The Busy Brain Cure with Dr. Romie Mushtaq

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Yes, I'm a certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness hall of Famer and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe. But I'm driven by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers and sharing the information I uncover with as many people as I can. And that's why I created the well Beyond 40 podcast to synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive. In each episode we'll talk about what's working in the world of wellness, from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to healthy aging and prescriptive fitness. Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you.

Look and feel right now and have.

The energy to play full out at 100. So stress is not a badge of honor. And this next woman, who is amazing, I've known her now three years, is going to teach you how to brain shift, how to take what she calls a busy brain and go through a simple eight week reset so that you.

Can be more productive, not overwhelmed.

Right. And and do it with that ease. This is really interesting because Dr. Romy is an integrated physician, a board certified neurologist and she has really focused on stress and started to put this all together during the pandemic when she started to see signs of anxiety and insomnia and adult onset ADD and was like what is going on? And started working with all of these corporate clients. She's helped now help thousands of people go through this to shift through a process of microhabits. So what we're going to be doing today is guiding you through how to take the busy brain test and I'm going to put all of this@jjvirgin.com busybrain quick test that's going to help you identify how busy your brain is. We'll talk through what a busy brain is, why you don't want one and more importantly, what you can do about it. And then once you go through that, you'll be able to go through the shift protocol. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Romy Mushtaq. She's a board certified physician. She brings together more than two decades of leadership in neurology, integrative medicine and mindfulness. She's an award winning speaker working with Fortune 500 companies, professional athletes and global associations. Her brain shift programs improve mental well being and help to build a culture of wellness. And we are going to be going through her first book, which I'm super excited about because we started talking about this year years ago, the Busy Brain Cure. It's published by Harper Collins and you can again go to jjvirgin.com forward/busybrain to take the test, get some bonus materials and get started going through your release of A Busy Brain. All right, I will be right back with Dr. Roney. Stay busy.

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Doctor Romy Mushtaq, I am so excited for your new big book coming out, the Busy Brain Cure. Welcome to the show, jj.

It's an honor to be here with you. Looking back three years ago was when I came to you and said, jj, I have all this research and I'm ready to put it together in a book. And three years later, here we are.

It's exciting.

It is humbling and exciting. And some people may be thinking of, what, three years? And I'm like, no, that's what happens when you research it and you research the protocol and test it. And yes. So here we are. Thank you.

Well, you've had an interesting path because here you are, an integrated physician neurologist, and you've really moved into the area of stress. And I love the whole busy brain, but what made you take this path.

Today, especially on our integrative functional medicine world, this can be a common and sometimes tragic story about burnout pushing doctors out of medicine. But my journey, I. I've always been that leader. That was five years too early in the room. I was a neurologist, not only seeing patients, but in academic medicine, doing cutting edge research on women's hormones and the brain and epilepsy and. And winning teaching and research awards. About five years too early to be discussing women's health and neurology. And we didn't have terms back then that you're having a mental health problem. There wasn't this term burnout. I really want to share this part of the story for anybody that's listening because you swing the pendulum today and there's a cynicism of who isn't burned out and stressed out despite having very loving family members. I remember feeling so alone. I was in this dark shame and I didn't know how to pull myself out of it. And do you know, not a single colleague asked me if I was okay. They knew something was wrong because my EEG techs were telling me, woo, girl, they're gossiping about you. But nobody asked if I was okay. So if somebody listening to this podcast is in that place, hey, J.J. and I are here with you to let you know you are not alone. And that's why I wrote this book.

You know, it's so interesting though, and I think back, I was working in corporate wellness years ago and working with a guy who was leading stress, stress management workshops. And one of the things he said back Then that I feel like it's still true today. And I can't believe it is. It's like people were being stressed out as a big badge of honor.

Absolutely. And I wrote that in my book. It is so true that it's two things that I see being on the ground the last six years. It's either people are wearing it as a badge of dishonor or a badge of dishonor. Like I said that cynicism of who isn't stressed out and burned out and trying to manage family life. And what is this four hour work week? I have the honor of serving people who love their jobs. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, tech executives, airline pilots, tech startups. Like these are the people that. But if you tell them to eat berries and breathe, they're going to run over you with their wearable tech and designer shoes. Right. And we don't have a luxury to take a self care sabatical. Or maybe they tried and they're like there's something else wrong. And what is that?

I love the berries and breath work. So let's walk through what is a busy brain.

