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If you're like the women who come to see me, you used to have your life handled but now something feels off. My guess is to everyone else you look like you have it all together but inside you know something has shifted. The average mum is interrupted up to 400 times a day and according to research the average woman makes about 35,000 decisions a day which means working mums need a lot of brain energy.

Brain imaging research published by Dr Lisa Moscone's lab at Weill Cornell Medicine shows that post-menopausal women can have up to 30% less brain energy metabolism than pre-menopausal women of the same age. Your brain is literally running on less fuel post-menopausally than it used to. So if you feel like your thinking is slightly slower, like you're not quite firing on all cylinders, it's not that you're not doing enough.

It's a cellular energy problem and you can't fix a cellular energy problem with a better calendar system. For a long time I thought I just needed to manage my time better or sleep more or add a supplement or something else to my morning routine. I tried adding different things in but I still didn't feel as in charge of my energy in my life as I used to.

But everything changed when I discovered that a specific molecule in your brain is slowly declining and as it drops your processing speed slows, your focus fragments and that razor-sharp version of you starts to feel slightly out of reach. Today I'm going to walk you through the science of what it is, why it's happening specifically to us as women in midlife and the exact protocol I personally use to get it back. You've probably heard that as we move through our 40s and beyond our progesterone begins to decline and progesterone is essentially our brain's natural calming agent.

When it drops our nervous system runs a bit hotter. Our ability to sustain that deep uninterrupted focus starts to erode. At the same time declining oestrogen reduces serotonin production and this can significantly affect neuroplasticity which is our brain's ability to form new connections and retrieve information quickly.

But there's another molecule that a lot of people haven't heard of that is also dropping. It's called BDNF, basically a brain growth and repair protein. Scientists have started calling it the hope molecule as it doesn't just boost concentration and focus it also improves mood.

BDNF is a myokine and a neurotrophic factor. That means it's produced in both your muscles and your brain and it only gets made when you give your body the right signals, the right movement, the right nutrition and the right recovery. Think of BDNF as miracle growth for your neurones, helping them grow and stay strong.

It protects your brain cells, strengthens pathways between them and drives neurogenesis which is the growth of new brain cells. When BDNF is high you think faster, you recall things more easily, your mood is more stable and you're more resilient under pressure. When it drops, which it naturally does as we age, the changes start subtly at first.

You don't suddenly lose your memory, you just feel slightly slower, a bit more fragmented like the version of you that used to run at 100% is now running at 85% and no matter what you do you can't quite close the gap. Here's what makes this really exciting though. BDNF is not fixed.

You can increase it significantly and there are specific evidence-backed things you can do starting today to do exactly that. For example, when you do high intensity movement your body produces lactate and that lactate acts as a direct communication signal that travels from your muscles to your brain, telling it to release BDNF. It's like flipping a switch that turns your brain power back on.

I started thinking about this differently when I realised that after a bad night's sleep, skipping the workout or dropping down to low intensity exercise was the opposite of what would actually help me. Low intensity exercise is great for a lot of things but it doesn't generate enough of that lactate signal to meaningfully move the needle on brain performance. There are mistakes I see high performing women making and they're the same mistakes I was making myself for years.

Mistake number one is exercising at the wrong intensity. You're probably moving your You might be walking, doing yoga, cycling or going to a Pilates class and all of that is wonderful for your health but it won't trigger a meaningful BDNF release. BDNF responds to intensity.

It responds to the lactate your body produces when you push hard. Research shows that just six minutes of high intensity intervals can increase BDNF four to five times more than 90 minutes of low intensity steady state exercise. So it's also saving you time but if your workouts never push you into that uncomfortable zone or you never lift with enough intensity, your brain is missing out on a key performance signal and BDNF is one that you can't really afford to skip.

So the fix here is adding some intensity to your workouts. You can do this by adding in some cycling or running sprints at the end of your weight session or lifting the weights with more intensity doing big compound movements. Mistake number two is ignoring your brain's battery.

There's a compound that you've probably heard of called creatine monohydrate that most women associate with bodybuilders and gym bros because of the way it's been marketed but creatine is actually a cellular energy compound. Think of it like this. Before entering your cell, creatine is like an uncharged phone battery but once it gets inside it becomes phosphocreatine, a fully charged ready-to-use energy reserve.

