EFR 624: Boost Brain Performance, Get More REM Sleep, Increase Longevity, Decrease Inflammation, and Key Supplementation for Brain Health with Louisa Nicola

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

The following is an operation podcast production.

Speaker 2 (00:00:04):

Hi, I'm Louise Nicola neurophysiologist and brain coach to elite performers. In today's episode, I'm going to be going over the three domains of peak brain performance. We're gonna be talking about nutrients for the brain. We're going be talking about exercise for the brain, and we're gonna be talking about sleep for the brain. So tune in

Speaker 1 (00:00:24):

And when it comes to stress, there are a lot of different things we can do to become aware and then to mitigate. And then to lower those stressors. A lot of these things you're gonna hear Luisa break down in great detail, but sometimes it's nice to get a little help. It's nice to be able to reach for something that is all natural. That is trusted. That is science based in science backed that is going to help me do just that. That is going to help calm my mind, my body, and it's actually gonna be good for my mind and my body. One of those things for me is mellow. This magnesium super blend from Ned drinking mellow every day provides us with all of our essential daily magnesium plus trace minerals for over 300 whole body benefits. Magnesium is that important. It is responsible for hundreds of daily body functions and honestly scary statistic.

Speaker 1 (00:01:13):

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Speaker 1 (00:02:52):

Hello, and welcome back to the show. Welcome to August everybody hard to believe we are here. We are fast approaching one of my favorite times of the year fall, but you know what? Living in Los Angeles, it's pretty much just the same every day. It's just perfect weather all the time. I feel bad saying that out loud, but you know, being an east coaster at heart and a Virginia native and having moved to LA wow, four years ago now from Washington DC, man, this time of year would get me the most excited because personal preference, I just think nothing beats the fall on the east coast and speaking of east coast, my east coast fam Luisa Nicola is back. She hails from, well originally Australia, but she's setting up roots there in New York city. And recently she was out my way. She joined me here in the studio in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (00:03:45):

And, uh, yeah, if you don't know, by the way we do have in real life content for you, this show is made live on video. Most episodes, pretty much every episode is available on our website ever Ford radio.com or make sure to check out and subscribe on our YouTube channel. This is the best video content you've seen for podcasts. I guarantee it it's got all the vibes. It's got the in person just experience that you, you can get on a podcast. You know, audio is the core, but man, just sitting down with guests and just getting that, that energy and that, that content and that education and that information and entertainment just all in person, it's just next level. So make sure you to check us out and subscribe on YouTube, but Luisa was here and we sat down. This is actually her second time joining me.

Speaker 1 (00:04:31):

She first sat down with me in my home, uh, a couple years ago, back in episode 436. And this is where she gave us an introduction to the brain and nervous system, setting the foundation for us to understand how neuroscience can help us get really more out of life, out of our training, our performance, our recovery, everything. And now she is back in a big way and she's diving deeper into the science behind brain performance. If you wanna check out that original episode with Luisa as always all the good stuff here in the conversation I have linked for you down on the show notes, just scroll down to episode resources again, that was episode 4 36, but Luisa, if you're new is a neurophysiologist brain coach to elite athletes, I'm talking professional sports and just the elite of the elite and founder of neuro athletics, which is a full service neuroscience diagnostic testing company.

Speaker 1 (00:05:25):

And today we are peeling back the layers in one of my favorite subjects over the last couple years and that's brain health brain science neuroscience. Luisa is gonna be talking about the three domains of peak brain performance and they are nutrition, physical exercise and neurophysiology Luisa is gonna break down how to utilize nutrients, exercise and sleep so that we all can get better and better optimize our brain and our brain health it's performance and longevity. We also gonna talk about keeping the blood brain barrier strong, the benefits of using exogenous keytones I've been on, Ugh, I've been on one since I discovered KEYone and IQ. Um, quick sidebar. I had Michael brat on the podcast. Not that long ago, he is the co-founder and um, behind HVM N there health be a modern nutrition and man, what he is doing in the human performance brain health game through ketos blew my mind.

Speaker 1 (00:06:25):

I'm not personally a keto guy. I've tried the keto diet many years ago. It wasn't for me, but I do know that effect. I do know that effect of getting keto in your system and just feeling in flow, improved performance cognition, and just how amazing it is to run off that as a fuel source for performance, like I said, but also for improving metabolic health, um, and longevity. And so many of the things we're gonna talk about here today, but, uh, I've been using that stuff pretty much daily ever since Michael shared it with me. And I discovered HVM N so if you guys wanna check it out, I'll link that for you down to the show notes, it's called KEYone IQ by H V M N. But, um, you know, let's, let's get back to Louisa. Uh, we're also gonna be talking about why we all need to be more mindful of maintaining our dopamine levels and plus can our brains regenerate or are the connections just getting stronger? Lisa literally blew my mind when she dropped this nugget on me about, well, I'll just have to, I'll just have to keep you on your toes. But basically what I thought about neurogenesis apparently is not true at all. And she took me to school on it. So if you're ready to learn and apply practices that are actually going to improve your brain health, improve every aspect of day to day, living, training, work and longevity tune in you're in for a real treat, please join me in welcoming back Luisa Nicola, to ever for radio.

Speaker 1 (00:07:51):

Last time you were on the show, I'm gonna make sure to have this down on the show, nuts for everybody to check out, you gave us such an incredible breakdown of neuroscience, what it is, how we can really understand not only how our brains function, but why we should actually care about maintaining certain brain function and optimizing it. Um, so they can definitely check out that for the foundational stuff. But I'm curious, I wanna ask you since then the last year and a half, what have you seen just really grab, hold in the world of neuroscience? Like, why should we care more? Why should we not care more now?

Speaker 2 (00:08:29):

Well, okay. I love that. You said that because you're right when we, you know, 90, was it, uh, I think 18 months ago.

Speaker 1 (00:08:36):

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:08:37):

Yeah. We, we met up and we gave an introduction to the brain and nervous system, and I think that sets the ground for everything that I believe in it. I think that in order to get change in this area, education is the way forward. We can't just tell people what to do. You have to know why mm-hmm <affirmative>. And since then, so neuro athletics, my company we've really solidified how we work with individuals. We work with two types of individuals. It's the athlete and that kind of finance wall street, hedge fund manager type. And within those, within those two types of population, we work in three domains. We work in the nutritional domain, the exercise domain and the neurophysiology domain. And I'm gonna break those three things down for you and for your audience so we can understand how brain health aligns in those three things. Perfect. Okay, perfect. So let's talk about nutrition, nutrition. I think, you know, there's this, there's this constant feedback and argument, I would say between people who believe that nutrition comes first, some people believe that exercise comes first in terms of, in terms of brain health, brain health. Okay. Okay. And I I'm on the bucket of exercise and sleep, you know, in terms of what comes first and that I'm

Speaker 1 (00:09:50):

Too sleep for sure. Yeah. Well,

Speaker 2 (00:09:51):

Well I am too. And that's because when you search any PubMed article and you really dig deep into the literature, it nothing really seems to align until you have sleep down pack first. So whenever a, an athlete comes on board at neuro athletics, when we look at these three domains, we break everything down. We first figure out let's take sleep. For example, we do a full on sleep analysis. We may get them into a sleep lab, figuring out how well they're sleeping and we can find, you know, discrepancies in how many times they wake up during the night, what time they go to sleep. If they're spending 20% of their total sleep time in REM sleep, we find out everything that we can when it comes to sleep and we work on sleep. So let's, let's start there. Let's talk about,

Speaker 1 (00:10:39):

I totally hijacked you from nutrition. I'm sorry, but I get, I hear sleep and I get so excited.

Speaker 2 (00:10:44):

<laugh> yeah. And, and I know you

Speaker 1 (00:10:45):

Love sleep, and I know you love sleep too.

Speaker 2 (00:10:46):

You're wearing a, you're wearing a whoop. So I know that you're tracking a measuring your sleep sleep is probably the most underrated high performance tool we have. Mm. If you're an athlete and you're not sleeping well, it's going to affect your shooting accuracy. If you're an MBA athlete, it's going to affect your reaction time. It's going to affect your attention, your focus, your information, processing speed, but it's also going to affect how well you recover. Mm. So when we sleep well, if we're sleeping well, we're going through four different stages of sleep. We're first starting out in light sleep. We move into, uh, uh, stage N two sleep mm-hmm <affirmative> and then we're going to N three sleep. So these three sleep stages are comprised of non REMP, non rapid eye movement sleep. Okay. Now during the N three stage sleep. Okay. So this is not REM sleep. This is still deep sleep. Okay. N three is classified as slow wave sleep. Okay. We know it as deep sleep, many things happen in here, we get the release of various hormones that are responsible for recovery and protein synthesis, but something wonderful happens. Then this system kicks in. I know you've heard of it. It's called the glymphatic system.