First of all, let me define. A busy brain is actually a term I coined that I noticed as a neurologist and integrative medicine doctor that we in traditional neurology, psychiatry, psychology got it wrong. That adult onset ADD or adhd, anxiety and insomnia are not three separate disorders. That when a human is under chronic stress and on the road to burnout, there's a specific pattern of neuroinflammation that occurs in the brain. And in high performing individuals this triad of symptoms happens and people almost become resigned to it, thinking this is a part of success and that's what a busy brain is. And this came from the research both before the pandemic, during the pandemic and after the pandemic, knowing that the old advice that even I was using back then for stress management is no longer working for stressed out brains in the workplace.

Yeah, first of all, stress management's like, I think it's like the worst term ever. Yes.

We really need to redefine it because nobody wants to be told to take another emotional resilience class that's putting the shame right back on the person.

Right. I think back when I first started hearing about this and you know, two small children, financial support for the family, grad school, you know, running my own business. And they're like, okay, you need to do some things for stress management. I'm like, if I have extra time.

I'm going to go Pee.

Yeah. And that's exactly what my clients are. And then they'll sacrifice time with children or sleep to do the wellness advice and it doesn't work. And then they come to me when I was giving these keynote lectures saying, you know, I tried to meditate, I tried that cleanse. It didn't work. Something deeper is going on. And as a neurologist, I've been trained to listen and look for patterns and research it. And so the pandemic was stressful on all of us. And one of the blessings that came out of all the messing was that this work that I was doing, we were able to leverage technology and we were able to give this neuropsychology stress test that we call the Busy brain test to 17,000 people and look at the research to see what is this version of stress in today's world doing to our brain health, mental health and physical health and then come up with a solution for that.

Wow.

You talked about anxiety, adult onset and insomnia. How does someone know if they are struggling with a busy brain?

Let's just walk through the symptoms. Okay, they're looking at one of your Instagram reels, great advice on nutrition. Scroll past and they've got seven other browser windows open for work and there is multiple browser windows open in their brain. And that three minute task is now taking 32 minutes and you can't focus and then you're wired and anxious all day and you're in anxious analysis and you can't make critical decisions that your work affects on and your to do list is multiplying. I'm going to go home, I'm going to brain shift. I'm going to stand on self care and you can't take the edge off. You've got to face family. So you're like, let me have a glass of wine or three. Or maybe you don't drink alcohol so you have a prescription anti anxiety or sleep medicine for your doctor and you put your head down on your pillow and you're ready to go to bed and there's 72 warring conversations going on in your head. That's a busy brain. And then we have a brain test that you, you take for free and we give you a score so you actually know where you stand.

Okay, so just for you listening, we've got the Busy brain test. I'm going to put it@jjvirgin.com busybrain the next big question is like, what impact is this being like this, how's it impacting your life?

Yeah, you know what's happening is we start to deteriorate in our productivity and performance. You may not even realize it and you think you just need another time management technique or productivity tool until you don't hit your quarterly sales goal. There was something in you and you just didn't quite catch it. And then you realize you really committed to a new nutrition program, but all you're doing is stress eating. And no judgment because we've all been there, myself included. You're just in denial. I call it the three evil cousins in chapter 10 that are living in your brain. Denial, projection and resistance. And then in practical medical terms, you go to get a blood pressure medicine, or you start on an oral medication for diabetes and your blood pressure is still elevated. You can't control your blood sugars, you can't control the sugar cravings. The doctor thinks you're not following orders. Finished the 30 day cleanse in the new year and you gained weight instead of lost weight. And that's a sign that the busy brain has now led to chronic inflammation and burnout.

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You know, it's so interesting, the whole, like biological connection to this. I remember early on when I was reviewing labs with clients and their diet looked great and their triglycerides looked great and hdl, all that looked great, but.

Their blood sugar was ridiculous.

And it's, it's why, it's one of the key things I think that we can use a continuous glucose monitor for because it's, you know, a late stage indicator of insulin resistance, but it's an early stage indicator of stress.

I agree with you and all my colleagues who are using the CGMs, but could I give you real world perspective from on the ground? Working with thousands of employees in various companies tracking numbers, whether it's your sleep on the OURA ring or a CGM will actually make a busy brain worse for some people. And that's why I researched this protocol, because I was like, I feel like I'm meeting clients at ground zero. We take them through the eight week protocol so that I can get them ready to send into programs like yours. But we've reset the busy brain a little bit.

How did you end up developing this protocol?

Okay, when people ask me what my hobbies are, it's literally reading psychoneuroimmuno endocrine.

Oh my God, you're such a nerd.

