Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 268. Brain Health: Transform Your Life and Work Performance

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Episode 268. Brain Health: Transform Your Life and Work Performance · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

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  Speaker: Today, I want to dive into really brain health. Why this is important as a technician and why it can help change the way you do things. For years and years, I've ate lots of greasy food. I've drank, I smoked. There was a lot of things that I've d done in the past that I didn't know and maybe, and I did know, but I didn't know how it would affect my life as much as it did in the past, and how now I can actually think better.
• 0:01
  Speaker: Today, I want to dive into really brain health. Why this is important as a technician and why it can help change the way you do things. For years and years, I've ate lots of greasy food. I've drank, I smoked. There was a lot of things that I've d done in the past that I didn't know and maybe, and I did know, but I didn't know how it would affect my life as much as it did in the past, and how now I can actually think better.
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  I can learn faster. I can do things way better than I ever could before because of my brain health. And there's many strategies on doing this. But it comes back to setting up those goals, getting into the habits. of brain health. And you may be thinking, what do you mean by brain health?
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  Well, in general, we need to stay healthy in different ways. Sitting in our van for eight hours a day, driving around is tough on the body on our knees, climbing up ladders lifting stuff that can be. Difficult on our bodies as we do it over and over again if we're not doing the right things before so Like stretching or exercising huge huge to really would be a game changer and that would have been That was a game changer for me even then because even when I did Drink and I did eat a lot of unhealthy food and I did smoke.
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  Well, in general, we need to stay healthy in different ways. Sitting in our van for eight hours a day, driving around is tough on the body on our knees, climbing up ladders lifting stuff that can be. Difficult on our bodies as we do it over and over again if we're not doing the right things before so Like stretching or exercising huge huge to really would be a game changer and that would have been That was a game changer for me even then because even when I did Drink and I did eat a lot of unhealthy food and I did smoke.
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  I still was exercise. I was going to the gym as much as possible, but I never ever seen the results I was always looking for. I was always chasing because of those, those habits that I had. And it took me a lot more work. And so when I started cutting those things out and I seen results. way faster. And this is what's important for brain health.
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  And I've been doing a lot of studying on it over the last few years to get a better understanding of it. But the first thing, like an effective strategy would be state physically active. And I said this already before doing your job is not staying physically active. Yes, it's a physical job and we do a lot of walking and lifting and stuff, but that is different than actually exercising, spending that time to exercise.
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  And I've been doing a lot of studying on it over the last few years to get a better understanding of it. But the first thing, like an effective strategy would be state physically active. And I said this already before doing your job is not staying physically active. Yes, it's a physical job and we do a lot of walking and lifting and stuff, but that is different than actually exercising, spending that time to exercise.
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  And it could be even walking up and down the stairs, or you have a job site, walking up and down the stairs 10 times. Going, walking around your block, around your house. Going to the gym. This, really here, increases blood flow to the brain. And it really helps you
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  stay active. It's like getting outdoors and breathing in some fresh air. Cycling, swimming, it doesn't, whatever you like to do. And a lot of the stuff that I, I do that I stay active, that helps me with this, it's things that I, I, Start to enjoy it. I don't always enjoy getting on the treadmill and running at the gym.
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  stay active. It's like getting outdoors and breathing in some fresh air. Cycling, swimming, it doesn't, whatever you like to do. And a lot of the stuff that I, I do that I stay active, that helps me with this, it's things that I, I, Start to enjoy it. I don't always enjoy getting on the treadmill and running at the gym.
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  That's not super fun for me, but I do it. I do it consistently each week because I know that helps me. But in the summertime when I, it's not winter here, I will go outside now. I will start now soon and I will start running outside. Once again, running is not super exciting for me, but I throw my, My earbuds in, I listened to some podcasts, some personal development stuff.
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  And that gets me, I just do that. Listen to an audio book and I would just run. And then I, I challenged myself during those runs. So if I run the block in so much time, I'll set my timer, see if I can beat that time or how many times I can do it. Or I run hard for a minute and I walk for a minute. So staying physically active is gonna help your brain health.
