Modern WisdomHow To Maximise Your Brain's Performance - Louisa Nicola
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
120 min read · 23,933 words- 0:00 – 0:29
Intro
- LNLouisa Nicola
There's many studies that have been done on basketball players. A lack of sleep can go through and interfere with reaction time. It can interfere with visual acuity, their ability to see the ball at the speed of light and react to it. So that's the software things. Their ability to think fast, that really goes down, and that's diminished. One second for LeBron James can mean the difference between winning and losing, right?
- CWChris Williamson
(wind blowing) Louisa Nicola, welcome to the show.
- LNLouisa Nicola
(laughs) Chris, so happy to be here.
- 0:29 – 5:51
NeuroAthletics
- LNLouisa Nicola
- CWChris Williamson
How would you describe what you do for work?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, uh, my company, Neurathletics, is literally the intersection of neuroscience and athletic performance. Uh, a-around six years ago, I would say, six years ago, 2016, I saw a gap in that market, where I was looking at athletes, I was training athletes. I had a neuroscience background and I thought, "Why is everybody obsessed with making these athletes better by just working on their speed and agility? Why are we not working on their brains?" The brain is the powerhouse of the entire system. So that's what I did. I just started my company and started working on the brain.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. But you don't just work with athletes, right?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Correct. So right now... So at the start, at the conception, Neurathletics was purely athletes, and then we moved into an only, uh, Major League Soccer, NFL, and NBA pathway. And then just by chance, two years ago, we, uh, we got the attention of the finance world. And let me tell you, their brains are, uh, their brains are, are in dire need of Neuroathletics. So we now service, uh, some of the financial world.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the similarities between a portfolio manager and an athlete?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Uh, lack of sleep, first and foremost. Secondly, competitiveness. Thirdly, they've got that ability to do whatever it takes. They're not just getting up for a, for a day job at 9:00 AM and putting their suit on. They have to train like athletes to get the best results. Some of the guys I'm working with tell me, "Louisa, if I don't make this trade tonight, if I'm not in the peak state to make a good trade, I could lose $30 million."
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So slightly high stakes. When you actually put it like that, you think, "Oh, he's kicking a ball about." You know? He's kicking-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a ba- kicking a ball into a goal. What does it matter? It's not $30 million. Um, you said that both of them were underslept. Do you find that your athletes, on average, are underslept? Is that something specific to athletes, or do you think that this is just the entire world is underslept and athletes are a subsection of the world?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Very good question. So I think everybody, not just athletes and portfolio managers, I think everybody is underslept. Now, just 12 hours ago on Twitter, I posted a tweet saying, "Guys, I think I have it all wrong. I've been talking about sleep deprivation, but instead, why don't I talk about, why don't we say REM sleep deprivation or slow-wave sleep deprivation?" I think, um, I think we've got it all wrong when we talk about sleep deprivation. Now, a lot of people in society are sleep-deprived. Now, sleep-deprived is classified as six hours or less. I live in New York City. Almost everybody in the city is sleeping six hours or less. It's a hustle city. But then also, now because of technology, because of what we're eating, because of how we're going out, the fact that the pandemic has brought us inside, we are being exposed to things that are keeping us up longer throughout the night, but also disrupting our patterns of getting into deep sleep and slow-wave and, and REM sleep. So I coined this, this new phenomenon, I think, of 2022. Instead of somebody saying, "I'm sleep-deprived," I'm gonna say, "Well, what part of sleep-deprived are you?" D- Are you lacking REM sleep or you're lacking deep sleep?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Well, most people aren't tracking, on average. You know, there's some freaks amongst us-
- LNLouisa Nicola
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... that are, that have got a WHOOP strap or that wear an Oura ring, but not many people are. And it was only when I started wearing an- a WHOOP strap that I realized time in bed doesn't equal time asleep, and time asleep doesn't always equal the same amount of quality of sleep. Even though you-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... you wake up on the morning and you realize there's something good, right? Wrong side of the bed syndrome. Um, but the fact that even about, whatever, 85% efficiency or a 90% efficiency, say, which is pretty good, like it's, that's, that's all right. Um, you need to be in bed for nine hours to get eight hours, and the number of people that are in bed for nine hours is, uh, um, basically zero.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah. And sometimes that's a struggle for me, especially now being in Australia. But here's the thing. You're wearing a WHOOP strap. So I wear all three. Now, what we know when we're talking about sleep physiology, in order to really understand sleep apnea... Okay, I'll go through a sleep study. You have to go into a lab and they hook you up with all of these machines. They start with the head, the eyes, you've got an oximeter, a nasal cannula. Now, that is, that, that gives you a very precise measurement, okay, of your sleep stages. How can we possibly mimic that outside of the lab? Well, companies such as Oura, WHOOP, other companies have now invented these wearables. But the accuracy is where I, I, I think we need to talk about. You're wearing a WHOOP. I'm wearing an Oura right now. Uh, studies show that the Oura has a better PSG reading, sleep study reading.
- CWChris Williamson
What's PSG?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh, it's, uh, polysomnography. That's basically a sleep study-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Okay.
- LNLouisa Nicola
... when you go into a lab. So it kind of mimics... Uh, I think it was, the statistics are around 87% it mimics what's happening in the lab. Whereas the WHOOP strap is a bit different. It's more so better for exercise and performance and HRV tracking.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you know what the percentage was for the WHOOP?
- LNLouisa Nicola
I don't. But my thing is, when I wear the WHOOP, sometimes at night it can be... It slides around on your hand. Sometimes you wake up and it's, like, misfolded. So maybe that's the, uh, maybe that's what's happening.
- CWChris Williamson
Getting back to brain health. We'll talk about sleep in a bit, but
- 5:51 – 9:52
What is a High-performing Brain?
- CWChris Williamson
what, what do you mean when you talk about a high-performing brain? What, what is that?
