Calm the Storm: Protecting Your Brain in a Stress-Filled World

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Hi, everybody. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. Before we dive in, drop a hello in the chat. Let me know where you’re joining from tonight so we can all get acquainted. And we’ll get started in about a minute or so

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Okay, it’s 4 o’clock, so that means it is time to talk about stress and brain health.

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So again, if you’re just joining us, thank you for being here. Please drop a hello in the chat. Let us know where you’re joining from tonight. Excited to have you all here. If you are not familiar with who I am, I am Dr. Rachel Husner

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I am a naturopathic doctor at Sulceri Health, where I work alongside Dr. Heather Sanderson, and I’m so fortunate to also

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train very closely with Dr. Dale Bredesen, whose work on reversing cognitive decline has completely reshaped how I think about brain health. So I’m excited to dive into all of that tonight

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I see we’ve got some people from here in San Diego, Canada, New York

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Oregon, Sedona, La Jolla, how fun

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Great. Well, thank you all for being here. Please continue if you’d like to introduce yourself, share where you’re from

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In the meantime, I’m going to get started. So tonight we’re going to talk about 2 things that most people do not realize are so deeply linked, and that is the stress your body is carrying every single day

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And your long-term brain health, including your risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

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So tonight, you know, I know there’s going to be a lot of questions that come up as we go through this. Please, there is a Q&A box. Please put that in there. I’ll get to questions at the end, and then there will be a replay that will be sent to everybody who’s registered, everybody on tonight, plus anybody who has registered by tomorrow.

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So you’ll see we’ve got some people joining us. Wonderful. Texas, Arizona. Thank you all for being here.

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And thank you all for caring about brain health.

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I want to introduce you to Lou. Lou, she was 58 at the time when I first met Lou. Very sharp, very accomplished, the kind of person who just kind of keeps everyone else’s life together. I called her the glue, because she is just so organized and helping

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keep her life organized as well as everybody around her. But when she first came to see me, she was a nurse, she was working a lot of nights, and she was concerned about, you know, walking into a room, forgetting why she was there, getting stuck in the middle of sentences, some word finding. She would have to write sticky notes to herself all the time, just remember to go to appointments

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And I’m curious if this sounds like anybody here tonight, this is often what I hear. So she went to her primary care doctor

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They ran some basic labs, right? They’re looking at thyroid function, checking to see if she was anemic, but everything came back normal. Also probably something that we probably hear a lot of, right, something doesn’t feel right, but labs look normal

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So she came to see us, and instantly, when I heard, you know she’s a nurse, she’s working nights, I’m like, okay, let’s see what your cortisol is. So we ran this cortisol panel. This is the salivary cortisol test that you see on the left-hand side

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And I can see right away that she is sky high, especially in the morning. It does fall, but then spikes again at night. So, you know, we talked about this. We talked about how her nervous system was never getting the message that the danger was over. She could relax now

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But this isn’t something that’s unusual. This is what I see with most of my patients. And that what we found on her testing was that her brain had been marinating in this stress hormone for years and years and years

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So tonight, I want to talk about what exactly that does to your brain, and then what we can do about it. And I think that second part is more important. What we can do about it.

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So what you’ll walk away with tonight, here is the roadmap. We’re going to cover the science. We’re going to talk about the different types of stress, what cortisol does to your brain, specifically with memory and cognition, and then we’ll shift to what you can do about it.

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But wherever you’re coming from tonight, I want you to know that you’re in the right place. Maybe you’re caring for a parent or a partner, and you want to understand what’s happening to their brain

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and protect your own along the way. Or maybe you’re noticing some changes to your own memory or focus, like Lou, right? And you want some answers.

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Not just reassurance that your labs are normal

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Maybe there’s nothing that feels wrong yet, but you are here because you want to stay ahead of it. But all of those reasons are exactly what this webinar is for. So if you have any questions again at any point tonight, please drop them in the Q&A. I will be going through that at the end of

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The webinar

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Let’s quickly define stress. We don’t need to harp on this for too long, but not all stress is the same, and it is nice to know what can be contributing to our cortisol, to our stress hormone. So we have acute stress, that’s your body’s built-in survival response

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That’s designed to get you through an immediate threat. So it’s short, it should be short. It should be short, and then it should shut off.

