The Altitude Talks Podcast
Welcome to The Alissa Avenue Company! Our goal is to inspire you to become the best version of yourself. We focus on personal and professional development and self-discovery. We offer valuable insights and practical methods to help you take control of your well-being, wealth-building, and workflow.
Alissa Duhon is a 25-year human capital success coach, applied positive psychology practitioner, and CEO of Alissa Avenue.
The Altitude Talks Podcast offers valuable insights and strategies to help individuals overcome common obstacles that may be hindering their full potential in both their professional and personal lives. Listeners will learn to cultivate their purpose and passions, facilitate their breakthroughs, and unleash their brilliance. We invite you to join us on Friday evenings at 5 pm as we come alongside you to optimize the quality of your life.
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The Altitude Talks Podcast
Elevate Your Day: Simple Habits for Enhanced Brain Health and Productivity
Unlock the secrets to a sharper mind and a healthier brain with just a few minutes daily. What if the small things you do each morning could make your mind clearer and your day brighter than a cup of coffee ever could? In this episode of Altitude Talks, I, Alyssa Duhon, your host and success coach, guide you through the power of simple habits designed to enhance brain health, manage stress, and improve productivity. Whether it's mindful breathing or gratitude journaling, these practices promise to reduce the risk of brain diseases and boost creativity, offering a holistic approach to personal growth.
Kickstart your day with a vibrant morning routine with a unique tapping exercise and deep breathing techniques that can invigorate you from head to toe. These energizing exercises are complemented by engaging activities like brain teasers and meditation to sharpen problem-solving skills and foster calmness. I also emphasize the importance of community and how your support helps us continue to share valuable strategies. Explore more resources on our website and connect with us on social media to keep the conversation going. Let’s journey towards better brain health and reach new heights together.
Copyright 2025 AlissaAvenue.com
Welcome to the Altitude Talks podcast, where we help you get back in the pilot seat of work and life. Learn helpful strategies for navigating the unpredictable twists and turns that come with the pursuit of happiness and work-life harmony. Here's your host seasoned success coach and applied positive psychology practitioner, alyssa Duhon.
Speaker 2:Welcome everyone to another episode of the Altitude Talks podcast. I'm your host, alyssa Duhon, founder and CEO of the Alyssa Avenue Company, where we help you to reach new heights in your personal and your professional life. And today, today's focus, we're diving into something that we all should care about keeping our brain healthy. Yes, so the best part is what we're sharing today you can start to implement in just five minutes a day and it won't take much of your time, and it's just kind of these simple practices that will help to cultivate some major benefits along the way. So many of you are already taking care of your body and staying fit. You're already implementing New Year's resolutions for your health and wellness Right, and you prioritize your, your health and a healthy lifestyle. So it's equally important to focus on keeping your brain healthy, and doing so can help you handle stress more efficiently and effectively. It can help you to boost your productivity and, of course, lower our risk of brain diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia as we all age. So your brain is your command center and it handles everything from, of course, solving problems and making decisions to processing you know how we feel our emotions and, of course, recalling memories, but just like any other part of our bodies, our brains need. It needs exercise and it needs self-care to stay in tip top shape, and it needs self-care to stay in tip-top shape. So the good news is you don't have to dedicate hours and hours of meditation or complicated routines into your day every day to boost your brain function and boost your brain health. And we're going to share a few of these simple habits that you can absolutely include into your daily schedule, starting today, right? And it's just that simple. And the great news is that you can keep your brain in excellent shape by just implementing these and practicing these, and you don't have to do it all at once. And research has demonstrated that several of these practices can counteract the natural shrinking of the brain that occurs from our mid twenties and onward. Um, one of those practices is meditation, and there's a study from Harvard that found that regular meditation practice over about eight weeks can actually lead to an increase in your brain size. So we're going to share that, some tips about that, and also some others that you can implement, starting today, all right. So the good news is also that you don't have to implement every single one of these every day, you know, you can just start with one and, you know, choose the one that best fits your unique situation and then kind of play with this and implement a second or a third until you create a streak, and then on and on until you've tried all five. So we're gonna share five of these brain boosters with you and their evidence-backed and their strategies to give your brain the love that it deserves.