- LNLouisa Nicola
(sighs) So we've got, when we look at the brain, we've got both the software and the hardware, the hardware being the actual brain itself. Okay? And we can have many problems wrong with that. For example, when an NFL player has a concussion-... that's really messing with the hardware, okay? They could have a dent in their brain, they could build up tauopathies within that area. But then there's the software, which is how are you thinking? How are you feeling? What are your thoughts doing in your brain? It's like the cognitive part of it. How's your reaction time? So I work with both of those. Now, with anything, in terms of progression, how are we meant to measure things? So, what we do with all of our athletes is we measure them in month one. They come into ... They come and see us, whether it's in person or whether it's online, and we do an actual EEG scan. So we put a cap on them, we're measuring their brain waves, we're understanding what's happening with both the ho- software and the hardware. And then from that, we then put in a, a performance program, and that could consist of upping their vitamins or upping their EPA/DHA, which is known as fish oil. We look at sleep because sleep has an impact on the brain. We look at reaction time, we look at visual acuity, and we even do breath work because breath work is another major factor affecting the hardware and the software.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- LNLouisa Nicola
So if I, I would say if you've got a high-performing brain, there's probably about 10 different set points, and if you're a 10 out- 10 out- 10 out of 10 for all of those set points, then that would be a high-performing brain.
- CWChris Williamson
What does it look like on a biological level?
- LNLouisa Nicola
You're a bit ... So do you mean like ...
- CWChris Williamson
What's the ... When you l- go inside of a scan, what do you see? Do you see more connections? Is it to do with the speed of the synapses firing? What's it actually mean?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah. So it's the speed, okay? It's the speed. We look at, um, we look at information processing speed. Your ability for your eyes to perceive a stimulus, relay it back to your brain and for your brain to understand what it is. So that speed, it could be 0.4, it could be 1.4. So obviously the 0.4 would be better, and this is measured in milliseconds. So why do we want that? Well, you think of driving. A lot of traffic accidents happen on the road because of reaction time or sleep deprivation. So we're looking at everything. Your ability to make a decision at work, whether to make the trade or not make the trade, to make the phone call or not make the phone call is all dependent on your information processing speed. And then there's also decision-making skills. So when they're doing the scan, they're looking at ... It's not just a scan. Like it's a hospital-grade EEG, but you're not just sitting there, you're doing a task. We can have them reacting to something on the screen. So it measures that in real time.
- CWChris Williamson
What sort of things are you getting them to do? What are the tasks?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Look, I, I spent 16 hours, uh, with that EEG on watching one of our NBA players just do jump shots. It was a very hard day.
- CWChris Williamson
Hang on. He's got the cap on while he's training?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah. Yeah. We just had him doing jump shots, and I was literally measuring what is happening when he's getting the ball in the basket. And I don't sh- speak technical when I'm talking about sports because I just don't know the technicality of it.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. I understand.
- LNLouisa Nicola
But ... Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That must be ... So there, there'll be a particular pathway, right?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
There'll be a sequence, a common sequence of particular neurons that need to fire in order for the throw-the-ball-toward-the-basket-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah. And so basically-
- CWChris Williamson
... action to be deployed.
- LNLouisa Nicola
A- and we can put this on a, a trader, for example, entire month, and we can measure at what time, what was his brain doing at the time he made a good trade? What was his brain doing at the time he made a bad trade? So then we can then predict. We can then pull the software and predict when he's gonna make a good trade or not.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. What are the main principles that people should consider when they're trying to maximize their brain's performance?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh gosh. Do you have a few days?
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- LNLouisa Nicola
(laughs) Yes. So first one that I ... And I'm gonna talk about the ones that I think are not
- 9:52 – 16:06
Principles for Maximising Brain Performance
- LNLouisa Nicola
spoken about, okay? That are looked over. First one is hydration. Chris, you've, uh, you've been drinking some water. We've only been on this call for 15 minutes. Okay? You're hydrating. It's so important for the brain to be hydrated. Now, we have anywhere from 80 billion neurons in the brain, nerve cells. In order for them to think, react, produce a movement, or do anything, those two brain cells need to synapse together. You mentioned that earlier. It's when they fire together. In order for them to fi- fire together, we have a pump called the sodium-potassium pump. So literally our brain ... Where, where have you heard sodium and potassium? Electrolytes, right? So our brain really needs to be hydrated to literally do anything. When we're dehydrated, we're not thinking straight, we're not being able to produce many things. So I always say keep hydrated, not just with water, but with electrolytes too. So we have an electrolyte protocol at Neuro Athletics. We do sweat tests. So f- some of our athletes are sweating a lot more than the others, and we determine that sweat test. We think, "Okay, if you're sweating this much, this is how many electrolytes you're losing." So we dose them for that pre-game, post-game, and throughout the day. So that's number one. Okay? The second thing is consistency. Your brain is actually pretty dumb, okay? It's just this hunk of meat sitting inside your skull, but it likes consistency. It likes to wake up at the same time every day and go to sleep at the same time every day. It also doesn't like to be shocked. When it's shocked, it doesn't ... It's not really prepared for anything. So consistency with sleep routines, morning routines, eating habits, et cetera. Then we can move on to more of the pharmacological aspect. Now, outside of normal pathologies, if you've got any diseases, et cetera, there are certain nutrients that our brain likes. Our brain is literally made up of DHA, and if you look at an omega-3 supplement, a fish oil, okay, omega-3s consist of EPA, DHA, and ALA. So I'm always supplementing with EPA/DHA. I do two milligrams in the morning, two milligrams at night. There's so many benefits. You're not just feeding your brain, but you're also lowering inflammation. We know that inflammation in a chronic state is bad for us, both neurally and physiologically. So one of the, the utmost biggest protocols that we do with our athletes is you've gotta be having EPA/DHA.I would urge, you know, everybody out there to be looking at the, the scientific literature on that.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you have any brands-
- LNLouisa Nicola
And this-
- CWChris Williamson
... that you suggest particularly 'cause I'm gonna guess that there's some changes in the quality?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh, yeah. I speak about that as well. Manufacturing right now is at, uh, it's a scary thing out there. You don't know sometimes what you're buying. You know, some of the, some of the drugs that they're selling just at the supermarket, you know, you don't know what they're laced with. So, manufacturers matter. Now, the brand that I use is Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E. Why? Well, they've got so many certifications. I know them, uh, fr- like, I've gone in, I've really researched, I've done my research on them. Manufacturing is clean. And you also want, when you're having an EPA DHA, sometimes you know that the quality of an, of a fish oil when you have it and you feel that you can s- taste the fishiness of it. Have you ever felt that and it's like, "This is disgusting"?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yes. So, that's how you know the quality of it. So, it really matters what you're having, okay? If when you're ingesting it, and if you're, when you're ingesting the EPA DHA, if it smells, it's got that fishy st- smell or s- taste, you know it's not of good quality. So, everything else, you know, when we're talking about supplementation, we do that, okay, but then there's also what are you supplementing at night to get a good quality sleep, okay? Because we know that sleep is one of the determining factors of brain performance. So, what are you doing at night to get yourself into deep sleep stages? Now, I have a, a, I have a sleep stack, I would say, a sleep protocol, and it consists of, the first one is magnesium L-threonate. I take this every night. First and foremost, magnesium, okay, we know magnesium, that it would be good for the body. There's three types of magnesium. We have it when we want a stress relief and have, you know, better functioning muscles, recovery, et cetera. But there's one magnesium out of those three that crosses the blood-brain barrier, and that is magnesium L-threonate. So, once it crosses the blood-brain barrier, it's gonna calm down your nervous system. It's gonna get you into deep sleep. So, that's one of the, the sleep protocols that we have, magnesium L-threonate. And then for some of our athletes or clients, some of them are feeling as if they've got a racing mind at night. So, we may get them to supplement with GABA, which is an inhibitory neurotransmitter. So, these are things that, um, you know, without wafting on too much that you can be doing at night or during the day.
