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Your Brain Runs on Your Body: A Whole-Body Approach to Cognitive Health with Dr Christobelle Yeoh · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Dr. Christabel Yeo, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Hello again, Paul. Great to see you.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Indeed.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: It's been all of about a month or six weeks
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: since I saw you at the latest conference.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed. And it was very cool. It was very
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: cool indeed.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Now, you are a previous guest on the podcast where
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: we did a massive dive into being a mitochondriac, right?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Which is a pretty cool title. It's all about your mitochondria.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: And you have a place in Sydney that is very
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: proactive around health. It's got lots of cool toys in it.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: I've actually been and experienced it. It's frigging awesome. But today,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: we're going to talk about something particular. around a specific
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: and overall function around cognitive health. I think I just
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: read some stats that dementia is the biggest killer in Australia.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: I knew it was of women, but the last AIAT,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare thing, that I just
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: saw in 2024, it's just overtaken cardiovascular diseases.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: So cognitive health is hugely, hugely important. First of all,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: what were the big ticket?
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: I think everybody's heard about dementia, right? But let's just
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: talk about what are some of the things that go
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: wrong generally, and then what are some of the specifics
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: to Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and just early cognitive decline.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Let's just start from a big picture perspective.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, big picture perspective is that we're seeing a
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: lot more people stressed and worried about their cognitive function.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And that is definitely as they should be, because as
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: you said, that's reflected in the data that as people
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: are growing older, there are a lot more people diagnosed
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: with early cognitive decline. MCI, they call it mild cognitive impairment,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: is the technical term, and then reaching into you know,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: later stages of dementia or Alzheimer's disease. So what's going
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: on out there is we're seeing a lot of people
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: who are too stressed, anxious, and they just feel like
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: they've got brain fog, their executive function's not quite where
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: it used to be, their memory's poor, and then we're
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: seeing a big cohort too in women. going into menopause,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: and they're really stressed about their brain too. So we'll
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: talk about stress later, but that's what I think what's
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: happening actually on the street when you bump into a
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: lot of people, they're saying, oh, my memory, oh, brain fog, oh,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: stressed and anxious about future cognitive decline. And then, of course,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: the actual diagnosis when someone gets there of real cognitive
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: decline because their family have Really, it's very obvious now
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: that they can't recognize people, places, things that they should.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: And their local GP is doing a mini mental state
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: examination or a MOCA test, you know, a more detailed
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: cognitive test. And they're missing a few numbers on their scores.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: And that's really moving into a very measurable moderate situation.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: cognitive decline and in a GP clinic doctors are really
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: just asking about symptoms from the family and from the
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: patients and doing a very basic test like this and
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: in the view of preventative health functional medicine integrative practice
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: we really want to catch people way ahead of.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Time yeah Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: So just on that, before we get into some of
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: the emerging tests. So me and my wife, Carly, are
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: in our 50s and have several conversations every now and
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: then about, geez, I just walked into a room and
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: forgot what I.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Was doing or... What was that person's name?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: So there's a bit of that going on in our 50s.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: But I still have pretty amazing recall about statistics, about
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: health stuff, about places that I visited 30 years ago.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: So I'm sure there's a lot of listeners who are
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: out there in their 40s and 50s and just or
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: maybe even their 60s and just noticing that. that they're
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: becoming more forgetful. Is that a bit of an early
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: warning shot across the bows or is that something not
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: to be too concerned about at this point?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: So trying to take a balanced view about what people
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: should be concerned about, meaning we're making them a bit
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: more anxious. I think people should be concerned and in
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: the sense that I think people should be about understanding
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: their brains, understanding their neurology and working towards optimizing what
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: is bothering them slightly. Because in the end, we function
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: and exist and enjoy life and be very productive and
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: everything through our nervous system. So it's absolutely critical, in
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: my view, that people should be proactive and they're seeing
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: that they're not as good as they used to be,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: even if it's quite subtle. I would definitely want people
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: to take more agency and control of what's going on.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: And that starts with really understanding the whole nervous system.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: So that sort of brings us into a broader question about,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: so you as a clinician who is very into the
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: whole preventative space, how do you frame or even reframe
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: people's thinking about cognitive decline and cognitive health overall? Okay.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: So there's two ways I will answer this, because one
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: comes from some very well-established documentation from our very loved Dr.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Dale Bredesen, who is a neurologist, who years ago now,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: his first book about reversing cognitive decline, and that's using
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: functional medicine. And then he started to put all these
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: things on the map, which... Integrative and environmental medicine and
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: naturopathic and preventative health doctors are already all talking about.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So we're very happy with the information it's putting forward.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: It's all about diet, lifestyle, toxicity, sleep, stress, all your
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: basic pillars of health. Because I've been teaching about cognitive
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: health and brain inflammation for over a decade. So when
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I teach that to practitioners, I literally have to tell them, okay,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: you're here for module on cognitive and you're thinking brain health,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: but you actually need to know whole body, all your hormones,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: all your biochemistry, all your gut, all your mitochondria, all
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: your neurotransmitters. You have to know everything on people, right?
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: So then we're doing all the testing, just understanding biochemistry
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: across the whole spectrum. So that's been like that for
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: the last decade or so in teaching practitioners. And now
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: I have a different way of explaining it to people.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: It was that your brain is not like when people think, oh,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: cognitive health, I can't focus, poor attention, poor memory, and
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: everyone's just thinking, thinking, cognitive thinking. But in fact, thinking
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: is an emergent property of of the whole system regulation
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: cognition is a higher order function that rests on the
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: reliability of the lower order regulation systems and so then
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: that's your body and your sensory system and your motor
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: function and how strong are you and like everything from
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: motor exercise psychology i everything and so cognition is a
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: higher order system that emerges from all the other lower
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: order properties so just broadly speaking that's about feeling and
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: how good do you feel and how do you integrate
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: and sense and make sense of the world around you
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: and how do you predict what's coming next you know
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: threat safety responses and then how do you execute and
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: coordinate the next steps. And so sensing, prediction, coordination, execution,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: the terms that your average person will understand, but some
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: of those are very specific neurological terms as well. But
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: if we're going to talk neurophysiology, those are all systems
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: that wire into the brainstem. And then the brainstem is
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: sorting and sifting everything out that then gives you that
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: so-called reliability, as I was saying. of the lower order
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: regulation and then cognition starts from there. And it's like
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: when those regulation systems are feeling good, feeling safe, feeling
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: like nourished, having energy, then our cognition can really take off.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: And so that's how I explain it nowadays.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Got a very dumbed down lay person's version of that
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: is that the brain controls everything that the body does,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: but it is totally reliant on the health of the
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: body for its functioning.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, I take your... version that's probably much more easily understood.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's basically this whole idea that brain and
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: body are separate, you know, it goes way back to
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Rennie Descartes.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: We may have even talked about this before, right? And
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: we know that.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: It's just not true, right? That all of these systems
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: in the body, they have an impact, right? Your musculoskeletal system,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: your hormonal, your endocrine system, obviously the nervous system. includes
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: the brain, your digestive system, the gut brain axis, the
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: gut brain microbiome axis. I mean, everything in your body
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: has a big influence on how your brain and your
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: cognitive function actually works. But let's dive a little bit
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: deeper into what you're saying. So what I kind of
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: also heard there was that If you are, because we
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: talked about that sensory information, you talked about threat, error prediction,
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: these sorts of things. So basically, if we're feeling safe, secure,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: we're feeling relaxed, that's going to have a very different
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: input into the brain than if we're feeling stressed slash threat, right?
