How to stay cognitively sharp, without fatigue, reduce ovewhelm and ADHD without coffee. Peak Brain Performance by Design.

What if your best ideas are getting crowded out by mental clutter, not a lack of talent or willpower? We dive into simple, science-backed habits that free working memory, protect your peak focus hours, and turn effort into meaningful output without relying on endless caffeine. We walk through practical tools you can use, then we map your day to biology to honor ultradian cycles with breaks that reset your brain instead of scrolling. We also tackle the hid...

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina, I'm your host, I'm your partner in change, transformation, personal and collective evolution, and just someone with a lot, a lot of passion for human potential, doing our best, learning how to organize our environment, organize our lifestyle, our planning, doing, thinking habits, to help ourselves, to grow every day, to get a little bit better, and to set ourselves for more success, more evolution, and more positive impact.

• 0:51Speaker 00

  Today, guys, you're gonna learn all the recent and latest about how to maximize the potential in your own brain, how to remove instantly a lot of overwhelm and mental fatigue that a lot of you might be experiencing, and experiencing it not because it's necessary, but because you didn't learn how to optimize your workflow, your environment, your working and thinking habits, so you minimize the energy that is spent on each task and maximize by that for

• 1:33Speaker 00

  more output and for not feeling fatigued and mentally overwhelmed, and because of that, not being as creative, not making good decisions, and very often not feeling motivated to do great quality work that you are totally capable of.

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  So let me start with some of my habits to give you a, an intro, an idea of the simplicity of methods and how to think about those things and your mental capacity. So whenever I cook my eggs, I brew my coffee, or now even when I cook, or I need to do something at a specific time or for a specific period of time, without necessarily me being active, I set a timer. So I got myself a very simple kitchen timer, which I can set up on any amount of minutes and seconds and then it goes off. So when I set my eggs, for example, to cook, I set the timer for six minutes or brew my coffee for 10 minutes. And I don't think about those minutes.

• 2:35Speaker 00

  I don't try to remember doing that. And before I started using my timer, two things would happen. E- either I had to stand by there or always keep it in my mind, or I would forget it and my eggs would get burned. So I figured out a system where I use these timers and that allows me to just drop back to work into the zone and work through some emails or do some reading without any thought or any reduced mental capacity. And you think, well, it's such a small thing, it's actually not. You have this thing that's called working memory, which is basically if you are coming from computer background,

• 3:20Speaker 00

  it's like your RAM, your rapid access memory, kind of like your work desk where you could put a bunch of stuff, maybe your notes, maybe some other things, models that you work with. So you can start assembling your final project. Or think about also as a kitchen workspace, where you could put all the ingredients, all the stuff you need for cooking, and then you start assembling your.

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  Project and the bigger the workspace, the more stuff you can just lay out and play with. And but if you already put there like a lot of stuff, I don't know. There is a kitchen kettle, there is maybe, I don't know, some boxes or some kitchen silverware. And you have very tiny unoccupied space that you can work with for your actual day to day cooking. So the same thing happens with your brain. Or another analogy, maybe not as close to life as something you wanna do, but maybe try it out. Imagine if I told you, you gotta cook, but you gotta hold a dumbo in one of your hands. And it doesn't have to be heavy. And you'll be able to do quite some cooking,

• 4:31Speaker 00

  but it's gonna take longer and you're gonna be clumsier. And the end result is not even gonna be that great. So whichever metaphor works for you, but I understand that your brain's working capacity works pretty much the same way. The more things you hold in your mind, like remembering about the eggs, remembering about the coffee, remembering to send that email, remember to to do that before the meeting, remembering to, I don't know, pick up kids or to call your mom or do you buy that online? Do this, this, the more of those things you keep in your mind, the less and less of working space to work with your ideas, to solve problems, to figure out different ways to deliver work for your clients.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  The more, the less space, again, imagine that working space is there your desk or your kitchen workspace, the less space you actually have to cook something up. So working memory is the brain's temporary workspace, holding and actively manipulating a limited amount of information for immediate use in complex tasks like reasoning, learning and problem solving. In simple terms, it's your brain's capacity to work with things now.

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  And it is limited, just like your kitchen, the working space or your working desk.

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  So other thing, you know, I use this knowledge in my day to day work is, for example, when I know I have a few calls in the afternoon, and most of my calls are in the afternoon because my mornings are the best times for creative and cognitive work. So instead of thinking, oh, I gotta remember to do this, or I gotta stop at that time and constantly watching my clock. What I do is that I set an alarm to give myself enough time to prepare and take a little bit of a break. And then I dive into my creative or really cognitively demanding tasks, or writing, or strategizing, and I forget completely about that thing. No mental background noise, no low-grade vigilance and agitation,

• 6:41Speaker 00

  no, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, what time is it? No, just completely absorbed in my work. And when the timer goes off, I'm often caught by surprise because it's out of mind completely. And that is a good thing. It's kind of like removing all of the stuff from your working day desk or your kitchen working space and using all of that, even temporarily, for the work at hand. And your brain does it actual job with all the resources so much better instead of having to keep the rest of your life in mind.