- CWChris Williamson
What's your thoughts on, uh, 5-HTP?
- LNLouisa Nicola
I don't supplement with it, but I'm noticing a lot of men asking me this question. Not women for it. So, uh, I can't comment on it 'cause I don't have it, but I have noticed that Andrew Huberman talks about that a bit.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. What about dosage for the magnesium? What would you aim for?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Um, I've ... It's a ... So the one that I get is from Pure Encapsulations or Life Extension. It's a blue bottle and you have to take three at night. So-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So, you're just following the recommended dosage based on whatever it says on the bottle?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Cool. Okay. Yeah. Does, um, Jigsaw Health do a Mag SRT? And that's one that's pretty well touted. Ben Greenfield's a big fan of that. That's pretty good. Um-
- LNLouisa Nicola
And that's ...
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah. It is. Um, they have a magnesium chelate pre-bed-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... drink thing, which is okay, but because it's ... I, it must have some sort of bicarb in it or something to help it mix with the water. And if you have that last thing before you go to bed, I always end up finding myself needing to sit up and burp. It's like the most weird byproduct of having a sleep drink. That you think, oh, yeah, but the fact that it's fizzy means that I need to ... so anyway. What about, um, exercises? So, let's say that that's some of the principles behind making your brain healthier. What about
- 16:06 – 21:56
Exercises to Improve Mental Capacity
- CWChris Williamson
things that people could do, exercises that you take your athletes and your traders through to try and improve their mental capacity?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh, so many. So, one thing that we focus on is Zone 2 training and that's when you're, you know, we've got different zones of training obviously. Maybe Zone 5 would be at maximum. Zone 2 is that comfortable pace where you can talk, but you're also exercising. Okay? And we measure this through our VO2 max testing. So, we do a lot of Zone 2 and the reason being is that this area of exercise is the most efficient to be training the quality of the mitochondria. And mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell so once we get out of, uh, a Zone 3, once we get into Zone 3 and Zone 4, we're training outside of that mitochondria. So, that's one area that we train because we also focus on longevity, okay? Everyone knows that an athlete has an expiration date, so we're focusing on longevity as well. But the next part of it is, so the reason why Neuro Athletics really came into play or existed was because I was doing a lot of reaction training, you know? I was working just with a tennis ball and a couple of lights back in 2016, just getting them to throw the ball to the wall. And what I found this was doing was it was training different areas of the brain, were working on hand-eye coordination, so their ability to see a target, catch a ball, use reflexes, and then I started working from there. I got them to stand on one foot, throw the ball to the wall, contralateral movements with the brain. So, we were doing so much with hand-eye coordination and that's how Neuro Athletics really came into play. So, if you want to do any- anything for your brain in terms of exercise and train it to its fatigue, you wanna be doing, you just wanna get a tennis ball. We're actually gonna bring out some neuro balls, but I'm trying to figure out a way to, to, to name that better.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- LNLouisa Nicola
A little-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, neuro anything with balls in is-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... is gonna be difficult. Just going back to the Zone 2, uh-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... duration and frequency per week, what would you say?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Three times per week for one hour or around 50 minutes at minimum.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So, it's a big commitment for-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... this, especially if you're an athlete, you've got your other training to do, skills and work and stamina and blah, blah on top, um-But I suppose that's probably not a bad active recovery day?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Exactly. It's a-
- CWChris Williamson
Is that how you try to use it?
- LNLouisa Nicola
I use it like that depending on who I'm talking to because some of the, um... I've got, you know, a 56-year-old male who's in the trading business, and I, he's s-, he may be very unhealthy, so I'll just get him to do zone two, yeah, three hours a week, and he does that on a stationary bike.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- LNLouisa Nicola
It's so easy. He's got one set up in the living room. He's got kids, so he's just on that. No hard. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
What's the heart rate range that people should be aiming for to hit zone two-ish?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, see, this is the thing. The, the, the science suggests that you shouldn't just work on heart rate. But for my athletes, we do, okay, because I do a VO2 max test for them. So we have a-
- CWChris Williamson
Yours is always rated against what their max is?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Exactly. Everybody's different. But if you wanna measure it, it's really around 65% of maximum HR, which you know is really easy. It's just walking around, really.
