How to Optimize Mental Clarity, Focus, Memory & Mood by Monitoring Your Glucose
Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #250) and blog, I speak with Josh Clemente, one of the founders of Levels, an amazing company that developed a smart tracker that monitors your blood glucose in real time, so you can maximize your diet, exercise, mental health and overall wellbeing. Josh and I discuss the importance of tracking your glucose levels, how to know what changes to make based on the data, techniques to balance glucose levels and increase metabolic flexibility, how sleep affects glucose levels, how to use a glucose monitor to improve mental health and decrease the risk for neurodegenerative diseases, and so much more! Plus, I share how I used a Neurocycle to lower a stress-induced glucose spike!
Over the past several weeks, I have used the Levels monitor daily, and I can honestly say it has changed the way I see my health and live my life on a day-to-day basis. It has made it more fun to experiment and see, in real time, how my lifestyle choices impact my biology and mental state, including how my 5-step mind management technique (the Neurocycle, which I discuss in detail in my upcoming book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess) impacts my physical health. For example, I noticed that when I didn’t manage my stress, my blood glucose levels went crazy, and I experienced a type of “fogginess” in my mind and body! However, when I got my mind back under control using the Neurocycle, I was able to manage my stress, and my blood glucose levels went back to a healthy level. I felt “human” again!
But why exactly are our blood glucose levels so important? As Josh notes, our metabolism regulates our sleep, our appetite, our weight, our energy levels AND our brain and mental health, so it is incredibly important. Levels essentially helps you maximize your unique metabolic health so you can live a longer, fuller, healthier life, mentally and physically! It teaches you how to get the most out of your body by knowing how to fuel it, showing you what impacts your energy levels and ability to function mentally and physically.
When it comes our mental health, research has actually shown that when we monitor our glucose levels on a regular basis and make better lifestyle choices based on our unique data, we can improve our clarity, mood, and ability to focus and make new, healthy memories. This is not surprising, as erratic glucose levels can cause havoc in the brain, potentially setting us up for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s! Just as putting bad fuel in a car can damage it, not fueling the brain correctly can cause all sorts of issues, including insulin resistance and chronic inflammation.
Levels essentially provides a series of objective data points over time to help you track how your body is functioning and what you can do to improve your overall health. With Levels, you don’t just have to make a healthy choice and hope for the best—you can see, based on the data, how that choice is affecting you individually within the context of what Josh calls the “system” of your life.
Of course, this kind of data is very important for people that need constant glucose monitoring, like someone diagnosed with diabetes. However, it is also helpful for people who just want to make better health decisions based on how their body is functioning moment-by-moment to help prevent the onset of chronic health issues. As they say, prevention is the best medicine, and glucose monitoring is one important way to see what we can do to prevent disease and improve our overall health!
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