Brain Coach Takes. Best in class for motivation, confidence and learning boost. They work – don’t get too smart!
Angela Shurina
Translating business KPIs into effective culture change strategy. We help large innovation-focused companies build high-performing, change-capable culture that maximizes ROI of innovation, time, talent and technology.
I gave this talk at the beginning of the year. “Focused Brain Nutrition and Lifestyle” was the title. On that stage and right before it I felt very confident and motivated! I didn’t forget a single thing I planned to try – even using a “standing ovation” trick from the “steal the show” book. I felt like I always wanted to feel on stage – my best and present.
Am I like that 24/7?
Have I always been like that?
No and No.
Motivation, confidence, flow and focus, great memory and remembering all the points of your presentation – all of these are states are conditioned by chemistry happening in your brain and body, the chemistry that we influence by our lifestyle, food choices, the words we tell to yourselves, how well and when we sleep, supplements we take, people we interact with, books we read, the music we listen to.
The coolest thing happening these days in neuroscience, health and self-development, performance fields – we start to understand HOW exactly it works, we can get specific chemistry in our brain and body to feel motivated, confident, happy, to learn and remember much better, to even how to stay present. Connecting what we do with how we feel using precise, research-based protocols – that’s where we are heading.
MOTIVATION
It depends on dopamine levels in your brain.
My default setting used to be – “not that motivated”. For years since then, I’ve been making lifestyle and nutrition choices to boost my dopamine levels and don’t burn out my dopamine receptors with things like inadequate sleep, drugs, alcohol, sweets, and overstimulation. Present-day: being NOT motivated feels very unnatural to me. If I’m not feeling like doing something – I ask myself, “What’s wrong? So not like myself today!”
Dopamine. Your motivation depends on it.
You can boost that molecule in the brain by getting adequate sleep, spending time outside in the morning, not exposing yourself to bright light at night, doing exercise regular exercise, eating protein, especially salmon, chicken, lean beef and pork, taking cold showers, listening to your favorite tunes, AND taking L-tyrosine supplement. L-tyrosine is an amino acid found in many protein-rich foods, especially animals, a major building block of dopamine. I always suggest consistency in lifestyle and daily meals first, but at times when you need a boost – take 500 mg. Morning and early afternoons, the most active part of your day and away from sleep time - is the best practice. I also recommend trying it without caffeine.
Do I take it?
No. I do all the other behaviors consistently and feel there’s no need for it. I always suggest it to clients, who might need a solution for now to get the motivation to introduce all the other changes.
CONFIDENCE
Am I always confident? NO. I think there’s a healthy dose of self-doubt that we all require to adequately assess our behavior in the world and ask ourselves, “What if there’s another way? What if it can be done better? What else can I learn? How can I improve and get better? Maybe they are right and I’m not?”
But also, we all need more confidence at times when we need to deliver. Like when we are on stage – all the doubted learning and improvements should have been done before.
Serotonin. Your confidence boost.
Most people in our modern world made themselves chronically deficient in serotonin with inappropriate lifestyle and food/substances choices and now are looking for anxiety cures. Unfortunately, there’s still very little education around that.
To boost our serotonin we need to sleep well, spend time in the sun, exercise, avoid overstimulating and processed foods like too much caffeine and processed sugar, meditate and schedule downtime, to eat protein, especially chicken, turkey, and other animal sources 3 times per day, eat carbs with colors and lots of fiber, eat fish with Omega 3s, or take fish oil, eat fermented foods with all the probiotics. AND taking L-tryptophan helps. L-tryptophan, an amino acid found abundantly in mentioned above animal protein-rich foods, a major building block of serotonin. 500 mg, 1 or 2 times daily, afternoon and evening will help with serotonin and confidence boost. Side effect: feeling happier overall.
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Do I take it?
Also no. I do all the above-mentioned lifestyle and dietary protocols. I recommend L-tryptophan to my clients experiencing anxiety, mood swings, “under dark clouds” states of mind, too many worries.
LEARNING
Am I always learning? YES!
I’ve pretty much always been a learning junkie. Since school. I find everything incredibly fascinating and absolutely love learning more about things I’m passionate about, or getting better at anything via learning. But my ability to remember things has definitely been worse and better. Like I kid you not – my vegan years – I barely remember anything I learned, even though I remember things I learned from previous years much vividly. Probably a combination of not having dopamine and acetylcholine building blocks, and most probably being deficient in key for the brain function B vitamins, made an impact – it’s like all my vegan years are a blur, and I haven’t learned a thing. Present: since I fine-tuned my learning nutrition – I seem to remember things I don’t mean to.
Acetylcholine. Your favorite learning and memory molecule.
One of the major molecules of focused attention, learning, and memory, as well as REM sleep quality, and all the creativity, “connecting the dots”, and mental health benefits. You can boost it by great sleep, exercise, sun, stress management, eating specifically whole eggs, which are the richest known source of available in food choline (acetylcholine in the brain is made of it). Anything to take? Alpha-gpc definitely helps, especially if you are on the lower egg and fatty animal foods consumption. 300 mg, 1-3 times per day, before learning bouts, not close to sleep - is a good practice.
Do I take it? Yes!
I do! And my memory seems to be getting better and better, as well as my ability to filter out distractions and to focus for longer. I often recommend it to clients struggling with ADHD, poor ability to focus, brain fog, and when I often hear “I can’t remember…”
All of the recommendations work much better with sleep, exercise, a balanced diet, stress management, taking multi vitamin/mineral, and 2g of EPA+DHA combined (found in fish/algae oil).
This is what I found to be very useful with many clients I worked with over the years. I wanted to share it with you, since whatever we do in life – we all can use a boost of motivation to take important actions, confidence to get out there and speak up about what is meaningful to us, and memory to never forget important lessons and to keep learning, improving, building our visions.
MY BOOK: It’s coming out on June 17th. It’ll have all the protocols I’ve written about here and so much more, especially for nomadic souls and remote pros – all put together into simple systems, easy-to-do life recipes. It’ll be a very nicely compiled reference book that I’ll keep improving and updating, using your feedback and latest research.
“Fit-and-Focused Brain-Body Manual for Digital Nomads and Remote Work.”
5-DAY “Fit and Focused Brain-Body Manual Challenge” is coming up – your chance to try out all my most effective tools with my personal daily guidance in exchange for your feedback. Send me an email with the title “Fit and Focused Challenge” to angela at brainbreakthroughcoach.com to apply.