Ep. 23 Brain Health

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How much damage has been done to our mental health but also the brain functioning processes that are happening? So much brain fog, so much attention problem, focus, problem even.

Hello friends. You are listening to the All Things Good for you podcast. I'm your host, Brian Bowen, founder of.

Integrative Health, Inc. And I'm Amy Christiansen, your co host and creator of Amy Christiansen Health and Wellness Coaching.

Join us as we explore the world of health and wellness and all things that make you feel good. From ancient traditions to modern advancements and technologies that give you the tools for.

A life well lived, what new paths might you discover on your health and wellness journey? Tune in each week as we deep dive into a variety of concepts and hear from other fun, passionate health and wellness experts on their experiences and philosophies.

And remember, stay open minded and integrated. Good morning, Amy. How are you doing this morning?

Good morning, Brian. I'm doing well, doing well. Hanging out, having a little bit of, a little bit of energy via a brown delicious liquid.

Oh, I have a little bit of that too. A little bit. Mine's looking a little half empty, so though I don't know what's going to happen. It's so cold. It's so. I'm, I'm going to wrap. What happened?

Your coffee's low. It's tragic.

Oh, I was like, oh, did you just spill yours? What happened? Oh my God. Oh my gosh. It's so cold this morning. I'm, I'm going to rally. I'm going to. I'm excited to talk about brain health today, but I got to tell you, I'm having to have a lot of conversations with my brain this morning to like, let's do this brain. You know, you're excited about this conversation. You want to rally? We are going to wake up now, we are going to be here, be, be now with brain health and rock and roll. But then there's the other part of my brain that's like, I'm gonna put my pajamas on and get back into bed and snuggle up. Why it's, since it's negative 6 degrees.

Or whatever it is right now, I know it's, it is really ridiculously cold. And for so many days, I mean, Colorado, it does get cold, but this spin in the single digits and negative wind chills for four or five days. Four or five days. Has it been that long? Like four days at least. Way too long. That's not normal. Like, we can handle a day or two. But no, four days is starting to be too much. I can't even get Toby to the dog park long enough. It's like, okay, buddy, I'm freezing, gotta go. I put on all my ski gear. You know, I'm trying to be like, if you can ski in it, you can, you know, play at the dog park in it. But I don't ski in even this cold. Not on purpose. I mean, I have certainly been out there in this weather. But this is not what I need to choose. I don't need to prove to myself that I can survive in it and be tough. I've done that. If it comes down to it, another time in life, I can manage. But yeah, it's cold.

Not today. Not today. That's all right. It's going to be 58 degrees on Sunday, so you can break out your hammock and your bikini and out in the sun and pretend you're at the beach. So.

Right, yes, absolutely. But you know, one thing on that we're talking about, like, how cold works. Like, one thing about exposing yourself to cold on a regular basis is increasing your brown fat. And brown fat is really important. It's important to your metabolism. Not for weight loss. Like, I said this to somebody one time and they're like, I don't need to lose weight. And I was like, it's not really about weight loss, you know, and I know we're not talking about this today, but it also has an effect on your, on your brain is where we're going to go with that. But your metabolism flexibility is super important and that's tied to brown fats. And you can increase your brown fats in a pretty effective way by getting cold bouts, exposure. Right. But it's also helpful for your brain, which is what we're talking about.

Brain health. I love brain health.

Brain health.

I was brain health. The brain, you know, it's crazy. It's one of the most important vital organs in your body that gives you the most value in your life. But it also happens to be the most taken advantage of, underserved, ignored organ until it begins to fail us. And so it's, you know, when we're happy and joyful, we can thank our brain for that. When we're Sad and mad and depressed and angry. We can thank our brain for that. When we have goals and desires and we can make our brain for that. When we accomplish things and, you know, are successful with certain things that we do in life, we can thank our brain for that. And our brain does so, so much and gets so little thanks. And then we just like, we should wake up every day and be like, you know what? Thank you, brain. Thank you for waking up this morning. Thank you for. Thank you for giving me these thoughts. Thank you for. But yeah, so there's just a lot of extra tension. I think we need to put the spotlight on the brain a lot more and me included. I'm good with the exercise and, you know, all these meditation and, you know, things that are important for brain health. But we, we need to kind of have conversations with it. It is our side, our side companion that's with us all the time.

