#2450 - Tommy Wood

Nice to meet you, sir. I kick this off by tripping over “future‑proof your brain” and joking I must already have dementia — what got you to write about keeping the brain sharp?

I’ve worked across newborn brain injury, traumatic brain injury, cognitive decline, and with elite drivers, and I kept seeing the same fundamentals the brain needs. Those habits help focus and well‑being now and, over time, translate into much lower dementia risk.

So is dementia genetic, or is it mostly wear and tear?

Clinically, dementia means cognitive loss severe enough to disrupt daily life. Alzheimer’s is the most common, vascular is next, and a large share is tied to lifestyle; estimates suggest nearly half, maybe more, are preventable, while rare early‑onset cases are single‑gene. The common, age‑related form is heavily influenced by environment, and even with genes like ApoE4, it acts as a risk multiplier, not destiny, which means better habits can offset a lot of that risk — family history often reflects shared lifestyle too.

Which version is linked to CTE?

ApoE4 again — it tends to amplify inflammatory responses, which likely worsens repetitive head injury. One copy raises Alzheimer’s risk roughly two to six times, two copies about six to twenty, but it’s still not a guarantee if you manage the big lifestyle drivers.

And people without that gene can still end up with dementia if they’re sedentary and unstimulated?

Yes. Not everyone with ApoE4 gets Alzheimer’s, and most with Alzheimer’s don’t carry ApoE4.

It feels like we’re flooded with input but underchallenged — lots of noise, not much real thinking.

Every tissue adapts to the stimulus you give it, and the brain’s no different; if you want capacity, you have to challenge the networks you care about.

And now people are outsourcing effort to AI all day, which seems to blunt thinking.

In one MIT study, the more external help students used, the less those task networks engaged and the worse they remembered later. A better approach is treat AI like an orthotic — do the work first, then ask it what you missed — which improves the output while keeping your brain in the loop.

That can spark, why didn’t I think of that, and shape the next draft.

Exactly — you stay fully engaged, and the tool expands your range.

Social platforms dangle rare, exciting nuggets to keep you scrolling, prey on our social wiring, and still leave you isolated while they harvest data.

They drip unpredictable hits and exploit what we prioritize socially — prestigious, in‑group, moral, emotional — yet deliver isolation; if they know what hooks you and what you’ll buy, they can extract more.

So beyond quitting doomscrolling, what actually future‑proofs the brain?

Use tools to deepen real connection, not replace it, and spend serious time learning new, hard, often creative skills like music or art that strengthen attention and social networks. I aim to build “headroom,” the gap between daily demands and true capacity, so you can still think clearly under stress, sleep loss, or illness.

What’s happening neurologically when you start out terrible at something and get better — I always tell people that’s gold.

Learning hinges on prediction errors — the gap between what you expected and what actually happened — and that frustration flags the brain to rewire and close the gap. Starting bad and improving is exactly the stimulus that drives neuroplasticity and cements those networks.

How many skills at once — I want four lives and probably take on too much.

A broad base helps, but the biggest brain benefits show up with some real expertise, so pick one or two things you’ll stick with and go deep. Different skills confer similar core gains, so choose what you enjoy and keep at it.

I’m watching my wife learn French and it lights her up, and it’s a great reminder of how much time we throw at feeds instead of learning; people stuck in routine seem to dull out over the years.

Average processing speed peaks in early adulthood, then drifts down, but much of that looks like we stopped being professional learners. Without stimulation the brain prunes connections; stimulating jobs and active hobbies slow decline and lower dementia risk.

Same as the body — use it or lose it — and it makes me wonder about ADHD as an advantage in the right setting; how much swings with physical activity?

ADHD is complicated; stimulants can calm some, and the modern environment adds layers, but movement is a core biological requirement. All kids need daily, varied activity, yet systems and behavior change are hard, which is why it’s under‑prescribed relative to meds.

Personal responsibility matters, though — people can start tiny and build momentum; my buddy dropped hundreds of pounds by walking and cutting sugar, one slow step at a time.

It’s doable, but support and context matter — unsafe neighborhoods, no kitchen, no time — so we need both individual buy‑in and better environments. I’d bake movement back into school, teach practical cooking within real constraints, and expand access to supportive care.

We should have public gyms and beginner classes — free or subsidized — plus insurance that actually helps; most new folks just need guidance and community.

Classes build skill, confidence, and friends, and we should stop idolizing extremes — any extra movement helps heart, brain, and dementia risk. It’s a long‑term process, but you can feel wins fast — a brisk twenty‑minute jog sharpens thinking and a daylight walk improves tonight’s sleep.

Switching gears to Formula One — split‑second reaction, tiny margins — what are you doing with drivers to find an edge?

Through Hintsa Performance, drivers have coaches who manage travel, sleep, training, and nutrition, and we filter out shiny distractions while tailoring plans. With nonstop travel, the big wins are sustaining performance with recovery and sleep, nailing basics, and tracking early slips.

How do you blunt jet lag — timing, light, food?

When possible, arrive a couple days early and start shifting light, sleep, exercise, and caffeine toward the destination, then align meals to local time and often skip in‑flight meals. Train on arrival, use light or cold strategically, and stick to third‑party‑tested supplements; we avoid gray‑market peptides and lean on proven basics.