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Most people don't know that women naturally have 70 to 80 percent lower creatine stores than men and our production of it shifts throughout the menstrual cycle which means our energy and brain function can take a real hit. So while our male colleagues are running on a full charge, many of us are operating at a lower percentage and research in women particularly those who are sleep deprived or on low meat diets shows creatine supplementation may actually be especially effective improving memory processing speed and reasoning. So think about are you getting enough creatine? My guess is if you're not eating a lot of foods high in creatine so specifically things like herring pork or beef you're probably not getting enough and this is especially true if you're on a plant-based diet.

Mistake number three is eating a diet that suppresses BDNF. So you might be eating what looks like a healthy diet but if it's still high in refined carbohydrates and low in specific polyphenols and omega-3s you could be having lower BDNF levels. A four-week lower carbohydrate diet increased BDNF by 20 percent in one study and combining that with high intensity training pushed it up by 38 percent with benefits still measurable 72 hours later.

The food we eat is generally either helping to build this molecule or break it down every single day. Mistake number four never giving your brain a real recovery window as busy women trying to lead a team manage a family and run a home we stack back-to-back meetings decisions and demands on our attention and Microsoft's human factors lab did some interesting research on this. They measured brainwave activity across four consecutive meetings with outbreaks stress-related brain activity built up continuously across every single meeting with beta brainwave activity increasing as the meetings went on but with short breaks between them the brain stayed calm which is when we do our best most creative thinking so we need just enough stimulation to dial up our brainwave activity but not so much that we feel chronically stressed and so we're often not performing below our ability because we're not working hard enough it's actually because we're never giving our brain the space it needs to consolidate reset and come back sharp.

Before I walk you through the protocol I want you to think about which one of these mistakes you might already be making. Are you someone who constantly rushes from one meeting to another or do you avoid all high intensity exercise or are you not getting enough deep sleep? What can you shift? Have a think about this while I run you through the protocol that I use to optimise BDNF it's a protocol that's helped me run my business and still be present for my family and friends without losing myself. So let's move on to the seven key things that I do all of them are science backed.

You don't have to start with all seven what I would encourage you to do is just pick one of these and then slowly add the others in when you're consistently doing one. Here's the BDNF brain performance protocol and this is exactly what I do myself. So practise one is a brain primer before your most important work.

On the days that you need to do a deep focus block of work or if you're underslept that morning I want you to do a short burst of high intensity movement first this could be the six rounds of 40 seconds of near all-out effort. You could do sprinting but squats are also brilliant for this because the vertical movement that creates big blood surges into the brain directly triggers BDNF release. As I mentioned sprints are great you can do them outside you can do them on a treadmill or you can do them on a stationary bike for less impact.

This is not a long workout remember it's a brain primer and research shows that this kind of short hit session can improve your memory for up to 24 hours. I do this before my most cognitively demanding work and the difference in my clarity and focus is really remarkable. Practise number two is to charge that battery every single day so take five grammes between five and ten grammes of high quality creatine monohydrate take that every day and definitely on your most demanding days up it to 10 grammes if you're not already.

Creatine is one of the most studied safest compounds and it works for your brain not just your muscles it restores your cellular energy reserves supports your mood and improves processing speed and if you've had a poor night of sleep research from 2024 shows that creatine can measurably restore cognitive performance the same day by stabilising your brain's ph and energy metabolism. The key is daily consistency so it saturates your cells over two to four weeks and increasing the dose to 10 grammes on your most demanding days or when you're underslept or jet lagged. Practise number three is to eat to build BDNF so every day eat 60 to 120 grammes of blueberries or other dark berries.

I personally add blueberries into my daily protein shake it's just a really easy way to get them in and the anthocyanins in blueberries have been shown to reduce cognitive decline. If you also add a serving of oily fish or a high quality omega-3 supplement that's around one and a half to two grammes a day that higher omega-3 intake is directly linked to increased BDNF with greater benefits seen after 10 or more weeks of consistent use and also eat dark leafy greens every day that you can. These are all the raw materials that your brain needs to build BDNF.