Yeah. And I know we're going to get into a bunch of different ways, and I do. Of talking about brain health and all the various ways we can be productive in healing and keeping our brain healthy, but I think you nailed it right from the beginning. It starts with the moment you wake up, and it starts with how, how you assume an attitude for the day. There's plenty of good research and supporting documentation on gratitude and thinking positive, but not just tricking yourself to think positive. While that can work even with, like, the affirmations and that kind of stuff, there's a lot of research is coming on, studies that are showing, you know, you can't just BS yourself. Right. If you really don't believe something is wonderful, it's rare that you're going to be able to push it. But your cingulate gyrus is a part of your brain that helps make decisions and it helps make you think, like, what's good, what's not good and that it can be your thoughts on food or exercise, all of that. That's the part of the brain that if that research is showing that if you can, even if it's just little, not the things that you hate, hate like, you know, double hate, loathe, those are. You're not going to change those things by doing affirmations and thinking positive. But the things you're kind of neutral on or things you're like, maybe this isn't that great, you can affect the changes in your brain to change over to positive, more positive. So whether it's eating broccoli or, for me, running on a treadmill, you know, those. I love broccoli I'll eat broccoli every day. But running on treadmill, maybe not so much. But you have to really, like, produce positive thinking around those moments and gratitude. Like, I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to run when it's six degrees. I'm grateful that my body actually moves. I'm grateful for the feedback, even if it's like, hey, this is kind of painful. I'd like to know if that hamstring needs to be worked on. You know, those kinds of things. You can kind of turn that positive thinking around. But waking up in the morning and literally starting off the day with, I am alive. My brain just woke me up. There is a reason why I'm here. And if you don't believe that, you got to work on that. But starting off with that gratitude, journal the three things you're grateful for, three things you appreciate, three things you're looking forward to. You can slowly turn your focus on whether it's your attitude and positivity about the day, your attitude and positivity about activity that you're not really thrilled about, or a diet choice that you're looking to make. Just little moments of positivity.

That's amazing. We have. We have over 100.

Sorry.

That's okay. I'm gonna say it again, and if you do that again, I'm gonna be really nervous about.

Well, I just want to clarify my blood, because I realize we're on audio recording and people may not get it, but sometimes I make myself sick with my own positivity.

Well, it's. You know what? We have a hundred billion neurons. Over 100 billion, I guess. And we talked earlier in a podcast about our neuroplasticity. And so that falls right in line again just to the brain's ability to rewire itself around certain thoughts or actions. And. And you can reframe and rewire and reboot and upload new information to your brain. It wants. The cool thing about the brain is it wants to grow, it wants to be challenged, it wants to expand it. It's expansive. And. And our brain has so many neurons and that we could live over, you know, 150 years and still have plenty to keep our brain, you know, youthful and excited. And I had written down a list of like, well, what is a better brain? Because I feel like when we think about brain health, we think about always, you know, our intelligence and how quick we are, you know, our mental acuity and agility, which I think is super, super important. And I have that in of a lot list. But one of my top things on my list is a curious brain. So I have curious brain, calm brain, clear brain, focused brain, flexible brain, expansive brain, balanced brain, energy efficient brain. And we can get into each one of those. But the top one is a curious brain. And thank God for your curious brain as far as even like culinary arts. Right? Like, who would have thought, like the curiosity, curious brain's like, huh, I wonder if what it would taste like if I put chocolate chip cookie dough in this ice cream. What a great thing that somebody did. So I celebrate the curious brain, especially when it comes to culinary arts. But how else can our brain be curious and how can we support that?

Right? My brain went to bacon wrapped dates and ancho chili sauce, but yes, also cookie dough ice cream.

That sounds great too. But again, it's cool to see the curious brain at work in that way. Right? It's great to see, you know, like also all these amazing documentaries or like how things work. Right. I'm still curious, like, how does that work? And like dig into that. But you know, maybe if we're not, it's not, you know, something we're passionate about. Like, we just need to dig into those little things and be like, huh, I wonder, instead of like, I wonder what it would do or I wonder what this is or I wonder whatever, like close that feedback loop. Don't just wonder, like, go explore that. You know, your brain brought it up because it's curious. But that's what that curiosity is, what keeps the brain expanding and growing. So just learning, listening to new things, learning new things, reading new things, being curious and following that little, those little breadcrumbs. The brain wants it so bad.

