Do I Need a “Brain Gym”? | Monday Advice
6/15/202658 min
In the 1960s, doctors avoided people to avoid exercise. Then everything changed. Now physical fitness is a $100 billion industry. What would it look like if we got equally as serious about cognitive fitness? In this episode, Cal explores three tiers of cognitive fitness advice, ordered from least to most intense. Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here’s the link: https://bit.ly/3U3sTvo Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia (0:00) Do I need a brain gym? (32:54) Comments on reversing brain rot (36:57) A disturbing new article from a college professor (41:55) Do makers need longer blocks for deep work? (47:25) What Cal is reading (50:26) What Cal watched (56:23) Where Cal went Links: Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at www.calnewport.com/slow Get a signed copy of Cal’s “Slow Productivity” at https://peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/cal-newport/ Cal’s monthly book directory: bramses.notion.site/059db2641def4a88988b4d2cee4657ba? https://charafeddine.co/letters/your-brain-is-about-to-need-a-gym https://lanimuelrath.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Aerobics-Points-System.pdf https://www.joshwaitzkin.com/training https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9a2_KqzF7Y https://archive.ph/XvPXE Thanks to our Sponsors: https://www.monarch.com (Use code “DEEP”) https://www.shipstation.com (Use code “DEEP”) https://www.larridin.com https://www.pipedrive.com/deep Thanks to Jesse Miller for production and mastering, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Nate Mechler for research and newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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First 90 secondsCal Newport· Host0:00
Someone recently sent me one of those long form idea articles that you, you post on X and hope that it does well. Uh, this one was titled "Your Brain Is About to Need a Gym." Now, at a high level, this new piece is responding to my own New York Times op-ed that came out in March, in which I argued that we need a cognitive fitness revolution to save our increasingly fried brains, much in the same way that in the 20th century we needed a physical fitness revolution to save our increasingly unhealthy bodies. Now, this new article takes that proposal and follows it through to all of its implications. Here, I want to read a quote from it. "I also think cognitive fitness becomes a market, a big one. Imagine the cognitive equivalent of what the fitness industry built between 1980 and 2020. Apps that force you to think slowly, coaches who train your attention the way trainers train your hamstrings, schools that reteach deep re- reading after a generation lost to sc- lost at the scrolling. Corporate programs that audit and report your team's cognitive endurance the way they currently audit lines of code. Insurance discounts for verified daily reading habits, a Strava for hours spent away from a screen, the Peloton of writing by hand. I'm half joking and half not." All right, so this new article, in other words, is asking a fascinating question. Fitness is a $100 billion industry. What would our commitment to cognitive fitness look like if we got equally serious about it?