S2E366 Cognitive Fitness 101: How to Stay Mentally Sharp with Dr. Tommy Wood
The Brian Buffini Show
Brian Buffini
4.8 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Dr. Tommy Woods, a neuroscientist and performance coach, shares the best practices you should follow if you want to achieve optimal brain health. He also details how how these practices are tied into your overall health.
Dr. Wood introduces his 3S Model, “Stimulus, Supply, and Support,” a simple and practical way to think about how the brain adapts, performs, and stays resilient over time. You’ll learn why how you use your brain is the primary driver of brain function, how cardiovascular and metabolic health influence cognition, and why sleep is where the real adaptation happens.
You’ll also hear powerful coaching insights on handling stress (including why you can’t think yourself out of stress), practical tools to downshift when you’re under pressure, and the science-backed truth that the adult brain can learn “new tricks”. And you’ll also learn why mistakes (and the grace to forgive yourself and others when they occur) are so necessary for continued growth.
YOU WILL LEARN:
- How the “Stimulus–Supply–Support” framework make “brain optimization” doable without the overwhelm.
- You can’t “outthink” yourself out of being stressed, but you can learn effective ways to manage it.
- Why mistakes should be reframed as necessary and critical components to growth.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- The Stimulated Mind, by Dr. Tommy Wood
- Behave, by Robert Sapolsky
- The Neuroscience of You, by Chantelle Pratt
NOTEWORTHY QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“The 3S are stimulus, support and supply. In terms of brain function, stimulus is the most important.” — Dr. Tommy Wood
“The most important thing somebody should do for their brain health is the thing that they will actually do and do it consistently.” — Dr. Tommy Wood
“You don’t get stronger in the gym — you get stronger when you recover. And the brain is exactly the same.” — Dr. Tommy Wood
“One of the best ways to buffer stress and build our stress capacity is exercise.” — Dr. Tommy Wood
“You don’t know all the amazing things that can happen if you just go out into the world and you’re nice to other people.” — Dr. Tommy Wood
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to It's a Good Life, the podcast for entrepreneurs, where it's all about growing yourself |
| 0:08.2 | and your business. |
| 0:09.6 | Here's your host, founder of America's largest business coaching company, Brian Bafini. |
| 0:17.1 | Well, the top of the morning team, welcome to It's a Good Life. |
| 0:20.1 | I'm Brian Bafini, and we have a great |
| 0:22.3 | guest today. His name is Dr. Tommy Wood, an Englishman by birth. Tommy is a neuroscientist. |
| 0:27.7 | So we're going to test the bounds of reality today because an Irish non-neurroscientist is going |
| 0:34.3 | to interview an English neuroscientist. So Tommy is focused on being a performance |
| 0:39.2 | coach. He's got a brand new book coming out. You want to take note of this. It's coming out here in the |
| 0:43.7 | next couple weeks. It's called a stimulated mind. And we're going to dive into that today. |
| 0:48.8 | And he's worked with elite performance at the highest levels, not just war class athletes, |
| 0:53.1 | which is very helpful in that he's learned from those folks, but everyday people who want to stay sharp, focused, and thriving at any age. So Dr. Wood, we are extremely honored to have you today. Thanks for making the time. And I'm honored to be here. Thanks so much for having me. We were actually having a little chuckle. An earlier guest of ours, James Hewitt, and Tommy are great |
| 1:12.0 | friends. And our audience love James, so they're going to love you even more. So we're delighted. Great. I'm going to actually jump right in here. Jump right into the deep end if you're good with it. Absolutely. We're a coaching company. We coach tens of thousands of people and been doing it for 30 years. We often hear a lot about biohacking. That's the real |
| 1:27.6 | hot term. Biohacking and these rigid routines, right? And again, I love routines, but they |
| 1:33.8 | become almost a religion. You emphasize small, consistent lifestyle choices that compound |
| 1:40.0 | over time. If somebody could focus on just one daily habit for brain health, what would |
| 1:45.8 | give them the biggest return? The problem with me being a scientist is that my answers to questions |
| 1:49.7 | like that is always, oh, it depends, right? I know. So I think that this is something that hopefully |
| 1:59.1 | each person can figure out what might be most impactful for them. |
| 2:03.5 | And I think that that's important for many reasons. |
| 2:07.8 | But the most important reason is that it means it's more likely that you will actually do it. |
| 2:13.0 | So if I say one thing and you're like, well, I'm never going to do that. |
... |
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