Bonus: How to Improve Your Brain Health and Performance with Louisa Nicola

Everyday Wellness with Cynthia Thurlow ™

Cynthia Thurlow

Alternative Health, Nutrition, Science, Life Sciences, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I am excited to connect with one of my favorite neuroscience experts today! Louisa Nicola is at the intersection of neuroscience and athleticism. She helps to bring a fresh understanding of what it takes to achieve peak performance through science-based tools and methods. She is also the host of The Neuro Experience podcast, which focuses on brain health, neuroscience, longevity, and athletics. Louisa knows how to take complicated subjects related to brain physiology and hormones and explain them so that people can fully understand and appreciate them. In this episode, she and I dive into her background. We discuss her three pillars for peak performance, alcohol, and how sleep impacts the glymphatic system. We get into strategies for better sleep, the perimenopausal brain, how chronobiology impacts sleep, how to address jet lag, and how exercise improves brain performance and health. We also discuss the best foods and supplements for brain health and how creatine enhances performance. I hope you enjoy listening to today’s conversation as much as I did recording it! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: How an accident shifted the trajectory of Louisa’s life. Louisa unpacks the various stages of sleep and explains why sleep is so important. How sleep impacts the glymphatic system. Some common characteristics of perimenopause. Some simple ways to aid the penetration of naturally secreted hormones into the brain. How blood pressure fluctuations impact the brain. What is jet lag, and how can we combat it? How does alcohol affect the brain? Louisa explains cardiac remodeling. The value of different types of exercise for brain health. The difference between physical activity and exercise. How our food choices impact our brain health. How to mitigate the effects of traumatic brain injuries. How does creatine monohydrate improve brain performance? Connect with Cynthia Thurlow Follow on X ⁠ ⁠Instagram ⁠ ⁠LinkedIn⁠ Check out Cynthia’s ⁠website⁠ Connect with Louisa Nicola On X and ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠The Neuro Experience Podcast⁠ Book mentioned ⁠The XX Brain⁠ by Dr. Lisa Mosconi

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Everyday Wellness Podcast.
0:03.7	I'm your host, nurse practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow.
0:07.4	This podcast is designed to educate, empower, and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals.
0:13.9	My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and
0:21.5	impact over a million lives.
0:29.3	This is the start of bonus Mondays, a compilation of the top episodes over the past three years for everyday wellness.
0:41.2	And I have to tell you, when I went through all of this research and data, it was apparent to me that we have a very eclectic, diverse group of clinicians, science writers, personal trainers, and experts. I know you will love this new series
0:57.7	every Monday. We're dropping some of the biggest podcasts of the last three years. These are your
1:03.6	favorites, the most downloaded, ones that have resonated with you. And I love that we're going to
1:09.5	be able to share these every Monday so that you can
1:11.9	revisit some of these amazing episodes. Well, Louisa, I've been so looking forward to this
1:20.2	conversation. Welcome to Everyday Wellness. I'm so excited to be here. And likewise, I've been really
1:25.2	looking forward to it. Yeah. So share with the listeners a bit about your background because I know that you started
1:30.3	as a competitive triathlet. You were this incredible nationally, internationally recognized
1:36.1	athlete and then you had an accident and the trajectory of your life really shifted.
1:42.1	Yeah, no, that's correct. So back in my younger days, I always say
1:45.6	that was 40 pounds ago. I was a triathlet. And it was my first love. And at the time, I was doing
1:52.5	an exercise physiology degree. So that's what I thought I was going to do. And I just loved the body.
1:57.2	And four weeks prior to going to Beijing, I had an accident. I was hit by a car
2:02.7	and I was hospitalized and had a few broken bones, which I had to get fixed up. But because of that,
2:09.0	I had to forfeit my title. And during that recovery phase, which I was told, you know, I was first
2:15.7	told, you may not walk again. Then I was told,
	...

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