- CWChris Williamson
Am I right in thinking that zone two, for that sort of duration, for that sort of frequency, is also what would be prescribed if you wanted to raise the ceiling on your HRV as well?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, yeah, look. So HRV is another, uh, uh, it can, it can raise HRV values, yes, and that's purely because you're working within that space. You're working on the mitochondria. If you really wanna get technical, you wanna measure your blood lactate, and that's what we do. The only caveat on that is who wants to pinprick themselves every time they're riding, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- LNLouisa Nicola
And make blood?
- CWChris Williamson
Let's say that someone does want to take the ceiling of that HRV up. What would your prescription be for that person?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, we know that HRV, or heart rate variability, reflects how adaptable your body can be. It measures the specific changes in time between successive heartbeats. So we know that we've got resting heart rate. We've got, we've got our actual heart rate. We know that it's measuring the time between those two heartbeats, okay? And it's basica- basically a measure of your autonomic nervous system, which is everything that is happening automatically, so we know it's a good measurement of health and recovery. So if we wanna be working on that, then we know that, okay, first and foremost, we need to really have a recovery day, okay? Or we need to be doing recovery things during the day. Second thing is it's dependent on food intake, okay? All the quality, or if you're having alcohol or any type of drugs per se, that's gonna go in and mess with your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, okay? So we, we wanna, we want a way to stabilize everything. So sleeping well, sleeping consistently, hydrating, getting adequate exercise. All of these things are gonna eventuate into a, a higher or more stable HRV.
- CWChris Williamson
That is keeping HRV more stable and also acutely making it as optimal as possible. How about raising the ceiling of HRV overall, taking it from 100 or a, a maximum green recovery on your Whoop being 70, to a maximum green now being able to be 80 or 90 or 100? What are some of the things you could do to raise that ceiling?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, it's measured during sleep, okay? So it's, uh, I don't know if you know that, but it basically goes in, uh, whether it's an Oura Ring or whether it's a Whoop shop, you're basically going in, and it's taking a two-minute, two to four-minute measurement during your sleep. So if we're not in a deep sleep stage or we're not, we haven't recovered properly, you're not gonna get a high enough value. So if we really wanna raise the roof, then I would say the number one thing you need to work on is sleep.
- 21:56 – 32:20
Impact of Sleep on Brain Performance
- LNLouisa Nicola
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, cool. What about the impact of sleep on brain performance then? What are the-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yup.
- CWChris Williamson
... what are the impacts that you see there?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Look, it's not just brain performance. It's also immunity, okay? So sleep or sleep deprivation plays an, uh, a number of key roles, okay? Now, I've pulled up, um, if you don't mind, I've pulled up a study that I reference a lot, but I really wanna get it right for you and your audience, okay? There was a really, a very famous study, and it was done i- in the journal of PNAS. What they did was they took a group of healthy adults, and they limited them to six hours of sleep a day for one week. They found a change in the activity of 711 genes, okay? So we've got a gene, uh, uh... Our genes, our e- epigenetic pool, we're, we've got ge-, uh, the human genome is around 20,000 genes. From getting lack of sleep of six hours a night resulted in the change of 711 genes. That's around 3% of our entire genome. What they found was out of that 711, about half of the genes were upregulated, and half of them were downregulated, okay? The ones that were impaired... When we say downregulated, that means impaired. The genes that were downregulated were the ones associated with the immune system, okay? And the ones that were upregulated were the ones associated with tumor production, long-term chronic inflammation, cardiovascular disease. So that's really important to know that only after one week, you're changing your epigenetics. You're changing your human gen- you're changing the genes. That's a, that's insane to think about, right? Because we're all sleeping. Sometimes we've gone through a week. I'm sure you've gone through literally seven days of sleep deprivation somewhere in your life, especially for, for par- new parents out there. And in that time, you're probably finding that, you know when you're working so hard and then all of a sudden when you stop, you get sick? It's the same thing. So it's pretty much the same thing. So sleep deprivation or sleep impacts immunity, okay? But then let's go into more of an, another thing, and I'll, I'll give you the link to that, um, to that article. Let's talk about why athletes need sleep. First of all, back to the software, okay? What we see, there's many studies that have been done on basketball players where we see that a lack of sleep...... can go through and interfere with reaction time. It can interfere with visual acuity, their ability to see the ball at the speed of light and react to it. Okay? So that's the, that's the software things. Their ability to think fast, that really goes down, and that's diminished, which one second for LeBron James can mean the difference between winning and losing, right? That's the first thing. But then let's look at more of a hardware thing. Okay? When we fall asleep, we go through three stages of sleep in the first, in the first third of the night. Okay? We go through stage one, two, and three. That's comprised of deep sleep. Okay? Slow wave sleep. During these stages, there's one really critical thing that happens, and that's hormone secretion. Hormones are released during that stage. It occurs predominantly in stage three, which is slow wave deep sleep. These hormones are human growth hormone and testosterone. So for yourself, Chris, if you're not getting into those deep sleep stages, you're not gonna be getting the adequate release of human growth hormone or testosterone. So human growth hormone is responsible for protein synthesis and recovery and a whole bunch of other things. Babies sleep a lot, and that's why they grow fast, because they got a lot of human growth hormone. And then, have you ever heard of the saying, um, or maybe seen men that have got breasts? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Man titties.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Call them what they are, Louisa.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Listen. Well, whatever you wanna call them. You could say that it's a buildup of estrogen and a lack of testosterone. Okay? Maybe 'cause they're not getting into that deep sleep stage.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you see a typic- before you start working with the guys that you're floor traders, do you see a particular body style? I mean, are they built like bags of milk mostly?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yes, I do, and I- that's the first thing I say, and they get really upset. But hey-
- CWChris Williamson
Tell them that you tell these guys that are making $30 million trades that they're built like bads- bags of milk.
- LNLouisa Nicola
I go, "Too much estrogen, you don't sleep." And they're like, "How did you know?"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- LNLouisa Nicola
(laughs) And they're not really coming to me with their shirts off either. I can just see it. I'm like, "No, no, leave your shirt on. It's fine."
