The brain check question
Asking whether a choice is good or bad for your brain before you make it
One line, applied to ordinary decisions: food, drink, screens, bedtime, who you spend the evening with. Ask whether the thing in front of you is good for your brain or bad for it, then pick. Nothing gets tracked, nothing gets bought, and no app is involved. The difficulty is remembering to ask at all, so people who keep it going tend to hang the question on specific moments, opening the fridge or reaching for the phone at midnight. Daniel Amen, who describes it as the most important of his tiny habits, frames a good answer as an act of self-respect rather than discipline.
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Sorted by strength of stance
- Daniel AmenDoes it
Psychiatrist · Change Your Brain, Change Your Life
Through the day he runs choices past one question: is this good for my brain or bad for it. He calls it the most important of his tiny habits, and says the answer he lands on is almost always the loving one, since a damaged brain makes you a burden to the people you care about.
Source: Thirty Minute Mentors: Dr. Daniel Amen“I have another question I ask myself. Is this good for my brain, or bad for it? And not always, but almost always I choose the most loving answer, which is I do things that are good for my brain because I love myself.”
Thirty Minute Mentors: Dr. Daniel Amen (opens in a new tab) · 26 Feb 2021
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Habit entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.