Dr. Steven Storage. Everything comes from the brain. All of our emotions, all of our thoughts, our goals, our impulses, our behaviors. Dr. Steven Storage is a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist and he is part of Amen Clinics who go beyond traditional psychiatry. He is on a mission to change the world's perception of mental health by studying the brain to find the root cause of disease rather than just treating symptoms.

The three pillars of brain health. Sleep exercising, where they've said that they do have ADHD and they've actually described it as their superpower. Sugar was more addictive than cocaine. That's insane. The more we talk, the more I think you should come in for a scan. One of the reasons that ADHD is on the rise is technology.

In this post pandemic world, where people have been on their screens a whole lot more. With CTE, you know, who are the Biggest risk groups for that. Let's say you've hit the front of your head. What would you suggest? You know, is that sort of easiest steps that they could do today? Five things. Number one,


Right. Uh, Dr. Steven storage. Uh, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here. What, uh, what mission are you on in, uh, in your career? I am on a mission to help people understand that mental health is brain health and that ultimately, if we can get the health of our brain right, usually we're gonna feel a whole lot better mentally and emotionally.

And Who are you and, and what sort of, yeah, led you onto this path of, uh, yeah, the brain and, and mental health and psychiatry? Great question. I'm going to try to not get too philosophical about who I am, but, uh, I, I'm a psychiatrist, um, a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist. I went through the traditional training that you do in psychiatry.

I went to Berkeley for undergrad, UCLA for medical school, Stanford for residency, and then, USC for my fellowship, and I worked as a professor of psychiatry for about five years seeing patients in that model. And although I enjoyed my work, I felt really dissatisfied by it because the traditional model of psychiatry is someone comes in, they tell you their symptoms, you check off boxes to see what criteria they may meet for a particular diagnosis.

And then you think about which medication would be the best fit for them. And psychiatrists often pride themselves on being able to choose the right medicine, you know, for the right situation. But that's the main tool. You know, that's the main tool in psychiatry. And that, you know, there are exceptions, obviously.

There are some psychiatrists out there who are thinking a little bit more outside the box. But psychiatry as a whole, as an industry, is good enough that it survives, but not good enough for us to feel like we're really helping people on a deeper level. And so, coincidentally, I crossed paths with Dr. Amen, who very much shares the same philosophy as me.

We were doing a research project together, um, a research project using neuroimaging specs to differentiate pediatric bipolar versus pediatric ADHD. And we hit it off, um, I ended up joining Aiming Clinics three years ago. And, uh, and our work is very much in line with what I've been after. You know, which is, let's actually take a look at the brain.

Mm hmm. We know that everything comes from the brain. Uh, all of our emotions, all of our thoughts, our goals, our impulses, our behaviors. It's all driven by our brain. And why is it that in psychiatry we're the only medical profession that doesn't look at the organ that we're treating? Mm hmm. If you went to a cardiologist and said, I have some chest pain, and then they said, okay, here's your medicine without even listening to your heart or doing an EKG or an echo, you'd be like, I'm out of here.

I'm not, you know, um, and so our model is. Let's look at the brain. Um, let's also understand people on a really deep level. Let's give time. So we spend about two hours of face to face time during the initial evaluation and prior to that people have completed lots of paperwork. They've had an interview with one of our patient historians.

They've done the scans. They've done computer testing. So we really go deep, um, and ultimately it's reflected in the patient outcomes. People do better when you actually focus on what's the root cause, as opposed to just thinking about which pill to prescribe. Amazing. Yeah. Wow. I, I think it's, it's very interesting that, um, it didn't really cross my mind before that, you know, the fact that, Not looking at the brain, you know, not looking at if you went to a heart surgeon and they didn't scan, do a scan or something like, what is this guy?

What are they doing? Because then it becomes like, trust me, bro. I'm pretty sure I know what's going on. Here you go, you know, but, and maybe 70 80 percent of the time they might be right. Um, which is, which is good, but what about for the 20 to 30 percent of people where things. are not right. Um, I'll tell you, I've seen scans for people who come in with a report of, uh, let's say depression and you can have two people who have depression who have completely different scans.

And so your approach is going to be very different for those two people. So you can have some people who come in with a classic finding of a very, very overactive which is a deep structure in the brain. And that's one type of depression. But then I've seen people who come in with depression and you look at their scan and it's toxic appearing.

Right? It's full of pockets of reduced blood flow and activity. And that's someone where you're thinking more about metabolic causes, toxic exposures, inflammation. And the approach is radically different. You know, similar with things like ADHD. We've described seven different types of ADHD. All of which have a slightly different way of approaching it.

This is why some people, you give them a stimulant medication, and they do great. They feel like it's an overnight change, and they finally can make it clearly. And others, they get a stimulant medication, and they feel revved up, anxious, tense, and like they're, uh, on, you know, methamphetamine or something.

Um, It's different types of ADHD, and you don't know that until you actually look at it. It's interesting, yeah, with the ADHD, um, because I've had a couple of interviews, interviews recently, and um, with athletes, and where they've said that they do have ADHD, and they've actually described it as their superpower.

Oh. Interesting way to look at it. Oh, but that's so true, you know, it is so true. Um, on my Instagram account, most of what I talk about is ADHD related, and The name ADHD is unfortunate, right? The attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It makes it sound like something you definitely wouldn't want to have.

Uh, I have ADHD myself. And there are, there are superpowers associated with it. You know, people with ADHD can hyperfocus on things better than anyone else when they're interested in it. Right? So ADHD is not actually a disorder of focus. It's more a disorder of modulating focus. So you can dive in deeper than anyone else when you have ADHD, but when it's time to focus on something you're less interested in, it can feel like pulling teeth.

Yeah. People with ADHD are very creative. You know, they, they connect things that other people don't. They put things together. They often are more intuitive as well, and that's because they're constantly scanning, you know, scanning the environment, scanning people's faces, um, and picking up on some cues that maybe others might miss.

But then there are real challenges too, like, Being able to focus, being able to control impulses, sometimes hyperactivity, sometimes mood control, people with ADHD tend to have a harder time with mood regulation. And that's the front of their brain, the prefrontal cortex, which is our brain's executive center, and also our brain's brake pedal.

Is a little bit sleepy and so if we have sleepy breaks and we're feeling something big, we can, that can look like a mood swing. And would you know, I mean, would it be quite sort of easy for you to tell if you've got ADHD or would it, could it be quite hard for you to know that sometimes? I think sometimes ADHD gets misdiagnosed.

I've seen a lot of people come into our clinic who have been told that they have bipolar disorder when in reality they have significant ADHD symptoms. The main difference between the two, you know, bipolar people have periods of, you know, a week, a couple of weeks, maybe longer, a very elevated moods or irritable moods, uh, elated.

And it tends to go with reduced sleep need, so maybe sleeping an hour or two a night and feeling like you don't really need more. Racing thoughts, you know, um, increase in goal directed behavior, so taking on a whole bunch of things, but not necessarily having a good output, um, all the time. And talking really fast, you know, those are some classic examples.

And then that same person will then also have periods. of deeper depression that are sustained, you know, for at least a couple weeks, sometimes months. And that's different from the mood swings that are seen in ADHD. For ADHD, you could wake up feeling okay, and then later that day you hit, you hit just a roadblock and you're feeling really down and maybe even later in the day you bounce out of it.

You know, so it's more of those quick minute to minute, hour to hour changes. And, um, and so one clue to whether or not you have ADHD is do you have those kind of mood swings? Um, but the other is are you having a hard time with focus and organization? Do you get easily distracted? Are you forgetful? Do you lose things?

Do you walk into a room and be like, wait, why am I here? Do you put down your coffee mug and then have no idea where where you put it down, you know, those things? And then also some impulsive tendencies can be seen and, and restlessness. Are you the person when you're sitting and your leg is bouncing up and up and down, uh, constantly?

You know, those are, those are all soft signs. Um, You, you know, some of the things you're mentioning, I'm actually thinking about myself. I'm like, maybe I have ADHD. Maybe we'll have you come in for a scan and see, you know, uh, but it's not just the scan, you know, the way we diagnose AD. I don't like to rely on any one thing.

thing to diagnose, period. So, uh, the scan is an important clue, but a detailed history is an important clue, figuring out what you were like as a kid, you know, doing that whole neurodevelopmental history. And then neuropsychological testing, we do computerized testing where objectively we can see what people's reaction times look like on various measures.

