In this article
About the Author Dr. Alex Korb, Ph.D. is a neuroscientist, adjunct assistant professor at UCLA (Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences), executive mindset coach, and bestselling author. He earned his undergraduate degree in neuroscience from Brown University and his doctorate from UCLA, where he has spent over 20 years researching the brain. He is the author of The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression and writes the Psychology Today blog PreFrontal Nudity. His work centers on how small behavioral shifts can rewire neural circuits to improve mood, reduce anxiety, and build lasting cognitive resilience.
Part I — Summary of the Article
In a piece for CNBC Make It, Dr. Alex Korb draws on more than two decades of neuroscience research to argue that protecting brain health is less about relentless self-improvement and more about eliminating the cognitive patterns that silently drain us. He identifies six specific habits he actively avoids — habits he once struggled with personally, including constant second-guessing and catastrophic thinking — and explains why cutting them out made a measurable difference to his focus, energy, and wellbeing.
01 —Dismissing Anxiety as a Flaw
Korb reframes anxiety not as a malfunction but as a neurological signal. The brain's limbic system raises the alarm when something feels important or uncertain. Suppressing that alarm, he argues, does not resolve the underlying concern — it just makes the signal harder to read. He has learned to pause and ask what his anxiety is actually pointing at.
02 —Perfectionism and Paralysis by Analysis
Demanding a perfect outcome before acting keeps the brain locked in a stress state. Korb's research suggests that making a timely good-enough decision is neurologically more efficient than indefinitely refining one. The act of deciding, even imperfectly, reduces activation in threat-detection circuits and frees cognitive bandwidth.
03 —Constantly Second-Guessing Decisions
Revisiting a decision already made is one of the most energy-intensive cognitive behaviors. Korb admits this was a personal pattern that slowed his work and magnified stress. Once a decision is committed to, the brain can shift resources away from evaluation and toward execution — a transition second-guessing indefinitely delays.
04 —Catastrophizing Worst-Case Scenarios
Projecting disasters onto future events may have ancient evolutionary roots, but in a modern work or personal context, it taxes the prefrontal cortex and amplifies emotional reactivity. Korb actively redirects his attention toward realistic, probable outcomes and toward actions he can take, rather than scenarios he cannot control.
05 —Feeling Compelled to Optimize Every Minute
The self-optimization trap is counterproductive: the pressure to improve every hour of the day is itself a chronic low-grade stressor. Korb has come to see rest, unstructured time, and imperfect days not as failures of discipline, but as neurologically necessary — periods during which the brain consolidates learning, resets emotional circuits, and recovers working memory capacity.
06 —Underestimating Small Behavioral Shifts
This is the foundation of Korb's entire body of work. The thesis of The Upward Spiral is that depression — and by extension, cognitive decline and burnout — does not reverse through a single dramatic intervention. It reverses through small, repeated behavioral nudges that compound over time into meaningful neurochemical and structural change.
| Habit to Avoid | Core Insight |
|---|---|
| Dismissing anxiety | Anxiety is a signal from the brain; interrogate it, don't suppress it |
| Perfectionism | Good-enough decisions made promptly outperform perfect decisions made never |
| Second-guessing | Commitment frees cognitive resources; indecision wastes them |
| Catastrophizing | Realistic probability thinking interrupts negative feedback loops |
| Over-optimizing | Rest is neurologically productive, not a failure of discipline |
| Ignoring small shifts | Incremental behavioral nudges compound into lasting neural change |
Part II — Editorial Opinion
Dr. Korb's article lands as a refreshing counterpoint to an era saturated with productivity hacks, biohacking protocols, and optimization frameworks. His core argument — that the brain is better served by what you stop doing than by what you pile on — is deceptively simple and, crucially, well-supported by the neuroscience literature he cites. That said, no piece of popular science is without tension points worth examining.
Editorial Verdict Korb's piece is scientifically grounded, practically accessible, and genuinely useful — particularly for high-performers prone to overthinking. Its most significant limitation is one common to first-person wellness essays: the gap between a researcher describing what works for them and what constitutes rigorously validated guidance for a general audience. Read it as expert-informed perspective, not prescription.
✦Where Korb Is Strongest
The subtraction framework — focusing on what to eliminate rather than what to add — is both original and practical in a self-help landscape dominated by addition. His point about perfectionism causing decision paralysis is particularly well-grounded. Neuroscience research does consistently show that prolonged indecision keeps the anterior cingulate cortex in a state of elevated conflict monitoring, burning resources that could otherwise support sustained focus. His personal candor also works in the article's favor: admitting that he spent years second-guessing his own choices adds credibility and makes the advice feel lived-in rather than prescriptive.
✦The Nuance Worth Adding
Korb's treatment of anxiety as a useful signal is scientifically accurate, but the article would benefit from a caveat: for individuals with clinical anxiety disorders, the instruction to simply 'ask what your anxiety is communicating' can be genuinely difficult to apply without professional support. The framework works best for sub-clinical worry and performance anxiety, and presenting it as a universal tool, without that distinction, slightly oversimplifies the clinical picture. Similarly, the advice to avoid catastrophizing is sound, but the mechanism — how one actually interrupts that cognitive spiral — is underexplored. The article tells you what to stop; it is somewhat lighter on the how.
✦The Anti-Optimization Argument
Perhaps the most provocative and, to this reader, most valuable insight is point five: that the compulsion to optimize every minute is itself neurologically costly. This cuts against the grain of nearly every productivity book published in the last decade. Korb is right that chronic self-monitoring activates the brain's stress circuits, and right that rest serves a genuine neurological function — memory consolidation, emotional regulation, default mode network activity linked to creativity and self-reflection. More popular science writing should make this case.
✦What This Means in Practice
For the average reader, Korb's six avoidances are actionable in ways that many neuroscience-adjacent wellness articles are not. You do not need equipment, a subscription, or a coach to stop catastrophizing or to make a decision and commit to it. The barrier is psychological, not logistical. That accessibility is a genuine strength of the piece and consistent with his broader philosophy in The Upward Spiral: that meaningful cognitive change does not require dramatic intervention, just consistent redirection.
On balance, Korb's article is worth reading and worth sharing — especially for professionals and high-achievers who treat their brain as an engine to be continuously upgraded rather than a system that also needs protection from its own worst tendencies. The science behind it is solid, the writing is clear, and the framework is one that most readers can begin applying the same day they read it.
Korb, A. (2026, March 20). I've been a neuroscientist for 20 years. I keep my brain strong and healthy by avoiding 6 things. CNBC Make It.https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/20/...
Alex Korb, Ph.D. | Adjunct Assistant Professor, UCLA | alexkorbphd.com | Author: The Upward Spiral (New Harbinger, 2015; 2nd ed. 2025)
This document summarizes and offers editorial commentary on the referenced article. All subject-matter insights are attributed to Dr. Alex Korb. Opinions expressed in Part II represent an independent editorial perspective and do not constitute medical or psychological advice.