- CWChris Williamson
Please-
- LNLouisa Nicola
"I see it."
- CWChris Williamson
... for the love of-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... all that is holy.
- LNLouisa Nicola
So, so many different things happen during deep sleep, and then we move on to REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep. Now during this time, your body is completely paralyzed, but your brain is still active. It's what we call the dream sleep state. But what else happens during this stage? Well, we get things such as learning, so learn- memory consolidation, and all of the learning takes place during REM sleep. So if we're not getting into these d- these two stages, it's really gonna mess us up the following day. We're gonna wake up with brain fog. We're gonna wake up feeling irritable. We're not gonna be remembering things, and we're also not gonna be able to execute to the best of our abilities. So we really need to be optimizing for sleep, and that's a, that's a really big thing that we focus on at Neuro Athletics because there's coaches out there. So we work with one particular NBA team, and I'm actually going through and coaching the trainers and the coaches 'cause they're like, "Well, we didn't know this." Everyone's just working on the c- on the ball skills, you know? The speed drills-
- CWChris Williamson
No one thinks about what's happening when they go home at night. How long did you play Xbox for? What time did you get up? What's your pre-bed routine like? Yeah.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's some... What, how does, how does sleep debt and sleep repayment work? Is that a thing?
- LNLouisa Nicola
No. Sleep is not like a bank. So if you go into debt, you can't go through and pay it back. So once you lose sleep, that's it. You're done. That's why I don't like binge sleepers, people who are like, "That's okay. I'll sleep five hours during the week, maximum productivity, and then just, you know, build it up on the weekends." It doesn't work like that.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a shame.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Because that would be... Well, I mean, what can you do? Let's say that you do have a bad night's sleep. Presumably, sleeping a little bit more the following night isn't a bad idea.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, no, of course not. There was actually, I just put out, um, two weeks ago, there was a, a study that was just, um, that's just come out in a very high stringent journal that says there's no such thing as, as too much sleep.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- 32:20 – 38:04
Optimal Pre-bed Routines
- CWChris Williamson
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What are... Talk me through your, um, pre-bed or your optimal pre-bed routines. You know-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
I know that everyone that's listening will be familiar with the digital sunset, but realistically, what's the sort of minimum viable dose or the most compliant, easy routine that somebody could go through before they go to bed on a night?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, the first thing I start with, don't make it law. Just do it as many times throughout the week that you can. If you knock off three nights a week, great. Next week we'll work on four. The first thing is not eating three hours pri- prior to falling asleep. First thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Anything at all?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah, we don't want any activity, we don't want any raises in cortisol, and that's what happens when you eat. We don't want anything digesting. That's the first thing, okay? The second thing is obviously we're not gonna be having any caffeine past the hour. Caffeine has a half-life of 12 hours. We don't want caffeine past 12:00 PM, okay? That's the first thing. I always say that you're preparing for sleep the moment that you wake up, okay? Now, one really important one, I struggle with this every day, and that's eliminating, like you said, digital light, but it really is bad. So, I know for some people they say, "Well, Louise, I can't do that." So I do get them to wear blue light blocking glasses, although I don't particularly believe in them 100%, but it has some small effect.
- CWChris Williamson
I've seen some mixed studies about them. It's-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, it's... It doesn't block out all of the blue light. That's what the promise is, but it's not about that. So if we just treat it as if it blocks out some, that's a better thing to say, because it's true. Doesn't block it all out. So, but we do, you know, if we could be walking around with X-ray vision at night, then that would be great. So that is eliminating light, okay? Especially don't, you don't wanna be looking at light between the hours of 10:00 PM and 4:00 AM. Now, that's that, but then it's about, there's always two complaints that you have and you have to figure this out. Do you have a problem falling asleep or do you have a problem staying asleep? So these two things offer different prescriptions. If you have a problem falling asleep, that means your brain's just going at a million miles an hour, so you may be wanting to supplement with GABA, gamma-Aminobutyric acid. But around a year ago, I caught onto the fact that there was a lot of research that was being brought out about temperature, okay? And the ability to manipulate your core body temperature to get into sleep. So, in order to fall asleep and stay asleep, our core body temperature needs to drop at least two degrees. Okay? So, that's great. So we can get cold. But then I realized that it's not about ambient temperature. It's not about, you can't just put the thermostat on or the air conditioning to get really cold. It's about core body temperature. The only real way to do that is via two things. First one is sleeping on a temperature controlled mattress or hiring somebody throughout the night to just cool you down with- with ice packs. The latter probably isn't feasible, so you have to look at a cooling bed. And around a year ago, I, somebody said, "Have you seen Eight Sleep?" They're a sleep fitness technology company, I don't know if you've heard of them, but I in- I invested in one of their mattresses, and I had the best quality of sleep that I've ever had. And so I now sleep on an Eight Sleep, uh, temperature controlled mattress. So basically, it- it locates your heart rate, okay? And it gets you, once- once it figures out, "Oh, Louise is in deep sleep," it gets you into that, um, it drops your core body temperature down by dropping the temperature of the mattress, and you're able to get into those deep sleep stages.
- CWChris Williamson
How does it detect that?
- LNLouisa Nicola
It's actually, you've got a, um, you've got an app, okay? But also the bed, because it's technology driven, it's picking up on your heart rate. So in the morning, the app actually shows you-
- CWChris Williamson
Your bed can pick up on your heart rate through the mattress?
- LNLouisa Nicola
It gives you HRV metrics in the morning. It says, "Louise, you slept," um, "in your deep sleep, you did..." Uh, the exact same things that you see with your WHOOP, it does the same thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. Okay, that's pretty impressive.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. And so, I partnered with the company 'cause I harassed them. I said, "I need to be part of the movement that you're doing." So, um, now I have all my athletes sleeping on that.
- CWChris Williamson
So I got a ChiliPAD mattress topper-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... which is-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh, fantastic.