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And a lot of modern stressors are psychological stressors.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: They're to do with workplace, they're to do with relationships,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: they're to do with kids, they're to do with money, time,
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: these sorts of things. But our brain is kind of
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: interpreting them as this is a bit of a threat,
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: this is a bit of a danger, and I need
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: to put my attention on this thing, right?
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: So let's then talk about, like, how does this play
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: into it?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: So let's take For instance, let's take stress.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: What is the impact of chronic stress on cognitive function?
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Let's go through some of the mechanisms by which it
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: impacts your cognitive function, both in the short and the
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: longer term.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, so there are a lot of mechanisms at play.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: And so we go back to stress, then you have
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: to pull in the hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal, access and understand
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: the dysregulation in that. And then you also would think
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: about the different neural networks in the brain that would
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: respond at different times to stress. And when I said
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: different times, actually what I meant is, I used the
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: word prediction earlier. Prediction, everyone can guess what that means,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: but it's actually a neurological terminology as well. It's a
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: neurological And our adult brain is a predictive system. It's
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: not reactive. It's a prediction engine. And so that prediction
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: engine is a composite of all our past experiences, constructing
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: a model about what is going to happen. And then
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: the brain sends signals top down through the brainstem to
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: the body to prepare it for anything before even any
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: sensory signals begin to be registered. The time you mentioned Descartes,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: you know, I think it was really misinterpreted about we
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: are what we think, but it is more that we
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: are what we sense. So we are sensing by seeing, hearing, feeling,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: and there's a whole sensory motor experience of the world.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: And that experience is called interoception, and it's through the
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: brainstem that interoceptive signals are mediated to create your prediction.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: So our prediction models are already developed all the way
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: through childhood. So once you're an adult, your prediction models
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: are set. So then that's what you have going into
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: then the situation you were saying, Paul, then we're worried about.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: our mortgage, our jobs, our bosses, our relationships. And let's
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: say we are now 26 years old, because the brain
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: is not fully developed until at least the early 20s
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: or so in that context. But you can imagine that
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: child is experiencing a lot of sensory feedback that's creating
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of these loops. Because in the end, the
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: brain is there to create safety. So it wants to
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: be able to predict, manage, and then we're safe. And
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: so that child's brainstem is receiving all the sensory information.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: There may be an experience of distress. It's going to
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: decide how it's going to regulate. And then it can
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: bring itself into a homeostasis and feel like, okay, I'm
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: in balance again. So distress could be, you know, being
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: upset about your parents arguing all the time or A
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: good regulation is running around, kicking a ball and playing,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: and then we feel better again. And so physical exercise
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and neurological executions of this whole sensory motor system is
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: a big part of regulation. But that's kind of what
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: we learn that then keeps us safe. But then now
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: we are 26, 30 years old, and we're going into relationships, jobs,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: and so on, and how we are managing things those
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: places as to how easily stressed we are, how many
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: tools we've learned indirectly from our environments growing up is
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: then what makes people's kind of stress dial go up
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: and down. So I've really given you my view of
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: how stress works from a neurophysiology feeling interoceptive perspective rather
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: than there's a lot of cortisol receptors in the amygdala and,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you know, like all the cortisol response, which of course
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: it's all there and it downstream will impact hormone and metabolism.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: But I'm just speaking to how the loops are set up.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: And it's important to understand, I think, those loops and
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: the way that the brain develops, right? And that we're born...
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: with a couple of hundred billion neurons. And over our childhood,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: we are consistently pruning those synapses, those connections between them.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: And it's not like we just lose a whole heap
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: of brain tissue because you end up with 80 or
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: 90 billion neurons, but it's basically, it's like a bonsai
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: being shaped by the environmental inputs, right? Which I think
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: is why early life stress in particular can have these
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: long-term impacts on people on how they subconsciously through the
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: brainstem are judging or making sense of those sensory inputs
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: and then making decisions around those things, right? And all
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: of this happens below the level of consciousness. It was
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: just that our brains are kind of wired And as
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: you said, very rightly, it's all about survival. It's about
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: survival and procreation of the species, right?
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: They're the big drivers in the brain.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: And so if you've been brought up with adverse childhood experiences,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: your brain is perceiving things maybe a little bit differently
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: or making different judgments on those things and then making
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: different predictions about them that then influence your behavior, right?
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: You go into, so we both walk into a room.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: I've had some early adverse childhood experience.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: You haven't.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: We make very different predictions about the room based on
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: the sensory input. I might think it's threatening. You might
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: think it's an appealing, rewarding, potentially, environment. And that then
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: influences our behavior, right? Without us even freaking consciously thinking
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: about it. That's the crazy thing, isn't it?
