Mathew Norbury: Keep your brain fit and the rest will follow

We all understand the importance of physical health and the best ways to maintain it. We also know how to monitor it with numerous products on the market that measure our physical condition. Of course, we know the importance of maintaining good mental health and brain health too, but aside from talking openly to someone about how we feel, monitoring that is more of a challenge.   

I don’t actually like the term ‘mental health’, it has too many negative connotations. So, I want to rebrand it. We’re going to talk about brain fitness and brain health instead and tell you how you can maintain it to be the best version of yourself on a daily basis.   

Our innovation, Brainfit, and, in particular, our forthcoming product Brainfit+, an AI-powered wearable tech device, will meet that challenge head on (please excuse the pun). 

What? 

The World Health Organisation defines ‘brain fitness’ as, “…..the state of our mental wellbeing, brain health and cognitive ability that makes us fit for the demands of life and work”.   

If brain fitness is low, we’re more likely to not feel, function or perform at our best, just as we’ll struggle to run more than 100 metres without collapsing if we never leave the sofa.   

The brain is an organ but it can be developed and strengthened through use, similar to how muscles can be strengthened through exercise. However, the key is first understanding what’s wrong and Brainfit can provide some answers. 

Ours is not a diagnostic tool, but it can help to join the dots, improving your understanding of how your brain fitness and performance is fluctuating.  

Why?   

I’m going to use some terms in this piece you may not have heard before. For example, ‘the brain economy’ is an emerging economic belief system that asserts that brain health — both individually and collectively — is a meaningful driver of economic growth.   

The stats are jaw dropping and confirm we’re facing a brain capital crisis – brain disorders are estimated to cost the global economy $5 trillion per year — a figure expected to rise to $16 trillion by 2030. Yet in most countries, the majority of people do not have access to effective brain health promotion, services and support.  

The McKinsey Health Institute estimates that, if the current global burden of mental disorders were addressed, 130 million years of higher-quality life could be recovered, with each year adding $200,000 of economic value.  

The problem is, most of us aren’t comfortable talking about our mental health so it’s an invisible problem. 

At Brainfit, we believe that if you can measure it, you can manage it, and if you can predict it, you can prevent it.  

How?  

Our online AI powered platform is available right now.   

Using biometric data from devices you may already own such as a Fitbit or Apple Watch, the platform provides insight into three key factors: sleep, stress, and physical activity, delivering you what we call your CoreScore. This identifies when, where, and how these factors affect brain fitness and performance and our on-demand support service, via a dedicated smart phone app, will help you address problems before they become critical, providing daily summaries and suggestions to help you make positive improvements. We also offer one-to-one check-in sessions with a team of experts, actual human beings rather than chatbots. Artificial Intelligence is great, but we think actual intelligence is better.   

The really exciting news, however, is that we are close to launching our unique Brainfit+ device.   

Brainfit+ uses infrared light to analyse activity in the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls higher-order cognitive functions, such as decision making, reasoning, and attention. The device can be attached to any type of headgear, and we are currently trialling it in the construction industry with partners including the Robertson Group, BP, and Chivas Brothers. 

Also coming in 2025 is our game-changing brain training programme. You’ve heard of personal trainers or PTs? Well, we’ll link you up with your own brain trainer.  

In sessions of between 30 and 60 minutes your Brainfit PT will take you through a range of exercises designed to kick your brain out of its natural negative mode. Regular sessions like this strengthen the pre-frontal cortex, meaning the brain is better able to regulate emotion, and becomes more solution focused, positive and adaptable to change.   

Each session will end with a cool down and recovery brain exercise in a deep resting state which is essential for neuroplasticity, the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganisation.   

Who?  

First and foremost, improving brain fitness empowers individuals.  

Just as getting physically fitter and stronger benefits our overall health, improving our brain fitness makes us more resilient, and better able to perform under pressure. In short, it makes us more productive and less prone to burn out. It’s worth noting the findings of Mercer’s 2024 Global Talent Trends report which estimates that 82% of workers are currently at risk of burnout.  

Of course, a more productive, happier workforce can only be good for employers. Humans are a businesses’ most important asset, so protecting and nurturing them can only benefit your bottom line. 

For larger employers, we provide cloud-based dashboards allowing managers and coaches to see anonymised data and identify real-time trends and risks. Correlating our data with data around things like room temperature or the amount of light in a workspace, gives managers a fuller picture and means they can adapt working practices and physical environments to ensure the workplace is a safe and attractive place to be. Absenteeism, avoidable errors (more on this shortly), unplanned downtime, and injuries can all be reduced as a result. 

Data privacy and security are our top priority. The individual is in complete control. They don’t need to share it with anyone to benefit from Brainfit. Where employers have multiple workers using Brainfit, they may ask for consent to see limited, anonymised data, which can help them to identify and address factors affecting brain fitness and performance, to keep their people safe and well. Anonymising the data means workers don’t need to worry about poor brain health stats being used against them in performance reviews.  

Individuals, unions and employers quite rightly have concerns in relation to privacy. We are working with the Scottish AI Alliance, the UK Government, regulators, unions and employers to address these concerns, developing industry-leading policies that put protection of the individual’s data privacy and security at the heart of Brainfit. One union rep described our approach as “Game-changing.” 

No-brainer 

At 7pm on the 18th of September 1980, a maintenance team was carrying out routine repairs on a guided missile system – the Titan II – in Arkansas, USA. One of the technicians carelessly dropped a wrench which damaged the side of the rocket, causing liquid fuel to leak out and evaporate into toxic steam. 

There was a blinding flash and seconds later the small American town of Damascus was rocked by a huge explosion. Thankfully, it wasn’t a full nuclear detonation, but a wrench dropped by a perhaps tired or overworked technician still cost the life of one person and injured many more.   

The point is that an avoidable error could have resulted in a catastrophe. This may be an extreme example. Most of you will not, I suspect, be nuclear weapon engineers, but with burnout costing the average business 34% of total salary costs, why risk negative consequences when all you need to do is pick up the phone to us?   

If you’d like to know more about brain fitness, what it is, why it matters and how you can improve it, please get in touch, or register for our webinar in January. This will give you some practical hints, tips and tools to improve your own brain fitness and performance, and that of your business. 

Webinar Registration – https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_yh0ACHtkRfyUFbfO_tPHYw