{"id":35909,"date":"2026-11-04T06:51:30","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T11:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/?p=35909"},"modified":"2026-11-04T06:51:32","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T11:51:32","slug":"jamey-maniscalco-small-habits-brain-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/jamey-maniscalco-small-habits-brain-health\/","title":{"rendered":"How Small Habits Improve Brain Health with Dr. Jamey Maniscalco"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this week&#8217;s episode, Nick sits down with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jameymaniscalco\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u2060Dr. Jamey Maniscalco\u2060<\/a>, a neuroscientist, former tenured professor, and founder of a brain health company and consulting firm, and host of the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/@NextDoorNeuro\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u2060Next Door Neuro podcast\u2060<\/a>. They discuss why small daily habits beat big wellness programs, how to make wellness stick by tying it to a deeper purpose, and why employees often just need permission to take a break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"video-embed\" style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;\">\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TMQWuXcTsKk?si=RdkA83e52Qflhvek\" title=\"How Small Habits Improve Brain Health with Dr. Jamey Maniscalco\" style=\"position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\">\n <\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"row justify-content-between\">\n<div class=\"cs-btn-light text-center mb-4 col-12 col-md-6 pr-md-4\">\n <a class=\"cs-button d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center w-100\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/how-small-habits-improve-brain-health-with-dr-jamey\/id1869414001?i=1000799776428\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"gap: 8px\">\n\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Apple-Podcasts-logo.png\" alt=\"Apple podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"h-auto\" style=\"width: 24px\">\n\n<span style=\"font-size: 20px\">Listen on Apple Podcasts<\/span>\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"cs-btn-light text-center mb-4 col-12 col-md-6 pl-md-4\">\n <a class=\"cs-button d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center gap-3 w-100\" href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/0oR5QfFuSpgsJ25BxT1wWd?si=cEeC4UPTScCKFBHXtgC6uQ\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"gap: 8px\">\n\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Spotify_White_Logo.png\" alt=\"Apple podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"h-auto pr\" style=\"width: 24px\">\n<span style=\"font-size: 20px\">Listen on Spotify<\/span>\n\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"border: 1px solid rgb(0 0 0 \/ 0.1); padding: 25px 25px 10px; border-radius: 8px; box-shadow: 0 4px 6px -1px rgb(0 0 0 \/ 0.1), 0 2px 4px -2px rgb(0 0 0 \/ 0.1);\">\n<h3 id=\"h-pressed-for-time-here-s-a-quick-summary\" class=\"wp-block-heading nitoc\">Pressed for time? Here are the key takeaways:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Wellness is most motivating as a means to something you care about, like being a patient parent, rather than a goal in itself<\/li>\n<li>Small, achievable steps release dopamine, which builds motivation for the next step and makes lasting change more likely<\/li>\n<li>Practicing short stress-management skills daily makes them habitual for the moments you need them most<\/li>\n<li>Employers tend to overestimate big wellness events and underestimate small daily changes like walks, water breaks, and stepping away from screens<\/li>\n<li>Jamey predicts the era of biohacking and human optimization is fading, giving way to rest, time outdoors, and in-person connection<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"episode-summary\">Episode Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"from-philosophy-major-to-neuroscientist-its-never-too-late-to-pivot\">From Philosophy Major to Neuroscientist: It&#8217;s Never Too Late to Pivot<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jamey&#8217;s path into neuroscience was anything but linear. He started college studying philosophy and music, then, during a semester in Australia, ended up living with medical students and leafing through their textbooks. That accidental discovery led him to switch to psychology with a neuroscience concentration in his junior year, adding an extra year of coursework to make it work. Every &#8220;why&#8221; question he asked about human behavior kept leading back to the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After earning his PhD, he burned out on the isolation of lab research, made a hard pivot into pharmaceutical consulting, then returned to academia as a teacher. After about 10 years of teaching and earning tenure at a university in Denver, a sabbatical spent researching the neuroscience behind health and wellness convinced him to dedicate his career to it. His message for anyone feeling stuck: it&#8217;s not too late to follow what you&#8217;re passionate about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"building-brain-health-habits-that-actually-stick\">Building Brain Health Habits That Actually Stick<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jamey founded <a href=\"https:\/\/www.manifestwellness.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Manifest Wellness<\/a> to provide coaching, consulting, and keynote speaking on health and lifestyle, but he wanted to reach more people than he could in person. That led him to create <a href=\"https:\/\/clario.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Clario<\/a>, a daily brain health system that pairs an herbal supplement with short, skill-building practices of two minutes or less. Jamey describes the supplement as a blend of research-backed ingredients such as ashwagandha, L-theanine, rhodiola rosea, and lion&#8217;s mane mushroom, designed to support what he sees as the biggest challenge of modern life: calm, steady focus in an overstimulating world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The practices are built on a &#8220;doing first&#8221; approach. Users try a guided breathing, grounding, or intention-setting exercise, then can choose how deeply to explore the science behind it. Jamey says his wife pushed him to trim down his original lecture-style plan, telling him, &#8220;No one&#8217;s gonna do that.