And then finally, like, actually talking to the person and getting to know them and doing an exam. Uh, put it all together and then you can feel really confident about what's actually going on. And what would be, you know, what would be the, for the general person that has it, you know, what would be the best sort of Things that they could do, you know, or would it be medications or things that they could do to help manage it, you know, and make their lives a little easier?

Great question, yeah. So, first I focus on the basics, right? The three pillars of brain health. Sleep, exercise, and nutrition. You know, without those being in place, it's really hard to move brain health forward. For any indication, including ADHD. So for sleep, the basics are wake up the same time every day, no matter what, and get sun on your face as soon as you can, because that sets your circadian rhythm for the next 24 hours.

It's even more important than when you go to bed. The second is only use the bed for sleep. So when people get into the habit of hanging out in bed, reading in bed, doing home for kids, doing homework in bed, watching TV in bed, all of these things rob us of something called sleep efficiency. And sleep efficiency is the number of hours That you're in bed sleeping divided by the number of hours you're in bed, period.

So for example, if you're laying in bed for 12 hours and only 6 of those hours are you sleeping, your sleep efficiency would be 6 divided by 12, 50%. Which would be a terrible sleep efficiency. You want it to be 90 percent or more, so that means only be in the bed when you're sleeping, okay? That way you can get into actually deep, restful sleep.

And the brain is so active during sleep. So much stuff is happening while we're sleeping. The brain is literally cleaning itself while we sleep. So that's critical. And then the last one is turn off electronic screens an hour before bed. Because the reason is our eyes, our brains, have not evolved To being able to differentiate light from the sun versus light from a screen and especially the blue lights that come through are very irritating to the brain.

And so if that's coming through right before sleep, you might fall asleep. Sure, people can hypnotize themselves to sleep, scrolling through social media, but you won't get into deep sleep. And you'll, you'll likely feel less rested the next day. It's interesting when, when I. We, this is not a good thing to have, but, uh, there's a TV in the bedroom.

Um, and, uh, it's, I do also read sometimes as well before bed, but sometimes we watch a movie or something and, and I'll often fall asleep, you know, while the TV's on. But I do hear you there. And I've also noticed that like, I felt like I slept, you know, but, uh, the next day I'm not as energized as I normally would be.

Uh, yeah, yeah, it's harder to progress through the stages of sleep, uh, when we've had that artificial light coming in at the very beginning. So if it's a tradition for you, you know, to watch, you could even consider getting something like blue light blockers, you know, some lenses on Amazon, 20 bucks, 30 bucks.

Um, dollars and, uh, and then maybe at least you're blocking out the blue light. Uh, if, you know, if that's an important tradition, and if it's not an important tradition, then lose it. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a, it's a. Tough one, because it's, it's sort of very comfortable for a lot of people, you know, to, to, if it's not a TV, then a laptop or a cell phone, you know, and especially now with, with technology and social media and stuff.

And that's another thing we can chat about now. But, um, to be absolutely. You always on, you know, and you, it's so hard to, to put it away and put it down. And that's usually the last thing people do before they go to sleep is a quick, quick check of what, what's the latest happening. You know, it's pretty much the exact opposite of what you want before you go to sleep.

Exactly. And this is, you know, our brains are co evolving with technology and technology moves faster than our brains do, unfortunately. Um, But, you know, it makes me think of something called revenge insomnia, uh, where people have worked so hard during the day, you know, they're, they're running to work, they're taking care of their kids, they're doing all these things.

And at the end of the day, it's like, okay, things are quiet around. I'm going to stay up a little later, you know, because I, I deserve this, you know, I need some of this downtime, uh, and people stay up and, you know. Far later than they would and that's called revenge insomnia because it's like I'm getting vengeance on how busy my day was But then obviously the next day sucks So it's it's a balancing act.

You know, I think have I ever had revenge insomnia sure You know and but then you sort of have to just tell yourself what the cost is going to be associated with mm hmm So that's one pillar, sleep. The other is exercise, um, specifically high intensity cardio seems to be really, really helpful for ADHD.

And the reason for that is. Number one, when you're engaged in high intensity cardio, you are sending far more blood to your brain, um, and fueling areas of the brain like the prefrontal cortex is super useful. Um, the other is you're naturally increasing serotonin level when you're doing that kind of exercise.

Serotonin has a calming effect, and many people with ADHD have very busy brains. And being able to calm it down in that way helps enhance focus. Third, you're sweating. You're eliminating toxins. And we all live on Earth, so we're all exposed to a lot. And being able to eliminate some of that is also very, very helpful for brain health.

So, AD, uh, ADHD, you know, one of the best natural treatments. Is exercise and and I find high intensity cardio to be probably the most effective and that can look like 20 minutes four days a week for people, you know, as a place to begin. And if someone's not exercising at all, start with a 20 minute walk four days a week and then gradually work up.

You know, to a place where huffing, puffing, feeling like you're really pushing yourself. Why is the, why is the high intensity work so much better than steady state, um, sort of aerobic exercise? There's something about that fluctuation between giving it your all out, all out effort, uh, and then going down to just a moderate degree of exertion and then giving your all out effort again.

There's something about that that, you know, studies in cardiology have found, studies in neurology have found, that just seems to be more effective at cleansing the brain. I heard a statement. I can't remember where exactly I heard it, but it was something that it's like 95 percent of people or something like that after the age of 30 will never sprint again.

Um, something like that, which I thought was fascinating, but it's actually. Probably true. Unfortunately, it probably is true. I didn't I haven't heard that statistic, but it doesn't it's not too surprising. Um, And then the pillar is are you gonna say? No, no, it's fine. You can you can carry on. I was just gonna say the third pillar is nutrition And this is a big topic, you know, it's a big topic but ultimately food is either inflammatory For our brain or it isn't and the main three food groups that tend to be inflammatory for most people are Refined sugar and that's a hard one to cut out the sugars and everything, you know If you really read the label sugar gets snuck into all kinds of things that we don't necessarily need it snuck into But obviously sugar tastes good and it's highly addictive, you know There are studies that have been done on rats where they're offered either Sweetened water without sugar, artificial sweetener, that has cocaine in it, or sugar water, and the rats go back to the sugar water.

Because sugar, the conclusion of that particular study was, after controlling for various elements, sugar, was more addictive than cocaine. That's insane. It's insane. And this is why, you know, people say things like well, I just, I need my sugar, I miss my sugar, I crave my sugar. Yes, highly addictive, I understand.

But it's also highly inflammatory. And anything that inflames the brain takes areas where if blood flow is lower It lowers it further, and if there's an area of the brain where blood flow is hyperactive, it heightens it more. So basically, it's taking whatever we're dealing with and pushing it to a more extreme level.

Mm hmm. Um, so that's sugar. Gluten is the other one. And part of this depends on where someone lives. You know, um, I would say gluten in the U. S. tends to be more problematic than gluten in other areas, like, let's say, Italy. Part of it has to do with how it's been raised over centuries, but some people also can have a specific gluten sensitivity, and there's a way to test for that through blood testing.

But that can be inflammatory. And then the last is processed foods, which again, is, you know, more of a Western issue, but can be an issue anywhere. If you read the label and you can't pronounce what's in it, it's probably not good for you. So, those are the things I suggest that people try to avoid, especially if they have ADHD, but really any of us.

And then the best type of diet would be a Mediterranean style diet that leans paleo. So, plenty of lean protein, assuming someone's not a vegetarian, you know. Wild salmon, turkey, chicken, grass fed beef, bison on occasion, uh, plant based proteins, egg. Healthy fat. The brain is 60 percent fat after you take the water out.

Things like avocados, nuts, seeds, coconut, olive oil. Fruits and veggies. Eating the rainbow every day, not Skittles. Uh, Some fruits are better than others, you know, some fruits are very high in sugar like mango, pineapple, grapes, so moderation there, you know, but plenty of berries and melons and citrus and apple.