It is a proud recovering geek girl. So I was like, I'm gonna go to what I know. Now I'm getting all this data. What were the microhabits? The easy things we could change in a world that felt like was fighting us. And everything we knew of normal life without going on a diet, we weren't going to put them on a cleanse. And what were those microhabits that could make the impact? And as we were looking at the research data coming in, we looked at the brain shift protocol that like, it's like the outfits you and I are both wearing today. They're fabulous on us, but one size doesn't fit all. So how could I make something that was simple and personalized, but we could run it at scale? And so the SHIFT protocol, Brain shift. The SHIFT is an acronym that stands. S is for sleep or circadian rhythm. H is for your hormones, I markers of inflammation. F is food without going on a diet, and T is the role of technology. And every microhabit is designed around that.

I love that you designed this during the most stressful situation. So it really got put to use. So can you just walk us through a couple, like give us some examples in each of those five categories?

Absolutely.

Microhabit.

If you take the busy brain test score and your score is above a 30, it means you have a busy brain. Above a 40, you're starting to have cognitive and physical symptoms above 60. Burnout. Start with the S in sleep. Start with your circadian rhythm and this pattern of neuroinflammation and where the biology went wrong and science. In pre pandemic stress management, they would talk about the acute stress response in the limbic system. They were ignoring the long term effects on the the circadian rhythm, the hypothalamus, the asean nucleus. That just doesn't govern our sleep wake cycle. It governs every organ system functioning in our body. Our hunger, our hormones. So one thing you do right away when you take the busy brain test, we give you the first week of the protocol as our gift to you. It's the seven day sleep challenge. Meant to reset your circadian rhythm. It's based on cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, CBT I, as well as the best research science supplements to take to help reset your circadian rhythm and re elevate your serotonin and melatonin levels. So an example of that is we're going to set a regular time to go to bed and wake up. And the only people that get a hall pass is if you have children under the age of five that are still waking up in the middle of the night. We have a separate protocol for people with young children. Right, that's an example. And two of the supplements we recommend there. Most people within 10 days are feeling like new individuals. So s circadian rhythm. That is the first place to start.

Okay, I have a little question on that one, please. What about time zone adjusting? What about people who travel for works?

We do. And we have again, a separate protocol for the people that are traveling. There are apps that are out there that we recommend both online and the book that can help you adjust when you should be eating and sleeping in according to the time zone. For many executives, if they've been introduced to intermittent fasting already, we're really mindful for people that are in burnout not to introduce intermittent fasting right away. What we really try to tell most executives across your time zones is sleep on the plane. If you're going international to the best of your ability, eat in the airport, sleep on the plane. But we actually use the 5 HTP with great success too, for our executives and let them set in the time zone that they're in. So that's one example. The second one is the snacks you're most likely to get on the plane are high glycemic in weeks five, six of the protocol. We talk about not pairing high glycemic foods with caffeine. And that's exactly what's happening. That will throw your circadian rhythm off even worse when you're crossing time zones. So those are just two hacks other than the hydration. And we lay that all out and some of the extra materials on the busybraincure.com which is a supplementary site to when you buy the book with all the resources. Awesome.

We will absolutely put that show notes, too. I know the first thing that I do when I get on the plane, the first thing I do is switch my clock over to the next place I'm going to. Yeah, just start living as if.

So you know what the first thing I do is? I'm literally doing a brain dump. And every thought and everything that was going on in that city, good or bad, the people I met, how well I did on stage, what's going on with our employees, where I'M chief wellness officer. I, I toss it out the window. I'm literally tossing and then I do work or I rest on the plane. But when they announce that we're descending that 30 minutes, I start focusing of like who needs to show up in this city? What do I need to be present for? And that intentionality or that spirituality then kind of helps with these other physical and mental things we need to do.

Nice. Okay, what about H?

H is hormones. And when people think of stress, a lot of people who are in the know will jump straight to adrenal glands. The most important and critical thing to do is look at a thyroid gland in both men and women. I know you've had many, many thyroid experts on your show before and please link their show notes here. It's so critical for me to tell you the latest endocrinology literature the in a major medical journals and we have all of that in the book are saying that one in eight women in North America, United States and Canada has sub thyroid disease. What does that mean? I tell the God awful story in the book where my hair is falling out in chunks and I was having fertility issues and I kept telling the doctors, hey, I, I think something's off with my thyroid. I've never had a regular menstrual cy cycle my whole life. They just check a TSH and tell you you're okay. We have the full thyroid panel and the lab slip in chapter 16 of the book for you. If you're a woman or man of color melanin in your skin, it's a 1 in 4 chance you have a missed autoimmune or subclinical thyroid disease. And when you're in that neuro clinical, when you're in that inflammation pattern of chronic stress, this is what happens. So life could have been fine seven years ago. And you're like, I had a thyroid panel back then, but you have a busy brain now. I want to go recheck it actually the inflammation hypothalamus, you know, controls the pituitary gland, controls the thyroid hormone and now it's off as well as your immune system being off from chronic stress.