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  Excuse me. Another one is eating brain food. This is another big one that, man, I used to eat out so much, eat a lot of greasy food, things that, even things that I thought was healthy for me. So, for example, Subway. You know, I used to think Subway, if you have Subway, if you ever heard of Subway before, I thought eating Subway, But when I looked into the calories and all the stuff that I was putting on it, all the sauces and all that stuff, it was actually just as bad as going to McDonald's.
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  Excuse me. Another one is eating brain food. This is another big one that, man, I used to eat out so much, eat a lot of greasy food, things that, even things that I thought was healthy for me. So, for example, Subway. You know, I used to think Subway, if you have Subway, if you ever heard of Subway before, I thought eating Subway, But when I looked into the calories and all the stuff that I was putting on it, all the sauces and all that stuff, it was actually just as bad as going to McDonald's.
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  Just didn't know it. I was just in my perception. Oh, well, this is healthy. I got some lettuce on there and I got some vegetables on it, but no, if you really break it down and what you're putting on that sub, that will tell you if it's healthy or not. And it's definitely not as healthy if you made your own own meals.
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  So one of the big things that I've learned is that there's different foods that will help you with your brain health. Like fatty fish. Like how often do you eat fish? Think about that. Oh, I never eat fish. I don't like fish, whatever. But even if you don't like it, it doesn't mean you shouldn't try it and eat it.
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  And see if you make it a different way, you may like it. Maybe the way you make it doesn't taste very good, but the way it can be made, it tastes better. And now I'm not saying deep frying all your, all your salmon and all your trout and your mackerel, you're just deep frying everything. That's not going to, it's going to be grilling it.
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  And see if you make it a different way, you may like it. Maybe the way you make it doesn't taste very good, but the way it can be made, it tastes better. And now I'm not saying deep frying all your, all your salmon and all your trout and your mackerel, you're just deep frying everything. That's not going to, it's going to be grilling it.
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  And it's going to be having any wood, some vegetables and some rice. Maybe berries is another big thing. Eating blueberries, eating different types of berries
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  and, and doing these things, It's going to help you that it helps with nuts and seeds. So here's a good example. If so, if you're driving around, we drive a lot, we're, we're always driving, but instead of having chips or a bar or a candy, you can have nuts and some berries or some seeds, try different ones.
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  Walnuts almonds are good. There's a few different ones. These are, these are fatty, but this is going to help you with your snack intake and spreading those snacks out over time. This is really, really will help you out. Another thing would be like lettuces, greens, spinach, kale.
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  Walnuts almonds are good. There's a few different ones. These are, these are fatty, but this is going to help you with your snack intake and spreading those snacks out over time. This is really, really will help you out. Another thing would be like lettuces, greens, spinach, kale.
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  There's lots of things out there that will really help your brain health. These are, they're rich in vitamins. Like they have vitamin A's and K's, and you don't have to understand all that stuff. It's switching out what you're doing now and what you're eating to some of these other things. Getting salads into your, into your weekly meal.
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  Oh, I don't like salads. Well, if you want to have better health, you want to start doing some of this stuff. Yes, it might be hard at first, but you'll start to like it. And once again, If you have a salad, and you just drizzle it with a whole bottle of Caesar dressing, that's, Caesar salad dressing is terrible for you.
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  I, like, I love Caesar salad, but if you look at what's inside that dressing, it's not good for you. So, once again, you gotta take a look at, yes, there might be, salads might be good for you, but if you're making it bad for you, but, because of the taste, and it's not good for you, You're fighting it. Okay. So just think of that.
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  I, like, I love Caesar salad, but if you look at what's inside that dressing, it's not good for you. So, once again, you gotta take a look at, yes, there might be, salads might be good for you, but if you're making it bad for you, but, because of the taste, and it's not good for you, You're fighting it. Okay. So just think of that.
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  Whole grain stuff is good for you. Avocados, dark chocolate, all these different things can be really good for you. And you just got to learn how to make it, learn how to make it at home, learn how to make it to bring with you. But some of the easy things, like I just already said, if you're just driving, you can have berries and nuts in your, your truck.