&#8221; The goal is to anchor practices to a daily routine, like stirring a morning drink, so the skills come naturally when stress hits before a big meeting or in the school pickup line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"why-wellness-should-be-a-means-not-the-goal\">Why Wellness Should Be a Means, Not the Goal<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jamey&#8217;s core framework is that wellness is most motivating when it serves something more important to you. &#8220;I want to sleep better&#8221; often loses to an interesting TV show or a glass of wine. But if your goal is to be a patient, compassionate parent, you need your brain functioning well, and that&#8217;s where sleep, exercise, and nutrition come in. Nick added that people often forget to give themselves grace, like forcing a gym session on four hours of sleep to keep a New Year&#8217;s resolution while missing the bigger goal of having energy for family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jamey agreed that humans are &#8220;biological beings,&#8221; not machines. He compared goals to a 50-foot wall: you can set ladder rungs 10 feet apart and risk falling with every jump, or one foot apart and build momentum with each small step. Small wins release dopamine, which makes people more motivated to keep going. Real change takes months and years, not a Rocky-style training montage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"workplace-wellness-small-daily-changes-and-permission-to-take-breaks\">Workplace Wellness: Small Daily Changes and Permission to Take Breaks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For employers, Jamey&#8217;s biggest piece of advice is that organizations tend to overestimate big programmatic changes and underestimate small daily ones. Wellness retreats and monthly activities can treat wellness as separate from everyday work. Instead, he recommends normalizing small behaviors, like device-free walks, water breaks, or looking out a window, so no one feels judged for stepping away. He cites attention restoration theory and points to evidence that these habits benefit both employees and productivity. Even a simple reminder email with three quick ideas can help, while asking busy employees to give up an hour for a lunch-and-learn can backfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nick shared how this connects to Bright Breaks, the company Wellable acquired in late 2025, which offers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/breaks\">short live breaks<\/a> throughout the day. In his view, the biggest value is giving employees permission to take a break. Jamey suggested reframing &#8220;break&#8221; as &#8220;restoration,&#8221; noting that working through lunch often makes the rest of the day less productive. For his prediction, Jamey believes we&#8217;re moving out of the human optimization period and toward wellness guided by human biology: walks outside, in-person connection, rest, and working in rhythms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"frequently-asked-questions\">Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n <section class=\"faq-section\">\n <div class=\"faq-accordion\">\n\n \n <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_1\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n What is brain health? <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n <\/button>\n\n <div id=\"faq_1\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n <p>Brain health refers to how well your brain supports functions like focus, memory, emotional regulation, and decision-making. According to neuroscientist Dr. Jamey Maniscalco, brain health is shaped as much by what you do and how you think as by what you take, which is why he emphasizes daily habits like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/wellness-services\/massage-and-self-care#breathwork\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">breathwork<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/wellness-services\/educational-presentations#gratitude-a-how-to-guide\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gratitude<\/a>, sleep, exercise, and nutrition.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_2\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n Why do wellness goals and New Year's resolutions fail? <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n <\/button>\n\n <div id=\"faq_2\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n <p>Jamey says many wellness goals fail because they are overly ambitious and treated as the goal itself. When &#8220;sleep better&#8221; or &#8220;go to the gym three times a week&#8221; has no deeper purpose behind it, competing priorities tend to win. He recommends tying wellness to something meaningful, like being a better parent, and breaking goals into small, achievable steps.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_3\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n How do small habits help create lasting behavior change? <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n <\/button>\n\n <div id=\"faq_3\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n <p>Small, achievable steps create quick wins, and those wins release dopamine in the brain, which is both rewarding and motivating. Jamey compares this to climbing a ladder with rungs one foot apart instead of 10 feet apart: more steps, but each one is manageable and builds momentum toward the bigger goal.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_4\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n What is attention restoration theory? <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n <\/button>\n\n <div id=\"faq_4\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n <p>Attention restoration theory is the idea that taking short breaks from demanding tasks, especially by letting your mind wander or looking at natural environments, helps restore your ability to focus. Jamey notes that even a couple of minutes away from a screen can help employees work better when they return.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_5\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n How can employers encourage employees to take breaks? <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n <\/button>\n\n <div id=\"faq_5\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n <p>Employers can normalize breaks by encouraging small daily behaviors, such as device-free walks, water breaks, or stepping outside, and making sure no one feels judged for taking them. Simple reminder emails with quick ideas, scheduled break prompts, or programs like Bright Breaks can give employees the permission they often need to step away.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_6\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n What is the \"human optimization\" trend in wellness? <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n <\/button>\n\n <div id=\"faq_6\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n <p>Human optimization refers to the push to squeeze maximum productivity or health out of every day, often through biohacking. Jamey predicts this trend is fading as people recognize it isn&#8217;t sustainable or enjoyable. He expects a shift toward rest, recovery, time outdoors, in-person connection, and working with natural human rhythms.