And then complex carbs, things that don't just spike your blood sugar and drop it. But things that sustain a nice level of glucose in your bloodstream. So, examples, quinoa, sweet potato, milk, wild rice, you know, these are, these are just examples. But that type of diet, when people can really stick to it, they're often gonna notice improvements in their ADHD symptoms, even without a medication.

So that's the first step, is The basics, um, then you think about things like supplementation, you know, there are certain supplements that have been proven to be helpful for ADHD. Things like fish oil, uh, has been shown against placebo to be helpful for ADHD. Things like vitamin D supplementation, uh, being on a multivitamin, if you're not adequately getting your nutrients over the course of the day.

There's other specific supplements like ashwagandha, rhodiola, ginseng, phosphatidylserine, the oceanol, I mean there's a there's an abundance of options out there and Part of it depends on what someone is dealing with in particular. I wouldn't throw everything at, I wouldn't want a listener to hear that and go by all those things and start taking all of them.

I think it's important to have some guidance on what you're taking. Then you think about things like neurofeedback, you know, training your brain to fire in the way that you want it to fire. You think about behavioral therapies, you know, setting up your life to create systems. that help you avoid the challenges of ADHD.

So, structure, routine, having a clear desk space, uh, setting up yourself to do 20 minute sprints of focus and then 5 minute breaks, you know, and then rinsing and repeating that cycle. Those are all examples. And then, of course, medication can be something that is useful for people, and that's a whole world.

Uh, there are two classes of ADHD medication. Stimulants. Which essentially work to increase dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain, which are the fuel for the prefrontal cortex. And then there are the non stimulants, which work in a different way, uh, but can be more useful for certain types of ADHD.

There's a lot of treatment options for ADHD. People don't have to quietly suffer with the challenges, I think. Really, the first step is asking yourself, does this sound like me? And if it does, Get an assessment and try to get an assessment at a place where They're not just only talking to you and giving you 10 minutes of their time.

I think there's, well, I think there's a lot more, it seems to be that there's a lot more awareness about it. Um, and become, there's becoming a lot more awareness about it. Um, over the last few years, um, you know, compared to when I was, you know, in school and growing up. Um, it was sort of. Yeah, I don't know you didn't hear about it as much and now it's sort of much more widely spoken about which I think Yeah, hopefully is is gonna be helpful for people to to be, you know, get them on the right track Absolutely.

I mean, I think ADHD and a lot of other mental health conditions are being spoken about more and I think I think that's that's a good thing, you know, because Ultimately stigma has been something that has prevented people from reaching out for help And the more we can do things to reduce stigma the better And as far as ADHD publicity goes, I think we have social media to thank and also blame at the same time, um, because the beauty of social media is a lot of people can be reached, a lot of people can share their experience, you know, there, there's this vast amount of information at your fingertips, but at the same time, I think one of the reasons that ADHD is on the rise Is technology, um, in this post pandemic world where people have been on their screens a whole lot more.

And I, I think this is something you were wanting to talk about, but when we're on a screen and we're scrolling through various reels and we're just swiping, swiping, swiping, swiping, what's happening in the brain is it's dumping dopamine, literally dopamine dumping. We're just draining our brain of dopamine because it's.

It feels so engaging and we're getting this constant stimulation, but the problem, especially with ADHD is you don't want to dump your dopamine, you want to slowly drip it over the course of the day. And so when people are scrolling and then shifting to trying to do something productive for work or school, that's excruciatingly challenging because you've dumped your dopamine and now here you are sitting in front of a task.

That might not be as engaging or interesting, and you're trying to focus on it. Um, so, I tell people, be careful with technology. You know, I don't think technology is the enemy. I mean, as I mentioned, I have an Instagram account. It would be a fraud if I said, don't ever go on social media. Um, but I think we have to be very calculated about how we do it.

So, so ADHD is actually, can be developed, it's not something that you're born with necessarily. Well, classically, ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition, so it's something you're born with. Um, however, things can either help or worsen ADHD symptoms over time. And for example, technology is one, you know, you might have someone who has mild symptoms of ADHD and then they find themselves addicted to the phone and scrolling and then now suddenly the symptoms are much more exacerbated.

Similarly, you can have people who develop head injuries and we can talk about that later, but head injuries can lead to ADHD symptoms. And so, in someone who had ADHD and got a head injury, it can make the ADHD worse. And someone who never had ADHD and they have a head injury, they can develop symptoms that look like ADHD.

Um, and there's other things too that can worsen ADHD symptoms over time, like emotional trauma can do it. In women, perimenopause can do it. You know, there's, there's a number of things that can worsen it. Another is just having more demands on your plate. When I, when I worked at Stanford, I would see undergraduates who would come in and in high school, they were fine.

They didn't really notice anything because. Super smart, they were able to get by and then now they get to university and there's piles of things waiting for them to do and they realize, oh my goodness, I, I'm having a hard time here focusing because the supply to their prefrontal cortex is no longer meeting the demand that's being placed.

I mean with the, just with social media and technology, um, I mean that's a huge, um, You know, part of my life, um, as with most of us, um, and particularly obviously with what I'm doing, being an athlete, having been an athlete, um, you know, creating content, you know, you're always on social media, scrolling, whether that's to, um, you know, search for something, some fresh ideas or creating things, but as, and it's amazing on the one side, you know, because it's enabled people like myself to, to make a living and do what we love, um, for the most part, um, But at the same time, it comes with a whole list of, you know, demands and pressure that goes with it.

Um, and it is very addictive. Um, and it's, you, you find yourself picking up your phone and tapping on Instagram without even thinking about it, you know, like that, that's like the first thing you pick up your phone and it's like open up Instagram and sometimes you don't even realize you're doing it. Yeah.

Um, until I actually did a test, I actually removed the app from my phone. Home page and moved it further, you know, so I had to swipe for it. And that was the first time that. So it dawned on me as I'd wanted to click on it and I was like, why am I, there's no need for me to go into Instagram right now. But I think in general, I've certainly noticed in my life and I'm sure, um, other people have as well.

I mean, I've seen that there's been a, seems to have been a rise in. Um, mental health problems with the younger generation. A lot of my friends, I mean, I've, um, as I said before, I'm on an SSRI, um, and we can get into why that is, but, you know, I think a big problem is the social media and this sort of perceived.

Perfect life that everyone's living and, and we're always on all the time. We're, we never get a chance to switch off because people are WhatsAppping you, people are emailing you. Um, you're seeing this message come up on, on Facebook then this one's on holiday here and. I mean, it's just like, it's so much for you to process for us to process, and there's never a time to really actually switch off.

Um, and, uh, I think it's doing a number on, on particularly the younger generation that's so, so into it and had that from, from when they were small kids, you know. Absolutely. And that's, that's what I was alluding to when I say technology evolves faster than our brains do, you know, it's, there is so much content that our brains are downloading on a given day.

And if you think about even when I was a kid, there was much more quiet time, you know, there was much more time to just play with your toys or be in your thoughts or, uh, go for a walk or whatever the case may be. But even if you go for a walk nowadays, unless you're not bringing your phone with you.

You're getting pinged left and right. As you said, a text, a WhatsApp, a missed call, Instagram notification, TikTok notification. And what's interesting is technology addiction shows up in brain scans. the same way that substance addictions show up. It's the same structures in the brain that light up.

There's a particular structure called the basal ganglia in the brain. It's deep inside the brain. And the basal ganglia is both the addiction center and the stress center. Stress, like fight or flight. And inside this structure, there's a tiny little piece of it called the nucleus accumbens and its job is to release dopamine whenever we do something that feels good.

So that could include drugs, that could include gambling, that could include technology, right? Uh, scrolling through Instagram. But here's the issue. It releases dopamine, but the longer we do whatever that activity is, The less dopamine gets released, you can think of it as a lemon and a lemon squeeze, you get a ton of juice over time, less and less and less, but the rest of the basal ganglia says, Hey, where did all the dopamine go?

And it ramps up in activity because it's trying to milk what it can get, but ramped up basal ganglia, stress, anxiety, tension, restlessness. So when we're not actively engaged in the behavior, we feel more tense and it's like we, we need to check, you know, have to check. So you could show me two scans with really hot basal ganglia.

One of them could be someone who's addicted to methamphetamine and the other could be someone who's addicted to their phone. That is crazy. Uh, this kind of stuff really does hijack our brain circuitry. And, and as you alluded to, like it. Technology is not going anywhere. Social media is not going anywhere.