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  You can make a sandwiches, like grill some salmon the night before and then make a salmon sandwich the next day. Bring it to you for work. And this doing these things will definitely change change the way you're, you're looking and doing things
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  another thing for your brain health is getting enough sleep. And I know this is something that's difficult for us because we. We work a lot we can work at night, we can work a day, we can get called at any time. And that's part of our job. That's what we do, but getting enough sleep.
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  And I hear lots of people say, well, I don't get enough sleep. Like last night I went to bed at eight o'clock. So if I can go to bed at eight o'clock, there's no reason why you cannot do that. And so, well, if you're on call that week and you get called in the middle of the night, well, if you went to bed at eight.
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  And I hear lots of people say, well, I don't get enough sleep. Like last night I went to bed at eight o'clock. So if I can go to bed at eight o'clock, there's no reason why you cannot do that. And so, well, if you're on call that week and you get called in the middle of the night, well, if you went to bed at eight.
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  And you get called at three in the morning. Well, you get nine, 10, 11, 12, one, two, three. So that's six hours of sleep, seven hours of sleep already. But a lot of people will stay up and they'll watch movies till midnight or one o'clock in the morning. They'll go out and hang out with friends at parties and do this consistently.
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  But getting that sleep is going to help you with your brain health. It's going to help with you to learn a bit more reading manuals. If you get. You get enough sleep, it's gonna make you better. My wife told me this for years and years and, and as you get older, you, you're gonna need a bit more sleep.
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  For me, like I, six hours of sleep is great. Seven's even better. Eight is usually I can't sleep for eight usually. Well, maybe I can, but I'm usually, I'll wake up before my alarm. I've tried to sleep eight hours, but I'll wake up and my body just wakes me up. And then I'm, I'm awake. I'm ready to go
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  For me, like I, six hours of sleep is great. Seven's even better. Eight is usually I can't sleep for eight usually. Well, maybe I can, but I'm usually, I'll wake up before my alarm. I've tried to sleep eight hours, but I'll wake up and my body just wakes me up. And then I'm, I'm awake. I'm ready to go
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  you can do this, but you gotta get in the habit of doing it being like, well, I don't need to stay up. Why am I staying up anyway? I'm just wasting time. You know, unless you're doing something productive. If you're just watching TV, that's not productive. Okay, if you're laying in bed scrolling through social media, that's not productive.
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  Even I do that because I got so many messages and I got people commenting on posts that I got to respond to. I got people emailing me and it's not productive for me to do it because I've done that so many times. Just sit and spend an hour before sleep, just messaging people, following up with people.
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  And it's not helpful. I just stopped it because that's an hour of sleep. That, and then it's harder to get to sleep when you're staring at a screen for an hour before bed. Now it's reading and it helps me fall asleep. I think another one for brain health is trying to manage your stress. And I think a lot of that other stuff will help with the stress.
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  eating healthy, exercising, feeling better about yourself, getting more sleep, will definitely help you with the stress. Because this here, if you can think a little bit better before you have certain conversations, you can feel better about them. You may think before you act in that conversation.
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  eating healthy, exercising, feeling better about yourself, getting more sleep, will definitely help you with the stress. Because this here, if you can think a little bit better before you have certain conversations, you can feel better about them. You may think before you act in that conversation.
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  which will help you. And that's, that's the big thing is figure out techniques that are going to help you. It could be deep breathing. Like I talked about before, box breathing. It could be doing meditation. It could be different things that work for you, but you got to try these things and figure out ways to manage your stress.
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  If you can start to figure out the way to manage your stress, things get easier. This helps your brain. This is going to help you learn, learn a bit easier, and it's going to get better and better. It's just like I said many times before that I, I struggled with reading. I used to tell myself I'm bad reading and now I, I can read no problem.
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  I can understand I'm reading faster. I'm not reading even every word on the line. I don't have to because I can, I can understand those words that are the same. A and the, and then, and and, and is, and just these words that keep coming up. There's no point of reading those if I already know what they mean.