Absolutely. And you know, on the food topic and creativity, I had a friend recently saying that she wasn't creative because she didn't have like a drawing and painting or. And. But she is an amazing culinary explorer. She just loves to cook and she can just do amazing things in the kitchen. I'm just like, how did you make this taste so good? If I cooked it, it would not be this good. And I swear there's a magic to it. But that's that creative side. And we all have moments of creativity. And it can be all kinds of ways that you open and explore the normal things we're doing every day. And there's a lot of talk about, I think we all know a little bit of this and we've mentioned how important play is physically, but when we're little, when our brains are doing so much development and growth and it's very stimulated. It's that play activity. It's that time. And children are losing so much of that now. Not just playtime outside, but playtime with, like, blocks and puzzles and creativity on how to build a fort with a. With a stick, you know, with a bunch of dirt. And we're losing a lot of that creativity exploration with our children. But then we cut it off so much earlier for adults, too. Like, we are not necessarily allowed or accepting that we need to get creative and have that playful, adventurous, questioning. Let's just see how this works. I told you that once that I have. I swear, it'll be like one of my last words is, oops, well, that didn't work. Let's see how it works.

I think it's. Yeah. See how it works in play. Yeah, it's super important because the compounding effect of all this is very real. And so, you know, with. Within our. We have internal and external input. And so we need to look at what input are we putting or not putting into our bodies. And so curiosity and creativity, you know, is important input to have in our body. And the compounding effect of that pays dividends over time. So we might not, you know, do one creative activity or be curious and follow it. And I didn't feel. I don't know if I felt any better or not. Like, it's not about that. It's the compounding effect and the dividends that it yields, you know, throughout. Throughout your life. And. And it shows up in ways that if you're paying attention, you'll have, like, little aha moments, because, you know, sometimes it doesn't smack in the face, but all of a sudden you look back and like, oh, my God, you know what? For the last three years, I've been rocking and rolling. This has been happening. This has been happening. This is. And so, you know, if you've been putting that in and you've been putting the work in, that's where it starts to show up. And it's amazing. So.

And you can look at that on. Yeah, and you can look at that on the negative side, too. It's not like, you know, I'm a positive, optimistic person, but I think you're even more so than I am.

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That's not to say that you don't have negative thoughts. Then. That's just data. Like, there's nothing wrong with having a negative thought. Like, I love the term, you know, just lean into the suck. Because sometimes life sucks, right? And just that is the way it is. Like sometimes building something or creating something or doing something different or, you know, getting in a new workout or, you know, staying up and saying no to things that you would like to go and have fun with because you're wanting to, you know, build and invest in something kind of sucks. So it's okay to recognize the negative feelings and the negative side of things, but don't dwell in it because it's that compound effect. Like if you're constantly dwelling and listening to the negative, you know. Amy G. I've heard enough from you. Thank you very much today. Thanks for the feedback. Now I'm going to figure out how to fix that or change that. And what is this telling me? And again, it's like curiosity. Okay, what, why do I feel this way? Why do I think this way? And that compounding effect will build up however you focus on it. So same thing with food and exercise and our practices.

Absolutely. I have a. I'm just going to drop this into this piece, but what I call a better brain six pack. So it's mindset, Mindfulness, mental practice, mouth movement and motivation. But just to pause on what you were saying, that I think is extremely important is the mindfulness piece. And so the mindset piece goes into our kind of conditioning of who we are, you know, epigenetics and all that stuff. But the mindfulness one is, you know. Exactly. Talking about is talking.

Right.

Controlling that mental noise and understanding what you're hearing, you know, the voice in your head. And Shahzard Shmeen uses in Positive Intelligence a great model where he talks about the saboteurs and the sages. So, you know, the sage powers are the fun and the creative and the benevolent and the, you know, I'm here for you and the kindness and the gratitude. And those are more of the sage kind of the language that the sage, you know, thoughts are. And then the saboteur ones are more of, you know, kind of overachiever. You know, you're kind of some of Your drivers, fear, angers, griefs, you know, all that stuff. And so regardless of what model Dr. Amen from the Amen Institute, he uses the term, you know, dragons. And so when those voices are talking, you know, ask yourself, wait a second, is that whatever language you want to use, is that conditioning? One of my dreams or my saboteurs talking, that's wanting me to make this decision and just pause and be super mindful of again, the language that's happening inside your head, is it serving you well, Being able to understand? Is it true? So remember we talked one time about if you're talking to somebody, I also think, if you're thinking it, is it kind, Is it true and is it necessary? So if we ask ourselves that in our head, is this actually true? Right? And who is telling me this in my head, what experiences it's coming from, I think is critical, important for brain health. I just ran on forever.