It's part of our life, and it does offer plenty of very useful things. You know, as you see, careers, opportunities to connect with information that we never had the opportunity to before, but it also hijacks our brain. And for those of us who lose perspective. It's really hard to constantly compare the worst parts of your life, because usually when we're scrolling, one of the reasons is we're bored, to the very best moments of other people's lives.

And our brains can lose context knowing that, okay, these things that are being filmed, a lot of times there's a whole crew, there's a whole setup, there's a lot of thought that's being put into this book, and it's not necessarily an accurate reflection of how someone is living their everyday life. But that discrepancy leads to higher rates of anxiety and depression in people because it feels like well my life sucks Compared to what i'm doing and I think well, I mean i've i've experienced that myself I mean just to I wanted to add a little bit about anxiety and also panic attacks as well because that was You know something that i've been through and um You know, for those that don't know, I just, uh, I had two major injuries, broke both of my hips over two years.

And basically I was, uh, you know, sidelined for a couple of years. And then also at the same time, I'd lost majority of my sponsors. Um, so I was under that stress as well. And I was going through a relationship, a breakup at the same time. Um, and then I got diagnosed with a melanoma, um, and all within the space of two years and, um, yeah.

Just out of the blue had a panic and I never I was never someone that really understood mental health I was just thinking like, you know, you know people just need to pull themselves together You know, it's just just be just be stronger and then yeah out of the blue had a panic attack while I was watching a movie Just randomly, um, I don't know.

I thought I was dying, 100%

I mean, I, we went to the hospital and I told him I'm having a heart attack and that's how it feels. That's how it feels. It's crazy. I couldn't, you know, you, you really can't believe that your body can have that reaction. Um, and, and it feels so real, you know, having this hot flush and you can't breathe and your heart's pounding and you're like, what is going on?

And, um, Yeah, after spending four days in hospital and getting numerous tests done, they basically came back and said that it was a panic attack. And I, I couldn't, I wouldn't believe them at first. I was, I just said, there's no way. Um, and it's, it's insane to me how the body, you know, obviously deals with, it has to deal with so much stress and trauma.

And basically they explained it to me that when you've had a certain amount of trauma, it's like a glass being filled up and. You can only take so much, and when the glass overflows, it, and it can happen at any moment, um, you, then something has to give, and in my case, I had a panic attack, um, but it could be, um, severe depression, or, you know, anything like that, and I just thought it was it.

unbelievable that the body can have that reaction and it's given me a whole new respect to, um, you know, people that do suffer with mental health because it's, it's very real and the feelings that you have are, you can't control them. And I mean, I struggled with that for a couple of years afterwards, even, even when I felt sort of okay, but just having weird symptoms, having pins and needles in my hands and all of a sudden you're, your throat's tight and.

Out of nowhere, you know, and then a few, a couple hours later, it's gone again, you know, really random things. Absolutely. And, you know, this really gets at this idea that mental health is not separate from biological health. I mean, they are one in the same thing, you know, when people say, well, the depression is all in your head.

Okay, sure. You're right. Because the brain is in the head and the brain controls everything, including our movements. The way our heart beats, the way we breathe, I mean, every fundamental function is being controlled by the brain. And stress has to find a way out of the body. The body is not designed to hold on to extreme high levels of stress in perpetuity.

It has to find a way out. And for some people that comes out emotionally, right? As you said, depression, ID, talking about those things. And for other people, it ends up coming out physically. And that's what a panic attack is, right? A panic attack is a flood of stress hormone, norepinephrine, surging through the body, causing our heart to beat harder and faster, causing us to feel sweaty and shaky, causing us to feel like we're dying.

And I've seen other examples of stress coming out physically that doesn't include a panic attack. For example, people who suddenly can't walk, people who suddenly see people who suddenly have weakness on one side of their body, and it seems like they're having a stroke. There's actually a diagnosis for this.

It's called functional neurological symptom disorder. Where, essentially, someone is having neurological symptoms in their body, but structurally, everything looks okay. They see a neurologist, and the neurologist says, Well, your MRI looks good, your, you know, your, uh, spine looks good, uh, we did an EEG, it looks good, uh, nothing going on, you know?

And yet, they can't walk. Uh, and it's because their brain is now speaking a different language than their body is. Because the communication has been interrupted by high levels of stress. And it just goes to show you, mental health symptoms can come out physically. Uh, and a panic attack is a, is a, is a very good example of that.

Another, another thing which I, which I experienced, uh, which was also crazy was obviously insomnia, which a lot of people struggle with. Um, after that it happened. Um, and, um, and also, um, it's hard to explain, but I wasn't able to focus on anything, um, on, on certain things. Like it was really weird. Like I'm a mountain biker and I couldn't actually go out, right.

I was too scared to go riding at certain points because I couldn't focus. On what was coming. It was weird. Like my depth perception wasn't there. It was really bizarre. Um, and, uh, it was almost like, I guess maybe also something like brain fog as well, which maybe we could talk about a bit as well and how that relates to it all.

But it was, it was, yeah, so such a crazy feeling. It was almost like you'd taken a drug that you, you'd been a bit drunk or something that you just couldn't, You just couldn't focus properly. Yeah, and there's a good reason for that. The, uh, when we're in this constant state of fight or flight, you know, and we have so much stress hormone floating through our body, the part of the brain that heats up is the same part we were talking about earlier with addiction, the basal ganglia, the stress centers, the fight or flight centers.

And those are deep in the brain. And remember, the prefrontal cortex, the focus center, the executive center, is right at the front. And when the basal ganglia are screaming, it essentially creates background noise that drowns out the prefrontal cortex's ability to lock in and focus. And so for this reason, many people with severe anxiety Also have a hard time focusing and it can look like ADHD symptoms and for really bad anxiety.

It can also show up as kind of this dissociated feeling, you know, like derealization, feeling disconnected with your environment. Like the, the world around you is moving at a slightly different speed than you are, uh, or things feel a little distorted, a little off. It's hard to, hard to really lock in or depersonalization.

You feel disconnected from yourself, even like you don't. feel yourself in your body the same way you used to. Um, and all of it stems from from that really heightened anxiety state and the biological changes that are occurring during that state. And would this be like something like brain fog would, how would that tie in and maybe you could walk people through a bit more about what, what that is and, um, you know, cause that's something that I think a lot of people suffer with.

Absolutely. So brain fog is, is sort of a big umbrella term. It basically describes people who feel like their thoughts are floating through molasses. Being able to connect A to B just takes longer. People can feel fuzzy. People can feel fatigued. Uh, people can oftentimes also feel depressed with that. But your thoughts just aren't as crisp with brain fog.

And there's a lot of reasons to have brain fog. You know, one of them, going back to how we see brain fog on scans, we, we tend to look at two different views of the brain. One is, The outside of the brain, you know, which is the cortex, the thinking brain, and some people with brain fog when you do their scan will have a scalloped appearance across the surface of their brain, not literally scalloped, but the blood flow pattern is reduced in certain areas of the cortex, and that tends to lead to brain fog, and the top reasons for that are head injury is one, you can see scalloping following head injury, another would be toxin exposures So that can be environmental toxins, like heavy metals, paint fumes, pollution, pesticides, uh, solvents, or voluntary toxins, like drugs, alcohol.

And then the other reason to see it is inflammation, and inflammation is a big cause of brain fog. And ultimately, inflammation is at the root cause of all disease. I mean, any disease you can name, including depression, anxiety. etc. Usually inflammation has something to do with it. And so then you start to wonder about well, why is that person inflamed?

You know, is it? Is it residual healing from a head injury? Is it the food that they're putting into their body? Is it Um, a lack of sleep, is it some other medical condition that's contributing? Um, so that, that's, that's one way of understanding brain fog. The other is, if you look at the deeper parts of the brain, if they're overactive, again, it just drowns out our ability to focus.

So is someone dealing with high levels of anxiety and depression and maybe they're not even fully aware that they are, right? Sometimes helping those conditions doesn't come on as a in your face panic attack where it's very obvious. Sometimes these are very internalized conditions and we might just notice that, gosh, my energy hasn't been as good.

