Cal Newport

We saw something similar in physical health when we saw the real...

A real canary in a coal mine, a real warning sign, a real sort of point of break for a lot of medical professionals where the crisis alarms went off was seeing a sudden rise in type 2 diabetes among kids.

Kids didn't get type 2 diabetes.

It used to take a long time

through bad eating habits, et cetera, to sort of get the type two diabetes.

But we got so bad in our diet and we cut out so much physical activity that we began to see kids with it.

This is a trend that really picked up in the 21st century.

This is when the alarm sirens went off for a lot of physical health practitioners.

This is the equivalent, I think, for cognitive health.

College students.

High school graduates wrote essays to get into college, had the test scores, are looking at a 20-page article and say, I can't read that.

That is the cognitive equivalent of having type 2 diabetes.

Your brain is not working.

It is not anywhere near where it needs to be to be a functioning, thriving member of our sort of civic democracy and a knowledge work economy.

This is a big deal.

It's the type of thing that makes us say cognitive fitness matters.

And it goes back to that cognitive endurance testing.

That's what I want if I'm a college, maybe.

I want to see where you are.

Take one of these tests in a testing center.