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: That's correct. Yeah, that's correct. And that's why even though I,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: you know, work through cognitive behavioral therapy is really important, acceptance,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: compliance therapy, that sort of thing, that's really important to
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: understand and strategize. For a person who's got anxiety or depression,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I actually want to work more with the body, meaning
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: all the inputs going through the body and the brainstem. So,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: you know, the brainstem is receiving information from five key
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: locations in our neurology. And one of the locations, it's
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: a whole area, it has been taken up by this
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: whole movement through Dr. Stephen Porges, the polyvagal theory. And
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: his theory has been put to question more recently. And
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: his term that he put forward, neuroception, which is just
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: exactly what you described, that very quick subconscious reading of
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: the room to know how safe we are. So neuroception
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: is an interoceptive function, but neuroception particularly comes through the
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: cranial nerves. So voice, sound, prosody, tone, language, facial expression,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: how a person's face looks, how they sound, and you're
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: just going to really quickly make a quick neuroceptive judgment
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: on the safety. So brainstem, one of the key errors
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: entering brainstem is cranial nerves 3 to 12. So a
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: lot of what Stephen Porges talked about is in that domain.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: But of course, you know, cranium nerve 12, other vagal inputs,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: for example, is all going to be tied up into there.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: And sympathetic, parasympathetic, autonomic function is tied up into there.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: And that's only one input into the brainstem. So then
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: the other one is gut viscera input. Yeah.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: So that's huge. gut-brain axis you've mentioned, everything from the
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: pathogens in there to the diet to allergens and things
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: that irritate the gut lining and so on and so forth.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: And so that's one input. Then the next input into
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: the brainstem is vascular tone. So vascular tone is heart rate,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: blood pressure, baroreceptors, pressure receptors of the cardiovascular system. So
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: there you can already see you got a lot of
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: angles into how you could modulate that system, whether it's
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: through stretching, moving, exercising, looking after a person's blood pressure.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: It's too low. It's too high. Vascular hydration, like all
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: of that, that's one input. And then the next input,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: the fourth input is around, well, let's call it redox,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: but it's actually blood pH. So it's the pH of
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: the blood. So it is vascular inputs, but this time
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: it's through the chemoreceptors because vasculature is through pressure receptors.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: So chemoreceptors are reading like acid alkaline pH base. And
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: then people go, oh, great. Yeah, I'll drink all this alkalizing.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I'll drink alkaline water and I'll be solid.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll be solid. And we wish it's just
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: not that simple. And that previous talk on mitochondria I gave,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: I think I did with you, we touched a little
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: bit on redox, but it's complicated. It's very much to
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: do with the biophysics of the mitochondria as to where
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: your redox biology is sitting. It's sort of more in
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: the line of bioelectricity rather than biochemistry. So of course
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: it makes a difference what water you drink, how much
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: you drink and how much inflammation and how many minerals
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: you take. It's also, it's actually an exchange of light
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: and magnetism and that's redox biology. So that's fourth input.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: So the fifth input is all about breathing. It's all
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: the different receptors, biomechanics, and vagal tone in a different
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: input going through what we might do with breathing that's
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: going to influence the brainstem. And so coming back to
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: what I was saying, you know, on the person who
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: is stressed, anxious, and go and see a psychologist, that's
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: really important for high-level frontal lobe functions. But if we're
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: talking about a person with cognitive decline, or we're talking
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: about someone who doesn't really have NCI cognitive decline yet,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: but they are stressed, menopausal, a single mom, they're the
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: ones definitely losing their kids and losing their marbles and
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: coming into an office very worried. They really need a
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: lot more body approaches to teach them how to work
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: with all those five key areas I went through, which
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: is what I would call the lower order regulatory system.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: So whether we're working with breathing or the gut or
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: the hydration and the stress, the blood pressure is high,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: it's much more global.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll double click on it. But after a couple
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: of comments. Because we talked about the gut-brain axis. I
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: think everybody gets that. We will get into some of
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: the things that people can do. The interesting one was
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: the vascular tone, the input into the brain. Professor Mark Seery,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if you're familiar with the work, but
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: around challenge and threat. And he showed that if, say,
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: me and you are both presented with a potentially stressful situation, right?
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: We both very quickly make a stress appraisal. So let's
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: just say I make that immediate appraisal that this is
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: a threat, maybe because of something that's happened.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: In my past, right, whatever.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: You make an appraisal that this is a challenge, and
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: we do this subconsciously, this stress appraisal. He was the
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: first to show, and others have replicated this, that by
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: viewing it as a threat... I activate my HPA axis,
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: which you talked about earlier, hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenals for the listeners,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: which releases cortisol, right? Whereas because you're viewing it as
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: a challenge, subconsciously, you activate a different part, which is
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: the SAM axis, sympathetic adrenal medullary for our listeners. And
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: basically you're activating the fight part of the fight or
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: flight nervous system, which releases adrenaline and noradrenaline. He went
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: on to show, this is really cool shit, that when
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: you're in the fight part of your fight or flight
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: nervous system, those adrenaline and noradrenaline actually dilates your blood
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: vessels in your cardiovascular system.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: It opens it up. So the blood flow and oxygen
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: is increased to your brain.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: So you are physiologically primed for action, whereas cortisol, he showed,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: clamps your cardiovascular system. So I have less blood flow
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: and oxygen to my brain. I'm into avoiding. And then
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: the psychology, you're releasing dopamine, which is all about approach engagement.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: I'm in withdrawal mode and my body is shutting down.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: And that can come instantly. But what he then showed,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: which is so cool, is that the half-life of adrenaline
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: and noradrenaline that's activated in you, for our American friends,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: that's epinephrine, norepinephrine, a half-life of those chemicals is one
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: to two minutes. And within about four half-lives, as you
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: well know, you're back to homeostasis. So that means within
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: 10 minutes of this stressful event, your body's back to normal.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: Cortisol has a half-life of longer than an hour. So
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: that means that four or five hours later, I'm actually
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: still having a physical stress response. And all this can
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: happen from this automatic appraisal that we have, which is
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: pretty bonkers, right?
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And hence, you know, we mentioned having acceptance compliance, CBT,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: those sorts of things that really teach us how to
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: be more resilient in thinking patterns.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: And that's what you would call, I guess, a top-down approach.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: And then all what I was saying about the brainstem
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: and the body is a bottom-up approach. Yes. But both
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: are key.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: But they've got to be combined, right? I think we're
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: in violent agreement on this.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, for me, like we know that self-regulation, self-regulatory strategies,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: whether they be CBT, acceptance, commitment therapy, or just some
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: other strategies that you have, help you control or manage
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: or can help you manage your conscious thoughts and feelings
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: in and of the moment. But over time, there's a
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: neuroplastic feedback loop. If you're constantly using... This is why
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: therapy works, right? When it does work is that it's
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: a neuroplastic feedback loop that changes... how your amygdala might
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: react to these certain substances. Probably, I would imagine, I
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: haven't seen any research, but probably has some input into
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: the brainstem. So has input into those lower order things.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: But to my point, and I've always talked about this,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: is that psychotherapy or any type of therapy is basically
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: a neuroplastic exercise. It's an exercise in neuroplasticity. And that
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: is supported by the body.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: The best way to support neuroplasticity that I currently know
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: is physical exercise, right? Because it releases BDNF, VEGF, all
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: these different growth factors in the brain that actually drive neuroplasticity.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: So for neuroplasticity to happen, you need all those different
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: growth factors in your brain to help to rewire stuff.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: This is where we get into the minutia of that
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: body brain interaction, right? So It's probably, I mean, is
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: there anything else you wanted to say at a high
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: level before we get into what are some of the
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: common mismatches? And then what we'll get into towards the
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: end of the podcast for people is the so what.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: So what sort of protocols, what sort of things should
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: you be doing? But is there anything else just at
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: a top level? And I appreciate for some of this,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: this is reasonably complex and hopefully you're following, but it's
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: that here's the top level thing. What are we not
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: doing that we should be doing? What are some of
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: the mismatches? And then we get into, right, what are
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: some of the protocols? But anything else from a top
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: level at this stage?