Okay, well you kind of mentioned inflammation.

These were vitamin D3. I knew this back in the 1990s when I started my neurology residency training. We rotate in psychiatry. We would check vitamin D3 in our multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia patients back then we knew prognosis was worse if they had a low vitamin D3. It took so long for that trajectory to happen that we need to look at it to optimize brain and mental health. Literally every cohort we run, even my tech team members can pinpoint the people who are complaining the most. In the chat. Initially they were like, I bet their vitamin D3 is off again. Chronic stress affecting gut health and absorption affecting the entire metabolic pathway of vitamin D3. If you're going to do one thing, two things I'm going to ask you. Two labs, full thyroid panel and vitamin D3. We also talk about the role specifically of methylation disorder and MTHFR deficiency. In vitamin D3 deficiency, thyroid and MTHFR, there is about 20 to 30% of patients that only present with symptoms of a busy brain. None of the other symptoms that you hear about. And so what happens, mostly women are written off as, you're just anxious, you're just a tired mom. Yes, take an antidepressant. No, please check a full thyroid methylation and vitamin D3.

So when you're looking at vitamin D, because there's been a lot of controversy lately.

There has, yeah.

Vitamin D levels, you know, what's the right amount, what's low? I've been researching it a lot in terms of frailty and muscle and sarcopenia. Where do the numbers fall for you? Like what are you finding in the research here?

Again, like you said, there is an argument happening for the functional medicine fight and then against traditional medicine. I want to tell people that in the chronic stressed out people I'm dealing with in busy brain, they're actually coming in with levels below 30 or 40 where even a traditional physician is going to say this is too low. Right. But for my optimized world, in a premenopausal perimenopausal woman should be between 50 to 70. And then if we're looking at other markers of inflammation we didn't talk about, but your insulin resistance and everything and your mood scales and that goes along with it, you know, so. Yeah, but about 50 to 70 for most women is where we're putting them.

Yeah, that, that makes so much sense.

Oh, and I'm also going to say something really obvi here. Please don't take the over the counter random vitamin D that's mixed with calcium. I get that all the time. And so please put a link in the show notes. You've got a great supplement line to your vitamin D. Please do.

So what are you looking at? How are you looking at insulin resistance? Are you doing a homo ir? Are you doing fasting insulin? What are you looking for?

I, I'm keeping it basic and I'm getting a fasting insulin levels, hemoglobin A1c, and a fasting glucose level to start with.

I just wish fasting insulin was more of a standard because by the time we've got some blood sugar abnormalities, we've had fasting insulin.

Yeah.

All right, let's dig into food.

I start this with this story of Mumi Takaro. I would get to sit at their afternoon chais or at a family dinner. And there was this thing when you eat something spicy, Mumita Karo have something to sweeten your palate after a spicy meal. But Mumita Karo was also this reminder that life is sweet and food is sweet. And so I'm not here to take away comfort food. Comfort food is the food that we have core memories tied to with love. Holiday memories, religious ceremonies, our country, state of origin. And if that happens to be sugar, we want you to schedule it. What we are doing that by the time you finish the first four weeks of the protocol, we've hopefully rebalanced your circadian rhythm and the busy brain that the stress eating has stopped. So I'm not going to put you on a diet. But what we did ask and what was pretty profound to me looking at the effect of caffeine and sugar in the brain alone, was, please don't put the two things together. Isn't that fascinating?

Take away, yes.

So we first saw it in type 2 diabetic patients that if you take caffeine and you have poorly treated type 2 diabetes, that your brain now becomes insulin resistant along with your pancreas. So this is separate. Right. And we were talking a lot these days in the functional medicine world about diabetes type 3. Now, if you add a high glycemic sugar with the caffeine, the concept is it's like putting gasoline on a fire. And the two of them together are propagating the neuroinflammation and elevation of interleukin 1 as an example, and then leading to this pathway of stress hormones that we talk about a lot in the peripheral body of insulin being raised, blood sugar falling and that stress response and you becoming insulin resistant. Not only does this lead down the road to cognitive decline and dementia, this insulin resistance in the brain, but early on it's giving us the symptoms of adult onset add. I can't focus. So what we did as a simple biohack was you're gonna choose a high glycemic food, but no caffeine for an hour before or after. And guess what? In my world, everybody picks caffeine everybody.