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Then there’s chronic stress, which is the one that never really turns off, and that’s where most of us are every day. But this is where a lot of the damage can happen.

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Then there’s eustress, which is the good stuff. That’s when we’re feeling excitement or we’re feeling motivated. If you’ve ever heard of the fact that our nervous system can’t tell the difference between excitement and nervousness

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It’s because it’s the same chemicals are being released. There’s cortisol, there’s epinephrine. It’s still activating that stress response, but it’s up to our brain and how we interpret it, whether it’s good or bad. So eustress is actually good

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But then I want us to see this is kind of a visual representation that this is how it works through the HPA axis. All of this runs through here. So the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the adrenals, that’s our stress command center. So this is what gets activated when we talk about cortisol

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There’s also something, the last one is physiologic stress

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And this is things like blood sugar. If you’re swinging from high blood sugar to low blood sugar, that can stimulate cortisol.

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If you have chronic inflammation or chronic pain, I often see people that are in chronic pain will have very high levels of cortisol. It’s very stressful for the brain to always have that chronic pain cycle going

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Disrupted sleep, another thing that will chronically elevate cortisol. These will drive up cortisol through that HPA pathway. Even if it feels like you’re handling life just fine, your blood sugar might be playing a role in that cortisol.

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So when I talk to a patient about, you know, how is your stress, I’m also asking about these things. I’m asking about blood sugar, I’m asking about pain, I’m asking about inflammation.

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But cortisol is not necessarily the villain. We actually need it in the short term. It’s very beneficial. It’s actually very neuroprotective, too, in the short term because it can help sharpen focus, it can help make us fast decisions, get us through hard things

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The problem is when it never comes down, which is where most of us are at. So chronic cortisol stimulation will drive down the immune system, it can cause immune suppression, it can drive up inflammation, it can

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Add to visceral fat gain. So fat around the organs. It can increase stroke risk, heart disease risk, muscle wasting, bone loss, disrupt their GI system or sleep

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Cause hormone imbalances, I mean, the list goes on and on. Tonight, I really want to focus in on the cognitive decline aspect of it, and how that can increase dementia risk.

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So if we look at the normal levels of cortisol and what’s actually happening, I want you to look at this sleep wake cycle, the cortisol and melatonin graph here. This is our circadian rhythm. So naturally, that pink line should rise around

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8am, that’s when cortisol is spiking, it’s giving us our energy to get out of bed, get our day going, and then it should decrease throughout the day. And then at night, when it’s low, our melatonin kicks in, so that way we can get to sleep and stay asleep

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That, my friends, that is your circadian rhythm. So when you have normal amounts of cortisol, you should have a healthy circadian rhythm. So cortisol is not the villain, but it’s a matter of how much

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in what balance

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So what chronic stress does to your brain, so at the level of the brain, we just saw it can do all these things to different body systems

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I really want us to see that it’s really the allostatic load, meaning the accumulated wear and tear on every system in our body, including our brain. So I like to think of our brain like a battery. It really only has so much energy to work with each day

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And if we have this chronic cortisol, it’s drawing from that battery. And it’s not the only thing doing that. We’ve got things like infections and toxins and poor sleep, really anything that demands our body’s resources will pull from that same charge

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So when your stress system is constantly firing, your brain has less energy to do things that actually matter, like consolidating memories, concentrating, learning new things, regulating your emotions

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So, if you look at these 2 brains, you can see that the unstressed brain has robust, widespread communication, especially through that prefrontal cortex

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And that is something in my head. So that is where the part of the brain that makes you rational, makes you thoughtful, measured

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But the stress brain, that is over-activating the amygdala. That’s your threat detector, your emotional reactivity center. That can go into overdrive and make things like your mood harder to regulate, where anxiety can creep up

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And that prefrontal cortex gets sidelined, it gets forgotten about. So you’re literally running on a different operating system under stress.

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And so this is where we see people make impulsive decisions or snap at loved ones, maybe not remember where they put their keys, and they’re running on empty. They have totally earned out that charge of the battery.