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: I think from a top level, there's also another area
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: called the understanding the functional neuroscience of functional networks, which
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: is a relatively new thing because so far we've mentioned
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: in passing, you know, amygdala, a location of the brain
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: that might remember fear and limbic system remembering all the
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: bad memories and the brainstem, all those sorts of feeling signals.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: So apart from that, another high level to remember is
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: that functional brain networks have a say here as well.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: This is a more recent discovery because the old-fashioned shall
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I call it, neurology or neuroanatomy understood about 52 areas
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: of the brain. They're called Broadman by a neurologist from
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: about 1900 who published areas of the brain based in anatomy,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: but really on cellular structures. Oh, there's a whole cluster here,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: a whole cluster here, and they're all doing different things.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: So those are Broadman areas. You've got the visual area,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: you've got the language area you've got the different things
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: like that auditory area that the functional brain networks really
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: only came to light by the human connect home project
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: oh yes yeah and that's in 2011 or so there's
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: no final list yet but they've been producing a list
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: they started at seven and now it's about but there's
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: no final list. More around how these areas, there's large-scale
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: interconnected networks of the brain that can pull themselves up
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: or pull themselves down. So it just reminded me of
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: that when you talk about exercise is really the only
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: way to keep that neuroplasticity going. It's because movement and
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: how we use our central motor system It's not a
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: way to rehabilitate multiple networks across the system. And so
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: it would not quite be the right exercise to just
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: run to think that's just rehabilitating your brain, but to
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: move functional movement, crawling, swinging, dancing, tangoing. you know, those sorts.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: That's a really good point.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: I've talked about, I see, just as a little aside,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: people should Google the human connectome, human brain connectome. There's
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: a really cool image that will come up. I remember
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: seeing it years ago. We've identified all these different connections.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: But look, I agree with you, and I've often talked
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: about this, that like exercise in the brain is, You know,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: the motor cortex, which is the strip in the back
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: of your frontal lobes, like that controls all of your
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: body movements. But when you're moving, the cerebellum is heavily involved,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: particularly anything to do with balance and coordination is activating
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: the cerebellum. And there are so many connections between the
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: cerebellum and the frontal lobes. Right. And this is why
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: for babies, crawling really helps with that brain development. But
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: I've always said to people, like, don't just go and
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: sit on exercise machines and just exercise in a stock
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: sagittal plane, which is front back. You've got to be
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: doing complicated movements. You've got to be bringing in balance,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: stuff that's across the body, like boxing on pads where
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: there's combinations being called out.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: You've got to remember them in your frontal lobes.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: And then you've got to have the coordination and the
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: cross body stuff is so much more beneficial than just
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: pushing a bench press, right? Or sitting in a machine
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: and doing stuff.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So that's a real neuroplasticity where it's needed. Yeah, yeah,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: for sure. Okay, cool.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: So we've talked about the high level.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: We've talked about those five different inputs into the basal
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: part of the brain. We talked, you mentioned hormones. I
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: think any female listener who's going through perimenopause, perimenopause, goes, Jesus.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I get it, right? I really feel it.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: But so too, blokes who are going through andropause, right?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: That has an effect on cognitive function. And what are
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: some of the... the mismatches then that you see, the
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: big mismatches between what people are doing and what they
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: should be doing just at a global level, and then
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: we'll drill down into certain specific protocols that are really
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: good for cognitive health.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. So these are mismatches that are important because
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: they're affecting a regulation system, not just that it just
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: a mismatch but it's actually core to regulating the physiology
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: or neurophysiology and i used to think that there were
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: there is a hierarchy and and after thinking about this
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: for 10 years and i've written all these lists and
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: shifted them around differently and in the end i've decided
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: that we've got nested heteroarchies we've got different things that
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: you know i guess you get that. I'm sorry I
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: don't know a few which are really important in the
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: hierarchy of our biology but they're also sort of So
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: one would be circadian biology, because people talk about, well,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: get your sleep right, get your sleep right. And then
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: perhaps they take magnesium and they're thinking about the hours
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: of their sleep. And that's all good. But the first
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: thing is the light exposure leads the sleep physiology. So
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: the circadian biology of are you seeing the right light
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: at the right time? Yeah. outside, no blue light after
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: dark and so on. So that is a very, very,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: very pandemic mismatch in our world. So do this came
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: in biology even before you think, oh, I need to
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: get my sleep better and they.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Will sleep better.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: So that's one. Do you want to comment on that one? No, no, no.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: I think what we'll do is we'll go through them
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: all and then we'll do deep dives into some strategies
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: around them.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay. And then another mismatch would be people who
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: are taking supplements because we're talking about cognitive health. So
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of people taking supplements to improve
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: brain function. But firstly, there is a problem with mitochondrial
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: energy and cell membrane function of the mitochondria and the neurons.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: And I think that that is another hierarchy issue. like
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: that has to be got right before taking a lot
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: of supplements. And so how do you address that? It's
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: slightly connected to the circadian biology because that part has
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: got the light, but it's not just the light, but
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: it is around the environmental health because our cell membranes
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: reflect our bioelectricity. And so bioelectricity is how much are
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: we in nature grounding in the Earth's natural electromagnetic fields
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: versus being in very dense, dirty electricity environments with 5G
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: and Bluetooth and mobile phones everywhere. That affects our bioelectricity. Now,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: this is probably a very contested area.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: And emerging.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and emerging. But it does very much affect something
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: called the voltage-gated calcium channels. So the voltage-gated calcium channels
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: are your, I guess I would call it that hierarchy
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: control or that bottleneck of controlling how things go across
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: your cell membranes.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: It's the bouncers for your cells. Yeah, the bouncers.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: It's like the bouncers at a pub or a nightclub.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: They decide who gets in, who doesn't get in, when
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: they get in.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: All of this, right?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So... cell membrane function before just taking
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: heaps of supplements. Because it's a lot easier to just
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: take a lot of supplements thinking that's okay and then
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: the diet is not optimal.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: And you cannot out-supplement a bad diet, right?