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n \n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"full-episode-transcript\"><strong style=\"color: transparent; visibility: hidden; opacity: 0;\">Full Episode Transcript<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n <section class=\"faq-section toc-helper-accordion\">\n <div class=\"faq-accordion\">\n\n \n <div class=\"custom-accordion-item\">\n <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"transcript_1\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n <h2><span class=\"TextRun SCXW145257824 BCX0\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"none\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW145257824 BCX0\" data-ccp-parastyle=\"heading 2\">Full Episode Transcript<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n <\/button>\n\n <div id=\"transcript_1\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n <p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Welcome to the Wellable Weekly Podcast, where we talk about key topics and trends at the intersection of wellbeing, technology, and HR. I&#8217;m your host, Nick. Today we&#8217;re joined by Dr. Jamey Maniscalco. Did I get that right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> It&#8217;s perfect.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Awesome. In short, he&#8217;s a brain guy, the way I dumb it down. He has an impressive background and a passion for helping people better understand and care for their brains, and that has manifested in really three functions. He&#8217;s a neuroscientist; he went to school and got his PhD, hence the doctor. That rolled into becoming an educator and academic at a university. And more recently, it&#8217;s rolled into being an entrepreneur. He&#8217;s the founder of a consulting firm called Manifest Wellness, the founder of a brain health system company called Clario, and my favorite part, he&#8217;s the host of a podcast, the Next Door Neuro podcast, which I&#8217;m sure we&#8217;ll talk about as well. Jamey, welcome to the show.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Nick, thanks so much for having me. It&#8217;s a pleasure to be here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Thanks for coming. For those of you who wouldn&#8217;t know, we&#8217;re connected to Jamey through one of our colleagues here at Wellable. I just learned that about two minutes ago. So he&#8217;s more than just a guest. He&#8217;s a long-term friend and part of Wellable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Absolutely. It&#8217;s been a great connection over the past few years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Absolutely. I&#8217;m always impressed by people who have backgrounds in such different areas. I&#8217;d love to start at the beginning. You obviously had some passion for neuroscience or you wouldn&#8217;t have gone through the PhD process, which I&#8217;m sure took a long time. What was that passion? What got you there? And then maybe we can roll into how you became an educator, why you chose that path, and how you ended up starting these companies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Oh my gosh. Honestly, it&#8217;s a fascinating story, and I love that for me it&#8217;s pretty winding and meandering. It all started with an interest in us as humans. I actually started in psychology. I was a psychology major as an undergrad with a neuroscience concentration. Back when I was an undergrad, we didn&#8217;t even have neuroscience minors or majors yet. That&#8217;s how new this was at the undergraduate level. I was studying psychology and getting fascinated by what makes us tick, what makes humans different from other animals, why we behave the way we do, why we think and feel the way we do. I was learning all these psychological principles, and I kept asking the question why. Why do we have these types of biases? Why do humans develop cognitively as children through these different stages? And the answer always came back to the brain. This is how the brain develops. This is how the brain is wired. This is what we know about how the brain is organized, tied into some evolutionary theory about what benefits humans as a species. Because I loved asking why and getting deeper and deeper into why something exists the way it does, it all came back to the brain. If we can understand the brain, this organ that sits between our ears, we can understand quite a bit about humans: what makes us tick, what makes us happy and content, what makes a meaningful life. So I wanted to spend my career and my life understanding what humans are at the level of biology.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> What did you major in as an undergrad?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Psychology with a neuroscience concentration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Okay. So it wasn&#8217;t a post-grad inspiration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> No. I was fortunate to figure it out during undergrad, but I figured it out late. So if anyone&#8217;s listening out there thinking, &#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s too late for me,&#8221; it&#8217;s not, is what I would say. I decided to change my major in my junior year, had to add overload courses, and had to add an extra year, because I realized what my passion was a bit later than a lot of undergrads do. I figured out a way to make it work, got that degree, moved into neuroscience, and at multiple more points in my career I&#8217;ve pivoted in unconventional ways. Honestly, that&#8217;s been the best part of being an adult for me: not going with what&#8217;s expected, not going with the norm, and pivoting away from a traditional career into something new and exciting that really helps me grow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> And what was your major before? Were you undecided?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Oh, it was wild. I was philosophy and music. I started there because I liked thinking deeply, and I love music. Then I studied abroad my junior year. I went to Australia, and I was taking courses that weren&#8217;t the hardest for me. It was my abroad semester, and I was enjoying myself. But I happened to be placed with some med students. They were studying all the time because they were on the pre-med track. I didn&#8217;t have that much to do, so I ended up leafing through their textbooks and other materials and realizing, whoa, the biology of stuff is fascinating. That&#8217;s really what sparked my interest. I was lucky enough to find my passion accidentally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> That blows my mind. I couldn&#8217;t imagine being in an apartment with a bunch of new friends in a new city and thinking, &#8220;This biology textbook needs some flipping.