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And then we can also think of cortisol as a hole in the roof. So according to Dr. Bredesen and all of his clinical trials and what he’s done over the last couple of decades, we know that Alzheimer’s is not caused by one thing. There are these multiple holes in the roof

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That each let damage into the brain, and chronic cortisol elevation is one of the biggest and most overlooked hole that we have

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High cortisol hits 3 areas of the brain directly. We just saw that it’s neurotoxic to the prefrontal cortex, the part of you that thinks clearly, stays measured

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It also can shrink the hippocampus, which is our memory center.

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And then it can overstimulate the amygdala, so that’s where we get that feeling of overdrive, and we’re feeling instead of learning.

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But more importantly, it’s actually driving neuroinflammation. And that neuroinflammation will promote amyloid plaque formation, and that can be one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s.

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So you can plug up one hole, but the rest of the roof is still going to be leaking.

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You then will still have a leaky house. I have… I like to think of myself as, like, a carpenter or a project manager, where we’re working on everything together, right? We’re working on your nutrition, we’re working on the infections, the toxins, and then we’re also really focusing on that cortisol and the stress, so that we can fix up all of the holes in the roof

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Really quickly, I want to talk about the five different pathways, how stress damages the brain. We’ve touched on them briefly, but one is the neuroinflammation, chronic stress triggers systemic inflammation, which can cross into the brain, damage neurons

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Two is that amyloid plaque formation. So it’s amyloid beta is one of the hallmarks that we see in Alzheimer’s. It is

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Directly correlated, we see sometimes with higher cortisol when people have Alzheimer’s

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And then suppressed neurogenesis. So we’re supposed to be making new neurons all the time throughout our life in our hippocampus when we’re learning new things, but cortisol will actually suppress that and cut off the ability for new neurons to be formed in the hippocampus.

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Reduce cerebrovascular volume. We’ll see that stress affects blood vessel health in the brain. If there’s less blood flow, there’s less oxygen, fewer nutrients, and less ability to clear waste products like amyloid.

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And then finally, synaptic plasticity. So our neurons are supposed to talk to each other, form new connections throughout life.

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But chronic stress can degrade that

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So it’s nice to know if you are at higher risk where your brain can be more vulnerable if you have things like poor sleep, or if you’re isolated, if you’ve been going through a major life event in the past year

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If you’re eating in ways that spike that blood sugar, again, there’s these physiologic stress. If you’re dealing with thyroid issues or autoimmunity, these can all layer onto each other and feed the stress system.

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So for caregivers in particular, and I know many of you are caring for maybe aging parents or loved ones, partners, if you’re chronically sleep deprived or emotionally taxed, there is a real epidemic of caregiver burnout that we can see, and I see in my patients all the time

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So I want us to go through this, understand if you are checking multiple of these boxes, it’s good to face what does your stress look like and how can we get through it?

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So now let’s talk about what we can do about it. And I’m just going to check the chat really quick. Yes, there will be a copy of the presentation afterwards. It’ll be about an hour. Thank you, everybody, for answering those questions. I’ll get through the rest of the Q&A at the end. But I want us to shift a little bit. We just went through all the science on what can happen, right? We saw there’s three major areas of the brain that can get directly affected by stress or chronic cortisol. Cortisol is our stress hormone

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We saw there’s different types of stress, but now I want us to understand what we can do about it.

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So there was actually a study that was done with Harvard. It was the Harvard Mind Body Medical Institute that’s associated with Harvard. And they showed that people who consistently practiced relaxation techniques like meditation

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showed differential activity in their genes that were involved in handling free radicals, inflammation, cellular aging compared to those who didn’t. So they could see that there was this epigenetic change in their genes

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When they were consistent with mindfulness. I love this because it shows that we can completely reframe the conversation. We can talk about breathwork and meditation, yoga, and these are wonderful to help us in the moment with regulating our nervous system

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But they can literally change our DNA. But the critical, critical word here that I want us to see is that it’s consistency or consistent. Our nervous system loves a routine

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It thrives on things like predictability, things that it can rely on rather than just a single reset here and there.

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So that’s why self-care really sticks when it’s built into a routine, and not just something that we grab for in the moment.

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So

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Again, there’s some studies out there that can show the impact of meditation, mindfulness, and how it can change the level of our DNA or gene expression, which I think is pretty cool.

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There’s several different studies too that talk about the effects of meditation on cognition. So is anybody here a big meditator?

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Drop in the chat if that’s something that you like to do or if you have another form of mindfulness that you gravitate towards.

