Want To Upgrade Your Brain? STOP Doing These 8 Things
Sep 24, 2024
Read time: 3.5 minutes
The High Performance Journal - September 24th, 2024
The brain is the Operating System of your body.
It controls your thoughts, movements, impulses, and even the speed of aging.
Much like a computer, your brain can be upgraded through neuroplasticity, which is a fancy way of saying your brain can grow new neural networks depending on your actions.
But the brain isn't set in stone—it’s a work in progress.
Unfortunately, most people unknowingly degrade their brains with a few hidden (and not so hidden) toxic habits.
So, in this article, I'll reveal the eight insidious habits and what to do instead.
Want to upgrade your brain? Stop doing these 8 things.
For this list, I will start with the BIG rocks of building a healthy brain and then dive deeper into the non-obvious toxic brain habits to avoid.
#1 - You haven't nailed the basics
If we're not nailing the basics—sleep, exercise, and eating a healthy diet—we're screwing over our brains.
Sleep isn’t passive; it’s when your brain cleans up the day's mess and resets. Skip that, and you're running on fumes.
Exercise is like pumping your brain full of feel-good chemicals and keeping it sharp. Without movement, there is no juice.
And if you're eating junk all the time, you're giving your brain garbage to work with. It's like trying to run a high-performance engine on swamp water.
You can’t function properly without giving your brain the bare essentials. If we neglect the basics then our brains will slowly degrade as a result.
SOLUTION: If you haven't nailed the basics, choose one habit around each of the three pillars of health (sleep, exercise, and nutrition). Do this for the next 21 days straight, journal your progress, and you'll be surprised at what you find.
#2 - Being metabolically unhealthy
A big part of being metabolically healthy is having a healthy body fat percentage. Photo courtesy of ​Precision Nutrition​.
If your body is inflamed, your brain will follow suit. But what does it mean to be ​metabolically unhealthy​?
- High waist circumference
- High blood pressure
- High blood sugar levels
- High blood triglycerides
- Low HDL cholesterol
If someone is metabolically unhealthy, they have 3 (or more) of the above.
Being metabolically unhealthy messes with blood flow, inflammation increases, and the brain suffers, which could lead to things like dementia and Alzheimer's.
Long term, this can shrink the brain, wreck focus and memory, and even make someone more prone to stuff like depression and anxiety.
SOLUTION: It's obvious, but getting your body metabolically healthy is a top priority if you want your brain to work at its fullest potential. I've got plenty of articles on my website, but if you need a system, the ​​Lean Body 90​ ​is what we use to help our clients become lean and energetic. If you need personal attention, I suggest signing up for ​coaching​.
#3 - Being chronically stressed out
When you're always stressed, your brain gets flooded with cortisol—the stress hormone. A little bit of cortisol here and there is fine. But when it’s always there, it’s like leaving the gas pedal floored 24/7.
Over time, this constant flood starts to kill off brain cells, especially in areas like the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory and learning.
It also screws with your ability to think clearly, make decisions, and even regulate emotions. So, chronic stress? It’s not just making you feel like crap; it’s slowly frying your brain from the inside out.
SOLUTION: Create routines to mitigate stress in your life. My favorite is walking. Making 10,000 steps mandatory for your day is one of the best tools for fighting chronic stress.
#4 - Beginning and ending your days with your smartphone
When you wake up and immediately start scrolling, you're flooding your brain with information, stress, and comparisons before it even has a chance to fully wake up. It’s like stepping onto a treadmill at full speed with no warm-up—you're setting yourself up to crash.
At night, it’s even worse. Blue light from your phone messes with your sleep, which screws up your brain’s ability to recharge. Plus, all that late-night scrolling keeps your mind racing when it should be winding down.
Basically, you're hacking your brain into feeling anxious, tired, and unfocused.
SOLUTION: At night charge your phone in a separate room so you don't reach for it upon waking. When you're winding down at night, give yourself at least 30 minutes without a phone before sleeping.
#5 - Social isolation
Yeah, alone time is cool every now and then, but if you consistently isolate yourself from others, you're starving your brain of one of its core needs: Connection.
Chronic isolation messes with your mood, increases anxiety, and can lead to depression.
Your cognitive abilities also take a hit—you become less sharp, your memory tanks, and decision-making becomes more challenging and long-term; isolation can even increase the risk of dementia.
We were meant to connect. Without human interaction, your brain starts to shut down slowly, like a computer left unplugged.
SOLUTION: If you have friends, contact them and re-engage communication. A simple text can go a long way. If you don't have friends, start by meeting people at meet-up groups for an activity you like doing. Some of my best friends were made doing things I liked.
#6 - Self-defeating thoughts and beliefs
Your inner dialogue is like the code you feed to your operating system.
So when you constantly tell yourself you’re not good enough or will fail, you’re training your brain to see the world through a negative lens, making things worse than they are.
Over time, your brain gets stuck in this cycle of pessimism and self-doubt, making it harder to focus, make decisions, and feel motivated.
Chronic negativity can even shorten your life and ​make you look older​.
By not exerting control over our thoughts, we end up sabotaging our mental health and limiting our potential.
SOLUTION: Get a journal and follow this sequence when you encounter negative thoughts: Catch the thought by writing it down, challenge it by asking if it's true, flip the script by replacing it with a more balanced thought, and practice self-compassion by speaking to yourself like a best friend.
#7 - Environmental toxins
You might not notice it right away, but a bad environment silently messes with us over time.
Things like ​air pollution, microplastics, heavy metals, and pesticides​ sneak into your system, disrupting how your neurons communicate and slowing down cognitive function.
Your brain is like a high-performance machine, but exposing it to a toxic environment starts to misfire, slowly poisoning your operating system without even knowing it.
Environmental toxins might not knock you out right away, but they’ll wear you down, piece by piece.
SOLUTION: You can’t completely avoid toxins—they’re everywhere—but you can minimize their impact by cleaning up your environment, avoiding eating or drinking out of plastic containers, supporting your liver, and staying informed by reading food labels.
#8 - Not having a purpose for living or a vision for your life
Without a clear direction, your brain drifts aimlessly, burning energy with no real payoff.
It’s wired to chase goals, solve problems, and feel a sense of meaning. Without that, it’s like giving your brain nothing to work for.
Over time, this lack of purpose can lead to feelings of boredom, frustration, and even depression. Your motivation tanks, focus drifts, and your brain goes on autopilot—doing the bare minimum to get by.
Purpose gives your brain a reason to thrive. Without it, you're just coasting through life, and your brain is paying the price.
SOLUTION: The best way to have a purpose is to create it and take action. ​Click here​ to download the system our clients use to refine their purpose and goals.
Not sure where to start? Use the Rule of 1
If you've read this and you're not doing any of the things on this list kudos to you.
If you are doing a few of these and don't know where to begin, start with the Rule of 1:
Choose one thing to improve upon with one habit beginning with one day.
The most important thing is starting. The next most important thing is building a groove using the 21/90 rule:
The 21/90 Rule
— Dan Go (@FitFounder) September 16, 2022
It takes 21 days to start a habit.
It takes 90 days to start a lifestyle.
Be patient with yourself. Building habits are slow but they compound over time.
Hope this article helped nudge you into a better version of yourself.
Onwards and upwards 🚀
- Dan
When you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help:
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