That's fine. We like it when you just run on.

Sometimes I can't stop talking.

I so understand and so do my friends, but I think we have to. We may have gotten ahead of ourselves a little bit. Is like, why do we care? Like, okay, we're talking about brain health today. And a lot of it is, like we said, overlapping in a lot of different areas as far as mindset, exercise, food, nutrition, kind of. We talk about meditation. We talk about that all the time. But why do we care about our brain? And the brain is getting more attention lately in these last few years. Like, when I lived in. Up in the mountains in Summit County, I worked at the hospital there, and we dealt a lot with traumatic brain injury. And we did a lot of education and work with trying to help people understand the significance of a head trauma. And now, you know, our NFL players and that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, through some very tragic events, we're starting to really pay attention that, hey, knocking your brain around is painful and has lasting damage if you don't let it heal. And even small, like, compounding effects, small head traumas, small concussions, small getting your bell rung, whatever, you know. My son was in football in high school, and after like his third really hard hit of the season, he started having some little neurological issues and had some, you know, seeing the stars. And we, I, we called it. I was like, you're. You're out. I'm taking you in. We're going to have kind of see you going to go see a neurologist. We're going to make sure that everything was okay. And we need to really kind of Decompress and let your brain truly heal. Not just until you feel better. The brain is so, as you said, neglected and kind of not taken seriously. It's not like a bruise on your elbow or your leg. Once that bruise goes away, your brain's healed, we can't see it and it usually goes much deeper than we recognize. So you really do have to take some special precautions around taking care of your brain with activity. But now also because of all the attention and recognition and I think as technology is getting better at showing us visualizations and we can really see how the brain is working and developing. And speaking of long running on, by 2050, we're predicting 115 million people with early dementia and Alzheimer's. And it's starting to happen earlier and earlier. It's not just our folks that are in their late stages of life. We're starting to see it in people in their 50s and 40s starting to have early dementia signs. Our brain health is pretty significant. So when we talk about brain health and eating well or exercise, where do you want to live? And like I've always said, I want to live well for a long time. I want to be still active and doing things when I'm, you know, 90 or 110, whatever I got, you know, whatever I choose to live, I want to do it well until the day I die. So it starts with our brain. You know, if we don't keep our brain healthy, it's going to go downhill really quick.

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Right. I mean we have to think about the ultimate. I think that's gonna be our title.

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Yeah. When we think about, yes, long term, but being effective and now like you can, it doesn't take that long first of all to change your brain and make healthy positive influences. And so you know, if you're in your 30s or 40s and honestly what we just went through with the threats to all of our healths and the outcome of all of that, that's showing how many, how much damage has been done to our mental health. But also the brain functioning processes that are happening. So much brain fog, so much attention, problem, focus, problem. Even more than before, we were struggling with poor diet and exercise and social media obsession. So now we've got another impact that's showing up that is demonstrating that more and more people at a younger, younger age are having a hard time with focus, having a hard time with processing and technical skills. So it's not just where we're going to be when we're old. It's how productive do you want to be in six to eight weeks? Because really, it's how long it starts to take. It takes for your brain to start to make some positive changes. Now, of course, it depends on how significant the mountain is that you might need to be climbing for that health to show. I mean, if you are someone who's dealing with somebody who's dealt with a lot of weight gain or extreme toxicity, both mentally and physically, it's going to take a little longer than that. It might take a year or two. But you can start to change your health and your brain in as little as eight weeks. I think the average time frame for exercise to be affecting and showing results and brain changes is, I think, 16 weeks. I can't. I'm not quoting a specific study. I just think that's what I've read. And it's similar with the body, right? I mean, we know that if you want to see significant changes in your body, it's going to take at least three months. Now, you might see something in a. In four weeks, but it's usually 90 days or longer, six months to really see significant changes in your body. If you're going to go extreme, it can take a year. You know what I'm saying? It's that compound effect. And it doesn't have to be quite as daunting because you can make a difference in your health and your brain activity in as little as six to.