What actually sharpens reaction and focus on race day?

We aim for the top of that classic bell‑shaped arousal curve — too low and you’re flat, too high and you’re jittery — so we use warm‑ups, light, breath work, and pre‑cooling on hot days. Don’t get too cold or exhaust yourself, because cognition dips; measured caffeine, sometimes with theanine, or creatine can help, and newer options like theacrine or paraxanthine are interesting when vetted, but we prioritize physiological routines over piling on nootropics.

I assume programs are proprietary even inside teams; do guys do extra brain training?

Plans are siloed and highly individual; many play video games, and sport‑specific cognitive drills matter more in development. At the top, it’s maintain driving skill and maximize recovery with sleep, meditation or breath work, sometimes tools like a ShiftWave chair; subjective well‑being predicts performance best, and F1 travel makes data collection tougher than in team sports.

In fighting, toxic relationships crush performance; do you see that there, and which athletes are toughest to support?

I haven’t seen a clear pattern like that in F1, but across sports the hardest cases are athletes pulled in many directions by success and distractions. Longevity demands more attention to unglamorous details as careers mature, and it’s easy to say the right things while living the opposite.

When you work with Formula One drivers, how much do your methods change each year?

The core does not change much because the basics win: consistent training, solid sleep, and a setup that lets them do those things every day. We add low‑risk, high‑reward tweaks when the data supports it, test new ideas in low‑stakes practice, and only chase what solves a real problem like reaction time off the line.

What about the mental game? Some coaches say if a fighter needs a mind coach, they are not dependable. Do you think mindset can be coached or is it baked in at the championship level?

You need some grit to get that far, but we routinely bring in sports psychologists because mental skills are trainable. The most durable high performers tend to be self‑compassionate and mindful, not just relentlessly self‑critical, and they rebound fast from errors—think of that Federer line about winning only a bit more than half his points and still staying composed for the next one.

I see that in pro pool. The best let a bad shot go and show no frustration, while others spiral and the match unravels.

That fits the arousal curve we discussed. Getting angry pushes you out of your optimal zone and keeps your mind on the last mistake instead of the next shot.

Once the skills are there, the mind decides outcomes. If you think you will miss, you probably will.

Psychology drives physiology and performance, and we can measure that. Mental coaching is foundational, but the tools differ by person, so we keep that capability on the team.

What tools help athletes drop negative thinking?

Reframing stress as fuel is powerful—research from Stanford shows a stress‑is‑enhancing mindset improves decision making under pressure. Routines can build confidence, but avoid turning them into crutches; in the moment, bottom‑up tools like breathing, closing your eyes for a beat, or quick visualization can pull you back into the game, and there are also routines for pre‑performance and ways to process errors afterward.

Just knowing stress plus failure can be harnessed seems valuable by itself.

Exactly. We show examples of people who performed under extreme pressure to remind athletes what the human system can do when you let it.

Inspiration is rocket fuel. A teenager just smashed an indoor mile mark, and now others will chase that barrier.

I heard he lined up without pressure and just let it rip, which can unlock a special day.

MMA exploded because video raised everyone’s standards. Today’s fighters are balanced everywhere because the mind now accepts what is possible.

A big piece is refusing to assume limits, and youth helps because they carry fewer burdens and more curiosity. But for everyday people, endless comparison on social media can lower perceived rank, trigger stress, and backfire.

It is brutal for young girls—filters and cosmetic fixes warp what is real, and rates of harm rise when social platforms flood their lives; Haidt’s work digs into that.

The same exposure can inspire one person and undermine another depending on goals and what they can control.

Competitive athletes already have resilience, so seeing Kobe or LeBron pushes them to copy the work, not just the result.

That is the key: fall in love with the process because outcomes are never guaranteed—think of running a personal best and still losing to a generational outlier; process puts you as close as possible.

What else is in your book—and by the way, you handed me a blank dummy copy. You got me.

After that prank, the book starts by broadening brain science beyond a single protein story to include inflammation, white matter and vascular health, and what we can change. The middle delivers practical frameworks—exercise types, nutrition, cognitive load, social connection, sleep, and stress—inside a three‑S model of Stimulus, Supply, and Support, where one upgrade can lift the whole system.

How big is it, and how did you decide what to keep?

It is about four hundred fifty pages and one hundred sixty‑five thousand words, with roughly two thousand references online. I cut little, reordered a lot, and centered durable fundamentals with an intro on why this matters now and a closing that ties it all together.

I am glad you wrote it. People underestimate how being sedentary harms the brain—and how starting now can make thinking sharper and delay decline.

The aim is to hold the line and even improve, which is possible later in life; long‑term studies show many maintain abilities into their seventies and eighties. The myth of inevitable decline makes people stop doing the very things that preserve function, so staying engaged is the win.

Last one—do you have an audiobook coming? When is it out? Stimulated mine, Dr. Tommy Wood. Go get it, folks. I promise it will not be like this blank copy. Thank you, Tommy, I really enjoyed this.

I am recording now, and it will be available on March twenty fourth.