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There is a meta-analysis

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I think it was done in 2015, and this was

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I’ve done in over 2,000 individuals. Yes, 10 minutes on the Calm app that Kurtan Kriya. We’re going to talk about that in just a moment. This meditation research actually looked at over 2,000 individuals

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And found that

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It’s actually an effective adjunct therapy for improving global cognition, sleep quality, and health status in older adults. And this was looking at people with subjective cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s

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So that’s pretty strong data, looking at over 2,000 people, we can change cognition simply by just meditating.

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There was also a second study done on this was a smaller study with about 300 individuals, but it showed that mindfulness and meditation significantly improved both motor function and cognitive function in those with Parkinson’s

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So not Alzheimer’s, but another neurodegenerative condition where cognition can be affected.

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So some strong research there on meditation

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One that I really want to highlight, and that I saw some of you in the chat were saying that you’re already doing, is the Curtan Kriya. Because this one is a 12-minute practice, so really not too long, but you,

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sing and move your fingers at the same time during this meditation. It’s brought from a Kundalini tradition, and they’ve actually done research on it. There was a randomized controlled trial that was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease

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That showed that participants that did this just 12-minute meditation for 8 weeks improved memory, reduced depression, and reduced inflammatory markers, which I just think that is so cool

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So the Curtain Kriya, if you’re unfamiliar with this, again, it’s a meditation. We’re actually moving your fingers and saying words in Sanskrit. Dr. Sanderson actually has the instructions in her book, reversing Alzheimer’s

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On page, think it’s

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177

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178.

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So the instructions are on there. You can read through. It’s a really wonderful practice. And just 8 weeks they showed that it could improve cognition.

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One other practice I really love for my patients is something called yoga Nidra. This is a guided relaxation that takes you into the state between wake and sleep. And it’s also been shown in multiple studies to significantly reduce cortisol levels

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and improve sleep quality. So this is often one that I’m recommending for patients that need help quieting their mind, either enough to meditate or to get into sleep. So it can significantly help with falling or staying asleep

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Breathwork. Breathwork is pretty powerful as well. So I one time had a psychologist tell me that breath work is the fastest and most efficient way that we can hijack our nervous system, because you’re directly activating the vagus nerve

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Which is that nerve that innervates with our… it turns on our parasympathetic nervous system, which is that rest state. So it gets us out of the fight or flight and puts us into the rest state. So just by focusing on our breath

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By doing different inhales, exhales, sometimes exhaling longer, like with the four seven eight technique, you can activate that very quickly. Other people prefer the box breathing where you’re inhaling for four, holding for four

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Exhaling for 4, and then you hold again at the bottom for 4 counts.

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I personally love something called physiologic breath, and that’s where you take a big, big, big, big, deep breath in

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For the belly, through the chest, all that you feel all the way up, and then you hold at the top

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And the key is to take one more sip of air at the top of your inhale before you fully exhale

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I do that about 10 times every morning, or I did it before today when I was a little nervous, and it is a wave of relaxation that I feel come over me. I can feel that I’m getting out of that fight or flight

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If so, if that’s something that’s new to you, if you’re new to breath work, I do recommend trying out some of these exercises. There’s lots of apps that you can access different meditation and breath work instructions. I like the Insight Timer app

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Balance, headspace, Calm. These are all really wonderful apps on your phone, and most of them are free.

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I know I use Insight Timer for free, and I access some yoga nidra on there.

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Yoga, tai chi. So these are wonderful movement practices that are like a meditation in movement can activate that vagus nerve as well. Just getting outside too, some gentle walking outside. I think that’s pretty underrated at how that can even just going to the beach if you’re here in San Diego

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That can switch us into that parasympathetic state, that rest state.

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And then a note on brain retraining

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So we can rewire our brain. It’s been shown that meditation can do that

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Even just having a gratitude practice every day can do that. When I was in undergrad, I took a positive psychology class and just part of our everyday homework was to keep a gratitude journal and just to keep three things that we were grateful for

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Because it can rewire the brain to actually look more for that, look more for gratitude, right? When we’re patterning what we want to look for the positive, our brain will actively seek that out versus the negative. And that over time will help lower that stress response.