&#8221; I would never have even opened it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> So good for you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> I&#8217;m a nerd at heart.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> What&#8217;s that old proverb? &#8220;The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.&#8221; I completely agree with that philosophy. The best time to do anything is now. It&#8217;s never too late. So you get your PhD in neuroscience. At that point, did you just assume you were going to become an academic, which I assume is the traditional path? Was that intentional? How did you end up in academia?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> That would be the traditional path, the dominant path. I actually pivoted immediately. I got super burnt out doing research. I love research, and I&#8217;m passionate about the results it produces, but research, especially in neuroscience, can be pretty isolating at times. I spent a lot of time with rats in a laboratory and a lot of time looking at rat brains under a microscope in a dark room. While I love the science of it, I&#8217;m an outgoing, gregarious kind of guy. I realized I couldn&#8217;t do a career where my life was reading and writing grants and spending time in a lab where I was often alone. So I wanted to pivot out of that. I actually went into pharmaceutical consulting for a few years, a hard pivot into business, but I didn&#8217;t like that because I didn&#8217;t get to nerd out on the science as much as I wanted. So I came back a few years later into academia, but in a teaching role, which fits my personality a lot better: getting to be with students in a classroom environment, whether it&#8217;s a lab or a lecture.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Okay, nice. How long did you teach before you decided to take the entrepreneurial leap?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> About 10 years. And then I was actually on sabbatical. I had recently gotten tenure at a university here in Denver, so I had a sabbatical year where I could step away from my teaching and research responsibilities and explore an academic topic I&#8217;m passionate about, which is health and wellness. That&#8217;s really what planted the seed for everything that was to come. I was away and really engaged in the neuroscience and research behind health and wellness practices. How can we think about humans and what we need to thrive in a world where, at this point post-COVID, so many of us are struggling with anxiety and depression, whether clinically diagnosed or not, and feel like we&#8217;re surviving rather than thriving in our day-to-day lives? I immersed myself in that for a year and decided I wanted to dedicate the rest of my career to it. That&#8217;s what led me to leave my professorship and start both a health and wellness consultancy and this company, Clario.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Maybe you could give a brief summary of Manifest Wellness and Clario. Where do you spend your time? Is it 50\/50, or does one take a bigger portion of your energy? And where would you like to spend your time?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> It&#8217;s a great question. I started with Manifest Wellness Consulting, which is both coaching and consulting in the arena of health and lifestyle. I&#8217;ve loved doing this, from keynote speaking and working with groups and businesses to working with individuals. But I realized I wanted to have the biggest impact possible on how we think about health, wellness, and really brain health versus body health. How can we support our brains day over day? I got very passionate about this as I was helping groups and individuals, and I wanted to scale it. It&#8217;s really hard to scale when you&#8217;re the bottleneck. If I need to be in the room with people, there are only so many people I can help at any moment. So I wanted to develop a company that could expand the reach of all the science I&#8217;m aware of about how we can thrive and live well in the modern world.<\/p>\n<p>So I developed Clario, which is a daily brain health system. There&#8217;s a brain health supplement, an herbal supplement with research-backed ingredients like ashwagandha, lion&#8217;s mane mushroom, and rhodiola rosea. These are clinically studied ingredients whose neuroscience mechanisms we know, how they can act as adaptogens for stress regulation as well as nootropics to support brain function. But I didn&#8217;t just want to create a supplement where you take something and you&#8217;re done for the day. Our brain health is just as much about what we do and how we think as it is about what we take. Supporting brain health physically through a supplement is one thing, but what I&#8217;ve done is pair it with small practices. These practices are always two minutes or less, and they&#8217;re not so much the meditations or brain training games you might see in other apps. These are skill-building practices that help us learn how to shift our mindset, take a regulating breath, and understand the importance of gratitude and intention, so people can insert those into the hardest moments of their day. That&#8217;s where I see the real challenge. We often spend a lot of time on aspirational wellness. I&#8217;m on Instagram, or I read the book, and I&#8217;m feeling pumped. My life starts today. And two weeks later, we&#8217;re often right back where we started. So I wanted to create something that helps people develop a system that isn&#8217;t overly aspirational, something they can do every single day because it&#8217;s small and habitual, and that will allow them to make the big changes they&#8217;re looking for over time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> What does a skill look like? Is it typically a two-minute educational video? Take gratitude, for example. You learn something about gratitude, and then it says, &#8220;In the next 23 hours of your day, go find a time to practice this&#8221;? What exactly is it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> You&#8217;re pretty much spot on. I wanted to start with something people would actually do. A lot of people feel like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t need another educational lecture,&#8221; which was a huge struggle for me as a professor. My inclination was, &#8220;Let me teach you everything about gratitude and the brain.&#8221; My wife actually turned to me at one point as I was developing these ideas and said, &#8220;No one&#8217;s gonna do that.&#8221; I said, &#8220;No, no, no, people are gonna love this.&#8221; And she said, &#8220;Trust me.