Speaker 1 (00:12:03):

Mm-hmm <affirmative> those glial cells.

Speaker 2 (00:12:06):

Absolutely. So these glial cells, which is actually, um, it's named after a Greek word for glue. Mm. I don't know if you knew that I had to Chuck that in there because I'm Greek.

Speaker 1 (00:12:16):

No, that's a fun fact.

Speaker 2 (00:12:17):

Yes. That's fun fact. So, and what happens is they, when you go to sleep, these cells kind of, uh, they shrink and they that's right. They do. They shrink and they leave room for the cerebral spinal fluid to go through

Speaker 1 (00:12:33):

For your brain to take a bath, basically.

Speaker 2 (00:12:35):

Yeah. It's like a sew system for your brain. So you get the release of many toxins and they say that, you know, it's, it's a vicious cycle when it comes to neurodegenerative diseases, because one of the proteins that builds up is called TA proteins. And these tower proteins aggregate, and they clump together and you get dysregulated sleep and you don't get the, you don't kick in with the, um, lymphatic system. And it's like, this it's like this, you know, this flow effect, because if you don't sleep well, you don't kick that lymphatic system in. And if you don't kick in the lymphatic system, then you're gonna have a higher rate of, you know, aggregating these tower proteins. So it's a, it's a really big flow effect there. So

Speaker 1 (00:13:17):

That probably builds up. And so not only is it a pain point here and now for your sleep quality and quantity, but I'm assuming that can be a potential buildup for brain health disorders, inflammation, Alzheimer's

Speaker 2 (00:13:30):

Dementia, accelerating. Yeah. Uh, brain health and brain aging. So we need to be sleeping in order to get that, you know, to kick in that system and feel good. You just, you know, I always say, when you wake up with brain fog, you, you definitely haven't had a good night's sleep. So that's one aspect. And then we move into that REM sleep stage and REM sleep is it's a rapid eye movement sleep. And it's called that because when you do a sleep study, you see these horizontal eye movements on the EEG scam. And that's another wonderful stage. And oftentimes even for myself, I find that sometimes I'm waking up with a 14%, you know, average REM sleep score. And I think, why am I at 14%? Because some of the biggest things I kick you out of REM sleep are, are light mm-hmm. Okay. I know I don't have light alcohol. I know I don't have alcohol in my system. Alcohol is one of the biggest things that completely plummets your REM sleep, um, and medications. Mm. And I think I'm not on any of those three things. What is happening. It turns out that stress has a major implication on REM sleep. So however much stressed you are during the day, it's really gonna kick you out of that REM sleep and REM sleep is, you know, we need a lot of REM sleep.

Speaker 1 (00:14:46):

So it's sitting there waiting like stress is like, fine. You go to sleep, but I'm,

Speaker 2 (00:14:50):

I'm

Speaker 1 (00:14:50):

Gonna screw up. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:14:51):

Exactly. So we can see, and with a lot of the content I put out about sleep, we can see how important sleep is. And when I work with these individuals, when I work with athletes, let's just say in the NBA, I'm noticing a pattern. Okay. So a lot of them say, Louisa, when I get on the court, I start to freak out or I start to get anxious. Okay. So that's one thing I realize another thing is from the NBA athletes is during the playoff season, you know, which comprises of several months, they are not sleeping well, because they're traveling.

Speaker 1 (00:15:24):

Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:15:24):

Some of them are traveling, you know, too,

Speaker 1 (00:15:26):

You're outta your normal routine. Yeah. Routine time zones, different beds, different hotels. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:15:30):

Yeah. So they're getting completely dysregulated sleep week cycles. And that in turn is creating more ACL injuries. I, I, I honestly believe, and, and I'm gonna get a lot of people wow. Attacking me for this. But there are so many people who don't understand that during the NBA playoffs, we see, you know, ankle injuries, we're seeing knee injuries, you know, Achilles tenders

Speaker 1 (00:15:52):

ACLS, more so than the regular season.

Speaker 2 (00:15:53):

Yeah. And does this come down to the way they're sleeping? The way they're, they're recovering. So it's a really big aspect of sleep right there. Let's move on to nutrition. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so we love nutrition. We outsource a lot of it. I'm not a nutritionist, but what I do know is that when it comes to the brain, there are certain things that the brain favors, especially as it relates to, uh, nutrition and supplementation, and we have this, we have this barrier around our brain and it's called the blood brain barrier. And I always describe it as the bouncer of a club.

Speaker 1 (00:16:33):

Very true. Yeah. Good analogy.

Speaker 2 (00:16:34):

Yeah. It says who can come in and who's,

Speaker 1 (00:16:36):

You're cool. You stay over there.

Speaker 2 (00:16:38):

Yeah. And that, and rightfully so, because imagine if everybody could come in and every molecule, every molecule could come in, so this wonderful barrier, unfortunately it, it breaks down as we age as a natural aging process, but guess what else? It breaks it down

Speaker 1 (00:16:56):

Stress. Mm.

Speaker 2 (00:16:58):

And I think, I, you know, I tweeted this morning, I said that inflammation and stress suppression of inflammation may be the very key to longevity and cognitive performance. Wow. Yeah. So

Speaker 1 (00:17:11):

I can get on board with that.

Speaker 2 (00:17:13):

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, we've got, um, we've got so many things that attacks us on a daily basis when it comes to stress and it's all psychological, you know, it doesn't have to be a, when you stress out, for example, it could be your brain doesn't know the difference between getting hit by a car or simply, you know, just thinking of something or, or maybe going through a divorce or the loss of a loved one. It's still stress. And there's, there's about seven different pathways that happen in your brain from the moment that you perceive stress to actually, you know, going through the motions. And over time, if we keep doing this, if we keep, you know, thinking stress, seeing stress, opening our phones, you know, notifications, we are getting a breakdown of that. Blood-brain barrier, integrity. And that's scary because that is accelerating the aging process. And it's doing a lot more than that. So we look at that and we think, well, so many things are stressing us out with even lack of sleep, poor nutrition, eating, um, low fiber foods, high carbohydrates, a lot of sugar, highly

Speaker 1 (00:18:25):

Processed. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:18:25):

Highly processed, you know, staring at light or through the day and through the night alcohol, all of these things are aiding in blood barrier, brain, brain,

Speaker 1 (00:18:37):

Blood brain barrier

Speaker 2 (00:18:38):

Breakdown. There

Speaker 1 (00:18:39):

We go. <laugh> well, I just had to go all be yeah, yeah. Yeah. One thing I've been doing lately to kind of come back to basics in a sense, but also just to get back on a very clear path for my wellness is getting help. <laugh> I've made this my profession, I'm a certified health coach. I used to be a clinical health coach for many years. And so it's one of those things like, I know what to do. I know how to do it, but man, when you reintroduce or introduce for the first time, certain levels of accountability and specifically through the use of wild health, getting metabolic blood panels, working with a health coach, working with a medical provider, just all the incredible things that telemedicine now has to offer because wild health is gonna first start with your genetics because look addressing cardiac neurologic performance, fatigue, or any other issue requires us to focus first on the entire system.

Speaker 1 (00:19:31):

So wouldn't it make sense to start with our DNA? That is everything that is literally our entire system. So wild health sequences, your DNA to analyze all of your genetic advantages, predispositions and disadvantages, they take a comprehensive look at your current health, through blood testing to evaluate your lipids, thyroid function, cardiovascular risks, hormone status, minerals, vitamins, and pretty much any other factor that can affect not only how we feel, but like we're talking about here today with Luisa, how we perform then all of that put together is gonna be making up your lifestyle. So all the data that wild health is gonna get with you up to this point is super valuable, right. But then they are going to evaluate it with you in the context of your life, in the context of my life. Yeah. I'm back working with a health coach. So now they can take a closer look with you at the things that we can't measure through a test.