In the whole discussion about this at home, because we were like, yes. Coffee or wine? I'm like, coffee.

Coffee or chocolate?

Coffee or in. In my world, don't take away my chai. Right. The next step in week six of the protocol is to add simple add one to two servings of healthy fats for every meal. We made it so easy for people, and now they're doing this. And within two weeks, the sugar cravings are gone. But you're allowed to have comfort food. Our crews were surprised that by the end of the eight weeks, the brain and the belly bloating is now down. And not only are they focusing, but they're like, my pants size, my dress size is down. And this sets them on a path to break that stress eating. I want people to break their stress eating and balance their circadian rhythm. So the next nutrition plan they may or may not come to to an integrative functional medicine practitioner, they can now adapt.

You've mentioned adult onset ADD multiple times, and you know, this is not my world, so I was not aware. I always thought ADD and ADHD is something that you have, and you either have it or you don't have it. And it's like your genetic disposition. But it sounds like it can be created through a stressful, crazy. I'm wondering, like, this is the case, how much we're just creating through our silly, you know, iPhones.

Absolutely. We grew up in the era of cassette tapes and landlines. Back then, when I went into neurology and psychiatry, if you had ADD or ADHD as an adult, it was because it was missed as a child. Today, looking back about 11 years into the medical literature, they've noticed that there are people that clearly did not meet criteria in childhood. They were even assessed in childhood, maybe, and didn't have it. And now we're exhibiting patterns of likely. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is not as common in adults unless it was there in childhood. And it's not that hyperactive child image we have running around creating chaos, but more impulsivity. So addictions to alcohol and gambling and porn may be there, but attention deficit disorder is now there. And you're absolutely right. In chapter nine of the book you read about Project evo, the research I did, but also the new literature about the time that we're spending in front of multiple digital devices and the blue lights, and that the attention span is now less than nine seconds. And that's the concern. I always say, go to the doctor and get the screening for add. But what I'm here to say is there is in the world of neurology and psychiatry a prescription crisis for the stimulant drugs. People are using Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse as a performance enhancing drug to get through their workday, to get through medical school, to get through law school, to stay at peak performance when you're in a cutthroat environment. That's the audience that I'm targeting.

Oh boy.

The rebound off of those, I've gotta assume they just are gonna crash their adrenals.

Yeah, both brain too. I'm kind of worri the constant dopamine stimulation and then coming down from that peak and Valley High and the concomitant anxiety, then that happens with that. Right. So you're just setting yourself up for this pattern of a chronic busy brain which we want to stop. And now again I have to say, please go to your healthcare provider.

Okay, last one tech.

So we just kind of started to talk about that one and it is a must in our world. We did the study in evolution in 2017, 2018. The 21 day digital detox program is still the most requested wellness program. From that in my keynote lectures, when we talk about building a culture of wellness, we've transformed other companies to do the same thing. 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime. No digital devices. We want to moderate your levels of serotonin and melatonin. The next question people ask is, will the blue light blockers help? All of the research has shown it can help with eye and muscle strain, maybe TMJ or headache, but not with the negative impact of the circadian rhythm and the dropping of the melatonin levels. So no more digital devices at night. So if you want, get the audiobook and put the phone down.

Yes. All right. So the busy brain test.

Yes.

Everyone's going to be able to take it. I'm going to put@jjvirgin.com busybrain we'll have the busy brain test. We will link to the site that's got the bonus materials. We'll link to getting the book the Busy Brain cure, which eight weeks walks you through this shift protocol. Do they take the busy brain test at the end?

At the end. You take it at the end again. And in chapter 10 we have you write your intentions of actual physical and mental symptoms you want to see improve. And you get to go back to that. And on the busy braincure.com the website we have a community where you get to share your goals. And we can't wait to celebrate with you.

So nice like you really put it all together. Amazing job. Thank you so much for digging into all of this. Thank you. And for being courageous and moving into this other area because that takes a lot of bravery.

It's an honor to serve.

Thank you. Thank you. And again, jjvirgin.com forward/busybrain. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great and more importantly, that you're built to last.

And check my me out on Instagram.

Facebook, YouTube and my website jjvirgin.com and make sure to follow my podcast so you don't miss a single episode@subscribetoj.com See you next time. Hey JJ here. And just a reminder that the well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness and nutritional information that's designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Make sure that you do not disregard.

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Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I tag all things Books and Reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next reading. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading Next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change, or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website what Should I read next podcast.com to find out more.