Like I'm kind of withdrawing a little bit from people. I'm not as interested in the things I was interested in before and and that can be depression creeping up. Um, And depression is a very common condition. And one of the symptoms of depression is you have a hard time focusing and you feel like you have brain fog.

So there's a number of reasons for it. But, um, but it's obviously very important to address. It's hard to live with brain fog for a long time. Yeah. And, and if You know what, obviously it's kind of hard because there's so many different causes of it, but I mean, what would you say would be the best sort of course of action if someone does have brain fog?

You know, where should they start looking for answers? Figure out the cause. Figure out the cause is the most important step. So, get an assessment, talk about having brain fog, and then have a professional work with you just kind of through the steps of eliminating what the possible causes are. Because again, there's no one treatment for brain fog.

Um, it really depends on what the underlying cause is. It's, you know, it's interesting that you meant that, uh, that you mentioned there with, um, with the depression, like creeping in, um, because that was before I had my panic attack, um, obviously all of that time before was extremely high stress and trauma and et cetera.

And I obviously, I knew I was stressed, um, but I also had, I started to have days every now and again where I would just feel sad. Um, And I, I was sort of no, I noticed that it wasn't, it didn't go unnoticed, but I was sort of thinking like, why am I feeling like this, you know, um, because I don't really have a reason to feel like this.

And obviously it was, you know, the body trying to cope and deal with what was happening and then ultimately panic attack. But it's, there are sometimes signs that your body gives you, which people often overlook, I think. Yeah, and that's where I think being able to engage in some kind of mindfulness practice, you know, whatever that is for the person, whether it's meditation or coloring or painting or surfing.

Yeah, like some kind of mindfulness practice where you just give yourself an opportunity to just check in on yourself, you know, how am I feeling? What am I How are things going for me right now? Anything I'm noticing popping up? Any sensations? You know, just being aware. Because we don't live in a mindfulness based society.

As we talked about earlier, we're constantly being pulled in every direction. Other than internally, um, so carving out that time is, is pretty critical for every human being. Yeah, it's interesting. I've, yeah, I find it so interesting when you go out to a restaurant nowadays and you see a couple there at dinner and uh, both of them are sitting there on their phones.

Or a Thanksgiving where every single family member is scrolling through whatever it is and And here we all are in the same room and people have almost forgotten how to connect, um, because as opposed to connecting to one person in the room, you're connecting to 50 people on your phone. And it's what the quality of the connection.

And it's, I mean, I've noticed it is directly related to how I feel, which is quite scary sometimes. Like, you know, especially with the social media side. If things are going well, you feel like, you know, obviously, especially if it's your, if it's your job or your business for things to go, well, you feel like.

On top of the world and like, ah, you know, everything's great, but things, when don't things don't go well and people don't engage in your content, maybe it's not doing as well. And then you feel kind of not worthless, but your, your worth goes down, you know, um, which is, which is not good actually. And then your brain is very much chasing the next dopamine hit, right?

A post that goes viral. Exactly. That, that can feel to the brain like hitting the jackpot at the casino. You, uh, you touched on a little bit earlier with, uh, with the injuries, um, which is something I wanted to chat about as well. Um, and how that affects things and obviously in the sport that I've done, uh, people crash and, uh, And, uh, have a lot of head knocks, um, which I think often go overlooked.

Um, and especially, I mean, I think some sports are, are worse, you know, when you talk about football and things like that, where they're having continuous knocks to the head, um, How does that, you know, what are the longterm effects? And I know there's something that's come out in the last, I don't know when it came out exactly, maybe 10 years ago, um, CTE that has led to athletes committing suicide, unfortunately, um, due to how bad the symptoms were.

Yeah, Lois, let's, let's talk about it. So, um, brains are the consistency of room temperature butter. Brains are very soft, right? Um, it's a very delicate organ. They're surrounded by a thin layer of fluid, which serves as a shock absorber, which holds up pretty well for day to day things, running, jumping. But when we take a big hit to the head, and that could be a direct hit, it could even be a whiplash injury, you know, it could be, um, a fall.

What ends up happening is, like, I'll use this model here. Let's say you've hit the front of your head. Your skull stops moving, but your brain slides forward. And there's a buildup of pressure at the site of impact, which corresponds to reduced blood flow and reduced activity. But then the brain's not done there.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So it ricochets backward, and now you get a similar buildup of pressure towards the back. And you can see reduced blood flow there. But then the final thing is, now that the brain is wobbling back and forth, like jello in a bowl, these guys, here and here, are known as the temporal lobes, because they're located right by the temples.

They live in a bony cavity in the skull, here, and also on the other side, here. And there's all these sharp, bony ridges. And so if this soft, buttery brain is bumping up against sharp, bony ridges, You also end up seeing reduced activity in the temporal lobes. So let's talk about each of those regions and what they do front of the brain.

We already talked about prefrontal cortex focus center impulse control center. So if someone's had multiple head injuries or even one big one, it's like their brain's brake pedal is cut. And so now if we're dealing with really strong emotions or impulses, and we don't have breaks. That's a risk factor.

That's a risk factor for things like suicide or even just deeper negative emotional states. The back of the brain is called the occipital lobe, and it's the visual cortex. So even though it's the farthest from the eyes, it's what processes visual information. And some people who have had a head injury might notice Sensitivity to lights, driving at night is a little bit harder, their eyes strain more quickly when they're reading, the words can even feel like they're kind of dancing on the page.

That doesn't happen to everyone, but if it does happen following a head injury, that's the part of the brain that's involved. And then the temporal lobes are absolutely critical. The temporal lobes you can think of as our temper lobes. They're very important for mood regulation. And the analogy I usually tell people is imagine you're at a bowling alley and you're holding a bowling ball.

The bowling ball represents whatever you're feeling emotionally. And the temporal lobes are like the bumpers or the guardrails you can put up for children when they're bowling. When the bumpers are all the way up, bowling's easy. You don't have to try. So when they go down, we're much more likely to roll a gutter ball.

And if the bowling ball represents sadness, you're more prone to depression. Anxiety, panic. Stress, overwhelm. Anger, rage. And people are much more likely to experience these really significant mood swings, you know, where, where they feel stuck in that gutter. And so if you put all that together and someone's had a head injury, A, the most common neurological side effect of a head injury is depression.

Most common. And so now you're dealing with a depressed state. Really? Wow. Most common. You're dealing with a depressed state. Your brakes are down and your bumpers are down. And it's a recipe, right? It's a recipe for being in a very vulnerable state. The good news is, I mean, there are things people can do about it, which we can talk about, but, but that's why people post head injury usually are dealing with significant mood swings, um, and impulse issues.

And if that's not treated or addressed or acknowledged, right? A lot of times, long time CTE wasn't acknowledged. And actually, AIM and Clinics helped with, um, some of the, the data on getting that out. Um, in part with a study of over 300 former NFL players. Um, once it's acknowledged and people talk about it, then, you know, we can actually do something about it as opposed to CTE being denied or covered up.

When you mentioned having an impact to the, to the head, um, or does it have to be a direct impact to the head or can like, because a lot of times that you'd fall and it could be a really hard fall, but you might. You know, your head might go whack. That's more, that's more of a whiplash event, which can also show up on a brain scan.

It doesn't only have to be a direct impact. Because I think, you know, when I, as I said, I've, I've had one sort of concussion where I'm. I'm really aware that it was a concussion in my life, but I'm sure that I've had others because there's been, there's also been many times where I've hit my head, um, not seemingly not that hard, but you know, you kind of like shake it off, have a, you know, you have a little head bump, but you know, I think.

It's the sort of never say die attitude of, of the sports world that it's just like, you know, push through it and, and you can get to the finish, you know, but what sort of, I mean, what are the, the, the big risks, the risk factors for people that do hit their head, even if maybe the concussion wasn't that serious, but they just keep.

Keep going, you know, I one big risk factor that you think about is future memory challenges The reason for that is we talked about the temporal lobes as being the emotional bumpers They're also critical for memory and the reason for that is the hippocampus The main memory structure of the brain lives inside of the temporal lobes So anything that we do over the course of our life that negatively affects the health of the temporal lobes worsens, you know, increases the risk of us having memory issues later on in life.