Eight weeks, which is great. And I think to do, to understand that is a foundational thing because we need to emancipate ourselves kind of from mental slavery, of what we can and can't do. And so just to know that, you know, we have to erase those lines of it. This isn't possible, or I can't change this because this is how my brain is. And to know that if I put the time, energy and effort in, amazing things are going to come out of it, regardless of timelines or what necessarily that preconceived outcome is. It's just a good thing to do. And so we have to have our, you know, motivation or drivers on why we want to do this and know that let's just erase any preconceived ideas of who we think we are, how we think we can do this, and, you know, step into that curiosity, lean into that uncomfortableness and just start applying the tools and techniques for a better brain and see what happens. Like, get curious, just see what happens. Just try things, right?

And a good place to start is, you know, doing, picking a few things like, like you said, wake up and be. Find some gratitude, find some gratefulness, even if it is based on a negative feedback or a negative thing. Take that data, ask where it is. What can you do to turn that around? Make some food changes, Start adding in a 20 to 30 minute exercise routine and you don't have to kill yourself. You don't have to go out and start training for a half marathon or climbing giant mountains or you know, going to HIIT class seven days a week. It's actually not actually good for you to do that by the way. And I hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings there. That's another, that's a topic for another day. But it doesn't have to be that significant of an, you know, change to make an impact on your brain health. So do you want to get into.

Yeah, I do. I kind of want to, if you don't mind. I want to break up, just to break these into little smaller chunks like for instance, like the nutrition and the exercise. Because those like each one, I think we can get. It can get a lot. So I. And not to make it confusing, but so for like them just because you've brought up nutrition many, many times. So I put mouth on there. And the reason I put mouth mouth is because it incorporates nutrition, you know, hydration and nutraceuticals. It's what we put in our mouth. And so I think for nutrition, if we will, you know, there's the whole anti inflammatory food list that we need to start, you know, making sure we avoid for brain health. And this is more of your wheelhouse. So I'll let you jump in here and then all your essential fids and amino acids and things like that. But I'll let you jump in there. But I like to. Is it friend or is it foe? Right, I mentioned this before. So when we put it in our mouth, is it friend or is it foe? And how does that affect our brain health? Because we know the brain gut access is very real. So I have tons of clients that come in when they have food allergies. Guess what one of their main symptoms is? Mental fogginess. Right. But reverse that. I have tons of people come in that have gut issues. Guess what one of their main issues is? Anxiety, stress, you know, all of that stuff that's going on in the brain and so that's the gut. So I think again, this is your wheelhouse as far as specific nutrition. But that's just kind of the thing I'd like to plug and play in there.

Yeah, I mean, we're connecting more and more the, you know, gut brain connection and access. And I was listening to something recently, talked about having some research about having your vagus nerve vagonectomy, something like vagal nectomyctomy. Yeah. And it was research being done. And I think Parkinson's patients, because there was a connection about disruption. I think it was all about leptin and. Is that right? Leptin. Anyway, it was all about a disconnection of the gut. Like there was a. A disruption in the gut and there was communication to the brain about that disruption. And the micro ganglia were being. They were basically killing off neurons in order to build a wall to protect the brain. So they disconnected the vagal nerve, and so there was no more of that connection. And I'm sure it's. Again, I'm simplifying it, but their Parkinson's symptoms decreased significantly. It is. We're just learning that there's such a significant connection between the brain and the gut. And how you eat and where your gut health is affects your brain and how you think and how your brains affects your guts and that affects your whole body. So as far as nutrition goes, you know, I, you know, I'm a Dr. Huberman, the Huberman Lab. I'm a total geek on watching his stuff, but he listed, I think it was five things that are like key things for brain health. And we don't have to get into all of them. I'm just going to list them. People can go and investigate it more. Creatine, omega 3s, choline, L glutamine, and anthocyanins. I'm not sure if I'm saying that one right, but anthocyanins. So he listed. And then your hydration with your. The PMS that everybody wants, your potassium, magnesium and sodium levels. If you can focus on creating things that bring up more of that into your daily nutrition, your brain will benefit from it greatly. So we can talk more on the exact things later. Oh, he also mentioned phosph. I mean, I'm going to totally murder this. But phosphatella zirine, it's basically a lipid that you can get from meat, fish and cabbage. So, yeah, there's. And a lot of these things overlap. Right. So healthy things like fish and cabbage comes up a lot. Broccoli and spinach, your omega 3s, you know, you can get that from there. Choline, egg yolks. Your L glutamine is, you know, also, again, cabbage and Brussels sprouts and carrots. There's Creatine you can get in meat or you can take supplements for these things. You just have to be careful and be paying attention to it. I'm not advising anybody to go out and buy anything or take anything different. You have to do your own investigation there. But it's easy to start incorporating these things to feed your brain.