Speaker 1 (00:20:24):

Like, what are we eating? When are we eating? What is our family life like? What's our stressors. Like it all matters. This is one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself. And speaking of value, I want to pass some savings onto you. Should you choose to really prioritize more your health and kind of go back to some of these foundations or maybe start for the first time wild health is now a proud partner of the show and you can save 20% off of their services with code ever forward. You're gonna get an in-depth health analysis, a personal care plan, an ongoing, fully customized care from anywhere. Check out details and get your consultation booked. Now simply head to wild health.com. That's w I L D H E a L T h.com and use code ever to save 20% off of your health and wellness services.

Speaker 2 (00:21:15):

So one of the things that we can do to preserve our brain health, when it comes to supplementation, a omega three fatty assets, and I harp on this a lot, and I know that you do too. And I know that you've posted something about taking a high dose of E are you taking high dose EPA?

Speaker 1 (00:21:32):

Yeah, I, I do. And actually I was gonna give you credit. I, I was assuming this would come up, um, because of your work and content around this, um, I've gone from knowing that this high dose of omega3 is good for me to not even optimizing in terms of just the quantity and quality, um, because of your work. I now split it up. So I'll do like half dose in the morning and then my second dose in the evening. Yeah. Uh, I try to get it in an hour no more than two hours kind of before I'm going to bed. So I've kind of got that fresh supply for sleep for all these things we're

Speaker 2 (00:22:08):

Talking about. Well, a omega three S are comprised of the EPA, DHA and ALA, and you know, the ALA is more so, you know, that come the form that forms that come from flaxseed and mm-hmm <affirmative> chia seeds. So a lot of the vegans, uh, you know, advocate for the ALA, but I'm more so on the bandwagon of the EPA and DHA one, they cross the blood brain barrier. So they get in and neural tissue. When you look at the brain, it's primarily comprised of DHA. So why wouldn't we feed it? What it's made out, give it back. Yeah. Yeah. So when it comes to dosages, I'm having two grams in the morning and two grams at night, I'm having two grams of EPA and two grams of, uh, DHA. And as on par with the scientific literature, that's, uh, probably the best dose to have when it comes to an NFL athlete, I'm dosing them up with at least, you know, six grams a day. And the reason being is they are predisposed to being hit in the head.

Speaker 1 (00:23:10):

Yeah. I was gonna ask why is it just a performance thing or kinda well injury?

Speaker 2 (00:23:15):

Well, we're trying to giving, we're trying to get them prepared, like built for disaster. Okay. Really? Yeah. Smart. Yeah. So a lot of the literature, you know, when you look at post traumatic insults, okay. Somebody who's been hit in the head right after post traumatic, like literally being hit sub-concussive hits or a concussion. The best thing to do is to have a high, fat diet. Mm, okay. So we already wanna dose them up on EPA DHA kind of to, you know, Bulletproof them, if you will, will. Yeah. And then getting them on. Keytones really straight after that. So, yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:23:50):

So you're saying, uh, like in what kind of time period are we talking about after injury?

Speaker 2 (00:23:54):

Literally 24 to 48

Speaker 1 (00:23:55):

Hours. Okay. So hear that, get a TBI, bump your head pretty significantly. We wanna be high fat and then high fat even keytones.

Speaker 2 (00:24:04):

Yeah. So keytones, that's my new actually, I'm starting to research. Keytones a lot. So I, I recently connected with H V M

Speaker 1 (00:24:11):

N. I was gonna say, yeah. Uh, with Michael brat, H VM N like their work and products in the keytones space have really cracked me open in terms of interest around keytones in, like, I use them now. I, I, I'm not a ketogenic diet guy, but I'm amazed, uh, at the science behind what keytones are doing for brain health, but performance and just, you know, my daily wellness.

Speaker 2 (00:24:34):

Yeah. So these exogenous keytones the ones that you're actually ingesting are so good when it comes to even ischemic stroke when it comes to, um, wow. Yeah. Stroke. So I know that they're doing a lot of research when it comes to TBI, but I think it's important to know every time somebody hears the word TBI, they think we're talking purely about the NFL. You can get a TBI from literally anything, even in soccer, the boys who were headbutting the ball, you know, these tiny little hits can end up being concussions.

Speaker 1 (00:25:02):

So yeah, I had a seizure years ago. I was active duty at the time. Um, but the TBI was unrelated to my training injury. Uh, I had a seizure, not myself, unconscious TBI.

Speaker 2 (00:25:12):

See what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So they're really good at, you know, helping you safeguard yourself. That was the word I was looking for earlier, but when it comes to also the EPA and DHA, there's just so many other benefits to it. It also helps you lower inflammation

Speaker 1 (00:25:27):

Just in the brain or body in general.

Speaker 2 (00:25:29):

Really? Yeah. In general. It just

Speaker 1 (00:25:33):

It's, it's what it's, it's what it's thing is. It's what it does. It's just what it

Speaker 2 (00:25:37):

Does. I mean, I can go into

Speaker 1 (00:25:38):

That. I mean, I'm sure like it has to do what I'm hearing is like the blood brain barrier. That's really kind of key in a lot of the brain health stuff we're talking about, because if the right things can get in and if the rest of the things can stay out, then we can allow the brain to not only do what it's supposed to do, but at a higher functioning level. And then that kind of drives the rest of the ship for everything else. Yeah. South of the neck.

Speaker 2 (00:26:03):

Absolutely. I always say it's, uh, you know, north of neck up, whatever, I work with somebody. So they're, you know, and then we're now starting to experiment with both of our financial, uh, financial athletes. I call them and our everyday athletes as well. We're starting to experiment with solely a ketogenic diet because it's just, you know, and this is something I am new to, I didn't really get into, you know, keytones exogenous keytones. I just thought it was a, you had to subscribe to this ketogenic diet, right. Yeah. But you know, ever since I spoke to the, the H V man, guys, they're like, no, you just can take these. You've gotta a higher amount of keytones when you just take this ex exhaustion keytones I thought, okay, well, why don't we do that? I started actually with myself, you know, what it did to me, what it completely suppressed my appetite. So that's,

Speaker 1 (00:26:54):

I, I can see that a little bit. Yeah. When, when I take mine, I do it in the mornings and I I'll yeah. I'll go train and then, yeah. I'm not as hungry nearly as soon as I usually am.

Speaker 2 (00:27:04):

Yeah. So I'm loving that. Mm. Okay. And then of course, it'd be remiss if I didn't talk about hydration. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so hydration is probably a really, it's a very big key indicator to performance, reaction time, even the way you see the way you perceive, uh, objects coming to you, how your brain functions, but not just that, if we are, you know, so much as 2% dehydrated, or we can have a, a decrease in our cognitive performance by 30%. Wow. And here's

Speaker 1 (00:27:39):

Sorry, can you can explain what does the 2% really look like? Is that one of these or? Okay. I

Speaker 2 (00:27:45):

Mean, it, look, it means that if you're a sweater, for example, depends on how much

Speaker 1 (00:27:50):

I am. <laugh> okay. Well,

Speaker 2 (00:27:51):

I'm, I'm not, you know, it's hard for me, even if I'm training really hard for me to break a sweat that much. Okay. But it depends on how much you sweat.

Speaker 1 (00:27:59):

So 2% for you,

Speaker 2 (00:28:00):

2% for you. Yes. And that's really significant. That is really significant as it relates to cognitive performance, how fast you think, how you make decisions. And most of us, almost all of us are walking around a little bit dehydrated, right? Mm. Yeah. And it's not just about water. It's about electrolytes. So our brain functions via neurons, nerve cells, they're present in the brain and, um, in the spinal cord and these neurons, when they fire together and create an action potential, they're going across this pump that called the sodium potassium pump, which is literally electrolytes. So we need to be feeding our brain, what it functions on.

Speaker 1 (00:28:48):

Mm-hmm

Speaker 2 (00:28:48):

<affirmative> fat electrolytes. And I know that I'm seeing a lot of people saying, okay, I'm taking element, I'm taking these, you know, hydration tablets. And that's fantastic because I think we need to understand that just because you're not going out and breaking a sweat, your brain is a hungry organ. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's using 20% of the total energy expenditure that you consume. So we need to be feeding it a lot in terms of the food quality and also the, uh, electrolytes.