&#8221; So I started trimming it down into what&#8217;s manageable for someone who&#8217;s already overwhelmed and stressed. I don&#8217;t even try to educate them first. These practices are all doing first. Let&#8217;s do something together in a guided way, two minutes or less, and feel the benefit, whether it&#8217;s setting an intention, doing some breathwork, or doing some sensory grounding. Then you can learn a little about why it works and when you can use it. The idea is to keep it extremely brief and let users dive as deep into the science as they&#8217;d like. Come nerd out with me if you want. I&#8217;ve got references. I&#8217;ve got the explanations. But if you&#8217;re the type of person who says, &#8220;I just want relief right now,&#8221; or &#8220;I just have two minutes while my kids are waking up,&#8221; you&#8217;ll still get the full benefit of the practice without necessarily understanding the psychology or neuroscience behind it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Just out of curiosity, how many people dive in? Do you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Ooh. We&#8217;re pretty early on. We just launched a couple of months ago. But the data right now is that it&#8217;s a smaller percentage, but consistent. There are people who always want to know. For me, I think a lot of us want to know that it&#8217;s there. There&#8217;s a group that just wants to do the practices, and I&#8217;m sure you see this too. Just help me. I don&#8217;t need to know why. I just need relief, and then I want to move on. There are people who want relief but want to know it&#8217;s validated, that this isn&#8217;t just woo-woo, that it&#8217;s backed by something legitimate. They&#8217;re not going to dive into it, but they want to see that it&#8217;s there. It gives them evidence that you&#8217;re trustworthy. And then there are people who say, &#8220;I need to know what I&#8217;m doing and why it works, and that helps me be my best self.&#8221; That&#8217;s a smaller percentage, but a very passionate group.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> The presence of the information, the attribution, brings comfort just by virtue of being there. I get that. Going back to the supplement, with ingredients like lion&#8217;s mane mushroom, is there something specific in there, and I&#8217;m going to butcher this, you can tell I&#8217;m not a science guy, like a vitamin or an amino acid that&#8217;s especially dense in that particular food, that you&#8217;re using it for? What exactly is the connection? I&#8217;m butchering this question.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Not at all. This is a great question, and it&#8217;s one of the challenges of explaining this whole concept. I&#8217;m still working on making it clear. Yes, it&#8217;s an herbal supplement with a blend of plant roots, mushrooms, and other compounds like amino acids that are found in our brain and also naturally in the world around us. Basically, I wanted to come up with the simplest thing someone could take every day for calm, steady focus, because that&#8217;s what I saw as a huge challenge in supporting our brains day over day. Our world is overstimulating. It&#8217;s busy and chronically stressed. We&#8217;re often distracted and pulled away from work, whether it&#8217;s pings and dings or just having 5,000 things and 47 tabs open in our minds all the time. That&#8217;s what I saw as a huge challenge unique to humans in the modern world. If we think about how humans evolved, we used to have prolonged periods where we could sit and think, because we didn&#8217;t have constant stimulation. Even growing up, I remember road trips with my family. Boring as hell. Six hours from Chicago to Ohio. There was nothing to do. We&#8217;d listen to music, but that got old after an hour. Now we don&#8217;t have to be bored, and now we can&#8217;t focus because we&#8217;re constantly being pulled and distracted.<\/p>\n<p>So I wanted to find something that could help with the challenges we&#8217;re facing. There are ingredients like ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen that helps with stress regulation. Pair that with something like L-theanine, an amino acid found in green tea leaves, which can help with calm focus without sedation. You don&#8217;t want to be drowsy; you want to be locked in and alert. There are a bunch of other ingredients. Rhodiola rosea has energizing components that aren&#8217;t stimulating, so you don&#8217;t end up with a crash. I spent months doing research and iterating in my own kitchen with these supplements, which are widely available individually or in other blends, to come up with a combination that would specifically help with what I think is our biggest challenge: calm, steady focus, stress regulation, and long-term brain health.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> The supplement and the intervention, I call it an intervention, but the activity, are obviously paired together, and that&#8217;s the nirvana use case. But if someone decides, &#8220;I just want to do the supplement,&#8221; or &#8220;I just want to do the practices,&#8221; do those independently have value? Or is it really designed to support people who are doing both?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> It&#8217;s a wonderful question. They can absolutely be separated. The reason I wanted to start with a supplement is behavior change. Behavior change benefits from small, incremental changes over time. For a lot of people, even five minutes of meditation a day feels like a lot. You&#8217;re a parent, right? We&#8217;ve got kids. You wake up, and your kids are often already up or getting up. You go to bed, and as your kids get older, they go to bed closer and closer to when you want to. All of a sudden, you don&#8217;t have five minutes during the day to sit quietly. This is the challenge I found. Some days I can meditate, journal, or have time for gratitude in a prolonged setting. But on many days, I don&#8217;t feel like I have five minutes to spare for myself. That&#8217;s why I wanted to bring the supplement in first. It&#8217;s as easy as a scoop of powder in your morning water, coffee, or tea. It&#8217;s meant to be a reminder to take a moment for yourself, and maybe that&#8217;s one deep breath while you&#8217;re having your first sips before you start making lunches or hop onto email. The practices are meant to happen in conjunction with that, two minutes or less while you&#8217;re stirring your Clario into your coffee. And they&#8217;re meant not to go beyond that, because if something is meant to be five minutes and you only have two, it feels like you failed. So the idea is to make it as bite-sized as possible, then bring that bite-sized piece back up when you&#8217;re in the car line getting frustrated because the school is taking forever to unload the kids, or when you&#8217;re about to run into a presentation a little underprepared and underslept, and you need a moment to steady yourself and get your focus together.