Practise number four is to plan for cognitive endurance not just output so i think of this as working in gears just like you have high intensity training and low intensity training zone two and then zone four and five you want to do the same thing for your brain so high gear is for that deep focus analysis your most important decisions middle gear is for things like email admin and task switching and low gear is for rest reflection and recovery the goal is not to stay in high and medium gear all day it is to know which gear you're in and actually deliberately shift down when you need to. Medium gear activities are particularly demanding for less return so think about scheduling activities like email for certain times of the day and take that break between video calls that microsoft talked about step outside if you can and if you have the flexibility to manage a short nap that is an amazing thing to do. NASA research found that employees who nap for 30 minutes were 35% more productive than those who didn't and so you can probably see from here that recovery isn't wasting time it's actually a necessary part of high performance.

Practise number five is one of the ones you might find a bit more difficult depending on how you feel about this but it's making time for meditation it's the one that i find a lot of people struggle to fit in but i've noticed three distinct behaviours in the most successful women i work with that is daily movement daily meditation and daily mindset they move their bodies daily i have them cycling between high intensity training resistance training and recovery activities like zone two and yoga or pilates they have a short daily meditation practise whether that's in the morning before bed or even on their commute and they practise a positive mindset with positive self-talk. Meditation has been shown to enhance BDNF experienced meditators who participated in a three month long yoga and meditation retreat had threefold increases in their plasma BDNF levels compared to their pre-retreat levels the meditators self-reported scores for depression and anxiety which were already low decreased further by about 60 percent so have a think about where you could work in meditation into your routine even if it's just for a few times a week maybe before you fall asleep on your commute or at the end of a weekly yoga class. The sixth practise is heat therapy this has been shown to increase BDNF supporting brain health and cognitive function is also associated with a lower risk of dementia and alzheimer's disease in one study a 10 week sauna programme at 80 degrees c 176 degrees fahrenheit increased BDNF more than light intensity exercise and all you had to do was basically sit in the sauna but if you don't have access to a sauna you can also take a hot bath so a 20 minute hot bath at 42 degrees centigrade or 108 degrees fahrenheit increased BDNF by approximately 67 percent and their levels remained elevated for at least 15 minutes afterwards both hot baths and regular sauna use are promising strategies to support long-term brain health.

The final seventh practise that I want to mention is deep sleep this is one that we should all be getting enough of deep sleep is so important for the brain to restore and regenerate BDNF to get enough deep sleep focus on the three things that move the needle the most that's early morning sunlight eating at least three hours before bed and a wind down routine that helps you personally relax before you fall asleep if you pick any one of these seven strategies you will start seeing improvements in your focus and your ability to handle everything in your life so that you're achieving more while doing less so I would encourage you to think about after watching this video which one are you going to pick to start let me know in the comments and also if you have any questions and to help you go deeper I've put together a 21 day blueprint to help you optimise your health performance and longevity it's specifically designed for peri and post-menopausal women and you can find it in the link in the description below and if this resonated with you I think you're going to want to watch my next video because everything we've just talked about your BDNF your brain energy your focus is directly undermined every night if your sleep is not right and I put together a video on exactly why so many high-performing women wake up between 2 and 3 a.m and how to fix it so click the video on the screen to watch

Feeling like your brain just isn't running at 100% anymore? You're not imagining it and it's not a discipline problem.

In this video, I break down the real science behind why focus, memory, and mental sharpness decline in your 40s and beyond and the exact protocol I use to get it back.

You'll learn about a critical brain molecule that starts declining with age, why women are especially affected by it, and the 4 most common mistakes that are quietly keeping your brain performance low (yes, even if you're already "doing everything right").

Then I walk you through my complete 7-step protocol - covering exercise intensity, targeted supplementation, specific foods, cognitive pacing, meditation, heat therapy, and sleep, all backed by research, all things you can start doing today.

In this video:

Why brain fog and slower thinking happen after 40

The molecule behind focus, memory, and mood, and why it drops with age

4 mistakes that are silently lowering your brain performance

My full 7-step protocol to rebuild focus, memory, and mental energy

The exact exercise, nutrition, and recovery habits that move the needle fastest