Is Your Brain Broken?

Hey, everybody. Welcome to my weekly house call. Your chance to ask me your questions now. This week, we're continuing with our theme of the month, which is brain health. And for today's house call, I want to ask you a question, which is, is your brain broken? I know this might seem like a silly question, but it's one that I had to ask myself a long time ago when I suddenly became depressed, anxious, and fatigued. It was like I had add, dementia, and depression all at once. The answer was really quite obvious to me. Something was definitely wrong with my brain and my body. But sometimes a broken brain is not obvious and doesn't show up in the form of dementia or ADD or depression. Sometimes a less than optimally functioning brain can show up in small ways. So I want to ask you some questions. Does your mood and energy level swing up and down? Do you sleep poorly? Do you. Do you feel tired but kind of wired? You know what I mean? Do you have to live on coffee in the morning and a few glasses of wine at night just to wake up and calm down every day? Do you feel frustrated because you misplace your objects or forget names? Do you suffer from brain fog? Do you find it hard to focus on tasks? Do you feel your energy diminishing as the days go on? Do you fear losing your job because you're tired and unfocused and inattentive and. And your memory's failing so you can't properly perform your tasks at work? Do you see your relationships breaking down because you're mentally and emotionally absent or numb? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you're not living with your best brain. Your brain might be okay, but who wants to be okay when you can feel great? So many of my patients come in after months and months and years and years of experiencing brain fog and forgetfulness and anxiety and depression and thinking that these symptoms are just going to pass or that there isn't anything that can be done about these symptoms except take medication. My patients don't connect how they feel with how they eat or how much they rest and sleep or how much they exercise or how much time they make for friends and community as well as the media and news to which they expose themselves, which is pretty depressing most of the time. Once you make these connections, you can change your approach to these important factors and to the other dozens of of daily decisions you make all the time. This is exactly what I aim to address in my new docu series, Broken Brain. For this docuseries, I brought together 50 health and brain experts to talk about what it takes to heal from a broken brain. The truth is that feeling fully energized and maintaining great brain health ultimately requires taking out the bad stuff and putting in the good stuff, including food choices, lifestyle choices, and it's really not that that complicated. But we just have to know what steps to take. And many of us get too little food, too little good food, too few nutrients, not enough light and air, not enough clean water or rest or sleep or rhythm or exercise or community. Love, meaning and purpose. These are the ingredients for health. We're exposed to far too much poor quality food, just too much stress, too many toxins, so many allergens. All this creates the perfect storm to create a health havoc. The good news is that with some specific strategies you can take back your brain health. This docu series is going to go through the major causes for a broken brain and how we can apply specific strategies to heal from brain disorders. You don't have to settle with these symptoms forever. Trust me, I didn't and you don't have to. Recovery is possible now. In this week's House Call, I want to share my first step for optimizing your brain health. And if you answered yes to any of the questions above, I want you to listen carefully to what is perhaps the most important step that you need to take toward feeling better. It's only three words. Eat real food. Yes, food is the most powerful intervention that we have and the first step we can take when resetting our bodies and our brains. When I say food, I mean organic when possible, not always possible. Fresh food, local food if possible, unprocessed food, whole food, just real food. That means eliminating all the industrial food we eat. Sugar, high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, food additives, chemicals, preservatives. Stay away from the junk. In fact, there is no such thing as junk food. There's just junk and there's food. So focus also on colorful fruits and veggies. Colorful fruits and veggies contain brain boosting stuff like phytochemicals or phytonutrients. These are dark deep reds and yellows and oranges and greens and blues. These colors mean the food contains powerful anti inflammatory detoxifying compounds, antioxidants as well as energy boosting brain powering molecules. Now I want you to enjoy an array of colorful plant foods like blueberries and dark green leafy vegetables like kale and Swiss chard and spinach and watercress and arugula. I also want you to eat plenty of fat yes, of course. Fat. Fat is actually very good for your brain. In fact, 60% of your brain is made up of DHA, which is an omega 3 fat that you get from algae and fish. My brain worked pretty well before, but embracing fat has pushed my mental clarity through the roof. And finally, be sure to optimize your protein. We need about 30 grams of protein per meal to build muscle. And when you lose muscle, you age faster and your brain takes a hit. Eat protein at every meal, including Omega 3 eggs, protein shakes, nut butters, even fish or grass fed meat for breakfast. In this Broken Brain docu series, we're going to go through a step by step plan to take control of your health, including how to optimize your diet for a better brain. So be sure to sign up for this docu series and spread the word to your friends and your family so that we can all take our brain health back together. Now, if you have any questions about the brain, tweet me using the hashtag housecall with Dr. Hyman and maybe next week I'll make a house call to you. Thanks for watching.