Speaker 1 (00:29:17):

You bring up an interesting point there that I'm sure someone listening can relate to when it comes to taking exogenous. Keytones when it comes to taking fish oil supplement, when it comes to taking an electrolyte supplement, I'm not an athlete, I'm not breaking a sweat. I'm not doing these things that I'm hearing that people are doing that kind of triggers like, Hey, actually, you should supplement, or you should find them more in your diet. Can you shine a light on why the average person by average, I mean, maybe you're not sweating. Maybe you're not an athlete. The things I just said, why are they still important?

Speaker 2 (00:29:54):

Yeah. I describe this. So when I go and speak at corporate organizations, I describe it like this. Imagine every day that your brain is this cup, okay. And the cup, you wake up and it's full of water and that's your brain's fuel. Mm-hmm <affirmative> every time you think equate that to having a sip of water, every time that you reply to a text message or write an email, you take a sip of water. Wow. So that is your brain's energy. Just getting sips and sips and sips. Every time you go out and you have to concentrate on driving, you're taking away energy from the brain because it's being consumed by you, focusing by you reacting.

Speaker 1 (00:30:32):

So anything other than if we're awake, basically anything other than sleeping,

Speaker 2 (00:30:36):

Of course. And of course, even during sleep, we need to keep, we need to stay alive. So, so many things, internal processes are happening when you are awake and the brain is using energy, you know, it's so funny. Do you wake up in the morning? So many of my clients like Louise, I woke up and it says, my, you know, my data on my whip says, I've already burnt like 800 calories. How's that possible? I'm like, well, because from midnight until 7:00 AM, there's a lot of things happening in your body. And so it's a lot of energy that's being consumed. So you are burning calories, you are utilizing energy. So that's why we need to keep it, you know, we need to keep fueling it know, so we do a sweat test. So we actually measure, and this is not for everybody. Okay. But I'll give you an indication.

Speaker 2 (00:31:20):

So we measure before a game, okay. An athlete's, um, body weight mm-hmm <affirmative> and then will, um, get his body weight afterwards and we'll measure how much he lost in sweat alone. And we're able to replenish that with electrolytes, but for everybody else, it doesn't really matter about timing. If you're, of course, if you're gonna go do a massive workout mm-hmm <affirmative> and you are sweating a lot, then go through and replace that. But if you're not, and you're just working in an office, then you might just wanna be sipping on, you know, just put one Sache, okay. In your bottle, one Sasha of element in your bottle every day and just have that. And that will be, that will be enough for you.

Speaker 1 (00:32:01):

So what, what about, um, I wanna piggyback off of that. So kind like second level timing stuff. I'm a big believer in my personal experience and what I've studied of the human body over the years, that when we wake up to your point earlier, we've already gone through so much. Our, our brain has already burned a lot of calories. We're in a dehydrated and faceted state. So for me, first thing in the morning, within 30 minutes to an hour tops, really that's when I'm really going heavy on hydration, electrolytes, micronutrients, just these things that are gonna be the best immediate replenishment, uh, as well as, um, pre and post workout. I'm looking for certain things when it comes to things that are gonna break that blood brain barrier when it comes to electrolytes, healthy fats is the morning after we wake ideal. Is it before workout after a workout? Does it really matter? Just as long as we're kind of getting it in throughout the

Speaker 2 (00:32:57):

Day? It does, but I always, you know, I, I, I am now starting to settle down on putting these really big restrictions and I used to be very big on timing and this and that. And I don't think it really matters unless you're LeBron.

Speaker 1 (00:33:11):

Okay. Okay. If you're high, highly performer.

Speaker 2 (00:33:14):

Absolutely. When the margins of error are really, really, really fine. So if you are just an average human, and when I say average, I I'm average human. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and you're not LeBron yeah. Timing UN you know, unless you're going and, and you're really trying to compete for a world title then. Yeah. It doesn't have to be as strict as possible as long as you get it in. When I say that there are differences. So for example, I always say after 12:00 PM, no caffeine mm-hmm <affirmative> so that's when timing does anything time that has a stimulant effect. Mm that's. When timing really does come into play. Interesting. Likewise with alcohol, you know, I, I don't promote day drinking, but the further away from sleep

Speaker 1 (00:33:57):

I do, <laugh>

Speaker 2 (00:33:58):

The further away from sleep you can get, you can get alcohol. That's probably the best

Speaker 1 (00:34:04):

My alcohol consumption over the years has gone down immensely. And, um, and the reason I was joking about, you know, advocating for day drinking is because usually these days last several years, if I'm choosing to drink alcohol, I'm actually way more conscious of the timing of when I'm like the cutoff. You know, I, I will seriously. I used to be like, oh, lemme have a glass of wine with dinner, let me have a beer or whatever. I have to be having a really good bottle of wine. Yeah. Really good glass of wine. I'm drink a bottle, but you know, or, or like a really favorite beer for me to consider having it with dinner anymore. Because, you know, I give a lot of credit to wearables. You woo. For almost three years, I have a glass of wine with dinner. I have a glass of beer I'm in the red the next day sometimes. Yeah. And so I, I will, I would much rather have the caffeine, have the alcohol during the daytime so that I can metabolize it and get it on my system to support the brain health and support the sleep that I need and want.

Speaker 2 (00:34:59):

Yeah. And, uh, I'm the same. So when it comes to alcohol, I've never been a big drinker. And now if I do occasionally drink, it would be, it would be red wine.

Speaker 1 (00:35:09):

Yeah. So what about exercise then recovering, uh, the oil, the nutrition, uh,

Speaker 2 (00:35:14):

Exercise. So this is, this is a really fascinating, you know, subtopic and subdomain that we're gonna go into. So around 1999, let's take a brief history of the relat

Speaker 1 (00:35:27):

Insert montage year. Let's

Speaker 2 (00:35:28):

Take a brief history of the relationship between brain health and exercise. 1999, the first studies came out that, and they were, were done on mice on rodents to show that we now have,

Speaker 1 (00:35:45):

This is great. I'm gonna be way more hydrated, cuz you are, fuck, I'll get the end of an interview and just be like, you

Speaker 2 (00:35:51):

Should, justing around a bottle

Speaker 1 (00:35:52):

Of honey. We should get a camel back. Oh, you know, actually have a I'm sorry. Chase. No, no, don't apologize. Seriously.

Speaker 2 (00:36:02):

This didn't happen last time.

Speaker 1 (00:36:03):

Oh no, I'm totally out. Um, I normally keep, you know, beekeepers naturals, the propers throat spray. Fuck.

Speaker 2 (00:36:10):

Uh, and I just spill water on me. This is a disaster

Speaker 1 (00:36:12):

Just out.

Speaker 2 (00:36:13):

I'm gonna have to take my top off.

Speaker 1 (00:36:15):

That's the show before me. There's another show that they film here called uh, sex talk with mom. Right. Sex talk with, with my mom. Yeah. That might be better suited for that one.

Speaker 2 (00:36:22):

I should get that thing though. That you've mentioned.

Speaker 1 (00:36:24):

Yeah. Um, I've got a, I normally have some, I've got a bunch back home. Um, I've got bottles at home. I can link up with you later and give you some it's beekeepers naturals to make incredible honey products, but they got a throat spray. It's its proply throat spray. Propolis, honey. Um, I I'll use it usually before every interview when I travel it's

Speaker 2 (00:36:43):

I believe it didn't

Speaker 1 (00:36:44):

For me. Okay. So one flaw

Speaker 2 (00:36:46):

Let's take a brief history on the relationship between brain health and exercise mm-hmm <affirmative> in 1999, that was a first study that was done to show the relationship, exercise, mainly aerobic exercise and brain function. What they found was that they put these rodents through six months of aerobic exercise and they found that this grew the hippocampus. Oh wow. Really? Okay. And they, it grew the hippocampus via neurogenesis and neurogenesis is the creation of neurons. Now there is a lot of, uh, speculation of that because as I just mentioned, neurogenesis exists mm-hmm <affirmative> however, it doesn't exist in humans. So they found that. So they thought, oh, this was 1999, which was very big.

Speaker 1 (00:37:33):

Hold on. I'm sorry. Neurogenesis doesn't exist in humans.