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So in the end, it's the totality of the,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: let's call it bioenergetic forces in food.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Because the food also has different proton, electron charged water structure,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: deuterium depleted or not, depending on its seasonality, how processed
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: it is and so on. So you want food that's
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: like bursting with, it's a very naturopathic thinking. It's like not,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: earth's vitalism has to reflect into your food. And that's
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: where I would want people to optimize first before taking supplements.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: And then of course, with supplements, we're more targeted on
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: the cell membrane function. So lipids and phospholipids that are
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: missing from the diet, let's say, especially DHA and then
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: phospholipids that would Miami bean, egg yolks, and we're going
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: to need to switch. We both don't eat anymore. Yeah.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: So prioritizing nutrition around cell membrane function. So that's another one. Yeah.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Any other big mismatches before we get into protocols?
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: So another one. Okay. This is another mismatch maybe applicable
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: to some people, especially in the performance world. So everyone's
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: doing death work and CO2 tolerance training and trying to
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: improve their VO2 max, and you have people doing more
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: like the Wim Hof style of breathing, but then they
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: haven't looked after first their CO2 retention. So CO2 retention,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: I'm bringing this in because when we're talking about stress physiology, anxiety,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: mental health, and people who push performance, there's actually a
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: lot of people who have a degree of internal anxiety,
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: which are doing very well in putting the regulation and
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: pushing themselves into triathlons and so on to regulate themselves.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: But people who aren't aware that perhaps their CO2 is
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: too low, well, firstly, that's going to affect their aerobic capacity,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: but that really affects nervous system as well because low CO2. And,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: you know, this was all Dr. Buteyko's work.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, originally. Yeah. And a lot of good people have
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: taken that on board, like Patrick McCoo and a brother
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: of yours, I guess, Irish brother of yours, and teaching
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: people to slow their breath, hold their CO2 before they
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: kind of push into the more performance level of breathing.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Which has opposite effects to the Wim Hof breathing, right?
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I did a podcast on this recently, and.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: the different ways of manipulating your physiology through breathing, like
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: not all breathing is the same. It has very different
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: impacts depending on the speed of the breath, the time in,
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: the time out, all.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Of this stuff.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's that. And then another mismatch, I think
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: maybe this could be more in your conventional psychology support
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: services where you've got people trying to help someone's mental
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: health but then it's not to blame the person, but
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: it's the system. But then that person, or let's say
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: a conventional psychologist, it's not in their remit then to
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: advise on the diet and the inflammation. And so that's
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: a real mismatch as well, trying to improve our psychological health.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the psychology-physiology mismatch, right? Yeah. Which I talk a
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: lot about being a psychophysiologist. Okay. So, all right, let's
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: get into... protocols and things.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: And look, I know we can't be prescriptive for everybody
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: who's out there, but there's sort of big things that
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: people should really be thinking about, particularly guided around those mismatches, right?
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: So let's take the first one, which is circadian biology.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: And as you talked about, like light, when you get
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: into light and what light does at a cellular level,
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: and at a quantum level, which I don't think we
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: should go there because people's heads are going to explode.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: But Jesus, when I read that, my head nearly exploded, right?
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: And just how light, sunlight, and the different wavelengths of light,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: how they impact upon your cellular machinery, particularly.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Your mitochondria, right?
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: Which is kind of everything for our physical and our
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: mental health. And for those who want to deep dive
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: into that, they should go to the previous podcast that
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: I did with you. So what are the big things
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: people should do to get their circadian biology right? Because
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: for me, if you don't get your circadian biology right,
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: you're swimming upstream.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: You really are.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you. You'll add some music to my ears.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: So the first thing is get the first morning sunlight
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: in your eyes as soon as you wake up. Yep.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Go outside, open the window, go on your balcony. If
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: you can, put your bare feet on the grass. If
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: you can't, it's really just get that first morning light
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: as early as you can. And sunrise would be wonderful,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: but many people sort of slowly work towards that. And
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: then over the day, clock in, as I like to
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: tell my patients. get a few minutes every few hours
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: clock in with the sun and your eyes seeing the
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: light as you go through the day because as the
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: sun is traveling across our sky, it's registering our metabolic
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: clock all the way along and then we want to
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: connect our metabolism to the sun through our eyes. So
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: take off your sunglasses. Some people maybe didn't realize that.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: No sunglasses. So sunglasses really mess up our circadian clocks
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: because we're changing.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: What the real, exactly what.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: The real time really is.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: And I think, sorry just to jump in here, Christabel,
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: is that most people don't realise that Lots of our
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: cells run off circadian biology. Our hormones run off circadian biology.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: And I would say, you screw with your circadian rhythms.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: You screw with light patterns. You screw with your biology.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Full stop.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Full stop.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: You know, we're hunter-gatherers. We should be out there.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: And really interesting. I don't know if you've read this research.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: I need to dig it out and read the paper
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: in detail. I only had a quick scan of it.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: that early morning sun hitting your skin activates mechanisms in
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: your skin that actually protect you from the midday sun,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: from the later sun, the harsher sun.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: And when you think about it.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: It makes perfect sense because our hunter-gatherers were up in
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: the morning, they were exposed to the sun, and that's
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: saying signals saying, hey, the sun is up here, let's
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: activate some protective mechanisms so that, because we don't have
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: sunscreen back when we were hunter-gatherers, right?
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's so many incredibly beautiful and very subtle mechanisms
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: like what you've just described that we run like four
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: day retreats just to talk about all this and go
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: and we're in awe of it. But it's so simple
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: to go outside. But yes, I see two big things. Really,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: I hear this all the time in my patients. People
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: stop sunburning as soon as they take off their sunglasses
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: because suddenly now they're their brain and their eyes can
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: kick in the circadian biology that protects the skin against
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: the UVB. That's one. And then the other is if
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: you start getting early morning sunlight, so there's a lot
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: of infrared, and then the UVA before the UVB hits,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: and the infrared UVA is dialing you up, that protection
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: before the UVB hits, which is what you're talking about. Then, yeah,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: people start burning.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: And while we're on the topic of light, And I
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: think I know the answer to this question, but are
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: you a fan of red and near infrared light? And
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: give us the two minute version of why, because this
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: could be a whole podcast.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So as a therapeutic modality, I'm a huge fan
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: because I see a lot of patients, sick patients with
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: chronic disease, and most people are chronically light deficient. And
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: so we do need and do use a range of
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: red and infrared devices, helmets, panels, wristwatches, lasers, what have you,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: do utilize a whole spectrum of them. If someone does
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: not have a chronic disease and they're really living a
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: circadian lifestyle, there probably is no need to bring an
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: artificial red infrared light panel into the house.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: But yes, I mean, we use it therapeutically a lot.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: And I think some really cool emerging stuff about particularly
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: near infrared light and its impact on neurodegenerative diseases through
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: some of these helmets. I mean, again, that's another separate podcast,
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: but it's pretty cool stuff, isn't it?
