Good Life Project Simple Food & Lifestyle Choices That Protect Your Brain | Austin Perlmutter, MD
Oct 6, 2025
Dr. Austin Perlmutter, board-certified internal medicine physician and bestselling author, dives into the critical link between lifestyle choices and brain health. He shares how modern stressors and habits can degrade decision-making and cognitive function. Austin emphasizes the importance of resistance training and nutrition, revealing how specific foods and environments can promote healthier habits. He redefines identity as a dynamic construct, showing how small daily choices can reshape our brains and lives.
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Brain Health Is The Core Metric
- Brain health underlies both mental health and cognition and determines quality of life across domains.
- Depression, anxiety, and dementia are all manifestations of brain health that we can influence earlier.
Short-Term Survival Rewires Long-Term Choices
- The brain prioritizes short-term survival which drives escape behaviors that harm long-term health.
- Short-term fixes (sugary foods, scrolling) rewire the brain toward worse decisions and outcomes over time.
Design Your Environment For Better Choices
- Build your environment so healthy choices become the automatic default and reduce reliance on willpower.
- Examples: remove junk food, use router timers, keep healthy snacks available, and change your commute to avoid fast food stops.
