The Stimulated Mind

Boost mental sharpness today and prevent cognitive decline tomorrow, including Alzheimer’s disease, with science-backed strategies that will extend your brain’s longevity beyond what you thought was possible.

“Dr. Tommy Wood has spent years at the intersection of neuroscience and performance, helping people build more resilient bodies and more durable minds. The Stimulated Mind is a hopeful and practical guide for building and maintaining brain health at every stage of life.”—Dr. Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett, New York Times bestselling authors of Built to Move

The most important part of the body, especially as we age, is our brain. So why aren’t we taking the health of our brain as seriously as our heart and achy joints, particularly when people are struggling to focus every day, and dementia and Alzheimer’s cases continue to rise? In The Stimulated Mind, Dr. Tommy Wood, a Formula 1 sports performance coach and neuroscientist specializing in lifelong brain health, dispels the myth that the brain is doomed to decline with age. Instead, by providing the right stimulus and building more “headroom”—the amount of mental function we have available to us—we can help our brain to adapt and develop.

Dr. Wood explains that a brain that improves with age is the result not of expensive pills, far-off discoveries, or strict lifestyle “optimizations,” but rather of actions within our control—diet, sleep, physical activity, social connection, and stress tolerance. Driven by how we use our brains on a daily basis, these modifiable factors come together in his groundbreaking “3-S” model that describes what a brain needs to thrive for a lifetime: Stimulation, Sleep, and Nutrient Supply.