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re practicing these every morning with the first sips of your coffee, the skills will come to you. Most people try to practice a skill in the moment for the first time. I&#8217;m stressed before a meeting. What can I do? Let me Google or AI some breathwork techniques. Now you&#8217;re trying to learn in a stressful, urgent moment, which is exactly when we shouldn&#8217;t be trying to learn. My goal is to teach people the skills in small everyday moments, anchored in their morning drink, so that when the time comes and they need it most, it&#8217;s already habitual. Instead of avoiding thinking about your presentation and checking your phone for the last five minutes, you settle yourself, take a deep breath, regulate your nervous system, and set an intention: &#8220;Here&#8217;s how I&#8217;m going to show up in this meeting. I&#8217;m going to be confident and positive.&#8221; That&#8217;s all you need to do to set the tone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> I know your focus is neuroscience and the brain, but like many people in the health and wellbeing industry, you think about holistic health. Everyone has their angle. There&#8217;s a sleep expert, a physical activity person. Your area is the brain, but you also connect how the brain functions to making broader wellness choices. How does your program fit into that? Some of it is said subtly: making change is hard, and what you&#8217;re asking people to do is make a small change, and small changes can often lead to big transformations. But is there something more to training the brain to embrace holistic practices that go beyond brain health?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Absolutely. I think it&#8217;s multifold. The first thing that helps me, and I think helps a lot of people, is recognizing what I&#8217;d call the biological validity of wellness practices. Historically, wellness has had the stigma of being woo-woo or not valid, and we&#8217;re getting over that much more recently. It&#8217;s important to know there&#8217;s science behind this, that it&#8217;s an empirically studied field, and that there&#8217;s legitimacy to the practices being brought to you. They don&#8217;t just feel good for your friend, your aunt, or your mom; they&#8217;re actually based in science.<\/p>\n<p>I also think it can help people reframe what wellness means to them. The big framework I use is wellness not as a goal in and of itself, but as a means to achieve something more important to you as an individual. A lot of us get stuck on, &#8220;I want to lose this amount of weight,&#8221; or &#8220;I want to sleep better,&#8221; and we make wellness the goal. For many of us, that&#8217;s not a very motivating goal. I want to sleep better, but this TV show is great. I want a glass of wine with dinner. I need to get a little more work done. When &#8220;I want to sleep better&#8221; is your goal and there&#8217;s nothing underlying it, it can be really hard to keep the behaviors in place when competing interests come up.<\/p>\n<p>But if your real goal is to be the best father you can be, and we&#8217;re both fathers here, that&#8217;s a hugely motivating goal for me. I want to be my best self for my daughter, so she gets to see what a present, loving, caring father looks like, and so I get to enjoy the relationship with her while I have it. That&#8217;s deeply motivating. My purpose is my motivation, and my brain supports that purpose. If I want to be a great father, I need to be empathetic, compassionate, and patient. All of those are brain functions. So I need my brain functioning well to be my best self for my daughter. What allows my brain to be its best? Now wellness comes in. Now it&#8217;s sleep, exercise, and solid nutrition. All of these directly affect brain function in addition to body function. My nutrition routine doesn&#8217;t just help my body when I go for a run or lift weights. It also helps my brain function well, so that when I&#8217;m tired, I&#8217;ve had a long day, I&#8217;m frustrated by a lot of things, and my daughter isn&#8217;t listening to me about getting dinner ready, I don&#8217;t blow up because my brain is at capacity. I&#8217;m able to take that breath, refocus, and say, &#8220;You&#8217;re the 40-year-old. You&#8217;re the one who needs to be in control here. She&#8217;s nine. She should be getting upset about these things. It&#8217;s your job to be compassionate.&#8221; The sleep I got the past few nights and the exercise I got earlier in the day help me be the best version of myself when it matters. I think that&#8217;s how people will be motivated to take care of themselves: not because self-care is good in its own right, but because it allows you to do something meaningful, whether it&#8217;s relationships, work, or an activity you love, for as long as possible throughout your life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> It reminds me of how people don&#8217;t give themselves grace. It&#8217;s the time of year when New Year&#8217;s resolutions start percolating, and eventually someone writes down, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to go to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.&#8221; It comes from a good place. Maybe they explicitly or implicitly say, &#8220;I&#8217;m doing this so I have the energy to play with my kids.&#8221; But in their head, they say, &#8220;I made this commitment. It&#8217;s Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.&#8221; Then they either beat themselves up because they can&#8217;t do it, or they force themselves to go on four hours of sleep after a long night, and they feel good because they hit the gym and achieved the goal. This is a non-science comment, but there&#8217;s some validity to that. There&#8217;s also a version where your goal was to have energy for your personal life, and going to the gym on a Friday on four hours of sleep, yes, you hit the gym requirement, but you didn&#8217;t really accomplish the goal. There&#8217;s always a balance between inputs and outputs. When people are so input-focused, they don&#8217;t give themselves the grace you need, because no one&#8217;s perfect, to live a healthy life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> 100%. The idea that we&#8217;re machines, that I&#8217;m going to flip the on switch and become the healthiest, most productive, on-top-of-it version of myself, is a complete fallacy. We&#8217;re biological beings. We have good days and bad days. There are times we need to push and times we need to rest. We&#8217;re not industrial. Think about the industrialization of everything in the human world. We think if we put more in, we&#8217;ll get more out, and that&#8217;s not true at all. The quality of work can suffer with higher volume, whether it&#8217;s working out, professional work, or a passion project. Respecting and working with human biology, rather than assuming we can override it, is huge.