Optimizing the Amazing Female Brain | Alisa Vitti & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain, to a very special episode. This is a women-only episode, and so we're going to talk about optimizing your mood, your memory, and your concentration. How do we get the most out of the amazing female brain? And I'm excited to have a very special guest with us today, women's hormones expert, integrative nutritionist, best-selling Bestselling author of Woman Code, Alisa Vitti. Thank you for being on.

Oh my God, so good to be here.

No, I'm so glad you're here.

Hi everybody.

We're geeking out about the amazing female brain.

It's so amazing.

It is, it is even more amazing than you think. And also, if some men happen to sneak by in this woman's world—

You're very welcome to be here.

Yes, we welcome you, and 'cause they're probably really, really curious, like what's the secret information that you're giving to the female audience, but take notes for that special woman in your life. And yeah, let's get started. So how amazing is the female brain?

It's really amazing, and I think that women don't appreciate how amazing their body is in general. You know, we've been given a lot of interesting stories about having the curse and all these things, but we actually have a pretty powerful brain. We have, for example, a bigger prefrontal cortex, So we're better at making executive decisions and things of that nature. We have a bigger insula, so that houses the gut intuition. So we actually do have a stronger sense of what is the right thing to do at the right time. We have a bigger hippocampus, which means we have, like, great memory and recall for emotional things, which a lot of people say, oh, well then, of course, when it's an— you know, you're bringing up an argument, you're remembering the past. But you just have a better memory in general. And you have a bigger corpus callosum, which is the bundle of nerve fibers that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain, which makes you an amazing problem solver. You also have a smaller amygdala, which means you don't have as quick of an emotional reactivity that is fear-based. You're better— you're able to kind of step away from things that are triggering and try to find the right path forward. So the brain, just structurally, for women, has a lot of superior qualities.

That's absolutely amazing. I'm jealous. So off camera, we were talking about certain rhythms and cycles and how they affect the female brain. Like things like the circadian rhythms, like most of us have heard about, but you're doing—

Everybody's heard about the circadian rhythm, but there's a rhythm that we don't know about that women need to know about because it affects our brain system, it affects our immune system, our microbiome, our metabolism, our reproductive system. It affects so many important systems of the body. Today we're going to be talking about the brain exclusively, but— and this rhythm is like not known. We hear the circadian rhythm all the time. We know that we're supposed to wear blue light blocking glasses and wake up with the sun and go to sleep in the dark. Otherwise, you know, we have long-term serious health consequences. There are many decade-long studies, decade-plus-long studies that have shown the negative effects of ignoring our circadian rhythm. Well, women have a second rhythm that gets activated at puberty and it's called the infradian rhythm.

Infradian rhythm.

Infradian. So circadian is the cycle that takes an exact day, right? Infradian is a cycle that is longer than a day. We have ultradian rhythms that are shorter than a day. But women in their reproductive years have this special infradian rhythm. And we recognize that in our monthly cycle. And this infradian rhythm affects our brain chemistry. So— and this is something that's really shocking. So not only do we not know that we have a more powerful brain, we don't know that we have this thing called an infradian rhythm. We also don't know that this infradian rhythm changes— Our brain chemistry by up to 25% over the course of that infradian cycle, which lasts about a month. So your brain is different significantly week over week as you go through the month.

And that affects our memory, our mood, things like—

Our concentration.

Our concentration.

What we're interested in, what our natural proclivities are. And what I want to say first and foremost is you're designed by nature to have great moods great memory, great concentration all month long. The problem is because we don't know how our infradian rhythm works and how to take care of it, we're actually creating a neuroendocrine disruption that is negatively impacting our brain's performance, right? And what is that main neuroendocrine disruption? We're not eating in a way that supports our infradian rhythm. We're not exercising in a way that supports our infradian rhythm. And we're not organizing, like, everything else about our life in a way that supports that. Like, we know we're supposed to wake Wake up when the sun is up and go to bed when it's dark, but we actually have 4 distinct hormonal patterns that exist throughout the infradian rhythm that require you to change what you're eating, to change how you're working out, and to change how you're living so that you can keep stress low and support, in this particular case, your brain's well-being.

So, Elissa, how did we go so long without knowing all this?

It's really interesting. I mean, I think we've known bits and pieces of this for a while, but it wasn't until, I would say, Catherine Woolley from Northwestern University published some really important research in 1996, really documenting the effect of estrogen, for example, and its changing pattern throughout the cycle on brain chemistry. And it's really amazing what we now know about how our changing hormone levels affect our brain performance. So for example, there are 4 distinct phases in your menstrual cycle. A lot of us know about maybe ovulation, and we know about when our menstrual cycle is actually happening, but we're not maybe quite clear about all the 4 phases. So I'd love to just break those down really quickly. So we have the follicular phase, the ovulatory phase, the luteal phase, and the menstrual phase. And in these 4 phases, you have a distinct ratio of estrogen progesterone, luteinizing hormone, FSH, testosterone, and they all change in specific, predictable, reliable, dependable ways throughout the month as long as your hormones are balanced and as long as you're taking care of your infradian rhythm that governs this cycle. I think a big challenge, of course, is that over 50% of women now are struggling with hormonal issues, and this is having some, you know, I would say serious consequences in the way that we're feeling overall, not just with our brain health but our metabolism, our immune system, our stress levels. And so it's a serious issue. And I think one of the best things women can do, which is why I wrote this entire book about the infradian rhythm, is really understanding what it is, its deep impacts on these different systems of the body, and how to nourish it properly. Because you can just have things be easier. Your brain performance, your metabolism, everything can start to flow if you start taking care of this infradian rhythm. So in these 4 phases, for example, in the ovulatory phase, the surge of estrogen at this particular time stimulates the verbal and social centers of your brain, making you optimally communicative and optimally social. So since you know that that's coming every month with predictability and reliability, so long as your hormones are balanced and you're caring for your infradian rhythm, you can organize presentations. You could give a talk. You could go to a networking event. You could organize your time in a way that takes advantage of this natural proclivity of the brain, this natural stimulation the brain is receiving from that hormonal input and have things like that be easier for you. There'll be other times in the cycle where that hormone level has reduced in concentration. You're not getting that stimulation to the verbal and social centers of your brain in the same way. And you're less interested in maybe going to a networking event. And wouldn't it be better if you planned something else to do during that time that would be easier for your brain to work on because it's more interested in doing that anyway from the hormonal input that it's getting, right? It's just good logic.