- CWChris Williamson
... very, very similar sort of thing, although it doesn't know when I am, where I am.And I took it off because it was winter, and I was using it to cool me down, but now maybe I'm thinking that you're probably right because the house is quite warm, it's cold in the UK at the moment. Then ambient temperature is okay-ish, but in the bed, it's completely different to what you have going on outside. The same as whatever, being in a hot country and thinking that blasting the air con and changing the temperature of the room is going to change what happens underneath the covers.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Exactly. I don't know, with the ChiliPAD though, it doesn't do heating, does it? Because it-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It goes both ways.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh, okay.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, so the two, the second one which I've got is the, um ... they've given it a stupid name and I can't remember it, so sorry, sorry, ChiliPAD. Anyway, it's the small one that goes underneath. It's like the Oro or something. And that comes with an app, uh, and the app you can change temperature throughout the night. It'll cool down to just below 16 degrees Celsius, and it'll heat up to 40 degrees or something unbelievably hot. And it'll move you throughout the night. It also has, I think Eight Sleep has this as well, where it can wake you up with, is it heat?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well-
- CWChris Williamson
But it does vibration as well, right?
- LNLouisa Nicola
It does vibration. That's very annoying because you-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- LNLouisa Nicola
It doesn't, it's so irritating 'cause it doesn't stop until you get out of bed. So it's like, "Oh my God."
- 38:04 – 42:04
Practices for Better Sleep
- CWChris Williamson
reducing sleep, uh, sorry, en- reducing the amount of times that you wake up throughout the night then? So that's sleep latency, maybe some GABA, make sure that people are feeling a little bit ... What about deep breathing and stuff like that actually for sleep latency? Any other ticks?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, let's just define. Sleep latency is your time that it takes you to fall asleep. Okay? But when we're, you know, when we're getting up throughout the night, okay, so that's a different thing, and some people are waking up to go to the bathroom. Usually with men over the age of, um, I think it's around 65 to 70, they're waking up at 4:00 AM. It's like a thing, okay, and they're going to the bathroom. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
All men world- worldwide or nationwide are getting up to go and have a wiz at the same time.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Exact same time. It's funny. Um, but what can we be doing? Well, you've got to figure out why it is that you're waking up. But in order to, like I said to you, to decrease that sleep latency, that comes down to not having a lot of activity happening in your brain and body. Breathing exercises, okay, breathing exercises are amazing. It calms down your, your sympathetic nervous system, activates the parasympathetic rest and digest nervous system so you're calmer.
- CWChris Williamson
What would be a protocol for that, like box breathing or something?
- LNLouisa Nicola
I like box breathing, but I actually have a, a 1:00 PM and like a 4:00 PM protocol, which is literally being silent for 10 minutes. That's all it is. Because I noticed that if you put in too many protocols, like sit there, put candles on, do this, um, things like this, it doesn't really work out. So, all it is, it's about 10 minutes of silent- silence. It's very hard. If you close your eyes and you try and keep that, um, keep that notion happening, it's very hard. But you can try it and start off with that. One thing that... I woke up this morning and one of my, um, she's a portfolio manager, she messaged me, she's like, "Had the best sleep of my life and my HRV increased because of this one technique," and I'll tell it to you. Have you ever taped your mouth during the night to-
- CWChris Williamson
I- I've tried it.
- LNLouisa Nicola
... to prevent-
- CWChris Williamson
I've, I've tried it. Yes. Um, it's a bit wei- it, uh, it never really seems to stay on my mouth. I don't know whether I'm, uh, trying to talk in my sleep or something, but yeah, I've tried.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Or the sweat may have, um, ripped it off, but-
- CWChris Williamson
It's not that hot. Come on.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah, well, (laughs) I don't know, but (laughs) ... I got that. Um, but you... That's a great little hack, okay? Taping the mouth. Mouth breathing is, um, is bad. We don't wanna be mouth breathing. So, in order to really breathe through your nose through night, the night, you wanna tape your mouth. Just make sure that you don't, um, have any breathing issues. We don't want you...
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. I've used... So I've just started using, this year, uh, nasal strips to open my airway up on my nose. So you'll have seen athletes use these before. That's really, really nice, especially if you have like narrow, uh, nasal passages. That makes-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Does it work?
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, it's such a difference. Yeah, it's literally like constantly having your nostrils flared, so there's so much more room. It feels really lovely. It's really satisfying. I have no idea... I haven't done it for long enough. I've only done it for maybe a week, so I haven't been able to compare. But I've tracked it on my Whoop 'cause you can give custom inputs about what you did during the day. So, I've got days when I did and days when I didn't, and we'll see if that makes any difference. But I mean, by the end of the night, I, I asked Ben Greenfield about this 'cause I think his wife is the most normal person on the planet, and Ben Greenfield is like the complete opposite, and I asked him, what does she think? He's getting into bed. He's got the blue light blockers on. He's got something stuck up his nose. He's got his finger on a HRV monitor, all of this crazy technology, and apparently his wife just, like reads a Dan Brown novel and falls and has the per- the perfect eight hours sleep that nobody ever needs to, to try and alter. Um, so yeah-
- LNLouisa Nicola
That's risky.
- CWChris Williamson
... I think there... Well, yeah, but there are going to be a lot of very odd or disgruntled partners after someone just decides to go- But whatever, you know, you're already married. They can't leave now, now that you've decided-
- LNLouisa Nicola
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... to adopt a weird bedtime habit. Um, I want
- 42:04 – 47:10
How to Stay Calm under Pressure
- CWChris Williamson
to talk about the guys that you're dealing with, whether it be athletes or floor traders, about how you instruct them to stay calm under pressure.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh. Well, that's, uh, that's hard, and, um, to do it in a healthy way, it's all about consistency and protocols. So, we have this one protocol which literally every time you think a bad thought or every time you're freaking out, you have to perform a drill. It might be a clicking drill, which anchors your thought, okay? Or it might be practicing a double inhale/exhale, like a physiological sigh to calm down the nervous system. But what I find is no matter how many, how many protocols you put in place for that moment...It's how strong are you and how strict are you to activate them during that stressful moment. Okay? So, I've got one player on the Miami Heat who I talk to every time he goes on- before he goes on the, um, actual court because he freaks out too much. Okay? And we- we do video calls. So...