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, totally. I encourage my patients, you know, depending
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: on the condition, Parkinson's, cognitive decline, to buy and utilize
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: different types of helmets. There's about three different helmets on
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: the market that target these different kinds of client groups.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the V-Lite being one of them.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: That's the one I know of in the States, which
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: has an option to have something through the ear and
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: something up.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: The nose as well, right? Which when I saw that, geez,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: that's brilliant. That's genius, right? Because that's getting straight in there.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: And I think the major mechanism is the impact on
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: the mitochondria. I mean, you just look at medicine now
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: and burns units, the first thing they do, or certainly
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: in best practice, is red light therapy on burns because
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: it heals the skin. There's really cool research about both
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: blue and red light for acne and particularly for teenagers.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: But then for the deeper penetrating in the body, you
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: need those different wavelengths of the near infrared. And so
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: people understand you're actually activating something called cytochrome C oxidase
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: in the electron transport.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Chain, which is basically how we produce all of our energy, right?
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And what people should know is a lot of
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: our hormone receptors are basically chromophores, so they interact with light.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: They're not just a molecular thing that, you know, a
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: biochemical pathway is being stimulated, it's actually stimulated by frequencies
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: of light.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: It's just bonkers, isn't it?
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: So light people, get outside a bit more often, but
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: start in the morning, I think is pretty key. Okay,
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: so let's talk about the food thing and getting... basically
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: our nutrition right before we supplement um like what does
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: that look like in general i know different people are
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: different um nutrigenomics all of that sort of stuff but
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: what's the big ticket things for you and then maybe
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: we'll pick two or three or maybe four whatever you
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: how many want that supplements that you think are definitely
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: things that people should be considering for cognitive health okay.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: So the food thing ties in still with the circadian
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: biology which we'd didn't finish yet. We just did the
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: light part.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, sorry. Let's finish that then.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: We will finish it with food. So it was a
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: good segue, Paul. A good accidental segue. To continue the
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: circadian prescription is the timing of food. So the circadian
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: biology starts with the timing and the type of light,
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: but is really sort of modified also with the regularity
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: and the timing of food. So timing of food would
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: be eat in the daylight hours and not at night,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: because that is when our metabolism is expecting energy. And
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: then depending on a person's autonomic state how resilient they
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: are or they aren't then we also use food to
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: try and give the it's like a brainstem safety i
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: don't know that's absolutely correct but that's what we see
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: that people with hpa access dysregulation if you start to
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: make sure they eat really regularly of course people talk
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: about blood sugar yeah but i think it's actually also
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: a brainstem safety state that if you make sure that
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: there is protein intake soon after sunrise, set up the
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: meals regularly three times a day, preferably no snacks really
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: to optimize the metabolism, and then finish dinner like three
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: hours before bed. And so that is the other kind
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: of bookend of circadian prescriptions, the timing of food. But
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: to actually what to eat is also connected to nature
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: that has dictated our metabolism, not just through light. but
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: through seasonality. So through seasonality, our food contains different angiolocation
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: on the earth. So are you in the tropics? Where
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: are you? And what's the season and what's the food there?
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: So all of that dictates the food's quality of water structure.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: So it's something called deuterium. So whether that food's got
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: more or less deuterium and it basically speaks in very
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: detailed ways, way more than this podcast can cover or
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I can cover as to our metabolic pathways. They can
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: affect leptin, leptin resistance so if people've got weight issues
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: which is just common and we know that's a precursor
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: to the whole brain insulin resistance picture of cognitive decline
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: um then we're really trying to i am always testing
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: for leptin and treating leptin resistance with a very strong
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: circadian and seasonal diet. And then, so there's the seasonal
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: effect and then there's a protein effect. There's something called
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: protein triage theory, which is to the effect of your
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: body basically is running on short-term survival. So yes, we
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: can survive on carbs and whatever other fast foods we
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: give our body just for energy then and then, but
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: we're going to compromise longer-term systems and the protein triage
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: theory actually there's two scientists behind it i think.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: I've interviewed them from sydney yeah yes really cool i'll
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: have to what i'll do is i'll dig out the
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: um the episode and i'll put it in the show
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: notes right fantastic basically that they show that all animals
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: will eat until they reach protein satiety right and so
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: if you're having a low protein high carb diet you're
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: way more likely to overeat Yeah.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: So you're going to eat bread until you have enough
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: protein or you could eat lamb chops until you have
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: enough protein.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: And we live in a very manufactured carbohydrate heavy environment
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: that you just discover.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: It'd be hard to reach your protein satiety if that's
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: your diet, right?
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: That's right. So you get overweight and quercetide and leptin resistance.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: So the protein... I'm.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Sorry, Christabel, then it's not just the overweight in and
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: of itself, but then it's the impact on of insulin
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: resistance in the brain and cognitive health, right? Not to
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: mention cardiovascular health, diabetes, all of those things.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, visceral fat, fatty liver, inflammation, all of those things.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, cool.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: Which, you know, many doctors now suddenly have this great
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: tool shoved in their hands called a GLP. Yes. But
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: they're not looking after the underlying biology.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when they're just using that in isolation, good luck.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: So to sum up here, eating the daylight hours, get
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: out early in the morning get some sun exposure then
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: eat make sure you got good protein particularly breakfast because
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: you've been fasting all night overnight and then eat seasonal
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: stuff and then good quality food and obviously the big
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: one is reduce your consumption of ultra processed foods because
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: that shit just destroys your cellular level in so many
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: ways yeah.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: Okay then supplements what would be my favorite supplements it
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: does depend on whether the person's got a chronic condition
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: or not but if someone is really living a full-on
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: circadian lifestyle and eating seasonally and doesn't have a chronic
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: disease I actually wonder if they do need supplements but
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: then they do need to be eating a lot of
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: fish a lot of oysters getting the DHA eating a
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: lot of organ meats, getting the phospholipids, the fats. But overall,
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: so those would be my supplemental choices. DHA, phospholipids if necessary,
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: electrolytes and minerals just because it's not as present in
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: the soil.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: What about, so you mentioned there are organ meats and
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: which we, as you rightly say, we don't eat very
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: much of anymore.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I love chicken livers, but I don't, I
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: probably eat them once a week.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: But, Would something like beef liver capsules be useful or
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: some sort of liver capsules?
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Would that be kind of on your list as well?