And there's other things that. Affect the temporal lobes, sleep apnea, chronic stress, toxins, you know, as some examples. So, uh, this is, this is one risk factor for developing memory issues later on. And then I would say mood related issues. Mm hmm. Head injuries are important to address, and there are things That can be done to help.

Uh, we in our again our study of 300 former NFL players. These players had scans at the beginning and computerized testing at the beginning and then they had scans at the end of the study and during the study period. some pretty basic interventions were implemented. If they were using drugs, tried to have them stop.

If they weren't exercising anymore, post NFL career, got them exercising again, eating right, promoting good sleep, and supplementation. And then for, for a subset, people also can benefit from things like hyperbaric oxygen, which I can talk about. At the end of the study, Scans look way better, people felt better, and on the objective measures of cognition, anywhere from a 25 to 75 percent improvement, depending on what they're like.

So, brains aren't stuck, right? We, we like to tell people, you're not stuck with the brain you have. Uh, brains can change. There's a lot of plasticity within the brain. It just depends on what environment are we putting that brain in, and can it achieve healing. The body wants to heal itself. Can we let it and can we give it the ingredients that will help it accomplish that job?

Why? Why I mean, why is it that some people get such severe? um symptoms after an knock to the head and others don't where for example, like my when I hit my head I Couldn't remember for 15 minutes. I was just saying the same thing over and over, but yet afterwards I had absolutely zero symptoms, like no nausea, no headaches, no, no, nothing basically from the next later that day I felt normal and I never had a symptom again.

And yeah, there's so many other, you know, people that have. Head knocks where they weren't knocked out. They weren't repeating themselves, but then a few days later These symptoms start developing with depression, nausea, headaches, all these things. Yeah? Yeah, so a few things. One is what did the brain look like going into the injury?

So in your case, you strike me as someone who's healthy, you know, you you you've been someone who's physically active. You probably eat right. You know, um, there's, there's probably a whole lot of reserve going into that hit. Someone else could go into the same hit and maybe they've had previous concussions.

Maybe they're actively using a lot of substances. Maybe they're not eating well, they're not exercising, etcetera. And so the reserves are lower. So that's one thing. What did the brain look like going into the head? The other is what was the hit like itself? You know, what was the mechanism? How significant was it?

And the third is, did someone have significant pre existing mood issues? Because if you, if you have substantial mood issues prior to the head injury, and that bowling ball was heavy, and then the bumpers have come down, It's even harder to contain a heavy bowling ball compared to a light bowling. Yeah So a lot of it has to do with what is the health of the brain coming into the injury crazy?

Yeah, that's that's because I that was something that I always wondered because I always thought you know Obviously you do think about yourself and when you hear here, you know, how how things affect people and and with With CTE, um, you know, who are the biggest risk groups for that? Um, and like, how many hits do you need, you know, to develop something like that?

Again, it's going to depend on the individual, but biggest risk groups are high impact sports. You know, I mean, uh, American football, NFL boxers. You know, these are, these are the populations that I worry about the most in terms of developing CTE. Um, but, you know, usually you're talking about someone who has sustained hundreds, uh, of hits to the head.

Wow. If not thousands of hits to the head over time. You think about a boxer in the ring. I mean, one match, a lot of hits to the head. MMA, same thing. In a standard NFL game depends on the position. The person is playing. Hopefully if they're a quarterback throwing the ball, they're not taking as many hits to the head.

Although we've seen, you know, in with the Miami Dolphins and uh, their quarterback to, uh, he's already sustained a number of serious concussions as a quarterback. Um, but a running back probably going to sustain a whole lot more, especially if it's a physical running back who's leading with their head. A defensive safety might sustain a lot, making a tackle.

You know, bumping up into each other. So there's some positional, um, risk factors too with football. And I mean, is this, uh, almost a certainty if you, if you are taking those hits that you will develop this, or do some people just genetically, um, have a bit of luck and don't get it. Yeah, it's not a certainty.

It's a risk factor. And I think if someone, I'll say this, I have a six year old boy and a three year old boy and neither one of them is going to be playing football, even if they're very interested in it, right? But let's say, let's say a child is growing up in a, in a family where Football is life, you know, and it's insane, and they love it, and they want to play.

Let's do everything we possibly can to build up reserves in that person's brain, so that if they do take a hit, it's less likely to knock them back. So, if you're going to be playing football, we better make sure you're eating right. We better make sure you're probably going to be getting exercise through football.

We better be sure to protect your sleep. We should probably get you on some supplements to protect your brain. And maybe You consider something like doing occasional hyperbaric oxygen treatments to make sure you're replenishing your brain and keeping that reserve up. You mentioned the supplements there.

What, what sort of, um, what are the main supplements that have the biggest impact on the brain? So. The basics, you know, fish oil, high dose fish oil, um, a brain directed multivitamin, uh, so that includes various ingredients that are brain boosting. And then, uh, a few other ingredients, things like ginkgo, huperzine, alpha lipoic acid, and acetylcysteine.

These are ingredients that have been shown to be helpful for either boosting blood flow to the brain or reducing inflammation. We make something called Brain and Body Power Max. Um, and it's, it's a pretty top of the line supplement for helping with head injury. But there's many, you know, many examples out there as well.

And, um, I mean, you also talked about the diet. Um, I mean, what's, uh, I'm assuming that taking supplements is Secondary to having the, the right diet, um, I mean, what's your thoughts also, you know, that with the, there's so many different diets now, whether it's plant based or ketogenic or carnivore, um, you know, what does the sort of research say and, and, I mean, what's the best things for people to be eating?

Again, I think it depends on what the person is trying to accomplish. Um, there are some people that benefit from going on a ketogenic diet if temporal lobe health is a major concern. Ketogenic diets are used in medicine for people with epilepsy to help control seizures. And the reason for that is most seizures originate in the temporal lobes.

So a ketogenic diet seems to have a calming effect on the temporal lobes. And if that's affecting someone in other ways other than seizures, it might be reasonable to try that. But I am ultimately a fan of moderation and balance. And that's why I think that Mediterranean style diet that leans paleo, avoiding sugar, minimizing gluten, avoiding processed food, for most people, that's going to be a good bet.

And I'm assuming actually having a decent amount of fat in your diet is, is very useful for the brain, seeing that the brain runs on fat. Absolutely. Yeah, the brain is 60 percent fat after the water is removed. So. You need fat fat. It's good to have a fat brain what's what's your thoughts on on on cholesterol because you know, obviously there's been there's been a lot of demonizing of cholesterol over the years and now that seems to be changing but there's a lot of opposing views and whether high cholesterol low cholesterol, but I actually heard in a in another podcast recently that um You know, people with higher cholesterol generally have lower, um, instances of Alzheimer's, for example, I don't know how true that is, but that's what I heard.

What's your sort of thoughts on the, on the cholesterol side? Yeah, so if it's too high, you worry about buildup of plaques and, you know, reduced blood flow to the brain and specifically LDL, you know, the quote unquote bad cholesterol. If it's too low, that's actually associated with things like increased risk of suicide, uh, and aggressive.

So finding that balance is important and, and just checking it on occasion. I, I, I think not everybody needs to go on a statin medication to lower their cholesterol to some very low number, uh, but you, that's, that's one where you want to work with your doctor and make sure it's not too high or conversely too low because too low can be just as dangerous.

Um, and touching. You know, just touching back on the Alzheimer's and dementia side. My grandmother actually passed away of Alzheimer's. Uh, so I've got it in the family. Um, and it's actually on my, on both sides of the family. So it's definitely something that's, uh, is on my, on my mind. Um, maybe, uh, yeah, I could.

What ways that we could sort of, uh, hopefully prevent that from, uh, you know, from becoming a part of our lives. The more we talk, the more I think you should come in for a scan. Well, I definitely, as we've been talking, it's, it's definitely crossed my mind a few times, to be honest. Yeah. Well, I'd be happy to see you.

Um, so in terms of how we think about. risk factors and modulating risk factors. Um, we actually have this mnemonic called bright minds. Each letter stands for a particular risk factor for developing memory impairment later on. The B stands for blood flow issues. So is someone hypertensive? Um, is someone not exercising, not getting their blood flowing?

