Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life (Genius Living Book 1)

While skipping an early breakfast may help cortisol fulfill its job, should you choose to eat a morning meal it should consist solely of fat and protein and fibrous veggies—not carbohydrates.

a good night’s sleep allows you the fortitude to make lasting dietary changes by making sure that your hormones aren’t working against you.

Unless we develop effective ways of defusing stress (which, let’s face it, is an unavoidable aspect of twenty-first-century living), cortisol can become elevated for long periods, resulting in some serious physiological consequences.

New experiences stimulate synaptogenesis, or the creation of new synapses, while the loss of synaptic connections coincides with memory loss.40 Get out of your comfort zone and explore new and unfamiliar territories. Stagnation is death—particularly where your brain cells are concerned.

Exposure to even mild ambient cold induces something called non-shivering thermogenesis, which is when your body warms itself up to protect against heat loss. Your body does this by ramping up calorie burning in the power-generating mitochondria of brown fat.

Follow the “one-for-one” rule. In between each drink, always consume a glass of water. Alcohol irritates the gut and makes it harder to rehydrate once the damage has been done.

crusader Robert Lustig has identified fifty-six unique terms food manufacturers use to disguise sugar—making it difficult, if not altogether impossible, to spot added sugar on ingredient lists unless you are the most diligent of sleuths. Here are just a few of the many names for sugar: cane juice, fructose, malt, dextrose, honey, maple syrup, molas

disease. We all generate this protein, and the glymphatic system helps to dispose of waste and prevent amyloid accumulation.

How to cook: While grass-fed beef has triple the vitamin E of grain-fed beef, which helps protect its polyunsaturated fats from oxidation, I recommend using as low a heat as possible. Consider cooking with garlic- and onion-based marinades to reduce the formation of neurotoxic compounds like heterocyclic amines.5 Always pair with fibrous veggies su