And this is like, self-awareness is a superpower.

Absolutely.

Once you understand how this works, then you can take the judgment out of it.

Yes.

Because so many women, sometimes they'll— they even talk about how they're hard on themselves because— and they might not know why. They might be feeling different, and this would be an extra way to explain it.

Well, I think we have a negative association. The cultural narrative around women's hormones and cycles and brain chemistry is really a negative one. negative one, that we're unpredictable, we're unreliable, we're hormonal. Everybody's hormonal. You're hormonal. You're governed by hormones that exist in a 24-hour pattern. And we're governed by hormones that exist in a 28-day cycle, right? And that's just a fact. It's not— the story we tell about it is that somehow women are more hormonal than men. But you're just as hormonal as we are. In fact, the entire biohacking community is really trying to solve for the male energy cliff that happens in the afternoon quite a bit. I mean, aside from longevity extension and whatnot. This idea that at around 3, between 3 and 5 PM, both your testosterone and cortisol levels drop pretty dramatically to their lowest concentration levels of the day. And now your energy, your concentration, your mood, your memory are all impacted by that every afternoon. And so you're seeking out biohacking adaptogens, nootropics, upgraded caffeine experiences, Mm-hmm. things to help you extend your energy, your concentration, your stamina, your mood. Women don't have that on a 24-hour cycle the way men do. We have it in a 28-day pattern. So we're both, as from a gender point of view, having the equal challenge to, to work with, but it just occurs in a different set of timing. And so we should take the judgment out of it because we're all going through the same hormonal impact on our brain chemistry in different ways.

That's amazing.

When you say there are 4 phases over 28 days, it doesn't fall equally to No, but the phases flow sort of with each other, so you don't have to be so precise. But you're right, there is a specific pattern. So the follicular phase is approximately 7 to 10 days because every woman's cycle is bio-individual. So it's about 7 to 10 days. The ovulatory phase, it can be 3 to 4 days. The luteal phase can be 10 to 14 days. It's the longest phase in the cycle. And it's a really interesting one from a brain chemistry point of view. And then you have the bleeding week, the menstrual phase, which is, you know, can be 2 to 7 days depending on a woman's cycle.

Amazing. So what, when women are watching this right now or they're listening to this, what's one thing that they could do to be able to take advantage of this new information?

The first thing to do, like you said, is self-awareness is a superpower. You need to start tracking which phase you're in. You need to start connecting, oh, I'm more interested. I am feeling more social. I am more expressive in my ovulatory phase. You need to make that connection because this has been a huge blind spot. I mean, let's face it, everybody's sex ed class pretty much did not give them the information that they need from a biological point of view to thrive in their bodies, whether that be from a dietary point of view, nutrition, or just how to navigate your growing and changing self. But certainly for women around their hormones, This is an enormous blind spot. So I think the first step in reclaiming your power is to just be aware that you are shifting from one phase to another and acknowledge that you do feel and think differently in each phase. And I want to be clear, the studies show that you can absolutely do anything, think, solve problems, be a genius, all of that in every phase of the cycle.

Mm-hmm.

You just have these natural shifts in hormonal stimulation of different centers of the brain that make you more interested and find more pleasure in doing specific activities and orienting yourself around that just makes things easier around mood, memory, and concentration.

And it can be as much as 25% lift.

That's right.

Or even less.

It just—

it's—

well, it's not more or less, it's just a shift. It just changes. It is.

Tell me about this new book coming out.

It's called In the Flow, and it's a book for women to really unlock their hormonal advantages and really revolutionize their lives. Because when we don't have the name for how our things work, like, for example, many, many years ago, we just didn't know what to call our lady parts, and so that's like an area of disempowerment. When we haven't had the name for this infradian rhythm, we kind of have culturally devalued what these hormones do for us. And so when we have a name for it, hormones do for us, and we haven't really fully appreciated just how impactful they are. So the book really makes this important case that just as important as the circadian rhythm is to support, the infradian rhythm for women in their reproductive years is equally, if not more important, to support for their microbiome, their metabolism, their brain system, their immune system, their stress response system, and their reproductive system. And it's so exciting to be able to share a program with Like very specific charts, what to eat in which of these 4 phases, which workouts to do, how to organize your time and creativity and productivity around these 4 phases. Really, it's a— it's like the self-care guide for your infradian rhythm, but then also life hacking and life optimization, making work, relationships, and motherhood easier by leveraging this amazing, extraordinary infradian rhythm in your life.

Astonishing. Where do people preorder the book?

InTheFlowBook.com.

InTheFlowBook.com. Well, there you go. And this is really— this is amazing because this is the first all-female episode that we've done.

I'm honored.

Thank you for bringing this to all our female Kwik Brains. And everybody preorder the book, and we'll see you in the next episode. Hi, Kwik Brain. It's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number two, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing. Because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing: if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: three one zero two nine nine.

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