Happy December, and thanks for tuning in to another newsletter.

I’m Nicolas, and I help ambitious professionals master their mental energy so they can excel at work and enjoy life.

This month, we’re looking at a topic that I find extremely interesting.

And it’s one that’s becoming more and more common in conversations about biohacking and performance optimization:

Mitochondria.

The body’s energy factories.

We’ll explore their role in the brain and why they’re so essential for sustaining mental energy.

So, let’s take a closer look.

🔋 Mitochondria power your mental energy

Mitochondria produce the vast majority of the brain’s usable energy. This energy is what neurons rely on to communicate, process information, and support functions like focus, working memory, and sustained attention.

💪 Healthy mitochondria enable sustained cognitive performance

Because neurons can’t store much energy, they depend on efficient mitochondrial ATP production. Keeping mitochondria healthy - especially in the brain - helps you maintain mental energy.

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Mitochondria are specialized structures inside our cells that are responsible for producing most of the cell’s usable energy.

Specifically, the energy made with oxygen.

Quick biology refresher:

We get energy from the food we eat.

That food is broken down into molecules that the body can convert into ATP (and to some extent creatine phosphate(CP)), which act as our body’s “energy currency”.

When ATP is broken apart, it releases the energy that the body needs to function.

Cells can make ATP in two ways: with oxygen or without it.

So, it’s the oxygen-dependent and highly efficient energy production that happens inside the mitochondria.

And this is why they’re so crucial for overall bodily energy and therefore also for energy production in the brain.

👉Mitochondria are important! Check out this guide of 10 things you can do to keep your mitochondria healthy. 

Your brain makes up only 2% of your body weight, but it uses 20% of your oxygen and tons of energy.

The brain is made up by billions of neurons, and neurons need energy for:

But neurons don’t store much energy, so they must constantly make ATP.

They can do this either with or without the use of oxygen, but they will always need substrate to turn into ATP.

Most often, the chosen substrate is glucose.

Glucose comes from the foods you eat and is transported throughout the body via your blood. It gets into neurons through “gates” called GLUT transporters.

In the cytoplasm, which is the part of the cell outside the nucleus, glucose is broken down through glycolysis into pyruvate, producing a small amount of ATP quickly.

This is the energy production that does not require oxygen.

When oxygen is limited, pyruvate is converted into lactate, allowing glycolysis (and that small ATP production) to continue.

But as glycolysis is inefficient, when the cells have oxygen, pyruvate enters the mitochondria and turns into acetyl-CoA.

Acetyl-CoA goes into something called the TCA cycle, which is like a chemical reactor, and makes NADH and FADH2.

These molecules feed the electron transport chain (ETC), which makes most of the ATP through oxidative phosphorylation.

This is slower than glycolysis but very efficient, and Mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (e.g the energy production in the mitochondria) is the main energy source supporting the energy dependent processes in the brain, particularly during sustained activity. 

Importantly, other substrate than glucose can be used for energy production in the brain.

Ketone bodies, which is made from fats in the liver, can be used when glucose is low. This is what often happens when someone is fasting or on a ketogenic diet.

Fatty acids are mainly used by astrocytes (support cells), not neurons. Neurons avoid fats because burning them is slow, uses more oxygen, and can make harmful free radicals.

As described, mitochondria are absolutely vital for energy production in the brain.

That energy is what neurons need to communicate with each other. Which is essentially what all brain activity is.

Because of this, mitochondria are directly tied to mental energy, as they literally provide the energy required for things like focus and working memory that we want to improve and sustain over time.

Therefore, it should now be clear that keeping our mitochondria - especially those in the brain - effective and healthy is highly advantageous if we want to increase mental energy.

And, as a result, sustain focus and cognitive performance throughout the day and over longer periods.

Articles used for this newsletter:

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