What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from The Alzheimer's Solution
Mara had pitched the same investor deck for six months straight, surviving on cold brew and four hours of sleep, when she blanked on her co-founder's name at a demo day. It lasted a second, but it rattled her. Her father had struggled with memory problems in his last years, and she had promised herself she would notice warning signs early. That night she opened a book a mentor had recommended, written by two neurologists. She was not looking for a miracle, just a plan she could run the way she ran her company: inputs she could control, even amid chaos and a calendar with no free hour in it.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
What you eat between meetings
Founders often eat what is fast, not thoughtful: vending machines, catered pizza, skipped meals during fundraising sprints. Dean and Ayesha Sherzai argue that consistent whole-food patterns, with less reliance on heavily processed options, support long-term brain health more than any single ingredient could. For someone living in back-to-back calls, this is less about a perfect diet and more about a better default.
When a negotiation runs into the night, consistent eating loses to whatever is in the room, and that is a scheduling mismatch, not a failure.
Keep one reliable, low-effort meal on hand so even your worst week still has a reasonable default in it.
Movement as a founder's insurance policy
The authors frame regular movement as one of the more strongly supported levers in their approach, tied to blood flow and cardiovascular health rather than appearance. For a founder, exercise is often scheduled first and cancelled first the moment a deadline appears.
A workout can feel like an indulgence when the product is on fire, and guilt about missing it becomes its own stressor.
Attach movement to something that survives chaos, such as a walking one-on-one instead of a conference-room meeting.
The sleep you keep negotiating away
The book treats stress reduction and restorative sleep as essential as nutrition and exercise, not a reward for later. Founders often wear chronic stress as proof of commitment, and sleep becomes the first line item cut during a launch or a raise.
Startup culture rewards visible exhaustion as dedication, running against the idea that a stressed brain is not the asset a growing company needs.
Choose one non-negotiable wind-down cue, such as a fixed last-call time for screens, and protect it like a signed deadline.
Staying a person, not just a founder
Running a company can quietly narrow a founder's world to investors, employees, and the product, while old friendships and outside interests fade from neglect rather than any real decision. The authors describe staying socially connected and continuing to learn outside your expertise as protective in its own right, not a pleasant extra. For an entrepreneur, that might mean keeping one relationship or curiosity alive on purpose, separate from the business.
For a founder, movement and sleep often compete with building the company, and in a bad week something loses. Nutrition tends to slip first, since skipping a meal rarely produces a visible cost the way missing a pitch would. Social connection gets sacrificed hardest, because it feels replaceable, even though the authors treat it as no less important than diet or exercise. There is no formula for which to protect, only the pattern that "later" tends to become "never."
Name one thing, honestly
- Which of these four areas do you cut first when your calendar gets tight, and what does that choice tell you? - If a co-founder or close friend described your sleep and stress patterns honestly, what would they actually say? - What is one small, boring habit you could protect even during your worst week running the business?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Choose one non-negotiable wind-down cue, such as a fixed last-call time for screens, and protect it like a signed deadline.