Unlocking Brain Health

Foreign this is Lindsay Wojahowski at the Energy for Life center in Park City, Utah. For those who don't know me, I'm a family nurse practitioner working alongside our amazing team here looking to help all of our patients achieve optimal health and wellness. One of the things that we deal with a lot here is brain health and function. I think it's obvious to say that brain health and mental agility is essential for everybody. In particular a lot of our high performing patients who are coming in, having run massive businesses, high performing athletes or those just looking to go into their older years with brain clarity, feeling on top of their game. So there are so many components when we see people here when it comes to brain health and wellness. So some of the biggies. The first thing that we're going to start to look at here is looking at someone's stress and their stress response. This can accumulate over the course of decades, years, months. But really looking at what's the stress level and how are they managing their stress level. So I look at a lot of our EEGs that we do on patients. It's a scan that we look at the brain and I can tell based on the way the EEG looks, the degree of stress that people have had in their life. Stress really has a very negative impact on our brain and it can make some of the tasks that have been simpler for us in years past more complicated and harder to do and thus require a little bit more energy and some good patterning to get those tasks done. So we always look at stress. When I think of stress, I think, does somebody have a good support system? Are they taking time to do what fills their tank? Are they taking time to step away from their business and do whatever that is for them, that that makes them feel better, whether that's yoga, whether that's a walk in nature, whether that's a call to a close friend who fills your tank. Really looking to be thoughtful about that. We're also looking at lifestyles. Lifestyle, like I said, are you taking time to do some of those things that fill your tank? Is there restorative sleep, making sure that sleep is really optimal for people? Sleep can be more challenging for people as they get older. Especially. I see a lot of perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. I'll talk about hormones in a min. Hormones can be a contributing factor to poor sleep quality. So making sure that people are sleeping well so that their brains can be restored and recovered as we go into the next day. Looking at environmental exposures so oftentimes for patients here, we'll screen them for heavy metal exposure. We all marinate on Earth, so it's pretty impossible to not have some degree of heavy metal accumulation. But we're really looking to look at those levels. If levels are high, oftentimes we'll help patients pull those heavy metals out of their. Out of their system through a process called chelation, which is not essential and necessary for everybody, but it can be helpful for a lot of people. Our bodies are really smart, and when we get exposed to heavy metals, our body knows how toxic those heavy metals are to things like our heart and our organs. So it stores it in fat tissue. That can be a good thing because it protects some of our organs from the heavy metals. But our brain also has fat tissue in it. It can have a really negative impact to the we're thinking and our mental clarity. So in addition to having a negative impact on so many other things for our health, if we've accumulated heavy metals. So looking at heavy metals is certainly something that I think is essential. We also here like to look at the health of the gut. Again, like I said, we're all exposed to so many things in our environment, and our gut is essential for looking at inflammation. If we have a lot of inflammation in our gut, based on whether anything really antibiotics or prescription medications or environmental toxins or our diet or plastic in a water bottle or lipsticks, et cetera, that gets into our gut and can cause inflammation. And that inflammation can cause what we call gut permeability. So there's some leakiness in the gut. Things can pass through from the inside of our intestines into our circulatory system, and that can drive inflammation. When I see people who have inflammation for gut issues, one of the biggest complaints is brain fog. So the way we think our mental clarity can often be related to the health of our gut. So we like to look at somebody's gut health, too. Our gut health or the bacteria in our gut help to detoxify. They help us to make hormones, which I'll talk about in a minute, and they're essential for the detoxification process, et cetera. So the more inflammation we have in our gut, the more we're going to have lower serotonin production, which affects our mind. We're gonna have more inflammation, which impacts our mind and all of that. So looking at the gut is really essential. The other thing that we take a real deep dive into here is looking at someone's nutritional status. We have lots of different ways that we can do that. Here we can do that by blood work. There are some deeper nutritional panels that we can do for patients. But looking to make sure, have you absorbed and gotten the nutrition that you need? So as far as diet, things that I think of, when I think of essential brain health, I think of all of those essential fats. So I think of things like omega 3 fish oils. So essential when it comes to preventing neurocognitive decline down the road. Are you getting enough healthy fats? Hopefully. Long gone are the Trends of the 80s where we all went on fat free diets. We now know the importance of those fats for things like hormone production, some of the building blocks for the cellular membranes in our brain. So we really want to optimize our healthy fats. When I think of healthy fats, I think of things like olive oil, nuts, seeds, avocados, et cetera, healthy fish and proteins, et cetera. So really looking to optimize the fat, the healthy fats in our diet, I think of things like B vitamins. So we also take a look at methylation status, making sure that your B vitamins work well in your body, but being able to make sure you've got enough B vitamins so that we can detoxify. So B vitamins are essential for the production of our, some of our neurotransmitters, things like serotonin and all of those that have an impact on brain and brain health, but they also help us detoxify. So we have so many things that we're constantly exposed to. We don't want those things to accumulate in our body. We want to be able to detoxify those products. And our B vitamins things also things like magnesium and zinc, et cetera, are really essential for that detoxification process. I think of healthy protein intake and in addition to things that I think of adding, I also think of things that we have to eliminate in order to have optimal brain function. So I think of the first thing to go, I think of the sugars, the alcohols, et cetera. I have a lot of my patients wear a continuous glucose monitor, even if they are not a diabetic or a pre diabetic. I actually just took mine off. I wore mine for about six months. And it was fascinating to be able to watch how my blood sugar responds to the foods that I eat. Why is that important for mental health and clarity? I want, when I eat food, I want my food to get absorbed into my blood and I want it to be absorbed slowly. I don't want my blood sugar to be absorbed Super. Or I don't want my food and the sugar in it to be absorbed super quickly and cause a real peak, which causes a crash. So