So what you put in your gut just doesn't go to your butt, it goes to your brain. That's what I got from that whole thing.

You are so correct.

And I think that's going to be easy to search for people. But just know that the takeaway. There's super essential things in nutrition that goes to the brain. And I would just throw caution out there for the nutraceutical world. I think there's great nutraceuticals that are super important, but there's lots of things and marketing and stuff like that that claim stuff. And I know popping a pill is kind of an easy way to do things, but just be very. Do your own research on that and be very cautious. And then, of course, hydration. Hydration. And hydration is still always paramount with everything and especially health.

Being hydrated does not just mean drinking 96, you know, ounces of water every day. It's not all that it's about. You got to check your electrolytes, your cells have to be absorbing it. Your kidneys have to be doing well, but increasing just your water. Folks who are struggling to get 40 ounces of water in a day should be concerned and should maybe find some creative ways to get more fluid in, whether that's, hey, eat more watermelon and cucumber. There are different ways. We can squeeze in a little more decaffeinated teas. You can squeeze in more water without having to feel like you have to force yourself to drink a bunch of plain water if that drives you crazy.

I feel like I have some beers and it's got tons of water. Is that good for my brain?

Wine is wine. There's a lot of research on wine.

I love research because I can always find research to support whatever I want. I'll find that. I'll find that. I'll find that white paper.

You find that research that shows beer is good for your brain. And I, we will, we will talk that up all day long.

Absolutely, absolutely. So I know we're moving on here real quick. Just to jump into exercise, I put it under the movement category. And so exercise is, you know, movement. And my couple keywords I had with that just because it's very important. I Think is to have fun. And we already talked about the creative and be diverse. And so the brain likes all kinds of different movements. There was research, yeah, there was tons of research talking about how like movements of reaching across the body, you know, so like right hand to left foot actually really helps the brain. And in some cases smaller motor movements and stuff like that is really good for parking people with Parkinson's to help kind of slow down progression and things of that nature. So you can look into that. But to keep it simple, make it fun.

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Make it creative, keep it diverse. And again, the brain wants to be curious. So if you haven't done a certain yoga, go try yoga. If you want to go try some hiit class if you want to do yoga with goats, goat like whatever. Just make fun, you know, step out into the world of movement, go try. I don't know if you're 50 years old, go try a little gymnastics. Just, you know, be careful. But, you know, keep it even. Small motor movements, you know, bigger motor movements to crossing the body is really, really good for brain health. And it really pushes a lot of blood and creates a circulation stuff to the prefrontal cortex. And so does sleep. And that's a huge part to make us feel at ease and happy and all that good stuff.

Sleep. I think we're going to do a couple of podcasts on coming up because it's so significant and important. And we also have to look at when we're talking about brain health and overall health, we got to look at the toxicity in our homes and what we're breathing. I love a house that smells good, but I had to switch over to making my own air diffusers and using the diffusers with essential oils instead of the chemical things that puff out air or smelly stuff, all those sprays and things like that.

I don't know why, I just thought the thing that puffs out air, I don't know.

I forget what they're called, but I love them. Because they're little battery operated things. You can sit in your house and every now and again it just turns on and it goes poof. And it just has this little diffuser of delicious smells. But those smells are made off of a bunch of chemicals, and you're breathing that in all the time. Of course, there's not a lot we can do. I mean, you can have in your carpet and your furniture and your clothing, but what you're putting on your body, what you're putting in your body and what you're breathing in is important. So start taking a little moment to just look around and say, what can I do to make a small change for improvement and move more into the friend territory instead of the faux territory, adding some plants, buying some more organic cotton things or bamboos or whatever it is. I'm not an expert in that, but just that awareness of the toxicity and then there's, you know, metal toxicities from our, in our systems and, and the, all the electromagnetic fields around us all the time.

And I just want to let you know you're putting me in my amygdala right now because.

Am I?

No, I'm.

Okay.

Well, it's. I'm just saying this because of, like, it's. It's overwhelming, isn't it? Like, there's so many things to, to think about and when you get there, all of a sudden, like, I'm like, shit, oh my God. Like, where do I run? Where do I hide? How do I get out of here? So I'm in a man fight or flight right now.

Well, let's do a little box breathing and bring it back down.

