The 10 Biggest Mistakes People Make With Their Brains

...And Next Level Neuro's Top 10 Brain Health Tips.

Let’s be honest: most of us have no idea how to actually take care of our brains.

We baby our muscles, obsess over macros, and track every step we take — but when it comes to brain health, most of the advice our there sounds a little like this:

•  "Take fish oil!"
• "Do Sudoku!"
• "Get 8 hours of sleep!"
• "Exercise more!" 

And while none of those things are wrong and they are important, they reveal a deeper problem:

The truth is, the brain isn’t a muscle you can blindly train or a gadget you can hack with supplements and blue light blockers alone.
It’s the most complex, sensitive, adaptive system in your body — and it’s begging for personalized care.

But here’s the problem:
Most of what we’re told about brain health is either overly simplified or completely one-size-fits-all.

Fish oil, puzzles, sleep, gratitude journals — they’re all fine.

But without understanding how your brain actually works, and what your specific nervous system needs to feel safe, regulated, and supported…
You’re just throwing spaghetti at the brain and hoping something sticks.

At Next Level Neuro, we take a different approach — one rooted in neuroscience, not guesswork.

Here is what we will cover:

• Why symptoms like anxiety, pain, or fatigue aren’t flaws — they’re signals from a threatened brain

• The 10 most common mistakes people make when trying to support their brains (and what to do instead)

• The foundational framework we use to teach therapists, trainers, and coaches how to build real, personalized brain health — one step at a time

If you’ve ever felt like your brain was holding you back — or your clients weren’t getting the results they should be — this is the missing piece.

Let’s begin with the biggest myth in modern wellness...

Your Brain: The Ultimate Operating System

....and why we need an update. 

Think of your brain as the most powerful operating system in the world.

It’s constantly:

•  Receiving inputs from your senses (sight, sound, touch, balance, movement)
•  Interpreting those inputs based on past experience, beliefs, and threat levels
•  Producing outputs like movement, emotions, pain, performance, digestion, and thinking

Every second of every day, your brain decides:
"Am I safe enough to perform — or do I need to protect myself?"

When your brain feels safe, you get green lights:

• Clear thinking
• Strong movement
• Resilience to stress

When your brain feels unsafe, you get red lights:

• Pain
• Anxiety
• Fatigue
• Poor digestion
• Poor recovery

Understanding this is key because it shows you one powerful truth:

Symptoms aren't personal flaws. They’re outputs from a nervous system under threat.

And that means you can change them — by changing how the brain perceives safety.

Why One-Size-Fits-All Brain Health Fails

Standard mental health advice focuses on outputs ("fix the anxiety," "fix the pain").
But if you only treat outputs without addressing the inputs and interpretation, you're missing the point.

Every brain is different:

• Different sensory needs
• Different threat tolerance
• Different life histories
• Different starting points for change

What regulates and heals one brain could trigger another into deeper threat.

That’s why at Next Level Neuro, we teach:

•  Assess before you guess.
•  Regulate before you activate.
•  Personalize every intervention.

Otherwise, it’s like giving everyone the same prescription glasses without checking their eyesight first.

...here we go.  What the headline pulled you in for. 

The 10 Biggest Mistakes People Make With Their Brains

If you want a better brain, it’s just as important to stop sabotaging it as it is to start supporting it.

Here are the 10 biggest mistakes we see (and yes, we've all made some of these):

1. Chronic sleep deprivation
2. Living in constant low-grade stress
3. Overloading on screens and digital media
4. Ignoring balance and coordination training
5. Eating inflammatory, high-sugar diets
6. Losing real in-person social connection
7. Being sedentary
8. Not challenging the brain (mental stagnation)
9. Poor breathing habits (shallow mouth breathing)
10. Ignoring early warning signs like brain fog, bloating, or emotional dysregulation

Every small daily choice either upgrades your brain or quietly degrades it.

The good news?
You can reverse course, starting today.

Making Brain Health Habits Automatic

You don’t need to overhaul your entire life to improve your brain.

You need to make small brain upgrades automatic.

Here’s how:

•  Start tiny: Attach one brain-healthy habit to an existing routine (e.g., balancing on one foot while brushing your teeth).
•  Use visual triggers: Set post-it notes or phone alarms.
•  Prioritize regulation: When your nervous system feels safe, it's easier to stick with new habits.
•  Celebrate small wins: Positive feedback wires your brain faster than self-criticism.

Remember:
Consistency beats intensity.
Your brain isn’t asking for heroic effort — it’s asking for sustainable care.

Next Level Neuro’s Top 10 Brain Health Tips (Using the Frameworks Method)

At Next Level Neuro, we don’t just talk about brain health — we teach a full Framework for applying it to real life.

Here’s our Top 10, drawn from the Transformation Ladder Framework:

1.  Assess Before You Guess
   Use simple assessments (like range of motion, balance tests) to measure how the nervous system is doing before intervening.
2.  Regulate Before You Activate
   If the nervous system is dysregulated, no amount of drills or exercises will help. Calm the system first.
3.  Start With the Low-Hanging Fruit
   Don’t chase the hardest problem first. Start where the nervous system gives you a win easily.
4.  Test, Train, Retest
   Always measure before and after an exercise or input. Is it helping? Is it hurting? Let the brain tell you.
5.  Use Movement Snacks
   Short, frequent brain-body activities are more effective than long, grueling sessions.
6.  Train the Neglected Systems
   Your brain craves vestibular (balance), vision, and proprioceptive (body-in-space) input. Don’t skip them.
7.  Prioritize Sleep and Recovery
   Sleep is when your brain rewires itself. Training a tired brain leads to worse results.
8.  Understand the Threat Bucket
   Stress isn’t just emotional. Every "stressor" — from poor posture to dehydration — fills the brain’s threat bucket. When the bucket overflows, symptoms happen.
9.  Respect the Brain-Body Connection
   Pain, performance, digestion — it’s all brain-driven first. (No, it’s not "just in your head" — it's in your nervous system.)
10.  Focus on Sustainability, Not Intensity
    Radical changes that only last two weeks don’t help. Sustainable brain habits — even tiny ones — stack into powerful results.

Your Brain Can Heal, Grow, and Thrive — If You Learn How to Listen to It

If there’s one thing we want you to take away, it’s this:

Brain health isn’t about following a checklist. It’s about creating a conversation between you and your nervous system.

You don’t need to guess anymore.

You don’t need to throw random drills at clients anymore.

You don’t need to live stuck in the same patterns anymore.

You can learn to speak the language of your brain — and that changes everything.

Ready to learn more and how to apply it to your current business? 
To learn about the Transformation Ladder Framework, and watch the Free Replay on all you just learned above, click the link.

Our FREE workshops and mentorships are helping professionals worldwide revolutionize the way they work with the brain.

Because when you change the brain first...
Everything else follows.