Speaker 2 (00:37:36):

No, it, it, it has. Yeah, no, it has not been, um,

Speaker 1 (00:37:40):

What, yeah, really? Yes. The creation of new,

Speaker 2 (00:37:43):

Of new neurons of new brain cells. Doesn't

Speaker 1 (00:37:45):

Not people on my mind right now. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:37:47):

What I know it's it is a very big misconception that people do believe that neurogenesis exists in humans. Uh, when an actual fact doesn't

Speaker 1 (00:37:56):

Okay. I'm gonna need you to crack that open in a second. Um, okay. Well go back to your exercise story, but that's

Speaker 2 (00:38:02):

Okay. So that was 1999. So they thought, well, this is mind blowing. We can literally create new brain cells via exercise alone. Okay. Fast forward. Okay. Then we went to, there was a big break and it was 2017 and they did a another study. And what they found, this was again done on exercise and brain health. And what they found was that, wow, we can staff off our, we can staff off Alzheimer's disease by 20 years. So they found a relationship between Alzheimer's disease patients and exercise. Wow. Yeah. Go to 2019 Harold, Atal done a wonderful systematic review. He pulled together. He wanted to get to the bottom of the relationship between brain health and physical activity. He pulled together all of the studies that were done and he wanted to have a focus on resistance training. And what he found was that resistance training does far more for the brain than what aerobic exercise does.

Speaker 1 (00:39:10):

Okay. Like to hear that

Speaker 2 (00:39:11):

Again, he found that certain hormones Mykines are released during resistance training. And we can go into those that are released that can cross the blog brain barrier and have an effect on cognitive performance. And so that was mind blowing mm-hmm <affirmative> and then in 2021, there was an RCT done. RCT is the gold standard in academic research. And it was a clinical study. So it was done on humans and they, what they did was they took a bunch of mild cognitive impairment patients. So MCI is a pre dementia state. Okay. Okay. So they got,

Speaker 1 (00:39:47):

So this is a diagnosis. Yes. Or just they meet certain criteria.

Speaker 2 (00:39:51):

Yeah. You have to meet certain criteria. So mild cognitive. And what they found was they got these people and they put them through six months of resistance training. And what they found was they grew the area. They grew the connections. Okay. Not the neurons. They grew the connections around the hippocampal sub region. So they formed new connections. So this was huge. They also saw, again that they can starve off Alzheimer's disease by 20 years from resistance training alone.

Speaker 1 (00:40:29):

So what this saw in the mice, they're now seeing in humans in

Speaker 2 (00:40:31):

Humans. Absolutely. Wow. But the mice was aerobic mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. Humans, it's not aerobic. It's resistance

Speaker 1 (00:40:38):

Training. So mice on the treadmill, humans were, we're lifting some weights,

Speaker 2 (00:40:41):

We're lifting some weights. Um, and so this was just mind blowing. And so what we see when it comes to, let's just focus on resistance training. Now what we see is we see, we see a couple of things. First of all, we see functional brain changes. Functional means the way that your brain is functioning. And we can see this through functional MRI in

Speaker 1 (00:41:02):

EEG, how it's literally lighting up operating. Absolutely. How on demand of certain tasks.

Speaker 2 (00:41:06):

Okay. Yes. Cognitive functions, cetera. Right. They also see structural changes, structural, meaning the way that it's structured. It turns out that you can grow. So the gray matter of your brain, where the, the brain is comprised of white matter and gray matter, you can grow the gray matter of your brain of your brain by physical activity alone. And that is mind blowing. And I think the percentage I posted on social media is 80%.

Speaker 1 (00:41:36):

No. Why is that important course? Why is it, why is it good to grow gray matter? Well,

Speaker 2 (00:41:39):

Let's talk about, um, some of the, the theories of the aging process. So there's, there's many different theories of the brain aging process. And one of them is as we age, we lose, we have dysregulation in our white matter integrity. Mm. So like I said, we've got gray matter. We've got white matter white matter houses, all of our Mylan neurons. Okay. Okay. Things such as think of cognitive functions,

Speaker 1 (00:42:07):

Like the things that we do repeatedly or yeah. Habit habitually enough that there's coding. Yeah. The, my sheath is just like, I always think of the analogy of like, you gotta set of wires and it's got more insulation around it. Yeah. So increases conductivity, faster connection, more on demand stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:42:21):

There you go. And then our gray matter is, you know, the it's like the cortex mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. And I always describe it as I get everybody to put their hand their right hand in the air and get the Palm of their hand and put it on their forehead. And I said, that's where your prefrontal cortex list. There we go. Yeah. So, um, if we can grow the gray matter of our brain structurally and functionally, we can just do so like that is just mind blowing through exercise alone. So what are these Mykines that are, what are these hormones? Well, the first one is what the researchers found was that when you participate in, um, you know, concentric muscle actions, like a resistance training, you get the release of IGF one insulin growth, like factor one. So it gets released from skeletal muscle and it acts on metabolic pathways and endo crime pathways.

Speaker 2 (00:43:13):

Okay. If it's acting on these two systems in the body, that means we have a, a direct and an indirect effect on brain health. Mm that's. The first thing, that's one, then there's this other wonderful, you know, so many hormones, uh, a releases, CFE and B um, interleukin six, but then there's this other hormone that I'm going to bring up. It's called Harrison. And it was founded in 2012 and it's responsible for it acts like a messenger. And when researchers found to this, they called it Harrison after the Greek God Iris, who was a messenger to the gods.

Speaker 1 (00:43:49):

Ah, there you go. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:43:50):

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So Harrison is wonderful. It's also released, it's a Maya kind that is released from skeletal muscle. That one actually crosses the blood brain barrier.

Speaker 1 (00:44:00):

Okay. So we're doing a workout. Yeah. Consistently enough times to allow this to happen or is it just whenever we're short

Speaker 2 (00:44:09):

Training, you get a massive, a rapid release.

Speaker 1 (00:44:11):

So just strength training once

Speaker 2 (00:44:13):

Strength, just one, you know, after one day. Amazing. So here's the thing though. You have to, you have to hit a certain load. You can't just go and, and lift a one pound dumbbell. Right? Okay. You have to lift at, and I believe the, the recommendations is 70% of your one RM one repetition max, you have to be doing this at least three times a week. Mm-hmm <affirmative> to get the effects, the neural effects. You have to keep putting demand. And I relate this back to, if you want your bicep to grow, you have to put it under pressure. Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:44:47):

If I wanted to grow for 15 years,

Speaker 2 (00:44:49):

You have, but you have to train it really, really hard. And so when you train it really hard, you put it under stress, it grows it's, it's kind of the same mechanism of action. Right? You need to stress those pathways for them to have an effect and for you to release those, those hormones. And I think that that is just it's really mind blowing as it relates to longevity. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. We, you know, skeletal muscle is a longevity organ. It's an organ. And we, we see this in, um, in studies of centenarians. We see this now where I think we're just touching the surface as it relates to, uh, the elderly and mild cognitive impairment. Yeah. Brain health.

Speaker 1 (00:45:33):

Um, are you familiar with Dr. Gabrielle lion? Yes. She was just in here a couple weeks ago. Okay. And breaking down just things that I'm like. Okay, cool. I probably know this, but just the way that she was explaining, um, skeletal muscle protein, uh, muscle tissue and longevity was just fascinating. Like I never, yeah. I never realized how vital maintaining, I, I know strength training is important and you know, it has so many other benefits. Um, but just its direct correlation and causation with longevity and frailty, just presenting protein and muscle in a whole new light was incredible.

Speaker 2 (00:46:10):

Yeah. And you know, there's the premise that we go into the gym to get, you know, to get fit and to get healthy when we should be going into the gym for brain health. Yeah. Because the brain really comes first. It's neural first. It's not muscle first because in order to, uh, you know, produce a muscle action. Yeah. A bicep it's neural, it's a, you know, it comes from the,

Speaker 1 (00:46:31):

Can I have that, my muscle connection? Where do you think the mine <laugh> gets its juice from?

Speaker 2 (00:46:35):

Yeah. They send the, the message down the brain and it tells you to perform that action. So yes. And, and, and I really love, um, I really get love Gabrielle and, and her work. And when she speaks about, you know, it being a longevity organ, mm-hmm <affirmative> because it really is, but it's also aiding now in so many different other things like cognitive performance, it's helping staff off Alzheimer's disease by 20 years, it's helping with mitochondria or biogenesis. Wow. The creation of more mitochondria, which we know is healthy, vital aging process. Yeah. And also something that we don't, you know, I, I didn't know this and I didn't really understand that, you know, people didn't get this, but we have mitochondria in our brain as well. Evidently because we have neurons and neurons, our brain cells, the difference between us selling your body and, and the brain cells is our brain cells have Dendri that come off them because they connect with one another and they synapse.

