Using AI Without Burning Out Your Brain
Harness AI for speed and clarity while keeping your attention, creativity, and judgment intact.
Welcome to the Beyond The Labs Newsletter, a weekly deep-dive into solving your health mysteries. I help adults in their 30s-50s solve the ‘Normal Lab’ mystery of brain fog, fatigue, and stubborn weight, to reclaim their energy and focus. I’m Dr. Ashori, a board-certified MD. I look Beyond the Labs through virtual Direct Primary Care in California and personalized health coaching for professionals worldwide.
The art of communication in our modern culture also happens to sharpen our brains. It’s a way to connect with others and think deeply, emotionally, and critically.
Writing, whether a brief text or this long article, is like going to the gym and working out your muscles. I usually start by writing a few bullet points. Then I come up with an engaging title. All of this cognitive processing.
Cognitive Offloading
In a busy world it makes sense to simplify things but only up to a point. I can offload my cognitive skills by automating certain processes. But beyond that I’d lose my cognitive skills.
What’s a cognitive skill? It’s taking environmental inputs, analyzing it, processing, making a decision, and executing. It’s not always fun but it it is neuroprotective.
AI Writing My Articles
I’m a family medicine physician and I do health coaching. I have a ton of data to process, minute by minute. I just got a text from a client in another country who’s worried about his knees and running.
When I write these articles online I could just put my prompt into an LLM and copy & paste the output. The problem is that I wouldn’t learn anything.
When I did the research for this article I came across the term, “cognitive offloading.” I wouldn’t have used the same terminology but thought it was clever. Now, I have this new vocabulary. And by writing this article I have the grammar to communicate cognitive load to my patients.
This is a great skill that I would miss out on if I automated this process.
Brainstorming With AI
A better skill to acquire is to learn to work and grow with this current version of AI - which is sure to evolve quickly.
1. Write, Then Improve
Write your email and ask for clarification. Before you read the answer, ask yourself what changes will likely be suggested. Compare answers. Whichever version you choose makes little difference.
2. Start the Brainstorming Process
Before asking AI for your article, write your bullet points, come up with a title idea, and then ask AI for more bullet points to add. Again, consider what it will suggest before reading the result.
3. Master Prompting
Spend as much time writing a solid prompt as you do editing the ChatGPT version of your article. This will train your brain to stay one step ahead of tools like LLMs.
4. What Was Missed?
Remember, AI isn’t creative, it’s creating a random output of text based on what it was trained on. It’s just that the output falls within certain, recognizable parameters.
When you read your output, ask yourself, what was left out? How can you make this more unique or creative? That’s your cognitive flexing.
Asking AI Medical Questions
The AI you’re chatting with can’t look through the thousands of patients they saw, the textbooks they read, and synthesize a critical thought process.
I’ve shared scenarios on other channels where AI completely drops the ball when analyzing labs or recommending treatments. A classic example is someone who had an H Pylori diagnosis but never needed treatment based on their risk.
What dictates care in clinical medicine is guidelines. And guidelines are mostly industry funded. They definitely have a purpose and can be a great resource for doctors but they can’t dictate care because care can never be generic. Agree?
When you ask AI a medical question it’s best to have it help you identify and gaps in your understanding or knowledge. I have some great AI prompts here you can check out.
Bonus: Write By Hand
There’s a reason that written language has evolved in so many different places in so many similar ways. There’s an important connection between thought and writing.
Don’t lose that skill. The good news is that you need very little of it to maintain and benefit from the skill. Write a postcard, write in a paper journal, or write your to-do list for the day in a small notebook.
Disclaimer:
Dr. Mohammad Ashori is a U.S.-trained family medicine physician turned health coach. The content shared here is for education and general guidance only. It is not personal medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and it does not create a doctor–patient relationship. Humans are complicated and context matters. Always talk with your own healthcare team before making medical decisions, changing medications, or ignoring symptoms. This information is to help you add more depth to those conversations.