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  I can understand I'm reading faster. I'm not reading even every word on the line. I don't have to because I can, I can understand those words that are the same. A and the, and then, and and, and is, and just these words that keep coming up. There's no point of reading those if I already know what they mean.
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  And I can read a lot faster. I can get through books faster. I can understand reading at a faster pace using different techniques that I learned. And this helps my brain. Your brain is a muscle. And you got to work it. And if you're not working, just doing your job is not always working. Yes. We have to think on, on the job, but it's not always challenging your brain.
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  You have to sometimes challenge it. And sometimes when we're at work, we're, we're stressing our brain instead of working our brain and stressing and putting that stress on the brain doesn't help build that muscle. We're worried and it. It's not that it weakens the brain, it just does, it's not working like a muscle like when you're taking a course or you're doing a test or you're challenging it with different mental effort, like doing a puzzle or playing with Legos.
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  You have to sometimes challenge it. And sometimes when we're at work, we're, we're stressing our brain instead of working our brain and stressing and putting that stress on the brain doesn't help build that muscle. We're worried and it. It's not that it weakens the brain, it just does, it's not working like a muscle like when you're taking a course or you're doing a test or you're challenging it with different mental effort, like doing a puzzle or playing with Legos.
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  These are just simple examples of working that, that your brain, like a new skill set, playing on the guitar, figuring out how to move your fingers versus playing and singing maybe. So that is brain challenging your brain for an example. Yeah. And a big one for your brain health is definitely limiting alcohol, limiting smoking, drugs.
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  Those things are just Punishing your brain so fast, and if you can stop, reduce that to the point where you stop that, things are going to change in your life. I know I've seen it time and time again. It has happened for me. Why I'm here talking to you are some of those reasons. Because usually Saturday night I could have been at a party and I would have been drinking all night.
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  Hanging out with friends it's a great time till two o'clock in the morning. There's no way I would be getting up at 5. 30 to work out before 6. 30 coming to this call. So the big thing is, is limiting that alcohol. I'm not saying stop it all, but I'm, I'm saying if you can limit that it really damages your brain.
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  Hanging out with friends it's a great time till two o'clock in the morning. There's no way I would be getting up at 5. 30 to work out before 6. 30 coming to this call. So the big thing is, is limiting that alcohol. I'm not saying stop it all, but I'm, I'm saying if you can limit that it really damages your brain.
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  There's decades and decades of proof of alcohol, smoking and drugs are bad for you, damages your brain. And I'm not saying that you, you could live to a hundred years old and you smoke all your life, but that's not, that's the, the one off that's the one in the 10 million people, because more people die every year because of smoking or drinking than most of it, most things out there.
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  And it's same with unhealthy eaten. It's these, all these things that we should be learning from, from statistics. A lot of people aren't. Like the alcohol is the scapegoat, the smoking is the scapegoat, the eating food is the scapegoat, watching the Netflix and the shows is the scapegoat sometimes, and these are the things that you want to think about, and it's up to you if you want to, you know, You want to have a better brain and a healthier brain and you want to perform at a higher and elite level, that is totally up to you.
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  And it's same with unhealthy eaten. It's these, all these things that we should be learning from, from statistics. A lot of people aren't. Like the alcohol is the scapegoat, the smoking is the scapegoat, the eating food is the scapegoat, watching the Netflix and the shows is the scapegoat sometimes, and these are the things that you want to think about, and it's up to you if you want to, you know, You want to have a better brain and a healthier brain and you want to perform at a higher and elite level, that is totally up to you.
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  But you decide. You take a look at what you've been doing the last 5 10 years. You look where you came today and look where you want to go. Don't stress about what you've done in the past, because that doesn't matter at this point. Today is like, how do I move forward from it? So how, what did you learn from the past?
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  For your brain health, what have you been doing for your brain health and what can you do going forward?
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  So If I can do it, I know All of you can do it as well. I know for sure.
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  So If I can do it, I know All of you can do it as well. I know for sure.