Speaker 2 (00:47:28):

So we have mitochondria in our brain and there was a recent study done actually showing that the more stressed you are, it actually affects the mitochondria in the prefrontal cortex. Wow. Yes. So we've got four lobes of the brain and the front, the, the right at the front, which is where we, we put the hand up before that's the frontal lobe and the frontal lobe houses, the prefrontal cortex and that prefrontal cortex. You've heard of it as the CEO of our brain. It holds all of our decision making and our executive functions. So if we are losing and we are breaking down the mitochondria and our prefrontal cortex, we're gonna be opening ourselves up to a decline in our decision, making a decline in our information, processing speed. If this, if we look at the, um, CEO of a, of a business or a bank, they're gonna be making wrong decisions. I've got clients who come to me and say, Louisa, if I make one wrong decision, I could cost a family $10 million because their entire life savings is with me in my hands. So they have to be performing at their peak.

Speaker 1 (00:48:34):

It's a lot of stress.

Speaker 2 (00:48:35):

That's a lot of stress, a lot of stress, which is why, where we're now in neuro athletics is now on wall street.

Speaker 1 (00:48:41):

One thing that comes to mind for me is just like, I wanna drive this home for the listeners, is that viewer, um, this is like a whole new level of why for staying fit for regularly exercising, strength training in particular, um, you know, over the years, your, your motivation probably dips. I, I, I think most people have gone through seasons of motivation of, I know this is good for me, but I don't want to go on board, but just to think about this now, what you're saying of, alright, if I go, I'm gonna have this incredible benefit for my brain health that is gonna happen here now today. And especially, you know, God forbid anybody have, you know, Alzheimer's in their family, dementia type three diabetes, you know, any kind of neurological degradation like that in the brain, just to know that you can actually do something about it is a whole nother level of motivation.

Speaker 2 (00:49:37):

You said something, the word motivation. Mm. Okay. It comes from this molecule dopamine mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. Turns out that, remember how I was speaking about the, um, the many theories of the brain aging process. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, mm-hmm, <affirmative> one of the theories is a dysregulation in dopamine receptors, meaning that as we age, we have a lower efficacy of dopamine that is released. So that's why motivation is harder as, so we have to push harder.

Speaker 1 (00:50:05):

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that's an interesting concept. I know, uh, we both fanboy over, uh, Dr. Andrew Huberman. Yes. Um,

Speaker 2 (00:50:13):

I was, I fan go over. Heard

Speaker 1 (00:50:14):

That. Yeah. Excuse me. <laugh> I fan girl too. That's how hard I fanboy. Um, he, uh, I think he was like a clip or something from a recent interview. Um, just talking about, you know, we're talking about ways to contribute to brain health. Here's a unique thing that actually, I think all of us are experiencing that is taking away from brain health and dopamine being the key word. If you find yourself, I'm gonna butcher his phrase. Exactly. But you find yourself kind of aimlessly scrolling. Um, you don't really all of a sudden you're like, where am I? I don't really know why I'm on here. I'm just scrolling, not staying on anything. He's saying that that is actually a sign that you are in a dopamine loss. Yeah. Like you're, you've exhausted dopamine level so much that you're just passively looking for a hit, looking for a hit, looking for a hit and, you know, as great of a tool. This is, um, that is something that we can use to learn about brain health items, but we're losing brain health. We're losing potential. Yeah. Um, and just, you know, dopamine is so fragile and it can go away so fast,

Speaker 2 (00:51:17):

But it's also, um, how fatigued your brain is. Mm mm-hmm. <affirmative> you know, I think back to when I was a triathlete, a full-time triathlete, this was before inst well, I mean, Instagram probably did exist. I'm not that old, but I, I wasn't on it. I wasn't on my phone. I was just, you know, I'd go home and get on the computer maybe, and look at Facebook. It was a different world. And I was so hyper folks. And I, I wonder why I was, maybe I obviously it was 10 years ago, so I was younger, but it was, there was, there's still something to add when it comes to social media and it's scary. So I actually delete the Instagram app off my phone. So it's on my iPad and interesting. I can't be scrolling when I'm out. So I think that's done a really big thing for me.

Speaker 1 (00:52:00):

What are some other ways maybe we can be mindful of exhausting our dopamine, um, whether that's to take back control something as simple as deleting an app, you know, how can we be more aware of where and how we are losing dopamine to maintain dominion over it in our brain health?

Speaker 2 (00:52:15):

Well, remember I spoke to you about the seven pathways of stress that our brain, right? Yeah. Yeah. How so it turns out that the science says that if you can stop yourself or put a halt at the very first pathway or any time or within any time that you feel stressed psychologically, you put a stop to that process. Okay. Like

Speaker 1 (00:52:34):

What does that look

Speaker 2 (00:52:34):

Like? So for example, they showed that the number one way of doing this is via Tetra. Okay. The game, the game, I just, so I, you know, I, I downloaded it. And so it turns out that if you can have, if you can switch your mind into a completely other mental task, then you are switching off that stress response. Wow. Okay. And the reason I say that is because if you're gonna switch that off, then you go, I'm not gonna be feeling as mentally fatigued. Right. Yeah. So, and that's really interesting, right. Because if you are going through any stressful moment, how, how much do you want to just bathe in it and overthink it and just keep going. And it's really difficult.

Speaker 1 (00:53:18):

Just wanna stay stuck in it because you wanna, you think we can find the solution

Speaker 2 (00:53:21):

And you just wanna keep going. And I do this too truth. I, I know it's funny cuz it's, you know, had this realization. It's like, well, that's what, that's what mental toughness is. Do you have the fortitude and the mental toughness to just nip it in the butt and just put a stop to it and just go completely the other way. And that's hard. So if you can't do that, if you find yourself digging deep and going into and overthinking and, and just tearing it apart and you don't have the ability to stop and just refocus, then you stop and play Teris.

Speaker 1 (00:53:59):

Hmm. Is it really Tetris or is it just need to find something that you need

Speaker 2 (00:54:04):

To find something, but they found

Speaker 1 (00:54:04):

That very simple, like a plus B equal C kind of

Speaker 2 (00:54:06):

Thing. Yeah. Well they, they, they, they used Teris in the study. That's why I mentioned Tetris. Interesting. But Tetris is, is I've if you put it on your phone, I haven't played it in like tan maybe

Speaker 1 (00:54:17):

Since it was on my, like T 83 in high school. And

Speaker 2 (00:54:19):

Absolutely. But if you play it now, it really is. It's like you have to concentrate because they, these blocks are going everywhere. So it consumes you mentally. And so you have to find something that can consume you that it's not just a TV show it's like or something on Instagram.

Speaker 1 (00:54:35):

In what other ways do you think us the day, everyday person, not LeBron James. Um, what are some other avenues that we are exhausting? Our brain health? Where are these holes in our ship? When it comes to our brain health that we can look to as easy or easier kind of plugs to, to optimize.

Speaker 2 (00:54:57):

Well, if we are sleeping well, Hmm. Let's say we're using mother nature's gifts. We're sleeping. Well, we're hydrating. We're not dosing up on sugar or alcohol. We're doing the right things that we already know. What else can we be doing? We can be viewing natural sunlight. I always say, take a 10 minute stimulation break. Okay. At all hours of the day, you are getting stimulated via your eyes, your ears, your skin, everything. If you can just take 10 minutes and close your eyes,

Speaker 1 (00:55:32):

Take 10 minutes. Take a sip.

Speaker 3 (00:55:33):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>

Speaker 1 (00:55:37):

You're good.