<\/p>\n<p>And when you talked about the gym workout actually being motivating, that&#8217;s something I think we underutilize. Think of your goal as being at the top of a 50-foot wall, and you&#8217;ve got a ladder. You could set each rung 10 feet apart, and every step up requires a Herculean effort to jump, grab, and pull yourself up, and if you slip even a little, you fall all the way back to the bottom. Or you could set the rungs one foot apart. You have a lot more steps to reach the top, but each step is reasonable, and they build on each other. The cool neuroscience behind this is that small wins cause you to release dopamine, which is not only pleasurable and rewarding, it&#8217;s motivating. So just like you said, if you&#8217;re struggling to get started with something, do a couple of small things. They&#8217;ll make you feel like you&#8217;ve hit some achievements, and they&#8217;ll make you more excited to take the next steps. I think we fundamentally misunderstand this because we watch Rocky movies, where a two-minute montage with cool music transforms you, or a TV show or movie where you go from beginning to end in an hour and a half, and we forget how long real change takes. For most of us, it&#8217;s a matter of patience and persistence, because real change happens over months and years. Many of us want it to happen faster, and in trying to do that, it backfires and we never go anywhere. A great example is coming up. I&#8217;m sure a lot of people made New Year&#8217;s resolutions at the beginning of 2026. I bet many were overambitious, mine included, and I don&#8217;t even remember mine. We probably bailed on them and made zero or minimal progress this year, versus if we&#8217;d said, &#8220;I want to take this small step in Q1, this small step in Q2,&#8221; and moved on from there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> I&#8217;ve never heard the ladder analogy before. It&#8217;s perfect. I&#8217;m going to steal it, and I&#8217;ll do my best to give you attribution when I do. The Rocky movie too, same concept. You watch Rocky and think, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to chase chickens around and carry some logs for three months, and all of a sudden I&#8217;m going to beat Apollo Creed.&#8221; Maybe. I&#8217;m sure a lot happened before that to get him there.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Pivoting quickly to Manifest Wellness. You do some individual work, but at least some of it is organizational work. Is that correct?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Exactly. Correct.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> So you&#8217;re working with employers in that scenario. I know it&#8217;s more complicated than this, but what&#8217;s the guidance? When you go into an employer, what are some common things you see? I don&#8217;t want to use the word deficiencies, but areas where, without even looking at a specific employer, you could probably guess they could improve. What are some quick wins or things an employer listening to this should think about?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Wonderful question. We think of employers as big organizations, but when you break it down, big organizations are run by individuals just like us. They have the same biases and the same challenges. So if you&#8217;re an organization out there, you&#8217;re in HR, you&#8217;re managing the health and wellness program, my biggest suggestion, from what I&#8217;ve seen, is that we tend to overestimate big programmatic changes and underestimate small daily changes. That intersects with the idea that we see wellness as something separate from day-to-day life. We&#8217;re going to have a wellness retreat. We&#8217;re going to have a wellness day. On the last Friday of every month, we&#8217;re going to do a wellness activity. We leave it as an isolated, infrequent, or intense event, when the real change happens when you embed small things day to day. If you can normalize within your team and your organization that in the middle of the day we encourage you to get up, get away from your desk, and take a walk without any devices, maybe with a coworker, that movement break is actually super beneficial. Or if someone wants to step outside for a few minutes or look out a window, that&#8217;s actually benefiting their attention. There&#8217;s attention restoration theory, and you don&#8217;t need more than a couple of minutes of looking away from a computer, emails, or intense tasks. Letting your mind wander or be pulled, especially by natural environments, helps restore our ability to work better when we come back.<\/p>\n<p>What I really like to emphasize is small things that can be done every single day and that are normalized, so no one feels judged when they say, &#8220;I need to take a break right now,&#8221; or &#8220;I need to get up and move my body,&#8221; or &#8220;I need a glass of water, and I&#8217;m just going to stand quietly.&#8221; This should be normal, expected, and celebrated. Not only because you&#8217;re taking care of yourself, which is just being good to your employees, but because the evidence shows it benefits the company through increased productivity. There&#8217;s a lot of evidence for that. So for me, it&#8217;s finding small things that fit within your organization that you can encourage employees to do every single day. Often that&#8217;s an email reminder: &#8220;Hey, if you&#8217;re feeling stressed, here are three things you can do in five minutes. We get that you&#8217;ve got a lot going on, but try these: step away from your computer, have a glass of water, look out the window for a few minutes.&#8221; Minor things in the middle of the day. People might feel like that&#8217;s nothing, and that&#8217;s the point. If it feels like nothing, you can do it. If it&#8217;s, &#8220;We need an hour for a lunch-and-learn,&#8221; people think, &#8220;I can&#8217;t afford an hour. I&#8217;ve got meetings. I&#8217;ve got emails. I&#8217;m behind.