- CWChris Williamson
And you're talking this guy through some cues?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yep. Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean when you say either a clicking or a double-breath inhale to anchor their thoughts? What do you mean?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Because when you're- when you're freaking out, you're anxious. Your mind is going at a million miles an hour. You're thinking so many things. So, if you just stop it, okay, and change direction. Literally, what do you have to do when you're going down a highway and you wanna change direction? You have to stop eventually. And once you stop, okay, you can stop by doing. So, clicking is like a- a form of- your brain is like, "Okay, I'm gonna click and as-" They're- they know through their protocol that in order to click, they have to anchor their thought into something else. Okay?
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So, that's-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... kind of like noting in mindfulness meditation.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Or an anchor. Yeah. It's a- it's- in sports psychology, there is one method where they get you to wear an elastic band around your wrist, and every time you have a panic, bas- you slap your wrist. That's very old school, though. So, that's-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I've seen people doing that.
- LNLouisa Nicola
So, that's one. But, uh, also, sometimes if I'm talking to someone, it's just about- they're making things up in their head, everything that can go wrong, okay. "I'm gonna go on the court. I'm gonna lose this. I'm not gonna get the ball. I'm not feeling good." So, it's just calming that down.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. It's strange to think that players that are professional athletes and do it week in, week out still have the same sort of nervousness that a normal person would do before they go and give a- a talk or whatever. It is- it gives a different perspective when you see... A- a good example might be someone like Jake Paul, who is-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... very new into the sport of boxing, but-
- LNLouisa Nicola
But putting him in the athletic background is-
- CWChris Williamson
I- I- I- I'm trying to be delicate here. But my point is that you have someone who isn't a trained athlete, who hasn't gone through years, decades, several iterations of walking out in front of a huge crowd. And yeah, I, uh, I don't know. I have a friend who's a- a very high-level DJ, and he, every single time before he steps behind the decks, throws up every single time, every single one of them.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Because that's how nervous he is, because he wants to do well, and he-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... he's playing in front of 10,000 people at Madison Square Garden or whatever it might be, and every single time before he goes out, he throws up.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Wow. That's- yeah, no. Look, anybody, I- I say athlete, but I mean anybody performing at a high level. And he obviously is too.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it's scary. What about research on heat and cold exposure? Is there any new cool stuff that you've seen recently on that?
- LNLouisa Nicola
I'm actually about to get... I- I love cold immersion. I speak about it. I've got a podcast dedicated to it. I'm actually getting my first ice bath. It's gonna come here to Sydney 'cause I can't fit it in the New York City apartment. But, um, it's absolutely incredible. Okay. There's so much research around this to suggest that this is so important to do, to literally bring down the, um, the inflammatory biomarkers responsible for inflammation. That's the first thing, okay, immersing yourself in cold water. We know that there is a pathway now where you get into cold water and these- the pathway can go up to your brain and have a really good effect of decreasing neural inflammation. But one thing that I love about it is that once you get into cold water, within about five minutes, you get this massive release of not just cold shock proteins, but we get a massive release of norepinephrine. And that is that- it's both a hormone, okay, and a neurotransmitter. And as a neurotransmitter, it is responsible for focus and vigilance. So, if you wanna get that- if you- I think everyone every morning should be doing some form of cold therapy. I absolutely love it. I do it. You just gotta be really, really strict to not do it straight after training. Because once we do that, what we do is we s- we block the hormetic response of hypertrophy. So, when we go and work out, okay, and we're working out our muscles, we're strengthening them. We want them to create a bit of inflammation so they tear a bit and rebuild. That's what makes them stronger. And if we go and stop that rebuilding by blocking those pathways through cold, we're not gonna get the effects. So, cold immersion, love it. Everybody should get a- a cold bath.
- CWChris Williamson
Give me your optimal cold immersion
- 47:10 – 54:32
Protocols for Cold & Heat Exposure
- CWChris Williamson
protocol across a week. What would you prescribe to someone?
- LNLouisa Nicola
I don't do it for less than 12 minutes, and that's really hard depending on the temperature. So, um, far- I'm not gonna speak Fahrenheit 'cause it's not my first language. But in terms of, um... I do- I've got a- I've got a thermometer inside the bath and it drops to around 12 degrees, which is freezing.
- CWChris Williamson
Celsius, or?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah, Celsius.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. Okay. Um, and you're doing that for, you said, 12 min- no less than 12 minutes?
- LNLouisa Nicola
No less than 12 minutes. Sometimes it goes down to nine, and that's enough.
- CWChris Williamson
How many- how many times a week?
- LNLouisa Nicola
I try and do this five times a week.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. So I saw Huberman had posted not long ago saying that the most recent research suggested, uh, nine minutes of cold exposure a week. And you're doing, what, 60? So, there seems-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to be a big disparity between those two. What's the reason for choosing 12 and 5 times?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, I mean, I- that's what- when I found this, you know, in the scientific literature, it said you gotta be doing this at least once a- once a day, really. It's like when people say, "Well, why can't I just get into a..." What's the co- the cryotherapy chamber? It's not gonna do you any-
- CWChris Williamson
Never done that.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Oh, yeah. It's not gonna do you anything. It's just- I feel like it's gimmicky. And no one's gonna- no one has $90. I think it's, like, $90 a session to do this every day. I think at bare minimum, the science says, okay, bare minimum, three times a week. Okay? Bare minimum. I'm just crazy.
- CWChris Williamson
All right. Um-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Just 23 filters having a coffee enema.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you had a look at contrast therapy? Um, Rhonda Patrick was talking about this. That's going from the heat to the cold.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, is there any research about whether that's as effective, more effective, less effective?