Speaker 3 (00:55:39):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:55:40):

If you can just take 10 minutes and close your eyes and breathe. Okay. That is one of the best things that you can do. You literally will be taking yourself out of that sympathetic state, activating the parasympathetic stake and stake state mm-hmm <affirmative> and just completely just decompressing. That's one thing that we can be doing. And then if you are one practice that I've been doing is I've been writing. I don't call it journaling. I, I rather just call it just, you know, it's like mental dumping. Mm-hmm <affirmative> onto a piece of brain

Speaker 1 (00:56:15):

Dumping. Yeah, yeah. I say that all time. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:56:17):

And that's because your brain really does wanna get everything out. And instead of putting that on somebody else, instead of just wallowing in it and going down that well, put it on paper and then put that paper to rest, close the book up, put it to rest. That's a really, that's probably something, that's my, the thing that I've been doing this year,

Speaker 1 (00:56:35):

It's good to get it out. Yeah, absolutely. To get it's good. If not, it's just gonna stay up here. Worling around like just a, a release can be incredibly

Speaker 2 (00:56:42):

Powerful. Yeah. And then I think one thing that we have to talk about is just getting that social interaction because ever since you know, I was working, uh, I was working in a, in an office, uh, before COVID. So I was working in a urology clinic, I should say, doing EEGs, um, and seeing patients and that was, and then COVID hit. And then obviously we closed down the office for, you know, two or three months and I never went back. I went to working from home and I lost that social interaction. And that plays on your brain health as well. So getting that social interaction is also a really key thing, getting the right social interaction.

Speaker 1 (00:57:19):

Yeah. I was gonna say the right one is crucial. Uh, can you maybe explain a little bit more other than the obvious reasons of it's good to see people it's good to get out of the house? Like, can you break down for us a little bit more specifically? Why is it good for your brain health to interact, to have quality relationships, quality interactions?

Speaker 2 (00:57:34):

Well, there's many different neurotransmitters, these chemicals in the brain that get released at various times and we can get it from anything, you know, the way we get it is completely independent, but there is a lot to say about this psychosocial interaction that your brain feels this kind of safety net. When you speak to another person,

Speaker 1 (00:57:55):

Brain love safety. Yes. In all areas of health,

Speaker 2 (00:57:57):

But also when you are in the presence of another human. So it does help to speak to somebody on the phone. But it also wants to know, it also wants to feel that when you are with another person in this vicinity. So that's another reason why that, you know, social interaction is a, is a very big thing. Yeah. But it comes also, it comes in many forms. It comes in the romantic form. It comes in the friendship form. It comes in, you know, are you getting a, the love from your mother or your father? Like where are you getting that from

Speaker 1 (00:58:26):

Love with and for and from yourself. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:58:29):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (00:58:30):

Um, so since we last had you on the show, um, I don't know if it's just personal awareness, but I've seen neuroscience, brain health kind of really skyrocket, skyrocket. Yeah. Uh, and which is great because of like, cool, like another resource for me to check out or resource for somebody else to learn. But since you are the expert here and you live in this world where maybe where should we be mindful of neuroscience, brain health information or misinformation? Huh? How do we can, how can we dissect this other than coming to you? Of course,

Speaker 2 (00:59:03):

Look, that's a, that's a huge field. I just interviewed, um, lane Norton. Oh. And, um, and we had, it ended up going on for two hours.

Speaker 1 (00:59:14):

That's it with lane <laugh>

Speaker 2 (00:59:15):

Look, we were having a really big discussion on, you know, scientific efficacy and what is right. And when it comes to science, you know, when you go to school and you learn about clinical epidemiology, which is how do you, you know, how do you learn what a research study is? It takes a long time, you know, that was a six month unit. So it takes a long time and I'm seeing a lot of people. And so is lane and going on and just butchering science and just pretty much saying that, oh, this study says this, therefore it should be correct. And so it's scary. And I think it's like, who do you know who to follow?

Speaker 1 (00:59:51):

Yeah. <laugh>

Speaker 2 (00:59:51):

Yeah. And so that's a good point.

Speaker 1 (00:59:53):

Who, how do you trust people in this space?

Speaker 2 (00:59:55):

Exactly. Yeah. I think if, and that's why I mentioned, we opened up with education. If you can educate yourself on what it means to be scientifically valid, what is a research study? And I know a lot of people are gonna say, well, Louisa, we're not gonna go do that. Who do we follow? I think you just have to, it's a, I can't tell you who to go out and follow, but I would say this, if you do see something and you think, oh, I should be doing that. Go through and look at all of the different avenues, the pros, the cons go on,

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):

But verify. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):

Yeah. Yeah. Because you can't just trust somebody that you don't know. It's like, you know, it's just, you have to do your own homework as well,

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):

Other than, um, maybe getting certain biomarkers, tested blood panels or even an EEG scan, how will we know the things we're doing to improve or maintain our brain health? How will we know they're actually working?

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):

Yeah. That's a good, that's a really good question. Because unlike personal training, your, I think everything exists in how you feel. Mm. Yes. You can go and do blood work and you can see, oh, look my, you know, my CRP, the, my, um, inflammation has gone down.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):

Yeah. Actually let me piggyback off my own question real quick. Since you're going there. What are things in blood work that we could be looking for asking for, for brain health optimization?

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):

Well, I would first look at genomics based medicine. Okay. That is having your genome tested, having a look at your genetic makeup. Okay. Because you could be possessing all. Okay. So we have two, all one from mom, one from dad. And like, for an example, if you possess, um, the a E four gene or one all, then you are more predisposed to getting Alzheimer's disease. And so that's why I think that there is so many different, um, things that you could be testing. There's one snip called, um, snip S and P called tumor necrosis factor, alpha TNF, alpha. And this predisposes you to ischemic stroke and wow. Yeah. So understanding

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):

It's fascinating. We can know these things now.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):

Oh, it's. So if you can go through and do a genetic test, go through and then do a blood panel. And when you're doing these blood panels, there's so many different things like gone are the days when you just go through and do the regular things, you know, you go through, you know, 20 years ago, the doctor would just take your blood and be like, yeah, you're, you're healthy. In other words, you're not gonna die right now. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):

Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):

Yeah. Yeah. But they, they might not be checking, like they might not be doing a full on lipid panel, like LP little, a, you know, LDL, HDL, like, like particles that you've really gotta deconstruct. There's about a hundred different biomarkers that can get tested

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):

I'm floor to the amount of primary care providers. Now that don't even in like your annual physical labs don't even get like a creactive protein yeah. In there. It's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):

Yeah. And now's not in a good way. Yeah. And then we've also got the, um, we've also got wearables now. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> where you can

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):

Well, in levels and like some, are you wearing a condition? Not right now. No, I'm not. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):

So, you know, there's things like that we, that we can be getting, but we now have. So when I spent time, you know, and I was working in neurology, I was doing so many pre dementia patients. Mm. And we were doing, um, tests of, we were doing brain health checks. You know, we're doing reaction time, memory tests. Why are these not included in the physicians? You know, when you go and just do your regular checkup. So I think we should be doing that. Testing your reaction time, testing your brain, your information processing speed. And that's what we do in neuro athletics. We do a brain scan. We figure out how well your brain's functioning. We also do the genetics test blood biomarkers. And then we've got a fully, sounds like a pyramid. It's like, we're right at the bottom. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, now we understand what's happening. So if you, you know, you can check it via your blood work to see if you're getting better, you can then check it via your, um, if you do a, a reaction time test or you do a memory test, you can check it that way.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):

Oh. These things we can be doing at home, um, you know, what are some like simple tests we can do at home to check reaction, time, response, time cognition.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):

Yeah. So neuro athletics, we've got our own, I, I call our proprietary brain body method exercise. You can literally do you know that there's studies that show it's it's under the bandwidth of neuromotor training. Mm okay. That show that even if you're doing 15 minutes of open, skilled training, such as getting two tennis balls and throwing them against the wall, you can also grow the grow gray matter of your brain. It was, uh, a 2016 study in, uh, the journal nature.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):

Is that just because we're actively using both sides of our brain, like,

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):

Oh, well you've got hand, eye coordination. Okay. You're gripping it. You've um, you've got reaction time. You've got, um, information processing speech. You've just got so many different cognitive functions that happening that you don't think of. And we've been doing that at neuro athletes. Wow. Many we've got over 150 different variations. We also combine that with, yeah. We've got light training. So we work with fit light and we've got the reaction training lights happening. Actually. That's something that we should, you know, even talk about because I think using reaction training lights is another big phenomenon in

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):

Yeah. What do you mean by that? What

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):

Is that? Uh, so fit light is, uh, probably it's like at the forefront right now of neuro training. So their reaction training lights. And if you looked at these 10 years ago, you would think, oh, these are good for soccer players or, you know, basketball players to improve their reaction time. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But what we're finding now is that you can do so much more with these. You can combine these with, you know, throwing skills and can add to the neural pressure in your brain. You can add to these cognitive domains. Wow. You keep adding pressure and, you know, we can have an effect on brain