But you're right, you have to be mindful about, you know, all of those things, but we do have to be careful. And I was joking about that because I actually was in the amygdala little bit, but I'm joking about, about that fearfulness. But you know, honestly, we do the mindfulness of getting out of that amygdala all the time that people are in, which is the fear center. Right. And the fight flight, you know, gets in. Our sympathetic is not good for the brain. It's bad for the brain. Really bad for the brain. And so I know all these things are important, but you have to be careful, you know, not to. Not to go there. We can only do what we can do, and we just have to do more of what we know we can do and what we can control. But don't be mindful to get out of that and talk about some meditation.

Yeah. And it can be overwhelming. And so one of the things that I do on a professional level is I help kind of take that step back and say, okay, let's look at this on a realistic day to day basis. You're going to wake up in the morning, you're going to start with a positive thought. There's all kinds of apps out there that can do it for you. If you can't think of your own or you can write it down. Going to go in and make yourself a healthy breakfast that is not saturated fats or not a bunch of chemicals and vegetables. You're going to make some eggs or you're going to have some lentil tacos for breakfast. There's even better than most breakfast choices that's not going to be covered in a bunch of sugar, right? What?

I know sounds disgusting. See, look, my brain just in a whole preconceived idea about what that is. I'm sorry, brain? Who, who in my brain was talking just now? That was a part of me that was conditioned. So I'm gonna tell my brain now. Lentil breakfast tacos sound amazing because my brain's curious. It wants to try those. That sounds interesting. I can't wait for those. I wonder what the texture and the flavors are going to be like when it hits my mouth. I'm gonna go try that right now. All right, I just cut my brain. Okay, good.

Boom. See? And then you're going to go out for a dog walk, you know, or you're going to take. You're going to walk to work or walk around the park instead of, you know, sitting in there looking at social media for 20 minutes. You're going to practice four square breathing every time you go to the bathroom. You know, that's not going to take any extra time. You're going to find one replacement for something that's a chemical base that maybe you can find that's more natural. Like I said, just bring more essential oils into your home instead of the chemical sprays. And you know, you're going to sit down at the end of your night and you're going to stop and think about, man, you know, this was something that was good today. Or, hey, I didn't like the way this felt today. What does that mean to me? And what can I actually do to make that different? Do I need to put up some healthy boundaries? Do I need to make some different choices tonight to make my day better tomorrow? And it really is just that simple. It does not have to be overwhelming. Hey, I'm going to be in the car for 25 minutes or an hour. What? You know what can I listen to that will like a podcast that will make me, you know, kind of turn my head to a more positive, thoughtful side of things.

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It does not have to be overwhelming. It just has to be small little bites and you get that compounding effect, right?

I think. Yeah, absolutely. So we need to ask ourselves every morning, what can I do for my brain? Not what can my brain do for me me. That was a little cheesy, but I just had to throw that in there. But you know, seriously, ask it. Yeah, you know, being mindful of that and is is super important and with kind of that gratitude and getting into that, the meditation piece is very important. Meditation and prayer, every whatever direction you go has shown significant. I mean there's been tons of research on the brain and brain health and kind of the flexibility, if you will of the brain and the neuroplasticity. And those are two things that have outshined everything continuously. And so actually the telomeres, the cells that even affects the tail of the chromosome that when there's cellular division and this is out of my wheelhouse a little bit, but I think it's pretty cool. It's been proven to enhance I guess the development of an enzyme. And what is the name of that enzyme, Amy? It is telomerase. Yeah. So just know that like it's helping your brain with that neuroplasticity and gray matter and the kind of anti aging of the body and brain. So meditation is, is critical to help calm the noise down and help you become more self aware of all the other things that are influencing and impacting all that other noise coming in and how much it is making our brain less energy efficient because we spend too much time on some of this stuff that to be honest is just nonsense and we need to, we need to recognize when we're going down the path of the brain with kind of some of the nonsense or putting Too much attention on things that shouldn't have that much and just calling it out for what it is, like I'm not going to get any attention. Yeah, that's just, that's just noise. It's just wind. It's going to blow right by. These are the things I know are important. My. You know, so that mindfulness meditation and awareness of all these things are just going to help you really dial in and discern some of the. The extra noise that we pay attention to and just allow the brain to be energy efficient. So.