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There’s online programs too to help with this. Gupta, Primal Trust, DNRS. These are programs that are based in neuroscience to actually help increase neuroplasticity

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I use these a lot for my patients that are stuck in fight or flight. Maybe they’re stuck with a chronic pain condition, or maybe Lyme mold, and there’s a big nervous system component there. If they’re chronically ill, right, that will directly impact our cortisol system. So I find these to be very helpful online programs, especially when you need more guidance

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And then, of course, therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, different evidence-based therapies. There’s DVT, there’s EMDR, there’s so much out there that is based in science, evidence-based practices for our brain. But I want to hear from you

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I want to hear what are some things, what are some of our favorite practices that we like to do? I see Nicole, you use heart math. That’s cool. I know that works on your HRV. Eft, tapping, humming. Yes, all of that is

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Tremendous, right, especially if you’re activating that vagus nerve and directly getting to that parasympathetic

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Let’s see, belly breathing while you walk at the beach. Wow, Lily, that sounds amazing. Yeah, the salty sea air. There’s even something there with having, more of the salt in the air, actually that more ions can be very grounding for our nervous system, right? Our nervous system is electricity

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So that too, right? If we might feel like movement can be helpful to move that through us, but also the ions in the air play a role there. Qigong, oh my gosh, Qigong is amazing. Dnrs is similar to primal trust, similar to Gupta. It’s dynamic neural retraining system from Annie Hopper

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Use for people who are in like autoimmunity or chronic infections, chronic disease, and need some of that nervous system, some of that limbic support to retrain the brain so they can get out of these flares.

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Singing, praising, praying. There’s so much that we can do to activate our nervous system in the good way, in the parasympathetic way. Triangle breathing. I love all of these. It sounds like we… a lot of you tonight already have a great, solid practice

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So there’s some more here. I think the biggest thing I want you to walk away with is there’s always another tool in the tool belt. And then there’s also the power of consistency, right? We saw that with the research. We want to be consistent with it.

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And part of that is because I want you to be able to put on your armor before you leave for the day. I say, I tell my patients, how can we give you more armor? Because we can’t always control the external triggers, right? What’s making us stress, what’s activating our stress system

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But we can control how we respond to it. The internal environment, not just emotionally, but chemically, how our nervous system responds to it

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And that’s called resilience. That’s our preparation.

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I love preparation because when I did track in high school, my coach would always say

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Failing to prepare is preparing for failure. And there are times, right, where that’s true. We can prepare so that way we end up avoiding more failure in the end. So resilience is bringing on that armor and having more preparation.

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So how do we build that? These are a few of my favorites. I think a morning routine is stellar. Mostly because I’m a morning person, but also because this is when you have the most energy, right? This is when your cortisol is supposed to be higher

00:45:18.000 –> 00:45:28.000
But you should have more cognitive bandwidth at that time. And part of that is because you have more cortisol then, if it’s in a healthy amount.

00:45:28.000 –> 00:45:44.000
If you also can declutter and organize your environment, decision fatigue is a real thing. It’s a real cortisol load. If you have things in the room, especially in a room that you’re trying to rest in, like the bedroom

00:45:44.000 –> 00:45:56.000
You may be subconsciously thinking about, oh, I need to get to that pile over there, oh, I need to organize, oh, I need to get rid of that pile of clothes. So that can also be a stressor.

00:45:56.000 –> 00:46:13.000
Setting firm and clear boundaries, especially if this is something around work or about caregiving, if you need maybe about some type of relationship, it’s important to make sure that you have those boundaries that are necessary for you in your own time

00:46:13.000 –> 00:46:24.000
On the physical side, I love getting out into nature. Even just 20 minutes out in nature can measurably reduce cortisol

00:46:24.000 –> 00:46:44.000
Cold water immersion, although I put a little asterisk next to this one, because I don’t find that this is great for everybody, but getting into cold water can release endorphins. It also has been shown to decrease inflammation and activate that vagal tone or that vagal nerve

00:46:44.000 –> 00:46:59.000
But for some people, it can be stressful. If you’re getting in it and you’re panicking and you’re not able to get into that restful state in the cold water, it might be too much for you. I also don’t love it if there’s already a lot of hormonal

00:46:59.000 –> 00:47:13.000
imbalances. So for some women that might be going through perimenopause or menopause, dealing with sleep deprivation. Cold water might not be for you. This is something that’s a case-by-case basis.