what foods cause a real high peak instead of a gradual peak? I think of all of the simple sugars. I think of sodas, fruit juices, I think of the white starch. You process standard American type foods. So I think of pancakes and bagels and donuts and sandwiches and pizzas and pastas and all of those kinds of things. Those things, when eaten on their own in particular, tend to make our sugar go really high, really fast, as opposed to eating foods that are more diverse. So foods that have a healthy fiber content. Fruits and vegetables. I think of those healthy fats that we've already discussed, and I think of healthy proteins, when we eat those are absorbed much more slowly because of the complexity of the food. So the rise in our blood sugar is much more subtle and comes down much more slowly. Why is that important? Cause every time we get a big crash that goes high and then low really quickly, it's a stressor to our body. And we've already talked about the fact that stress over time contributes to poor cognitive function and wealth. So making sure that we're minimizing as many high blood sugar spikes as we can. So like I said, a controlled glucose monitor is a really interesting thing. It's direct to consumer these days, or you can get one from your provider. And it's really interesting to learn how your body responds to the types of foods that you're eating. So I can't emphasize or suggest that one enough. We do a lot of, like I said, testing for nutritional status. We'll look at blood work, et cetera. So many different tests that we can do to look at nutritional status as opposed to just also a great history from the patient. What do you like, what do you not like? Are you on dietary restrictions, et cetera? So, so good history, Lots of testing that we can do to look at nutritional status and also trying to make sure that we're optimizing the removal of things that can cause the blood sugar to go high and removing those high sugar types of things and watching your patterns because you may respond to something very differently the way I would and vice versa in terms of blood sugar control, in terms of hormones. This is something that I look at a lot with our patients. There is not a hormone that I can think of that doesn't impact mental health and clarity. The first one that comes to mind is thyroid. So thyroid is that building block for the rest of Our hormones. Thyroid has to be. Now, I used to work in the conventional model, and I know that there's that standard bell curve of the values that most of our primary care providers look at. The TSH is the signal from the brain to the thyroid saying, make hormone. I want that number to be optimal. Not within the normal range. I want it to be optimal, which generally for most people is about too. But in addition to looking at. That's not where I would stop. That's a late sign that something's going on with the thyroid. I would rather be more proactive and take a look at a deeper dive of your thyroid. I'd want to make sure that your thyroid is actually making good hormones. I'd want to make sure that you don't have antibodies that your body is making against the thyroid. That can happen in those early thyroid years when the TSH is still normal, but people can still feel brain fog, poor clarity, et cetera. Thyroid has to be optimal A, for brain health and B, for the production of the rest of the hormones that we're going to talk about that are also essential for brain health. Don't. Don't settle for it. Within normal limits, thyroid function, you want it to be optimal. Again, looking at antibodies, looking at number we call reverse T3, are you inactivating some of your hormones and looking at your whole panel? The other thing that we and I like to look at very closely is somebody's stress response. Now, we've already talked about how important stress is to the brain. Um, stress can completely hijack the production of some of our hormones. So when I'm going through a lot of stress and I'm producing a lot of cortisol. Right. Our body needs cortisol. We can't survive without it. We're supposed to have big rises, acutely, and then just a nice peak throughout our day or a nice kind of flow throughout our day when somebody's under a tremendous amount of stress. So I don't necessarily just consider this life threatening. I think of poor community, not a good support system. I think of raising teenagers or losing a parent or going through a divorce or any of the life stressors that most patients I see are dealing with. Some of them, at least. That high cortisol response that we do check for in our testing here, that high cortisol response will, for the time being, shunt the production of some of our hormones. And the first hormone to go is generally progesterone. Now, this is a cool process for people who are already under stress because progesterone is our body's natural anti anxiety, sleep support, muscle relaxant, et cetera. And when progesterone goes, it throws off the balance between the progesterone and the estrogen. That's going to make people feel bad, it's going to make them feel more irritable, it's going to make them feel more fatigued, it's going to make them feel less sharp. Progesterone helps our estrogen work better, and estrogen is essential for brain health and cognition. I see so many women in that perimenopausal phase where they've got a lot of stress, there's high cortisol negatively impacting the brain that causes low progesterone also have a negative impact on the brain. And that can throw off the balance between the progesterone and the estrogen also impacting the brain. For good brain health, we need robust estrogen levels, we need robust progesterone levels, we need good testosterone levels as well. And more important than just high levels is we just want a harmony between the all of them. We want a healthy balance between our cortisol and our stress response. We want an optimal thyroid function because that's essential for the creation of all of our other hormones. And we want a healthy balance of our hormones, regardless of your age, that can be done by some of the things we've already talked about. So optimal hormone production can be due to. We can optimize that with stress support, we can optimize that with lifestyle, sleep support, all of those things. We can optimize that by making sure there's no other co like other factors that are complicating that, like heavy metals, poor gut health, et cetera. Making sure we're optimizing diet not only what we're pulling in, like those omegas, magnesium protein, antioxidants, those healthy fats, B vitamins, et cetera, but that we're also trying to be thoughtful about pulling those foods, those standard American type foods that cause our blood sugar to go high quickly. All of this has a negative impact on the production of our hormones, the health of our brain, mental clarity and agility, et cetera. So it really requires a very comprehensive approach. When we're looking at mental clarity, cognition, the lack of brain fog, et cetera. We don't just put all of our eggs in one basket here. We try to look at somebody's background, their comorbidities, what in their lifestyle and their support system can we help clean up and support, how we can support that sympathetic or the parasympathetic nervous system, reducing that sympathetic nervous system. Go. And really optimizing diet, nutrition, nutritional levels, hormones, et cetera. So I'm proud of the work we do here. I think we take a very comprehensive approach to help people feel their best. Thank you so much for your time and hope to see you here soon. Thank you.