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  There is a fascinating research from the University of Chicago showing that just having your phone visible and by nature of that, thinking about what's happening there, even when it's face down and it doesn't make any sound, doesn't make anything at all. By having your phone in your visible area, your cognitive capacity to do work, which was measured, decreases by a lot. The best scenario is to put your phone somewhere in some other room and it's literally out of sight, out of mind. This principle also explains why one of the most effective research-backed tools for falling asleep faster

• 8:07Speaker 00

  and to remove that rumination and when your brain just can't shut off or shut up. Then one of the most effective tools is writing down your to-do list for tomorrow. Now, why the to-do list for tomorrow works so well? Probably nobody is sure yet. But the more details you put into your writing about your tomorrow, the more you unload stuff from your mind, the better, the faster you fall asleep. And the more detail you put in, and again, they measured it in research, the faster you fall asleep.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  Why does it help you fall asleep? Because it gets things out of your head and your brain is not processing them anymore. The processing happens when you write things down. This is also why the world-known productivity system Getting Things Done by David Allen works so reliably well. It teaches you how to keep things out of mind and in a well-structured system while working on what matters the most in the moment. As David Allen famously put it, the creator of Getting Things Done, and he also trademarked the phrase, "Your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them." Gonna get a sip of water.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  And I could go on and on and on with this evidence, but here is what not carrying everything in your head actually gives you. Clear thinking and deeper focus, not feeling overwhelmed and barely if ever coming up to mental fatigue, more creativity and better problem-solving, faster execution with less end-of-day fatigue, less overwhelm and easier prioritization, sharper learning and better decisions. Do any of this matter to you? When your head is clear of all the stuff that you're trying to hold in it, it's kind of like close your eyes and imagining all these Lego pieces

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  to play with to solve this complex task, where when you do keep everything in your head, it's like finding those Lego pieces in a...

• 10:23Speaker 00

  In a whole like bunch pile of just stuff. And only then being able to assemble what you actually need. You might not even be able to see all the pieces because of the garbage in your head. One of my other very practical habits that plays into this theme that I use every day, especially helpful for my human and very much H D H D learning tendencies, is what I call this tool I call a thought note. When I'm working on something important and I want to stay focused and get it done, I keep a notes app open or just a simple notepad.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  And every time an idea pops into my mind, I write it down or type it in. And then it goes straight back to the task. It stops my brain from chasing every rabbit hole out of fear of losing my idea. The curiosity gets honored, just not right now. I schedule my rabbit hole time for less productive afternoons. Curiosity stays alive, essential work gets finished and everyone is happy. So that is one of the way how to noticeably and measurably reduce your overwhelm, increase your cognitive capacity to do many tasks, remove mental fatigue by the end of the day.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  So you actually have capacity to maybe learn additionally or to enjoy your life to the fullest. So that is a very, very powerful habit and tool that you can start incorporating today, just figuring out how to get things out of your mind. Even if it's like Google Doc or a simple Google folder and just, you know, name it correctly and well, so you can actually then search and find things. So that is for keeping things out of your mind. There is even a whole, there is a guy, Tiago Forte, who created this whole movement and business. I think it's multimillion dollar business by now, around this idea of the second brain or basically taking.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  Really beautiful system for keeping stuff out of your head to work on your projects. And also not forgetting stuff that you've been probably learning, resourcing, gathering. So you could use it in your work and enrich your work as you move forward and accumulate your expertise. What's the point of learning if you never use it in your work, in your better work? Right, so this idea of again of outsourcing your brain storage somewhere where you could trust and somewhere that is searchable and retrievable, not a bunch of mess and then you have to remember about in your head as well. But besides that, how to increase your cognitive capacity?