- LNLouisa Nicola
She actually says... I- I saw, um, she put this. She was on Joe Rogan, and she said that the sci... And she goes, it makes her feel good. So it can have a placebo effect, but the science isn't there to suggest that you're getting more benefits from doing cold shock, heat shock, cold shock, heat shock. So they're two different... uh, they are two different pathways. I prefer the cold, but I... You know, if I can one day get a- a sauna, infrared sauna, single person, then I would, because the effects that you get on the cardiovascular system are fantastic. You know? Imagine saying that you can get those effects, the- the heat shock proteins that are both neuroprotective and they help with the cardiovascular system. Imagine if you could do that for 20 minutes and mimic a one-hour or two-hour ride on the bike.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- LNLouisa Nicola
I'd rather-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- LNLouisa Nicola
(laughs) ... I'd rather do the- the sauna, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. The, um-
- LNLouisa Nicola
It probably
- NANarrator
calories.
- CWChris Williamson
There's a place in Austin called Kuya, which is a wellness recovery center, uh, ketamine psychotherapy and vitamin IVs and stuff, but it also has a... two cold tubs and a sauna, and they do contrast therapy, or they suggest contrast therapy. And it is... One of the good things about going from the sauna into the ice bath is that because you are so hot, when you get into the ice bath, the initial cold is easier to tolerate. And then as you stay in there over time, obviously the, um... What's it called? Agitator in the tank-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... is continuing to flow cold water in, but you are... It... The... It's the reverse of the frog in boiling water. It's the man in tiny swim shorts in the ice bath. But it gets easier to do it that way, and then I also find that getting into the sauna after that as well, you've got a little bit of time to bring yourself back up. So I think your tolerance on both increases. But yeah, I'd be interested to know what research ends up coming out around contrast therapy, about whether going from the extreme of heat to cold and back again actually is advantageous or not.
- 54:32 – 1:00:32
Can Psychedelics Enhance Sport Performance?
- LNLouisa Nicola
- CWChris Williamson
What about psychedelics and LSD for enhancing sport performance? Didn't you look at something to do with this?
- LNLouisa Nicola
I did. I wrote a... I wrote a Substack. So I have a- a weekly newsletter that goes out, and we tapped into this because I spoke to Dave Robin, and he's, um... he's at the forefront. He's a psychiatrist. He's at the forefront of psychedelic me- medicine. And look-I think it's going to be great, not for sports performance. I think it's gonna be great for the treatment of depression. And I'm all, I'm all for it. I think it's, um, I think it's amazing. I'm excited to see how it can be done clinically, um, with a trained professional, but only in that area. I don't know if I, I would think that there's any correlation, maybe this is just me, um, correlation yet with sporting performance.
- CWChris Williamson
You don't think players playing off their face, imagining bright green footballs flying towards them and stuff like that, and the dragon in the sky, you don't think that's performance-enhancing?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, I wrote about this famous, I forget what his name is, I forget what year, but he had his best hit, um, he was a baseballer, his best hit done on LSD.
- CWChris Williamson
No way.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah. Yeah. I've got it on my Substack. I- I'll send it to you. But it's, um, it's fascinating research, and that could just be because maybe he was calmer and he was just, you know... Uh, apparently, it, you know, when you're dosing or microdosing with psychedelics, whichever one, maybe it's LSD or psilocybin, you are tapping into that creativity mode. Okay? So maybe that could have had an effect on it.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, there are definitely connecting synapses that don't usually, right? Different areas of the brain that aren't usually communicating with each other is enabled when the default mode network gets switched off. Um, it does surprise me that someone's able to do swing anything at anything if they're on LSD, but...
- LNLouisa Nicola
Mm. Well, it depends on dosage as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. True. If it's, whatever, what's it? Sub-awareness, below the threshold of awareness, whatever it is.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Well, you can have, you can tap into the area that's gonna be clinically benef- benefit- beneficial for you, or you can tap into that one that makes people jump off a, off a roof, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Get that one. Get the second one.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
That's the one that we want.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What was the... I heard you talking about... So, we, we've spoken about throwing a tennis ball at a wall. What was the fact... Something to do with standing on your left foot and throwing with your right? What was that?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah. So, left brain and right brain, we've got two hemispheres, okay? They're connected by a bridge. Left part of the brain is responsible for the right part of the body, right side of the body. R- right side of the brain is responsible for the left side of the body. It's like this X, it's a contralateral. It's how we see as well. I love the fact that you can be working on the left brain, okay? Your brain is having to think and see, but you're actually producing the movement with your right hand. So, we do a lot of things where I'll get them to lift their leg up, their left leg up, so they're standing on their right leg, and they're throwing the ball to the wall with their right hand. Also, one thing that I get all my athletes to do at some point is wear an eye patch, literally. If you go to the, the pharmacy and you get an eye patch for if you've got an eye infection, put that on, and it blocks out one part of their eye or it blocks out the vision of their eye. So, this, that means if you're gonna block out the right eye, it means the left eye is gonna get stronger 'cause it's only got one, one eye to see, so it's gonna have to scan everything.
- CWChris Williamson
So, it's progressive overload for your eye. Are you familiar with slack block? Do you know what a slack block is?
- LNLouisa Nicola
No. No, I was gonna say, are they the, the goggles?
- CWChris Williamson
No. So, you know what a slack line is, right? Which is kind of like a tightrope thing-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that you tie between trees, and hippies do it in LA. So, the slack block (laughs) is a small, around about two feet long-
- LNLouisa Nicola
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and it's a kind of like a skateboard deck that's about the width of a foot, and it sits on a pyramid of foam.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
You have seen these?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Yeah, I have seen these. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, they're dope. They're so good.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Really, really good.
- 1:00:32 – 1:01:15
Where to Find Louisa
- LNLouisa Nicola
- CWChris Williamson
Where can people go if they want to check out your Substack and follow more of this stuff that you do online?
- LNLouisa Nicola
Uh, you can find me on Instagram, Luisa Nicola, or the_diamond_boss is my handle, or, um, if you really wanna get more information on brain health, upgrading brain performance, you can go to our Substack, which is neuroathletics.substack.com.
- CWChris Williamson
Sweet. We made it.
- LNLouisa Nicola
Y-
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you, Luisa.
- LNLouisa Nicola
... you, Chris.
- CWChris Williamson
What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.
Episode duration: 1:01:15
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