00:47:13.000 –> 00:47:32.000
Red light therapy, though, I love red light. This is pretty cool how if you’re using a red light panel that’s at the certain nanometers that where you’re actually activating the mitochondria of the cell, we can see directly that it’s supporting cognition if directed to the brain cells

00:47:32.000 –> 00:47:52.000
It’s also so supportive of our circadian rhythm with how it stimulates when it comes through the eyes, it can help with balancing that cortisol and melatonin balance. Blue light, on the other hand, though, will increase cortisol. So we don’t want blue light before bed, but you can do lots of red light

00:47:52.000 –> 00:47:58.000
And then, of course, the CBT and different forms of therapy, we need to be able to process

00:47:58.000 –> 00:48:11.000
Whether that’s the threat in front of us or things from childhood, things that have patterned our nervous system to respond in different ways

00:48:11.000 –> 00:48:25.000
And there’s a lot that we can do with lifestyle as well. So with diet, I mean, blood sugar is very foundational here and it’s often missed when we’re talking about stress itself

00:48:25.000 –> 00:48:43.000
We also can see that blood sugar can be affected directly from when cortisol is high or if you have a terrible night’s sleep. If you’re wearing a continuous glucose monitor, your blood sugar might be higher the next day. I know for me, if I have a stressful day at work and I’m wearing a continuous glucose monitor.

00:48:43.000 –> 00:48:50.000
I’m way over the normal range of my blood sugar because of that cortisol.

00:48:50.000 –> 00:49:06.000
And the other opposite end is that actually having blood sugar spikes or drops can trigger cortisol itself. So if someone’s eating high carbs or skipping meals or drinking alcohol, that’s throwing off blood sugar

00:49:06.000 –> 00:49:12.000
Cortisol can be activated from that alone, not just from stress

00:49:12.000 –> 00:49:33.000
I love having people sometimes switch to matcha. So a lot of caffeine… caffeine is, you know, is fine for the brain if you’re doing it at, you know, less than three cups a day is what we say. But if you are already stressed out, caffeine can raise cortisol even more

00:49:33.000 –> 00:49:53.000
So we can switch to matcha. Matcha has some caffeine in it, but it also contains L-theanine, which is what people call this calm alertness. So you still get some energy, but you don’t get the jitters that you get with coffee. It takes away that cortisol spike from coffee

00:49:53.000 –> 00:49:55.000
And can help a lot with focus.

00:49:55.000 –> 00:50:06.000
So many of my patients really like to make that switch. I love like an organic, good quality matcha in the morning, or if I need one around noon

00:50:06.000 –> 00:50:22.000
Exercise, we know that a mix of aerobic and resistance training is so necessary for the brain. I mean, just daily walking though can help with keeping our cortisol down. It’s great to avoid excess

00:50:22.000 –> 00:50:33.000
hit or high interval training, if you are already really, really stressed out, so that we’re not getting more cortisol stimulation

00:50:33.000 –> 00:50:48.000
That’s where that zone 2 cardio comes in really hot. That’s where our heart rate is staying below 120. We’re still being able to have a conversation. You’re getting your cardio in, but you’re not stimulating cortisol too, too much.

00:50:48.000 –> 00:51:04.000
And then, of course, sleep. We need, we need, need, need good sleep to have a healthy cortisol response because of that circadian rhythm. It also is crucial for our brain health. We know that if we get enough

00:51:04.000 –> 00:51:22.000
Deep sleep, then we can activate the glymphatic system so that our brain can clear things like amyloid or inflammation or toxins that have accumulated during the day. So, getting into consistent sleep-wake schedule

00:51:22.000 –> 00:51:41.000
Rising with the sun, avoiding blue light before bed, and definitely talk with your doctor if sleep is poor for you. If you’ve worked on sleep routine and you are still struggling. I know for my patients, I always look into sleep apnea

00:51:41.000 –> 00:51:55.000
If there’s any snoring or any kind of cognitive decline, we’ll definitely want to rule that out. That will directly impact how much oxygen gets to the brain, which is

00:51:55.000 –> 00:52:18.000
crucial, but also will impair how much sleep you can get, how much restorative sleep, specifically deep sleep. So if you’re not sleeping well, that’s one of the biggest things you can do for your brain, but also to keep your stress response healthy.