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  If you are the tools that so often overlooked by people and they work and matter so much. It's the difference between you struggling with the task and having to caffeinate yourself all the time and going through a lot of material. Like I study several hours a day. I do a lot of cognitive work and creative stuff and writing and podcasting and working for my clients and coming up with ideas, sales project and content and it's like on and on and on. If I didn't use this advice, none of this would be possible. You can caffeinate yourself only so much without degrading your sleep, which is one of the most important things if you want to have clarity of thought, your full brain capacity,

• 13:57Speaker 00

  your full learning capacity. Did you know, for example, that if you learn something today and you have a poor sleep night then after you learn, then most of the stuff is not going to be stored. It's like one ear in, the other one out. What a waste of freaking time. So you might, you might as well not learn. But so sleep, one of the key things that you need to do to remove overwhelm and fatigue from your, from your list of concerns in this life. Then the second thing is scheduling peak work for your peak hours. Your brain is not a machine. It's not a computer.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  It's a sort of biological mechanism that works kind of similarly because we model computers. Keeping brain in mind, but what your brain, where your brain is not like a computer is working the same way. I think even computers actually get tired, like by the end of the day or when I turn on computer and work nonstop, it starts slowing down. It's like a bunch of stuff starts accumulating in the memory, etc. But the, the point is, your, your brain is not like computer, it's not a machine. And it has biological cycles and it also is aligned with twenty four hour sun cycle.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  And you are more, you have more neurotransmitters of certain kind that keep you awake and learning better and more focused at the beginning of the day. You have other neurotransmitters closer to the end of the day. And in the middle, there is like that zone when your brain really needs to take a break. And again, it all corresponds with, with sun cycles. And the point of this, you have your peak hours. The fresher your brain is, the closer it is to your waking time, especially after a good night of sleep. The better you are capable of doing really intense work and the faster it goes. Like if you schedule your work like dummy and you decide to do the hardest part of your work in the middle of the day,

• 16:00Speaker 00

  because you didn't think through things, it's gonna take you so much freaking longer. So instead of working for ninety minutes on a thing, you're gonna be working for three hours on a thing and it's not even gonna be that good and you're gonna make more mistakes. And all of this, what I'm saying is backed by research on brains performance. And so, eh, as a smart person, and if you wanna do more in less time, what you do is you schedule your most cognitively in, um, demanding, most important work in the first part of the day, as easy as that. And then in the middle of the day, you do emails, you do non-essential meetings, you do whatever errands you need to do. You might even go to the gym if that's not, you know, you're not trying to be an athlete.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  Just go to the gym and do the workout when your brain really needs to take a break. And you're gonna come back a lot fresher and with, with this new capacity to do focused work in a very fast and very. Energetic way exercise does energize your brain unless you fatigue yourself that much that you can't think straight, that also can happen. So you gotta manage your resources, they are limited, you are not a machine. But the point of this part of the podcast is all about schedule your most demanding work for the first part of the day. In the middle of the day, do not essential stuff. And then from somewhere around three or four P M. You're gonna have additional boost of productivity, which is actually

• 17:28Speaker 00

  better for more creative work because the change in neurotransmitters, you still might, especially if you are a night, a pretty good work there. But middle, in middle of the day is probably not a good to schedule essential, essential work, essential meetings. So that's the second part, right? Not keeping things in your mind is the first part. The second part is scheduling your most important, most demanding work for your cognitive peaks, which have been researched. You can more look it up and figure out your chronotype when you do your best work. But to keep it simple, the closer it is to

• 18:10Speaker 00

  your waking time, the fresher you have your head. And then in the middle of the day, kind of dead zone for night hours, there is really good peak later in the day. And most people who think themselves as night hours just don't have good enough sleep to, to actually seize their most productive time. But that being said, timing is important. Then the next one, taking breaks. Again, your brain works in cycles, specifically ninety minute cycles, approximately, it sleeps in those cycles as well. And in between those cycles, especially if you've been doing very focused work, you don't need to take a break to replenish your brain's capacity to produce certain neurotransmitters, to supply your brain with

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  energy and oxygen, to remove certain byproducts of your brain's metabolism, so that you can get back to work focused and thinking.

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  Clearly, so taking breaks every thirty minutes for a couple of minutes, really good one. Or maybe using Pomodora technique, but every ninety minutes for sure. Take ten, fifteen minutes, even better doing protocols like meditation or yoga nidra, which amplifies your brain's capacity to replenish resources, refresh itself, removed by products of its metabolism which are toxic and slow down your cognitive work and increase mental fatigue. So take breaks, go for walks, nature does refreshing really well as well. Doing stuff like social media and checking your phone and browsing does not do good job.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  If you were wondering, so that is not really a break for your brain, but just closing your eyes and doing some breathing and maybe listening to some music and doing some meditation or maybe even having an app in the middle of afternoon. That increases your brain's ability to do more work without overwhelm and fatigue by a lot. Then another one, not multitasking. Multitasking, every time you switch between tasks, your brain have to spend more resources to finish off the task, to start a new process. I don't know the details of the whole process, but what I do know is every time you switch from one task to another, your brain needs to do additional work.