Does anyone have any other sort of buildup of plaques, that's one risk factor. That's the B. R stands for retirement, which really means aging in and of itself. And we can't control aging, um, but what you can do is make sure that we age gracefully, right? So, uh, one, one issue that many people find is it's the isolation and the loneliness that comes with aging that can be most problematic.

And people might be watching TV for more than two hours a day. That's a risk factor, okay? So, connection in the community, social engagement is protected. The I stands for things like inflammation. Um, so, getting at the root cause of any inflammation that's present. Could it be diet? Could it be gum disease?

Could it be something else? And there are blood markers that can help understand what someone's inflammatory level is. Um, and then we think about things like the mental health of someone, right, that's the, that's the M of bright minds. So, how's stress control looking? Uh, is someone managing their stress effectively?

Is someone talking to someone, uh, working through stressful situations? Um, I jumped around a little bit, but to go back to the G of bright mind, that's genetics. Yeah, so it is true that having a family member with Alzheimer's disease can increase the risk. There's a test for that and some people might choose to do it.

Some people might not. But it's called the APOE4 gene and if someone has one copy, it increases the risk by 2. 5 fold and two copies it increases the risk by tenfold. That doesn't mean someone's gonna get it, right? It just means That person should be that much more proactive about making sure all these other risk factors are on point.

The H is head trauma, and we've talked about how head trauma can impact the temporal lobes and memory. The T is toxins, so things like nicotine, alcohol, environmental toxins, uh, radiation, kidney or liver disease, so trouble, like, detoxing the body. We talked about the M already. The I is immunity and infectious issues.

So does someone have a chronic infection of some kind? The N is neuro hormone deficiency. So what's someone's thyroid looking like? What are their sex hormones looking like? Low testosterone in males and females can be a risk factor. D is diabesity. So for young people being overweight or obese and for old people being underweight is actually a risk factor.

And then the final one is the S, which is sleep issues. Does someone have untreated sleep apnea? Does someone have chronic insomnia? So, so if someone can think about each of those risk factors and do their very best to address each one, they're going to be in a much better place and Alzheimer's is preventable, you know, we, we see data on our scans where someone comes in and their scan may show evidence of the brain wanting to head in that direction, even 30 years before someone ever developed symptoms, which means You get a head start, and you can do something about it.

Um, and so, it's not the, most people are led to believe that once they start losing their memory, well, that's it, you know. Uh, little to be done, but if we're proactive and preventative, we can save a lot of people, uh, lives. And if someone is starting to actually have issues, you know, with, with memory, is it then too late?

Or is there still something that can be done, even if they are a little older? Yeah, no, it's still not too late. The goal is First off, to slow progression, but that's like a primary goal. But the next goal is to actually halt and even reverse some of that progression. And the data out there for things like supplementation, things like hyperbaric oxygen has a lot of data to show that it can be helpful in, um, treating dementia.

What is, I mean, I, I have heard a little bit about that, but maybe you could walk people through what that is exactly. Yeah, absolutely. So, so hyperbaric oxygen chambers are basically these chambers you lay down in, um, and they're pressurized and they fill up with oxygen and there's different levels of chambers, some higher pressure, some lower pressure.

It turns out that the. Lower end pressure ones are very, very good for brain health, and you don't really need the super high pressure one. So we're talking about 1. of pressure, and the idea is oxygen normally is transported on red blood cells in the body, and the red blood cell can only carry so much oxygen.

So if you do a pulse oximeter, and it says 99, 100 percent, you could breathe all the oxygen you want. You're not going to go over 100 percent. But the idea is when you're in the pressurized chamber, the pressure exerts a force that kicks the oxygen off of the red blood cell into the liquid part of the blood, the plasma, and then the red blood cell restocks.

So now per milliliter of blood, you're carrying more oxygen than you otherwise would, which means your tissues see more oxygen, including the brain tissues. And more oxygen leads to less inflammation, better blood flow, vascularization, and stem cell growth. And that is really helpful. In head injury, but also in dementia or memory impairment or someone who's trying to prevent that.

Usually

it's, um, the standard protocol for hyperbaric oxygen. And again, people should consult with a physician, but the standard protocol is pretty intensive. You know, it's an hour each time, ideally five days a week for two months, you're trying to get 40 total sessions and then you reassess and go from there.

And. Other, I mean, in terms of other interventions, um, you know, maybe something like fasting, has that been looked at? What effect does that have on, on the brain? Yeah. Uh, I met, I myself intermittent fast and recommend it to many of my patients. I just finished, uh, I did two weeks ago, I did a three day water fast, which was the first time I've ever done that in my life, which was pretty tough, but, uh, pretty amazing.

Well, I felt better on the third day, which was, which was interesting, uh, that it actually got easier. Um, but it's when you tell people that aren't sort of in the health space, um, and haven't tried anything like that, they look at you like you're crazy. People can start, you know, something even far less.

Intensive than that. Um, like, like what I do is I do a daily 16 hour intermittent fast six days a week. Right. So usually around 7 PM I stop eating. Um, and then I don't eat anything until 11 AM. Usually it ends up being 12 the next day. And then during the fast window, it's just things like water, tea, you know, plain tea in a teabag, nothing added.

Or if someone's a coffee drinker. Which keep that in moderation. Um, black coffee, you know, those are the things you can have during the fast and then, uh, do that. That amounts to 16 hours of fasting. Do that six days a week and have one day where you don't necessarily do that just to keep your body guessing.

So you don't land into a steady state. Um, and the data on intermittent fasting are absolutely incredible. Um, it's one of the best ways to. Improved metabolic health, uh, and it is associated with longevity, better cognitive functioning, better memory. So I'm, I'm a big fan. Um, there was recent data that came out around cardiac concerns with intermittent fasting.

It seems that that data was not of very good quality, but that being said, as with anything, people might want to consult with their physician, especially if they're having cardiac issues before pursuing intermittent fasting. I'm a big fan of it, and I recommend it to many of my patients. And have, have you guys done, you know, done studies where you look at someone before and after, um, you know, when, before they've done a fast and after they've done a fast, and look at the brain and, and see what, what it looks like post fast?

That's a great study idea, and maybe you'll be patient number one in our study.

Um, yeah, cool. I'd be happy to. Uh, I need to get over to the States though.

And, and, uh, I've, I've seen that there's quite a bit of research also on like hot and cold, um, on saunas and ice baths and things. Um, what, uh, what have you seen on, on, on the temperature side, hot and cold? What's, what are the benefits? The benefit is toxin elimination, you know? So for a cold plunge, what's really happening?

You're, you're diving into really, really cold water. for 5 10 minutes, however long you can tolerate. Your body immediately tenses up every muscle group. And what that does is it milks the lymphatic drainage system. Um, and so it helps get all the schmutz that accumulates in our body and get rid of it. And in addition, there's some immunity benefits because it mobilizes white blood cells, you know, and um, And actually increases dopamine too, you know, so there are some people that I can attest to, yeah, there are some people who do a cold plunge first thing in the morning and they're having a very focused morning, you know, uh, and then sauna, uh, infrared or traditional steam sauna, again, it's really, really helpful for toxin elimination, primarily through sweat, you know, through sweat.

And I mean, I will say. Is there any, I've seen that there's some research also on saunas, particularly for, for things like, um, Alzheimer's and things to help prevent that. I don't know how accurate that data is, but. Well, I think it could be a very helpful intervention because. Again, one of those bright minds risk factors was toxins and anything we're doing to help give our brain a little bit of a break from the toxins it's trying to process or that it's being exposed to, I think is useful.

I do a, um, I do a cold shower every morning, uh, for two minutes, which it's. It's really cold, especially here in the winter when it's snowing outside. Um, and, um, I do, when I'm in South Africa, I've got a, a top loading freezer which I get in. Oh, that's great. People think that I'm, yeah, that they think you're a little bit nuts, but the feeling for Don't judge until you've tried it.

Don't judge until you've tried it. For, for people that haven't done it, the feeling is incredible when you, when you get out and maybe that's your body's sort of being thankful that it hasn't died of hypothermia, but you feel like you can gratitude practice very quickly. Yeah. Um, for those, I mean, I don't know what your protocol is or what you do, but what would you sort of recommend for people in terms of hot and cold, um, as an ideal sort of practice?