00:52:18.000 –> 00:52:38.000
And research is very clear that social isolation is a modifiable risk factor for dementia. And it’s not just about loneliness, it’s about this cortisol stimulation that can happen from being isolated or from lack of cognitive stimulation from others being around you

00:52:38.000 –> 00:52:59.000
Learning new things from others around you. Or the absence of co-regulatory nervous system effect. When you’re around somebody else, they can have a direct impact on your nervous system, especially if you’re in or surrounded by safe relationships, by community, by loved ones, by friends

00:52:59.000 –> 00:53:15.000
If you’re not sure where to build that connection, here are some places you can start. There’s the local community center. Lots of classes that might be there. I love the local YMCA. Senior centers, you know, there

00:53:15.000 –> 00:53:26.000
places where you can check multiple boxes, you can go get a workout in, you can take a class, you might be able to make an art class or do something where you’re learning a new hobby, meeting somebody new

00:53:26.000 –> 00:53:36.000
Game nights either through a other people. You can host one at your house or find one at a club.

00:53:36.000 –> 00:53:49.000
Dog parks, libraries, volunteering, faith communities. It doesn’t have to be too elaborate, but we can look to see what’s in our community.

00:53:49.000 –> 00:54:03.000
Look in the local newspaper, but I always tell my patients, start at the library, start at the local community center. There’s always flyers up everywhere. See what sparks your interest, and then go from there.

00:54:03.000 –> 00:54:21.000
And I want to take a moment to talk to anyone here who is a care partner. So if you’re in this meeting because you’re worried about a loved one, you may be experiencing burnout yourself. You very well may be. It looks exactly like what I’ve described where

00:54:21.000 –> 00:54:37.000
You can have elevated cortisol, disrupted sleep. We might see that there’s accelerated cognitive aging where your brain can be impacted by this. So I hope that for yourself, we can work through

00:54:37.000 –> 00:54:47.000
through these things, build a nice routine and give you the time that you need for self-care and nervous system support.

00:54:47.000 –> 00:54:55.000
So if there’s… I want to hear again, we’ve all… so far I’ve heard some really great mindfulness techniques, but

00:54:55.000 –> 00:55:08.000
Hobbies, activities or groups that anyone here has tried tonight that has brought more joy into their life or helped with stress, got you out of the house

00:55:08.000 –> 00:55:22.000
Put it in the chat so we can see, so we can get some inspiration from everybody here.

00:55:22.000 –> 00:55:29.000
Pickleball, line dancing, yay! How fun

00:55:29.000 –> 00:55:32.000
Ballroom dancing, hiking tai chi

00:55:32.000 –> 00:55:37.000
Wow, what are gold lessons?

00:55:37.000 –> 00:55:42.000
Elizabeth, do you want to share more about what that is?

00:55:42.000 –> 00:55:47.000
Zumba, how fun. Golf, okay.

00:55:47.000 –> 00:55:51.000
No, I’m sorry if I didn’t know if I was missing something there.

00:55:51.000 –> 00:56:06.000
Our monthly potluck. Oh, how cool. Wow, Mary, that sounds really nice. So that’s a really nice way to bring together community as well as your topic talking about a topic of health

00:56:06.000 –> 00:56:24.000
Birthday Club to celebrate every birthday. Community caregiver support groups, daily prayer and Bible reading, the local gym, outdoors. Yeah, Elizabeth, I agree. Being outdoors on the course must be really nice. And I’m sure you meet a lot of people at the golf course as well

00:56:24.000 –> 00:56:46.000
So there’s so much that we can do with even just learning new hobbies at the same time, being surrounded by community, moving our bodies. I love when if you have read Dr. Sanderson’s book, she talks about checking multiple boxes, right? Stimulating our brain at the same time where we’re learning something new, moving our bodies

00:56:46.000 –> 00:57:06.000
We can be doing something that’s dual task where we’re doing exercise and learning something new at the same time, mental and physical stimulation and how great that is for the brain. Pilates club, that’s great. And then we can also have that community engagement part there. That’s so fun.