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: If people don't like organ meats, they're like, yeah.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be on mine. But knowing the company,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: how they process, how the animals. Yes.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: It's the devil is in the details, you know, with supplementation. Yeah.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: But assuming it. it meets all the right tick boxes,
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: then yes, and that would be better than a synthetic
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: B vitamin, let's say. Yeah.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: And just to underscore for people, like when they're talking
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: about omega-3 fatty acids, DHA.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Is the stuff that is really good for your brain.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: It's the EPA is more heart focused, whereas DHA is
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: brain focused, which is why I think there's some conflicting
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: evidence about interventions with omega-3 fatty acids because, you know,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: there's a whole heap of hodgepodge about how much DHA,
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: how much EPA, what was the target that they were
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: looking at brain health when they're looking at heart health.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: I think that's a bit of nuance, right?
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: What about creatine? Are you a fan or not?
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, I was going to come to then creatine and ubiquinol.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, cool. Okay. Yeah.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: So just talk us through quickly the benefits of creatine,
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: particularly for cognitive health and then ubiquinol.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: Creatine is like a Swiss army penknife.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I like that. That's cool.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: They've found so many pathways and I can't remember them all.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: I just like there's four or five distinct molecular pathways
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: and reasons why creatine is really beneficial for brain and
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: body health. And so hence the Swiss Army pen knife effect.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: And I think the way that I explain this to people, Christabel,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: is that if you think of your energy systems, we
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: have our aerobic energy system. You know, you think marathon runners, right?
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: Aerobic energy, not exclusively, but mostly. Then you have your anaerobic,
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: you think 400 meter runners. And then you have your
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: ATP PC system, which is sprinters, right? So it's one
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: of our energy system. PC stands for phosphocreatine. So creatine
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: is a direct source of energy for your cells, including
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: your neurons. I think that's why it's the Swiss army
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: knife of supplements is because.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: It's a direct source of energy for cells.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: It's not just a direct source of energy, but it's
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: around like conducting the energy and You know, and the
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: hydration of the tissue and neurotransmission. Yeah, yeah.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: You just reminded me on hydration.
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: There's a really cool study where they brought a bunch
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: of people in, did something called the Trier stress test,
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: which is a 30-minute stress battery that reliably releases cortisol.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: half the people in this were dehydrated. The other half
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: were very well hydrated. Those who were dehydrated had a 55%
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: increase in cortisol versus those who were dehydrated. So to
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: an independent stressor, dehydration amplifies the stressor. These are psychological stressors, right?
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: And it's to do with vasopressin, which is the hormone
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: that tells your kidney to hold on to water, but
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: it's also a freaking stress hormone.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: It's massive. It's unbelievable.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think hydration has to come into the nutrition, right?
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Yes. So I kind of mentioned it indirectly through eating
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: seasonal food, food and vegetables because of the type of
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: water they've got. So the type of water that fresh
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: vegetables has got versus the water you just drink through,
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know, let's say you got a decent water filter.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: It's really very different in its structure and a very
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: naturally structured water supply. So originally that would be through
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: the rivers and lakes and volcanic water flows through, you know,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: forests and things, which we just don't have anymore. But
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: that's the water that deeply hydrates. And the hydration is
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: a very key part of the biophysics of how mitochondria work.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Okay. So not all water is the same. There you go.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Who knew? Ubiquinol. Let's talk about ubiquinol. We're both fans
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: of ubiquinol.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: The thing I'll say about ubiquinol is most people are
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: probably taking too little. Yeah. The dose is too low.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: If I just cut to the chase.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: What do you think? 300 milligrams? Is that enough?
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Depends on the person's age.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So maybe for our age, Paul, 300 is okay.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: And then the next generation up, like doubling.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow. So as you get older, and that's just
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: because of the decline in your mitochondrial function, basically.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: Can you just tell people why ubiquinol, because we're just
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: having a chat about it with prior knowledge, why is
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: ubiquinol important?
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: So ubiquinol basically is like a critical part of the mitochondria, which,
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: you know, It's not just a powerhouse of the cell
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: in that it's not just making energy, it's like transforming
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: and translating energy. And so the ubiquinol is essential in
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: passing the electrons down the electron transport chain, which is
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: the transformation of mitochondrial energy in order to make ATP
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: at the end. So that's sort of Lellman's show of it.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: it's passing electrons down the electron transport.
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: And if your mitochondria aren't working well your risk of
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: almost every physical and psychiatric disease increases right um what
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: about given that we're talking about a mitochondria what about
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: um urolithin a are you a fan of that or
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: you think it's a little bit overhyped i don't.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Have enough clinical experience in that so i wouldn't speak
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: to that, but reading about it, it sounds very compelling.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: In Australia, we don't have easy access to TGA-approved products.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: I just don't use it. Yeah. And you could say, well,
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: eat lots of pomegranate. And there is, you know, the
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: precursor molecules in pomegranate allow you to make the urolithin A.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: But as to whether you need to take it because
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: there is a molecular block in making it, I don't
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: have an opinion.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, cool.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: Any other supplements? We talked DHA, we talked creatine, we
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: talked ubiquinol. Anything else that would be really high up
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: in your list for people with cognitive health concerns?