Speaker 2:Number one mindful breathing. Mindful breathing you can start doing this first thing in the morning or even right before bed, even throughout the day, maybe even before or during and after exercising, you can do this. So, taking two minutes to practice deep breathing, you want to close your eyes, inhale deeply for a count of four, hold for four and exhale for four, and this practice alone can lower stress and it also increases the focus by calming your nervous system. How many times have you had to stop and breathe, not just when you're angry and upset, but just breathe, maybe right before you walk into work, after you've, you know, gotten back home from work or a long day or whatever, and you've given yourself that few minutes to just deep breathe. Implement this into your daily life on purpose for brain function. It absolutely does help. You can practice deep breathing while you're studying For those of you who are students, you can do it while you're exercising. Do it while you're cooking. You can do it while you're in the shower. Just don't open your mouth under the shower. Be careful. Okay, so be careful, but mindful breathing absolutely can help you to calm yourself. It helps the nervous system to regulate as well.
Speaker 2:Number two gratitude journaling. Spend just one minute writing down three things you're grateful for, just three. I know you've probably heard this before. Some of you have probably purchased gratitude journals before and they're probably sitting somewhere collecting dust. Some of you practice it every day, which is great. This simple act actually boosts positivity and it does strengthen the neural pathways associated with happiness in the brain and I didn't know this until I started to practice it especially when we start to become complacent or we start to feel like we're overwhelmed and we're anxious and we start to realize that pessimism or negative thinking is starting to take root. This is a way to regulate that. So sit down and go. You know what? Stop brain. I want you to focus just on the things that we're grateful for, and you can, you know, maybe try taking one area of your life, maybe your health and wellness, or your, your, your professional life, or your personal life, or your, your relationships and all of that, and taking that one area and writing three things down from that one area, or one thing out of each area, and just write it down. Use, write it down. Write it Okay, because writing things down is absolutely different. It also helps the brain function as well. Writing things down, all right. Number three learn something new.
Speaker 2:I myself am a dedicated subscribe, lifelong learner. I love to learn from other people, I love to polish my skills, I love to play in passions and creativity, things that help me to boost my creativity and you can do that. Dedicate a few minutes to learning a new word, maybe just reading a dictionary or your thesaurus, or learning a new fact, maybe learning a new skill, maybe downloading an app like Duolingo or Blankist or something like that and it'll help you to learn something new every single day. Believe it or not, this stimulates neuroplasticity in the brain and your brain's ability to form new connections. It'll help to sharpen that because you're learning something new. You're keeping your brain on its toes, if you will, and so absolutely find, maybe list 10 things that you've always wanted to learn more about and then get into it. I've always wanted to learn to crochet and knit, and this year I've already signed up for the class and I want to learn something like that.
Speaker 2:Some people start learning how to garden, maybe you want to learn how to paint, perhaps you want to learn how to dance, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to invest loads of money or whatever, but just a few minutes. You can start with something like learning a new word, a definition of a word, learning a new fact or polishing skills that you already have, perhaps a soft skill or a hard skill and you can dedicate that time to that. Number. Four move your body. Get up and move on purpose. A few minutes of light stretching or a quick set of jumping jacks. This will help, you know, get the blood flowing, delivering oxygen and nutrients to the brain.
Speaker 2:There's a practice that I want to share with you. I just started to do this a few weeks ago, and the impact in the morning for me is amazing. I kid you not, I love coffee. Okay, I love it. I don't drink caffeine anymore, but I love decaf coffee and I have to have it. But this practice actually helped to wake me up and it was more effective than a cup of coffee for me. So you can actually implement this as well, and it's like it's a knocking or a tapping exercise that I use. I sit up in my bed and crisscross applesauce Okay, and you can. It's just like forming your your hand into a fist, like you're about to knock on the door.
Speaker 2:You start at the back of one of your feet and you just knock from the toes down, knock, knock, knock as firmly as you can take it. So you go down your one foot, you go down to the next foot right, and then you start on one leg. You go up the back of the calf and on top of the shin you start to tap up the front part of your thigh and then the back part of your thigh. You have to. You know you can sit up, you can lay back, whatever works for you, um, and you tap and you just keep doing that on the legs and down the feet first. Next you start up the body. You can beat your chest like King Kong, that helps. You can beat like right up in your ab, right in the abs area, up through your groin area, tapping, just knocking, and then you can go up one arm on the top, starting at the top of the hand and go all the way up to the shoulder and the back of the neck and then tapping underneath the arm.