I think doing it maybe two, three times a week, uh, for cold plunge, you're wanting to get that water pretty cold, you know, often 59, 60 degrees Celsius, something along those lines, uh, not Celsius, Fahrenheit, Fahrenheit. Yeah, you're not going to boil yourself. Um, and, um, and, and, and usually that might be again, like five, 10 minutes, depending on what someone can tolerate.

And for sauna, again, a couple times a week could be useful. Um, and maybe. Something like 15 minutes or so, um, obviously stay very well hydrated and make sure you're not getting faint when you're in. Now people have a tendency to want to overdo things like if it's, if it's good for you, then more must be better.

Yeah, well, anything in excess. is a poison, even water, right? So you, you, you can die from drinking too much water. So I think that's another thing with the whole technology and social media that's having a, that is having a big effect on our, on our mental health is the, the. Sort of misinformation out there and there's so much information on this is good for you.

That's good. You should eat this. Don't eat that. Don't drink this. You should get in a cold plunge. You should do that. Like, and I think it's, it's incredibly hard for people to know what the heck to do because it's like, you know, everything you watch is so much. And, and you can see, yeah, exactly. You can see two different people say two different things.

Um, so number one, I would say. When you see someone post something the amount of time you dedicate to watching the post you should dedicate twice as much time to checking the source You know, who is this person? What are they saying? What's their background in all that? Um, the second is don't take on 15 things at once, you know, like we, cause you won't even know what's helping you if you embark on starting five different interventions at the same time.

Just add one thing at a time. See how you feel. Is it improving things? Great. Is it not? Move on to something else and maybe that's a good way to sort of move into this Uh sort of I like to the last couple of questions Um, the one thing I like to always add is some practical advice advice for people Um, you know if you could give a sort of shotgun approach Um for people for the basics if they want to just improve their health and And performance brain wise and their focus.

What would you suggest? You know is the sort of easiest steps that they could do today To, uh, to do that. Five things. Number one, don't believe every stupid thought that you have. Our brain floods us with automatic negative thoughts, and it really can affect how we view ourselves and how we view the world.

So anytime we have an automatic negative thought, it's important to call it out and ask, Is it true? It's 100 percent true. Is there a more accurate thought? This isn't about rosy thinking, right? It's just is there a more accurate thought and what would that thought be and how do I feel in that new thought?

Okay, so don't believe every stupid thought that you have. Exercise. Try to get at least 20 minutes of cardio four days a week and then ideally build from there. Eat right. Don't put trash into your body. Anytime you have food in front of you, ask yourself is this good for my brain or bad for my brain?

Just take the second to ask it and That'll build awareness, protect your sleep at all costs. Sleep is critical. It's not passive. It's an active thing for your brain, and then connect with your community. Make sure that you have meaningful relationships in your life. And if there are relationships that aren't meaningful or weigh you down, plants grow better when they're prune.

I think that's, yeah, that's one that often does get overlooked, uh, is, is the relationship side. Because I, I see people often, you know, I hear people say that, you know, this person, They were healthy and they got sick and you know, they got cancer or they got this and and they were eating right and they were exercising, but you know, that's There's, as you said, there's, there's so many different factors that are, you know, that health is compromised, is compiled of so many different factors.

So if you could do one of them right or two of them right, but if you're doing the rest wrong, then it's, you know, you could still be, if you're a marathon runner, who's also smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, it's probably hard to be a marathon runner doing that, but you know, um, or if you're someone who's biohacking, but then, you know, you.

Have four alcoholic beverages a night, you know, um, again, it's ask yourself before anything you do, is this good for my brain or bad for my brain? And try to make more good decisions. That's actually something that I, that we didn't touch on is alcohol, but, uh, I'm assuming I'm assuming it's, uh, is there, is there a, is there a sort of a safe amount or is it any alcohol is bad?

Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's a, it's a big question. Um, alcohol, alcohol is ethanol. There's no safe amount of ethanol for the brain, right? Even, even one drink has neurotoxic effects. The, the, the difference is when we have one drink here or there, our brain has a chance to recover. When we're having multiple drinks every single day.

Our brain does not have the chance to recover, nor does our liver. Uh, you know, there's data that shows that even two to three drinks a day for men can lead to fibrosis of the liver over time, and if it's doing that, then what is it doing to the brain? Um, that being said, I myself will have an occasional glass of wine, you know, maybe for a special event or, you know, maybe something like once every couple of months, once a month, something like that.

So, um, because there's also. You know, there's also the social piece. There's also the stress reduction piece. There's also. The taste, you know, the enjoyment with it, and assuming someone isn't having alcohol addiction, I think, know that the best amount for your brain is zero, but if there's a little bit here and there, and it's enhancing other areas of your life, social connection, relaxation, I, I think there are worse things.

No, I think the, the power of, of marketing and propaganda is, is just incredible. Um, you know, when it comes down to alcohol, because. You know, I, I don't drink. Um, and I used to drink a bit more when I was younger. Um, or when I just finished school, you know, obviously in that stage of your life going out and partying with friends and stuff, but I just felt that I always, you don't feel good afterwards, you know, even if it wasn't a really bad hangover, but you know, you just, especially when it comes down to doing sport and stuff, which obviously I'm with my sport, I would just feel for a couple of days afterwards, I would just feel flat.

You know, my energy wasn't there and my sleep wasn't great. And You know, I just kind of got to the point, I started drinking less and less over the last sort of 10 years or so. And I kind of got to the point where I was like, you know what? It's not, for me personally, it's just, it's not worth it. Like the, the down, the downside outweighs the pro for me and, uh, but it's crazy because when I go out now and I, and I order a glass of water or, uh, you know, something non alcoholic generally it's not sugary.

And, um, People look at me like, and they say, Oh, why are you not drinking? And, and then you say, Oh, you know, I don't drink. And then they, then they think one of two things. I don't think you've been an alcoholic or they, they think you're weird. Like they, they think this.

It's the only drug where it's like that, right? If someone, uh, you know, if you were in a place where everyone was doing cocaine and you just said, no, thank you. If people wouldn't look at you weird, you know, they'd be like, okay, yeah, this guy doesn't do cocaine, but somehow alcohol has very different view in society, even though it's a drug.

It's a drug. Right. And it has. Neurotoxic effects and it ages the brain and there's all kinds of I mean outside of the brain There's all kinds of other organ involvement and yet as a society, you're right. It's like oh, you're not drinking. What's wrong with you? Are you okay? Is everything okay? Yeah Have a drink And I've had patients who have struggled with alcoholism and have become sober and will be at social events and they're almost feeling pressured to drink, you know, like, are you sure you have a drink?

Come on, have a drink. We're all gonna drink, you know, and, um, and I think the more we talk about this kind of stuff, the better. We can sort of shape how society is actually viewing alcohol. So let's keep talking. It's, uh, it's, what's also interesting is that if you, the crazy part I find is if you told someone that you're not, that you're not drinking alcohol, they think it's weird.

But if you, if you went and told that same, same group of people, no, I don't drink water. I drink juice, I drink alcohol, drink coffee, but I'm just not into water. They probably wouldn't give it a second look. They'd be like, okay. Yeah. This guy doesn't like water. Yeah. Like I know so many people that told me they don't like water, you know, they don't drink water and that's, it's just so backwards.

It's crazy. You're totally right. You're totally right. I've noticed the same thing. Oh man. Um, okay. The, the, the question, the final question, which I ask every guest, uh, is what, what is success? The mean, uh, the word success mean to you? I think the word success to me means living aligned with whatever your purpose is.

So an exercise I like to have people do and that I do is rank the top 10 priorities in your life. You know, one to 10 and be honest about it. This is just for you. It's not for anyone else. So your priorities are your priorities, but rank them one to 10. And then on a separate list, rank one to 10. How much time you're spending on each of those priorities.

And look for discrepancies. If there are discrepancies, like something's really important to you, but you don't spend a lot of time on it, or vice versa. Correct it. Realign how you dedicate your time. And that's living a life aligned with purpose, and that's success. That'll do it. Uh, Dr. Storj, this was a pleasure.

Thanks so much for coming on. I'm so glad we could connect. It was great meeting you. Great chatting. A lot of important stuff we talked about. If you guys enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. And to see more episodes, click the link right up here. That was iconic.