Yeah, and I just want to clarify because you, I like that you brought in the science part of the telomeres. And just for people who maybe aren't familiar with telomeres being a segment of your DNA at the end of your chromosomes, they're kind of plastic. So how well you are doing in life in general, like how healthy you are, depends will affect the length or vice versa of the telomere. So the longer the telomere, the healthier and longer life that you will have. And low risk of things like Alzheimer's are also indicated with longer telomeres. So you want long telomeres and enzymes that you want to encourage. That telomerase helps that lengthen.

Telomerase.

Telomerase. Yeah, it lengthens the telomeres. I don't know if I'm saying it totally right, but.

Yes, you are.

Okay. It keeps them from like breaking down and depleting. So you want to feed those things. And that's why we said you want good lung. Telomeres.

Telomeres. I feel like we could have broke this podcast up into like three, three or four different ones because there's so much to talk about with each. And I do feel like we just need to throw this last piece in before we come up to our five hour mark here. But is the mental practice part. So I was up in the mountains with friends and they were all playing wordly, which again, a great thing for the brain. So puzzles, things like that. So we want to think about our mental agility, mental acuity and being diverse with whatever mental practice it is that we're doing. So, you know, all the word games and puzzles, that stuff are really great to keep the brain again, curious and growing and then also picking up a guitar and trying to play guitar and using those finger movements. So, you know, art, whatever it is to be diverse in your mental practice. I think that it's such a big world to explore. There's so many apps for mental health and practice, but it doesn't have to be limited to word games and such.

And you know, if you're feeling overwhelmed and confused, there are. You can obviously talk to your doctor, a dietitian or a wonderful health coach, which nutrition coach, which you know, we know a few of those and they can help you work through some of those things that seem challenging or daunting and a little hard to incorporate everything together. Just have a positive look about how you can start to ease that into your day. No, it's not as challenging as we think.

I love it. So my so be aware and just know the compounding effect is on your side when you do little things every day. So you could pick every day just a little something to do, whether you're focusing on your mindset for your brain health, whether it's your mindfulness for your brain health and your meditation, doing some mental, different mental practices, games, whatever, what you're putting in your mouth for your brain, the types of movement and exercise we're doing, and just know that every little thing that you do, even if you pick one for the day, is going to benefit you. What one are you going to pick today? I'm going to do some more meditation today, Amy. I'm going to be extra careful. I've been falling apart on some of my nutrition, so I'm going to eat something healthy for my brain today. Do you have what are you going to put some folks on for your brain today?

I took on a challenge to run up a really big mountain in June, so I'm making myself go run. I'm going to get to going to go get to enjoy a run today, and I'm going to feel really great when it's done. And I'm throwing out the corn tortillas that somehow landed in my refrigerator because I have learned I have almost no willpower. So it's not that I can't have a tortilla occasionally that I love the little corn ones. I just can't have a big package in my house because I might accidentally sit down and eat 10 of them. So I'm removing those from my house today.

All right, well, good job. I'm very proud of you. Good job, brain for recognizing that, that you needed to do that and for the willpower of your brain to do that, too. So your brain is really rocking.

And I love myself no matter what. I have no guilt that I sat down and ate 10 tortillas last night. I'm going to just say that. But yes, we have to take that negative data and turn it into positive data. And say, you know, maybe it's, maybe I don't bring home those packages ever again or let friends bring them over. When we had dinner together.

Yeah, and we got thankful for the brain that when we, when we, you know, fall off a little bit on some of the good habits that the brain, we know we have the ability and we can thank the brain for giving us another opportunity to try again again. So we can always hit the, we can always hit the reset and, and for the brain to know, that's pretty awesome. So good job, Brian.

Learning.

Good job.

Good job, Brian. Hey, fabulous day.

You have a fabulous day. I'm gonna go work on some people and have some fun today. And yeah, so put your brain under the spotlight, everybody, and share this podcast with all of your friends, family members, and even strangers you don't even know. Everybody needs good brain health and we appreciate it. And as always, I appreciate you, Amy.

All right, I appreciate you too, Brian. Have a great day. I'll talk to you later.

Thanks.

Bye, guys. Hey friends, thank you for tuning in to the All Things Good for you podcast. Please note any information, experiences, ideas or opinions discussed today are for educational and thought provoking purposes only and not intended as medical advice. If anything piqued your curiosity, please consult with your doctor or personal medical professional. And if you're enjoying all things good for your podcast, hop on over and leave us a five star review so we can continue delving in and providing great content. Thanks again and we hope you are inspired to stay informed and responsible along your health and wellness journey.

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