🤖 AI Is Replacing Your Brain

🧠 The Science

MIT scanned people’s brains while they wrote essays.
Some used ChatGPT. Some used Google. Some used just their brain.

Guess who had the lowest brain activity?
Yeah, ChatGPT users, of course…

They showed weak memory, low engagement, and by the third task were straight-up copy-pasting.
Most couldn’t even remember what they wrote minutes later…
They felt less connected to their own ideas. Like the words weren’t even theirs.

Meanwhile, people who used their brain?
Stronger thinking. More focus. Better memory.

The takeaway:
AI isn’t helping you think. It’s thinking for you, and slowly replacing your cognitive muscles with autocomplete.

😵 IRL

I’ve seen people use ChatGPT for Tinder, and end up sounding like they’re applying for a job, not a date.

Someone I know used GPT to write an apology text. The girl replied, "Did you copy this from Google?" 💀

Need a workout plan? Here’s the same basic push-pull-legs template everyone’s using.
Meal ideas? Chicken bowl. Again.
Need a hobby? “Try knitting” 🙃

We’re not saving time, we’re outsourcing our personality and losing originality.

At some point, you start to wonder:
Is anything I do actually mine anymore?

🛠 Rebuilding My Brain

Here’s what the science says actually works:

🔸 Think first, prompt later
→ MIT found AI users had the lowest brain activity.
→ Writing before using AI activates beta waves, tripling cognitive engagement.

🔸 Use active recall
→ 83% of ChatGPT users couldn’t remember what they wrote minutes later.
→ Reading, closing the page, and recalling builds long-term memory.

🔸 Schedule “AI-free hours (or even days)”
→ 1–2 hours of no-AI deep work per day restored brainwave activity in just 1 week.

🔸 Go analog daily
→ Reading paper books, solving problems by hand, journaling, these reactivate the neural pathways AI suppresses.
→ Studies show screen-free mental effort protects working memory and improves attention span.

And here’s what I’m currently doing myself also:

🔹 I read full articles instead of copy-pasting into ChatGPT for a summary, it builds focus, attention span, and patience.

🔹 I brainstorm in my own notes, sometimes with pen and paper. No more dumping random thoughts into GPT hoping it’ll think for me.

🔹 I use ChatGPT like Google, for facts, dates, stats, study links, not for creating. It’s my research assistant, not my brain. ChatGPT is a search engine on steroids, that’s all it is.

🔹 I write rough drafts, then edit later. That first draft has to come from me, then my assistant can fix grammar if it needs to be professional, because I’m not a native english speaker, and sometimes what I write doesn’t make sense.

🔹 Ask it to not give the answer directly. I ask for hints, explanations, or where to look, so I can try solve the problem myself. Because if something else is always thinking and problem-solving for you, what’s the point of even having a brain?

🔹 I use ChatGPT for learning, but I ask it for sources, documentation, courses, papers, articles. I want it to show me where to go, not spoon feed me like I’m lazy. Make it to make you do the actual work, if you know what i mean.

So I encourage you, if you’ve been relying on AI for everything, start pulling back.

Slowly.

Use your brain a little more each day.

Read the thing, write the rough draft, think through the problem before you ask.

That’s how you get sharper and stay human. 🧡

Tools & Resources 🧰

🔹 The Shallows - Book that explains how tech rewires your brain. Scary but eye-opening.

🔹 Cold Turkey - Blocks distractions like websites, games etc. Sometimes I use it to block AI websites, so I can think for real.

🔹 Speechify - Chrome Extension that reads articles or books out loud. Good when I don’t feel like reading, but still wanna learn.

🔹 Mind Lab Pro - When your brain is so cooked you can’t even form a thought without asking AI, try this. I take it when I do deep work. Helps with focus, memory, and clearing that brain fog.

This week’s riddle 🧩 

No cheating, just use your brain.
Reply with your answer. Let’s see how many geniuses we have here 👀

Thanks for reading 🧡

You might’ve noticed (or probably didn’t lol) that the Good Reads section is gone.

That’s where I used to share extra articles and studies. But no one really clicked them, so I replaced it with something better to train your brain, a riddle.

If you enjoyed this issue or it made you think, reply and let me know. I read every single email I get. Always appreciate hearing from you.

See you next week,
- Ernest