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):

Health. It's just another muscle we can train. Yeah. Um, I do wanna go back to this very bold statement of, we cannot have neurogenesis in humans. I've never heard that. Yeah. Uh, in fact, I've heard quite the opposite. I've even said the opposite, certain things like certain foods, certain supplements, uh, certain things, um, you know, even, uh, psychedelic experiences, you know, I, I, I look at SIL, I look at MDM, a ketamine. I look at things like lion's main functional mushrooms. I look at things like MCTs, all these things that

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):

Lion's main neurogenesis. Well, I don't, I don't think lion's main has ever said neurogenesis. I believe it said the, um, connections.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):

Hmm. Yeah. Okay. Now you're giving me some homework. Yeah. But I know for sure. Especially in like ketamine therapy, I mean, that's a driving force in one of the,

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):

Well, this is a really good thing to talk about because when you look at these studies and if you are in fact looking at these studies, are they done on humans? Because interesting. Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):

I don't know

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):

Top of my head. Yeah. At the end of the day, we aren't rodents. And I'm really happy that actually Andrew Huberman put out, um, a statement saying that there has not been anywhere. Um, nowhere has been proven in humans yet in mic. Yes. Okay. So when you're looking at these studies, because I'm, I I'd be, you know, I would love for you to send me yeah. Um, an article that states that you can grow new neurons.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):

This is just all that I've, again, maybe this is shining a light on me and like how I might be looking at misinformation and not accurately reading studies and things of that nature. But I, I I'm blown that, you know, neurogenesis is not actually happening. So if it's not neurogenesis, then, then what is just this other sensation?

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):

Uh, it's the connectivity, the connectivity. Okay. So the, um, the connections mm-hmm <affirmative> between. So like I mentioned earlier, these hippocampal sub region growing the connectivity around that. So the way that huh, one neuron response to the other, let's think about it like this, you've got around 80 billion neurons. If you could grow new neurons, new neurons via neurogenesis, don't you think we'd have huge brains now, don't you think there'd be people out there just doing this as a sport because new neurons would mean, Hey

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):

Sure.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):

And what would the cap be?

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):

Hmm. Yeah, that, that's a really good point. I mean, it,

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):

Would it be 200 billion

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):

Definitely placed into like an evolutionary aspect, you know? Yeah. How long would it take for humans to, to do this and to, to, you know, have a, a phenotype really?

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):

And this is why when you have an ischemic stroke or an in fact. Okay. Uh, cerebral in fact, let's say that you've, um, you've had a stroke and you've killed off some of those neurons. They don't grow back. It's the regions around that. That really, yeah. Yeah. It's become stronger. So that's why brain health and killing off neurons is insane. This is why NFL is insane to me. Yes. I work with these boys. It's still insane to me that you are voluntarily going out and choosing to get hit in the head because no matter what velocity you get hit, you are still getting hit. Damn. So voluntarily choosing to kill off brain cells is ludicrous to me. Mm.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):

Well, I definitely have some new homework when it comes to this term of neurogenesis and, um, what it takes, what it could take for humans to actually not just improve the conductivity between these brain cells, but to grow new ones. Um, you're blowing my mind right now. It's it's, that's what wild do. Um, <laugh> so what's on the forefront then. So other than, uh, <laugh> blowing everyone away about neurogenesis, isn't really a thing yet in humans, you know, what's on the forefront of neuroscience, brain health. What do you see? Because you're in it so much every day, what do you see as like, oh, we're making such good progress in brain health in, in these ways, therefore it could, or even should lead to this kind of experience.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):

So I am very excited about two fields, the gut microbiome film, mm. Field, there is a lot to say about a leaky gut and how it, um, goes in and breaks down the blood brain barrier. That's so that's one field mm-hmm <affirmative> the other field is what you mentioned, the psychedelic space. There's only so much that I can do on a daily basis. So I'm, you know, I, I, I'm currently getting a board certification in intraoperative neurophysiology, meaning when you do neurophysiology during surgery. So my time is very, it's taken up by wow. Studying that so much. So I don't have time and I try and stay in my own field, but I know like there is a lot of research that's being done in these two fields. So hopefully next year I'll, I'll be able to research more about the gut. That's kind of, that's actually very exciting to me, the gut as it relates to the brain. And yeah. And I know that you're really excited about psychedelics.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):

Yeah. I am very excited about psychedelics and from a, a clinical application, you know, I, you know, even recreational, but you know, for me, it's always been intentional recreational because of the experiences that I have mentally, emotionally, but like the way that I feel. Yeah. Like, I, I, I have such more clarity of mind. I, I feel like I have, I feel like I, up the Ram in my laptop, you know, know, it's just the ability to just access things, think about certain things has just sign significantly improved. Um, that coupled with, uh, just other modalities, like shout out, wave neuro, uh, I've just become so much more curious about how can I measure these things, how, you know, I know I can hop on the scale. I can get my body fat mass percentage, body, fat skeletal muscle tissue. Now we have ways like the way of neuro to actually scan our brains and to measure the composition, the performance. So I feel like science has, at least in my experience the last couple years really brought to the table, a lot of new modalities to test, to train and to optimize something that used to just be improve your healthy fats, stay hydrated, sleep better, you know? Yeah. Those are all great foundations for sure. But you know, I'm looking for that little fine tuning.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):

How are you fine tuning these days?

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):

Oh, I'm doing a lot. So I am doing a lot of neuromotor training on a daily basis. I perfect my sleep every night. So right now you can tell, I I've got a bit of, uh, allergies. I was, uh, mentioning earlier. And so I'm high. I just do anything like, so I'm flying to Australia in two days, so my entire protocol is changing. So I'm doing a circadian rhythm protocol. I'm gonna be hydrating, extra, extra. I'm gonna to be doing on Friday. Cause I leave 11:00 PM. So I'll be doing, um, sauna, I bath that day. Anything to bring down the inflammation before I get on the flight. It's a 15 hour flight.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):

Yeah, damn. Um, well, it's been so good having you back here. Um, of course your expertise in your passion for understanding how this thing works upstairs. Um, in a very, very scientific application, a very, very air quote here, real world, everyday person application is incredible. Um, and what I love most about your work and you know, the whole world of neuroscience is that through a few small ways, we, the everyday human being, we can optimize our brain and in doing so we're really optimizing everything else. Yeah. And in doing so I always make this analogy of like the person, like until you start prioritizing your health and wellness, you don't know what good feels like. <laugh> yeah. Now with brain health items such as sleep healthy fats, just optimize, optimize, optimize. It's just even like 1% better. And my brain health practice translates. I feel like 20%, 30%. Yeah. In, in real life. I agree. It's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):

I agree. I always say that, uh, you are literally literally leaving money on the table every time you are stressed. Mm. So,

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):

Um, well I wanna ask our final question here. Okay. And, um, in optimization and fine tuning our life, I feel that helps propel us forward. That's the whole concept, you know, here to live a life ever forward. Um, I don't recall your answer last time. I'll have to queue it up. Maybe I'll have a comparison, but those two words, what do they mean to you ever Ford? How do you live a life ever Ford?

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):

I don't know what I said last time. And I don't know if it's changed, but I'm

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):

Sure it has <laugh> cuz you've changed. We all have.

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):

Uh, yeah, I think ever forward is if we are gonna keep moving forward, it's understanding, first of all, it's focusing on what you want and really what you want. What makes you happy in the moment without anything, without a phone, without anybody else, without anyone else not being anywhere specific, what makes you happy? And what's going to make you happy in 10 years in 20 years and get on that path of doing it. And the only way to progress to keep going forward and moving forward is by optimizing your brain and physiology, you want the best you wanna give yourself the best path. And the only way that I know to do that is by treating your brain right first and your physiology and you will definitely be able to keep moving forward to that, to whatever it is that that goal is.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And um, so you got a fan in me have, since I found you and your work and um, just, I, I love, and I appreciate people like you who not only have an area of interest and expertise, but you don't stop there. It's just maintenance. But then what else, what else? Yeah. And I think the more and more we push and train our brains, we realize more potential that we have. We can create more things. We can connect more dots. We can realize correlation causation of all these things. So I think the work that you're doing is, is paramount.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):

Likewise, chase, thank you so much for having me

Speaker 4 (01:16:01):

For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode, show notes or head to everforwardradio.com