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  And the more of that additional work you do, first of all, you're not going to be able to do the same deep focused work as you are capable of when not switching, where you really optimize for the task at hand and can do it much faster. So that's not gonna happen. But what is gonna happen is you're gonna spend more energy and those neurotransmitters and other resources for switching between tasks, which is basically a waste. Imagine if you had to stand up and sit down every time, every minute or so. That's what you basically do with your brain. And would you be able to do good work? Probably freaking not. So not multitasking is another research-backed method to how to save yourself some cognitive capacity to do what's needed

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  and to enjoy your life as well without caffeinating yourself all the time.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  The next one, having uncluttered environment. Now, people think like, how does it actually help my brain to work? Your brain is a

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  tool that is designed to process everything in your environment, just in case maybe there are resources or maybe there is danger coming your way. So whenever you have a lot of objects, especially moving objects in your environment, in your visual field, also noise for the same reason decreases your cognitive capacity to work. Whenever your brain has to process all this information, it's like again back to this idea of this kitchen working space, the more stuff you have to process, the more stuff your brain has to process, just like with that phone. The less space on that kitchen counter is left for your cooking.

• 22:20Speaker 00

  So when you remove stuff and you literally face like a white wall with nothing moving and you put some noise cancelling headphones on or earplugs, which I usually do if I'm in a noisy environment. So the more you shut off those channels of information processing, the more of that resource can be used on what you actually care about doing. That is why and how cluttered desk will steal your ability to do work. It will require more time, more energy, and you're going to be more overwhelmed and fatigued by the middle or the end of the day.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  So having uncluttered environment really helps to save that brain energy for what matters. And the last but not least, we already talked about sleep, we already talked about nutrition, how essential it is for a well-working, healthy brain.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  But also, don't forget about nutrition. Like, your brain, for example, needs fuel from time to time. Things like proteins to create the dopamine or adrenaline to keep you focused. You're also, your brain needs glucose, yep, to run some processes. So when you're feeling fatigued and tired, eating like an apple or maybe drinking that protein shake that doesn't loads up your stomach by a lot. Because you, if you overeat and put too much in your stomach or stuff that is just suboptimal for your digestion. Or, for example, with quick sugars, which is going to raise your blood sugar and then it's going to drop.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  So your ability to perform at a steady level, like energized, calm, focused, is going to diminish if your blood sugar is not optimized with, you know, just sugary snacks or your drinks. Or if you don't have enough protein in your system and your brain cannot create those molecules to keep you focused, like, again, dopamine or adrenaline or acetylcholine, which is important for learning and focus. So your brain needs those things, those building blocks, to create a state of focus or to learn well or to also remove distractions and to keep the engine running with the fuel. So have these foods.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  You know, my favorite ones are maybe tuna king with an apple. Yeah, I know, it's weird. Or rice cakes, if you're into more traditional combinations. Or having a protein shake with, again, a banana or an apple, because also you have your gut, feed your gut bacteria. And get your carbs with fiber, which then contribute to steady blood su- sugar, which then contributes to steady focus and brain energy. So nutrition is important. There is a whole field of brain nutrition. Talking about how taking care of your balanced nutrition and eating the right way plays into your optimal brain's performance. If you are curious. About learning any of that in detail and perhaps optimizing your

• 25:30Speaker 00

  brain's performance, your lifestyle for it, your eating habits, your brain nutrition. You can always get back to me [email protected]. That's my email. You can also, I think, send a message from the podcast platform. Get into it and I'll help you set yourself up for optimal brain performance. But to sum it up, number one, don't keep things in your head. Again, back to that idea of kitchen counter. The more stuff is occupied, the less you have for cooking. Number two, scheduling your peak work for your peak times. Your brain is not computer. It has its capacity, its capacity to work well,

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  changes at different times of the day. Take breaks. Again, your body, your brain need to replenish your student resources to do the work and then not get that fatigued and overwhelmed. Number four, stop multitasking. Additional brain resources are used for switching tasks. Number five, no interruptions, clutter, noise of any kind. Again, number six, keep your environment uncluttered. That's all information that your brain has to process. Number seven, nutrition, but also sleep and exercise. So this is how you keep your brain unoverwhelmed,

• 26:56Speaker 00

  focused, learning well, not fatiguing and needing coffee. So then you can create extraordinary career results, impact in the world and enjoy your life so much more. Hope this was a useful episode. Don't forget to rate, review, leave a comment, connect with me, tag me to help this podcast to reach more ears who might really need this information to do their best work in the world and to live the most extraordinary life. So that would help me a lot. Besides that, reach out if you need any help. Until next time, keep growing and Happy New Year.