Speaker 2:And this absolutely helps to wake me up. And I'm telling you, I just start from the bottom of my feet and work my way all the way up to the top of my neck and then I just tap my face, different parts of my face, in my T-zone and in the upper part of my neck, and I, after that, I practice deep breathing and I use the four technique course, the, you know inhale deeply for a count of four, hold for four and exhale for four. I'm telling you, I want you to practice this and tell me if you can, if you, if you all, you know, for those of you who can take this particular thing and do these things, I want to see how many of you um, practice it and what it's done for you, because it absolutely does get the blank, get the blood flowing and the brain, um, you know, up, and pretty soon you step out of bed and you're like, wow, I'm awake. I feel more awake now that I've done that. It helps, it really does move the body, stretch, jumping jacks. Um, maybe you can couple it with another routine um task that you're already you're already going to do anyways, like brushing your, brushing your teeth or washing your face. So just a few minutes of stretching, a few minutes of tapping, a few minutes of jumping jacks, and this will help you to get the nutrients to the brain and the oxygen to the brain that it needs. Hydrating, of course, helps as well. You want to hydrate as soon as you wake up. You want to hydrate? Okay, number five brain teasers or puzzles.
Speaker 2:Now, I love old school puzzles, ones that I can actually go to the store, purchase and put together. Listen, don't knock it until you try it. I know we're obsessed with our devices and why I can just download an app. Great If that works for you. But I challenge you to go to the store and buy just a regular old puzzle online. Get online and get one of those really beautiful puzzles and every day, just spend a few minutes finding those little pieces. Wrap it up with a fun challenge.
Speaker 2:You want to solve a riddle, play a word game? You know, try a quick. I don't necessarily do Sudoku, I think whatever you do, right, yeah, yeah, so, um, but you absolutely probably implement this already. Some of you have puzzles. I love word puzzles though Um, I do the New York puzzle all the time, new York times puzzle. I love that so it keeps your mind sharpened and improves problem solving skills. So you can implement these kinds of implement these kinds of brain teasers and puzzles. I have another person in my team and they regularly go to what are they called? I think they lock you in a room and you have to use problem solving. There you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So these escape rooms, and it helps you to solve problems, solve riddles and things like that. So utilize these practices, but these the ones that are for a few minutes. Just get on your phone and do it. Or, you know, get you a puzzle or something like that in your house and do these. I'm telling you it works. Okay, few minutes about, um, doing a meditation, practicing meditation.
Speaker 2:Uh, establishing a meditation routine or practice is is easy and it can be seamless. You can start with just doing it first thing in the morning when you wake up, and allowing your, your mind and your body to catch up with you know you're getting up and things like that. Implement your deep breathing exercise into this. So allowing it allows you to take better care of your brain, starting in the first thing in the morning. Okay, number one find the right meditation style for you. I can't express this enough for those of you who like to empty your mind and you want to sit. You know, um, and a couple of it with yoga, sorry, I was trying to think of it. Or some of you do it with prayer. Whatever works for you.
Speaker 2:One of the most crucial ways you know, of course, to establish a meditation habit is to discover the thing that suits you best, and you don't need to spend like hours sitting on a cushion or in a specific location, unless that's what you prefer. If that works for you, then great, and there are plenty of apps and tools online that'll help you. But you can start just by sitting, deep breathing, closing your eyes and stretching before and just breathing and meditating. And you can even join a meditation group. There are people who do it, there's communities out there that you can do that with alongside, maybe getting a meditation buddy or someone who you sit alongside and you guys go to the park, or maybe you you can do it at church. You can meditate at church and but start off in the morning, maybe right before bed, and this will help to calm you, it'll help to center you and it helped to ground you as well, and it could be as simple as taking a few moments to sit in a park or during your lunch break or whatever, and breathing through and just dedicating that time to meditation. You also want to make it a priority to carve out the time in your schedule for regular practice of meditation. For those of you who regularly pray, you can absolutely couple this with your prayer time. So research absolutely shows that even just five to 10 minutes a day, it can really bring noticeable benefits, and consistency is absolutely key with this. Okay, so if you can squeeze in time to scroll through your phone or play a game or binge watch something, you can absolutely and definitely find a few minutes to meditate.
Speaker 2:All right, you want to start small. You don't need to dive straight into a full meditation. You know practice right away. You can start with small steps, just simply sitting quietly and paying attention to your breath. That's it. And you want to observe your breathing? That's it. You don't concentrate on anything else, just your breathing. And you can.
