Welcome to Live Happy Now, the podcast to inspire you to live a happier life and give you the tools to make it happen.

This episode is brought to you by Momentus Institute, powered by the Salesmanship Club of Dallas and dedicated to building and repairing social emotional health for kids since 1920.

This is Live Happy Science Editor Paula Phelps, and today on episode

170 of Live Happy Now, we're talking about working out, but it's not the kind of workout you

might normally think about. Joe Bates is the author of Making Your Brain Hum, 12 weeks to a Smarter

You. And it seems fitting as we go back to school that we're talking about making our brains work

smarter, not harder. Joe looks at how things like exercise and nutrition and sleep are necessary

for sharper brains. So if you want to start building a better brain, let's hear what Joe has to say

about it. Well, Joe, welcome to Live Happy Now. I'm really excited to have you on the show today.

Thank you so much for having me, Paula.

Can you first of all tell us what it is that you mean by brain cardio?

Brain cardio started out as a series of mental exercises to try to give the brain a jump start

to recover some of the learning that it's had in the past and may have got forgotten

over the years with some disuse. And it actually was an outcome of writing a book called

making your brain hum. And that is an example of brain cardio. So what does brain cardio

consist of? Well, it consists of a series of mental exercises, and I wrote the book with 12 chapters

addressing 12 different categories of learning, but the term actually has become much broader

than that, and it's really become more of a lifestyle

and so the brain exercises challenges the questions problems that I have in the book or a part of it

but it is really to try to have someone focus on their abilities them, and really improving their quality of life.

And it's important, particularly, I'm a senior citizen.

I'm almost 77 in a couple months.

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