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: We mentioned the B vitamins, but preferably that's through food
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: because B vitamins are otherwise very synthetic and just prefer
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: that they're through food. And saying that, I only match
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: supplements to the person's condition and medical history. So I
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: will very often reach for additional B1 because they drink
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: too much alcohol or they've had chemotherapy or they've had
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: a very high carbohydrate diet and low nutrition diet. And
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: I might use all these supplements intentionally for three or
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: six months but not longer.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: Term right okay cool um all right so let's now
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: jump in and talk i'm aware of time but let's
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: talk about breathing dynamics and what for you is the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: the the key messages you want to get across to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: people about the breath and their breathing strategies techniques.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: Oh uh So a good friend and colleague of mine, Dr.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: Rosalba Courtney, took over 10 years to do her PhD
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: in how the breath heals. So I'm not going to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: expand on all the techniques and what individuals do because
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: there is a whole spectrum of subtle and not so subtle.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: But the high level I would say is it really
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: was and is the core foundation of many ancient healing practices,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: whether it's India and Ayurveda, whether it's China and Qigong
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: and Chinese medicine or Korea and like Eastern practices, so
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: many practices of breath work connected with moving the body,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: which was considered essential for healing conditions of body-mind. You
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: just have to do it. And whatever the breath practice
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: starts off with and looks like, it's okay. Just start
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: doing it, but where it starts kind of depends in
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: Western thinking, because, you know, I kind of think of
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: things through Western physiology, where the breath practice can match
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: the person trying to optimize their performance or their symptoms
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: kind of starts with where their level of autonomic arousal
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: is sitting.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: So if a person's level of autonomic arousal is not
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: very stable and it's all that brainstem physiology, You can't
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: just jump into any old breath practice. And that's why
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not really answering your question, just because in my world,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: in my community, I see so many people dysregulated in
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: brainstem and autonomic. But you can't go wrong by just
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: starting to work with Buteyko and training breath holding and
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: building CO2 because that's meeting one of those regulation points
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: we mentioned. Building up CO2 calms the nervous system, reduces
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: contraction because when we talk about contraction, Safety or neurological safety,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: it's not like it's just a psychological thing like Maslow's
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: hierarchy of needs. It's actually a neurological absence of defense.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: And so things are more open and relaxed. And building
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: up CO2 only keeps opening the door to more and
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: more of that. And then from there, it could be
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: so many things. So what I just spoke to was
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: making sure that regulation is looked after. But there's another
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: level of breath work, which usually needs coaching and good
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: therapists to monitor alongside. And I wouldn't recommend just jumping
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: into it. But this comes at a whole different other
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: level to where Buteyko and physiological regulation is like massive
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: psychological trauma release. Like foreign trauma release we're talking about. cathartic,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: rebirthing breath work, holotropic breath.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Holotropic, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, open mouth breathing. And that's, you know, that needs
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: like care and guidance because you want to make the
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: other person.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Proceed with caution.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: And again, I've done a podcast with Barney who does,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: and I've experienced his holotropic breathing sessions with people who
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: have had trauma and oh my God, the impact, but
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: it has to be guided.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: I would say that My view is reasonably similar to yours.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: I think for most people, doing some slow control breathing
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: throughout the day, I think is hugely important just to
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: down-regulate their nervous system, particularly when they're stressed.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: I think that's hugely important.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: But I've recently latched on to CO2 tolerance breathing. We
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: did that with a recent intervention I did with military officers.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: And as you rightly say, CO2 is a very powerful
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: signal in the brain. I have probably moved away from
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: the Wim Hof style in favor of CO2 tolerance to
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: be fair, because I think there's just much more evidence
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: around it and including hormetic effects in the brain and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: things like that, right?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's amazing. Absolutely. I'll give you a quick anecdote, Paul,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: of myself. So after I did like a week of
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: holotropic style breathing, my HRV jumped 18 points. Wow. Like,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: The week later, the week of doing it, my body
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is awful. I hate it. This
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: is so tough. I'm screaming and crying. But then a
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: week later, I wasn't even expecting this. My HRV jumped
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: up 18 points in it. stayed like that for another
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: few months until it slowly was declining. And my baseline
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: is still higher than it was.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: And that is indicative of significant nervous system adaptation, right?
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: If you're seeing such changes in HRV that are sustained,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: that's pretty cool. Any big tickets on the last topic,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: which is the psychology-physiology mismatch? Or are we basically saying,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: if you want to improve your psychology, you've got to
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: move better, you've got to manage your stress, you've got
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: to sleep better, and you've got to have better diet
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: and exposure to light. Is there anything in addition around
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: that mismatch?
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Nothing in addition that's really important. the main thing, but
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: just because we talked about the breathing and the other
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: spectrum of what breathwork can do for trauma release, I'll
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: just explain a little bit more about that somatic direction
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: of working with psychology. So breathwork is considered a somatic
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: approach to whatever, brain-body health, rather than a cognitive, because yeah,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: it's not just about CO2 tolerance training, but it's all
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: that engagement of everything, whether you're engaging emotional hyperarousal, then
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: you're doing psychotherapy on it and you're having a strong
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: cry or you're having a rage release or whatever it is,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: it's you actually engaging through that brainstem lens where I
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: gave you the five factors it actually works on a
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: lot of them because you're physically exercising by the breath
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: and by the crying or screaming you're actually exercising all
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: the diaphragmatic nervous system responses you're exercising the cranial nerves
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: through the vocalization and biology if you're like because these
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: breathwork sessions are 90 minutes yes yeah and the neurobiology
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: of what you might do through your face and facial expression,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: aka like polyvagal theory and Stephen Porges' work with all
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: his exercises for polyvagal training. You know that if you're
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: doing an exercise for 20 minutes, you're exercising those neural
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: pathways and your brain doesn't actually know or care what
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: you are thinking. It just experiences what your body is sensory,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: motorly experiencing. So if you just do that neurobiology and
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: you're laughing and smiling for 20 minutes like we do
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: with laughter yoga, which we do in our retreats, people
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: are just like, oh, he's just happy.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: I think the other thing that I would add to
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: the physiology, psychology mismatch is that we know that to
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: go back to the circadian biology, That a lot of
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: people who are depressed have low vitamin D and that
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: vitamin D in itself can be an effective antidepressant, right?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: So that's circadian biology playing into it. In terms of supplements,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: we know that creatine is a really cool paper, randomized
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: controlled trial of people with depression who were getting psychotherapy
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: and half of them, they put on creatine as well.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: It doubled the effectiveness of the psychotherapy, which is just
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: so cool, right? And there's all the stuff that you
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: just talked about with the breathing. And then there's all
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: the stuff that I mentioned earlier on about the neuroplasticity
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: driven by exercise and how DHA is important with neuroplasticity.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, that just kind of wraps it all up,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: doesn't it?
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: It's a wrap, Paul.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: Very cool. Christabel, that was awesome.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: This was very enlightening. very deep, but also very practical
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: as well. So hopefully people get, and I think understanding
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: the why, I think is hugely important for people then
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: changing their behavior. So hopefully people have listened to this
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: and gone, Okay, now I get it. I've heard I
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: should go out into morning sunlight, but now I know why.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: So now I'm going to do it, right? Now I'm
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: going to.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: Eat better because I get the impact that it has.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: Now maybe I will go and do that breathwork class.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: now that I understand how this shit all works. So
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: thank you for imparting your amazing knowledge yet again. Where
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: can people go to find out more about you? And
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: if they live in Sydney or they're visiting Sydney and
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: they want to come and experience your clinic, which is
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: frigging awesome, where do we send them to?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: The clinic I operate out of is Next Practice Genbiome, G-E-N-B-I-O-M-E.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: And then we have a sister clinic next door called Mitocore, M-I-T-O-C-O-R-E.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: And website. That's it. Mitocore.com.au and Genbiome Next Practice. So Genbiome.nextpracticehealth.com.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: And I will stick in the links to podcasts.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: Have you got any books that you've published?
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: So, those practitioners. Fifteen. I'm now five years behind publishing something.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: And I've published chapters before, but haven't managed to get
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: the full book out.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: You need to get one of those. I'm just going
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: to throw that on your very missing plate.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: I'm too much having fun out there with our retreats
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: and people.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I get it. It's fun in the time.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: Chris Bell, thank you. Enjoy your day.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: You too, Paul. Bye.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: Cheers.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: See ya.