&#8221; All of a sudden it backfires when you try to do too much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> And sometimes you just need permission. Not to talk our own book, so to speak, but we acquired a company in late 2025 called Bright Breaks. The product is really a series of hundreds of small live breaks led by educators, starting every five minutes, that someone can join. It could be a movement break or a learning break; they have all these categories, and those are helpful. But someone could also just go for a coffee break or a walk. They don&#8217;t need a platform. A big piece of the value I saw in the platform is that, one, it gives you resources to figure out how to take a break, but more importantly, through the daily email or by automatically scheduling a break for you, all features of the product, what it really does is give permission. At that point, the employee feels they have permission to take a break, and here are some resources if you need inspiration. But really, you should just take the break, and it&#8217;s manageable. It&#8217;s small. The permission from the employer helps. All those things add up, and those small behaviors collectively have a pretty big impact on your health and wellbeing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> 100%. I&#8217;m completely behind that philosophy, and the science absolutely supports it. Even the terminology is fascinating to me. It&#8217;s great that we use the term &#8220;break&#8221; because everyone recognizes it. But &#8220;break&#8221; assumes that you&#8217;re weak, that you need rest, that you can&#8217;t handle what&#8217;s coming. I&#8217;d frame it as, &#8220;I need restoration. I need to restore myself for a moment,&#8221; because that&#8217;s really what this is. It&#8217;s not a break because you can&#8217;t handle what&#8217;s happening. It&#8217;s a moment to recharge and get back to being your best. It all comes back to how we&#8217;ve industrialized humans to the point where you need to work through lunch, because if you work through lunch, you&#8217;ll get more done today, and more is better. But if you work through lunch and don&#8217;t take a break, the last four hours of your day are likely much less productive and lower quality than if you had stepped back and recharged your brain through some of these activities, whether it&#8217;s Bright Breaks, Wellable, or something else, so you can come back and put in your best four hours when it&#8217;s time to push. We can&#8217;t push 100% of the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Completely agree. That&#8217;s probably a good way to wrap up. As always, our final question when we have a guest is about predictions. Nothing&#8217;s off the table. What are you thinking?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> I&#8217;m a nerdy scientist, and I think about this all the time, so instead of something fun, I&#8217;m going to go with something about health and wellness, which I think is fun. I&#8217;m sure you do too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> I agree. You&#8217;re preaching to the choir.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> I think we&#8217;re going to find that we&#8217;re moving out of the human optimization period. I think hacks and biohacking have had their moment. People are realizing that squeezing every ounce of productivity or health and wellness out of every day isn&#8217;t sustainable and often isn&#8217;t enjoyable. I think we&#8217;re going to pull wellness back into an environment where we look to human evolution to guide us. What do human brains and bodies need to survive, and really, what do we need to thrive? I think we&#8217;re moving back into a world where we get back to our roots, where we find that taking a walk outside is an especially important activity, and that in-person human connection, where you can actually touch somebody and look them in the face without screens, is a way we find wellness. I think rest and recovery will become more and more important, because we&#8217;ll recognize that we need to work with human biology, and that humans are at their best when we work in rhythms, not straight pushes all the time. So I think we&#8217;ll start seeing a push for taking your breaks, for &#8220;take a morning and sleep in, we&#8217;ll catch you when you get in, because you&#8217;ve worked hard this week.&#8221; If you&#8217;re exhausted, coming in at 9:00 AM on a Friday just to show your face isn&#8217;t an indication that you&#8217;re a better employee. I think we&#8217;ll start seeing that shift. It&#8217;s just going to take society and cultural norms a while to catch up to what the science shows.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> The way I think about it, they talk about it in &#8220;maxxing&#8221; terms, pure human optimization. I love that prediction. My personal preference is that I hope that trend is true. I hope you&#8217;re right. But I feel like this is largely driven by social media, and I&#8217;m not an active social media participant, so I can&#8217;t really weigh in. But there are so many videos I see. I saw one where someone said, &#8220;I crammed three days into one day,&#8221; as if that&#8217;s really impressive. And I&#8217;m thinking, no, you didn&#8217;t create new time. That&#8217;s not something you can literally do. So I hope you&#8217;re right, because there&#8217;s a lot of negative stuff wrapped in a science wrapper in short clips that, to your point about the ladder, set the rungs not 10 feet apart but 20 feet apart. It&#8217;s completely unattainable, but everyone is inundated with this content. So I hope you&#8217;re right. Well, Jamey, thank you for joining us today. You have a ton of fascinating work. How can people connect with you, follow what you&#8217;re doing, and learn from the science you&#8217;re sharing with the world?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Absolutely. I&#8217;m on all the major platforms. For Clario, it&#8217;s Live Clario, L-I-V-E C-L-A-R-I-O, for our socials and other handles, as well as liveclario.com for the company. Manifest Wellness is my consulting firm, and you can find me at manifestwellness.co.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Awesome. Are there socials for Manifest Wellness as well?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> For that, it&#8217;s just me, so it would be Jamey Maniscalco. It&#8217;s going to be miserable to spell. I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;ll be in the captions so you can copy it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Check the show notes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Exactly. Don&#8217;t try to remember it. But I love talking about this. I&#8217;m passionate about this type of work, and whether you&#8217;re interested in services or just want to chat about the brain or health and wellness, it&#8217;s what I live for. So I hope anybody who wants to will reach out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Well, this has been fascinating. Thank you again for joining us. As always, thank you to everyone who&#8217;s listening. You can catch us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to like and subscribe. Thank you very much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jamey:<\/strong> Thanks so much, Nick.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neuroscientist Jamey Maniscalco explains how small daily habits improve brain health, why most wellness goals fail, and the value of taking breaks at 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