Brain Health: How to Keep Your Brain Healthy as You Age with Dr. Tommy Wood
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What simple definition does Dr. Tommy Wood use to measure brain health?
So guys, welcome to Stronger. My guest today is Dr. Tommy Wood, neuroscientist, physician, and associate professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at the University of Washington. Tommy, welcome. And I'm just excited to jump into these questions. So we're going to kick it off. Let's start with the big picture. When you think about brain health, what does that even mean? In other words, how do you know if the brain is healthy or not?
The way that I think about it, and I have a very vague and purposefully vague definition, because I think that actually helps us more. My definition of a healthy brain is, does your brain do what you want it to do when you want it to do it, right? And that means that each of us, has the capacity to have a brain that does something different, right? We each wanna be good at different skills, have different knowledge, right? And that's essentially what the brain does is it helps us build those things. But then that also gives us a little bit of an internal barometer, right? One of the best predictors of cognitive performance, physical health, long-term health is how do you feel, right? Actually, there are studies in athletes that show that how they feel predicts their performance better than their HRV and their blood work and all this other kind of stuff.
So this then allows you to think, well, How do I feel? Do I feel good? Is my brain doing what I want it to do when I wanted to do it? And if it is, you've probably got a healthy brain. If it isn't, we also have lots of evidence to show that a lot of that is reversible. You can make changes and that and that can improve. So that kind of gives you the starting point that allows you to figure out what to do next.
Awesome. So when you're talking about brain health, in a way, you almost sound like you're talking about energy, right? But they are so interchangeable. I mean, I wake up in the morning. My overall goal, I think, in life is to really just get a great night's sleep. It really is. I mean, I'm not talking about business and family. But I mean, personally, if I get a good night's sleep, I feel like brain function is good. I feel like energy level's high. And then I am able to kind of go about my day. I mean, obviously, these are very... These are all... heavily connected and everyone's looking for this magic answer this magic ingredient but at the end of the day it's really sleep eat your protein you know get you know micronutrient dense foods hydrate move right i mean doesn't it get a little i don't want to say boring but we're always looking for this fancy answer right no but we are right it's like take creatine monohydrate like what is that like in comparison to everything else i mean that's a that's a that's a blip on the radar like what's your what's your thought process to all that
So I genuinely, I completely agree.
How does the 3S model (stimulus, supply, support) guide brain‑health improvement?
And you're then trying to think like, how do I apply this for myself? So I do have a framework to think about like, where might I want to act? And so like this, my framework, I call the 3S model. And the 3Ss are stimulus, supply and support. And it looks a lot like the stimulus recovery adaptation model that you might have in like sports performance or exercise physiology, which basically says that if you wanna improve a function, you need to stimulate or challenge that function. And then you need to give the body or the brain all the thing it needs to adapt and respond to that stimulus, right? So if you wanna get bigger biceps, you need to do bicep curls, right? But if you want to get the most out of your training, then nutrition becomes critical and sleep becomes critical.
But you can't get bigger biceps just by drinking protein shakes and taking naps. Unfortunately, I wish it were so, but it's not. And so the brain is essentially the same. So the first bucket... is stimulus. And this is the skills we learn, the people we interact with, the problems we solve, kind of our education, our work. And when you're talking about where you focus, you've got stimulation ticked. You're getting all of that.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What simple definition does Dr. Tommy Wood use to measure brain health?
0:07–2:42
2
How does the 3S model (stimulus, supply, support) guide brain‑health improvement?
2:42–5:41
3
Which nutrients and foods are most critical for supporting brain function?
5:41–9:05
4
Why is sleep considered the most important “support” factor for brain recovery?
9:05–12:06
5
What types of physical activity provide the greatest cognitive benefits?
12:06–15:01
6
When and for whom might creatine supplementation improve cognitive performance?
15:01–17:29
7
What practical, step‑by‑step protocol does Dr. Wood recommend to start optimizing brain health?
17:29–20:11
8
How can listeners use the BetterBrain platform to create a personalized brain‑health plan?
20:11–22:14
Speakers
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