neurodegenerative diseases. I also learned about the science behind why women fall in love after a good neurotransmission release through a sexual experience, and men, well, fall asleep.
My favorite takeaway was the importance of making time to relive the most joyous moments of your life in what Suzuki coins “joy conditioning.” By changing one’s outlook and actively conditioning the mind to retrieve and relive good memories, especially when you get caught in a negative loop or something fearful happens, you can raise the bar on your happiness and create an optimistic attitude and cognitive nimbleness, which fosters compassion, empathy and giving to others. Happiness is a choice. She also covers the superpowers of anxiety in her latest book, Good Anxiety. There’s so much more she tackles—from the importance of socialization milestones and prosocial behavior to social discomforts and challenges that shape the brain, as well as the psychological principle that the good things in our lives are made even better when we have a negative contrast—so check out my new podcast on our website or Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