Speaker 2:For those of you who are advanced, you can meditate on the scripture, you can meditate on an affirmation or use a mantra, whatever works, and you'll begin to feel that sense, until you feel a sense of calm wash over you and then, as you're doing that, you start to turn your focus inward and you start to just breathe through it. For those of you who are praying, you set your your, your mind on things above. You know just one scripture. You can use that as well. So find what works and what fits for your unique situation and your unique lifestyle. Number four add this to you know your exercise routine as well. Once you feel you're at ease with it, you're sitting quietly right before, during well, actually right before or after your exercise. It helps as well. So it helps for you to to to cool down and helps you to, you know, to get ready for your exercise session as well.
Speaker 2:I know people who do it right before work. You know they drive up and then they're like okay, I have to meditate before I get in here. And then there are those of you you know you get back home and right before you walk into your house you meditate before you go in, whatever works, maybe in your bathtub, just be careful. And maybe for me it's in my car I love or in my husband's truck. I love being in my truck or my husband's truck and I could be sitting. I just maybe did shopping or something and I'll sit for a few minutes. I just love doing it and I'll sit in the quiet in my vehicle.
Speaker 2:For those of you who commute and you drive, this could be for you maybe in a waiting room right before you go into an appointment or something, maybe when your kids are at practice and you're sitting in the car waiting for them. That's a time for you to dedicate to some of these practices. So direct your focus to the area within yourself, one area within yourself, and just breathe and just use the four by four, by four I think I'm saying that right and you want to practice that? Inhale deeply for a count of four and then hold it for four and then exhale for four. It's just that simple and then just breathe and meditate. For those of you who like to empty your mind, do that. For those of you who like to just meditate on a specific thing, you can do that.
Speaker 2:So meditation, though, helps to regulate your breathing as well. It helps, and you can also foster a sense of calm in the area of the brain. I love studying the brain. Listen. I encourage and recommend that everyone, every human, just even if it's basic learning the brain functions, do that. Learn the different parts of the brain and what happens within those different areas, and also the nutrients that it needs, the type of exercises that work for that particular part of the brain, or different things you can eat to help your brain become healthier. It will fascinate you, it fascinates me, I know that. So it gives us a sense of calm in your frontal lobe, and then that enhances your ability to analyze and solve problems more effectively. It helps you to calm yourself, it helps you to control you know anxiety better, helps you to absolutely, you know, get out of overwhelm and stress.
Speaker 2:So practice that, practice that, and you want to consider adding like a five minute meditation practice to um to your midday routine as well. Sometimes we wait. We either do it right before we start the day or after, but I would suggest adding one to your midday during your lunch break as well. If you don't practice taking breaks, please implement this, because sometimes we don't even realize that we're overwhelmed and we need that break to keep us from plunging into burnout, and that simple step really can significantly contribute to the development of a more contented brain. That's really what we want. We want to be more contented, more happy, more healthier, and there's nothing like being content. Peace of mind in the brain really does help.
Speaker 2:So, of course, the key to success in anything is consistency, right. So you want to choose one or two of these practices, one of these activities, whether it's mindful breathing, gratitude, journaling, learning something new, moving your body, um, uh, solving pro puzzles, or, um, actively um, using brain teasers, whatever you want to choose one of them and start with that and make them a daily habit. Um, and you don't need to do everything at once. You don't need to do everything at once. You want to start small. You want to be consistent and make sure that your efforts are ongoing and you'll start to see an impactful outcome as you practice these occasionally. Okay, so it's better than just one big flash in a pan kind of exercise and then you wait a few months and do it again.
Speaker 2:Just small changes every single day, set a reminder, pair it with an existing habit, or do it first thing in the morning or over time, and you know, these five little minutes will add up to really big benefits for your mental health, for your mental clarity, for your memory and, of course, your overall brain health. And there you have it, your quick and easy guide to keeping your brain healthy in just five minutes a day. Remember, taking care of your mind is an investment in yourself. Taking care of you is an investment. It really is. Your health is your wealth, it is. So if you found this exercise and these exercises helpful or this episode helpful, don't forget to subscribe and share it with a friend and leave us a review. Your support really does help us continue bringing you actionable tips every single week. So thanks for tuning in. I can't wait to hear from you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being here on the Altitude Talks podcast. Until next time, stay curious, stay healthy and subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Be sure to visit our online store and blog for more resources at alissaavenuecom. Follow us on Facebook at facebookcom slash alissa avenue and on instagramcom slash alissa underscore avenue. Until next time.