00:57:06.000 –> 00:57:15.000
No, Mary, we’re not related. Myself and Dr. Heather are not related. Although many people think we do sound and look alike

00:57:15.000 –> 00:57:30.000
Okay, well, thank you all for sharing. I think that we have seen that there’s so much that we can do in our community. But I want us to, you know, if you feel like you’re lacking there, or if you feel like you can use some support, or maybe you know somebody who’s struggling

00:57:30.000 –> 00:57:46.000
This would be a fun way to invite them out, invite them over for a potluck, and you can learn something from each other, or invite them to a game night, invite them out to play pickleball

00:57:46.000 –> 00:58:08.000
I’ve already kind of touched about this a little bit, but I want to go into a little bit more because when people come in to see me, I’m not just looking at the patient in front of me, I’m looking at the whole family, especially the people that are providing care. And I often see this caregiver stress paradox where the person that’s caring most vigilantly for somebody

00:58:08.000 –> 00:58:17.000
With Alzheimer’s or with some other condition where they’re needing more support, they’re often accelerating their own risk

00:58:17.000 –> 00:58:33.000
there’s some research that show that caregivers themselves have measurably higher cortisol than non-caregivers. I think that’s a given. But also that they may have shorter telomeres that those protective caps on the DNA

00:58:33.000 –> 00:58:50.000
might be shorter, so they might have some more oxidative stress. And a lot of that can be from things like sleep deprivation that is compound that adds every day if you are experiencing insomnia, that will add up

00:58:50.000 –> 00:59:07.000
And then, of course, as the disease may progress or as things get harder, it might take away from the social network. And that’s when we need it the most. So there could be a higher risk for cognitive decline

00:59:07.000 –> 00:59:10.000
You see

00:59:10.000 –> 00:59:28.000
I want us tonight to understand that risk, but also to reframe it that you can take care of yourself, so that way you have the ability to care for the others around you, to care for your partner, so that addressing your own health and addressing your own cortisol

00:59:28.000 –> 00:59:34.000
It’s not selfish. It’s not self-indulgent, but it’s necessary

00:59:34.000 –> 00:59:45.000
So you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you can help somebody else with theirs.

00:59:45.000 –> 01:00:00.000
I want to talk a little bit also about, for those or loved ones who can’t always follow instructions. So maybe they can’t follow meditation or maybe the kirtan Kriya might be difficult for them.

01:00:00.000 –> 01:00:04.000
So many other things that we can do for nervous system support.

01:00:04.000 –> 01:00:21.000
There’s music therapy. So this actually activates preserved emotional memory. I’m sure we’ve all seen those videos of people when they hear some music, even if they have progressed dementia, they can actually can

01:00:21.000 –> 01:00:33.000
bring back memories. There was a video of a woman who used to be a former ballet dancer, and she would bring back her routine listening to the music. And that also is decreasing cortisol

01:00:33.000 –> 01:00:49.000
There’s aromatherapy. I mean, I just took some lavender essential oil before we started today because that helps me bring down my cortisol. You can diffuse that in the room. You can take some lavender oil if it’s in a carrier oil

01:00:49.000 –> 01:00:52.000
And rub it on their wrists, rub it on the neck

01:00:52.000 –> 01:01:00.000
Massage, so a gentle hand or foot massage can absolutely activate that parasympathetic nervous system

01:01:00.000 –> 01:01:19.000
Rhythmic movement. So that might not look like dancing, but that could even just be gentle rocking or swaying. That can help not only decrease cortisol, but actually respond to the rhythm and help with different brain activation

01:01:19.000 –> 01:01:31.000
Nature, so just going outside, sitting on the back patio, walking in the garden, walking in the woods, getting outside on the beach

01:01:31.000 –> 01:01:36.000
All of that is well documented to decrease cortisol

01:01:36.000 –> 01:01:52.000
And animals. I love the just the idea of we know how animals are with babies and with small humans, but even as we get older, there’s just this calm presence that can happen

01:01:52.000 –> 01:02:08.000
When we’re even just petting an animal, that can reduce cortisol, even if we’re not necessarily putting together why that’s happening, or why understanding why we’re petting the animal, it can still reduce that cortisol. So pretty cool stuff there.

01:02:08.000 –> 01:02:25.000
I think the most important tool that I like to talk about, though, is this thing called polyvagal co-regulation, which means that your calm nervous system directly lowers the people around you

01:02:25.000 –> 01:02:42.000
So if you are a care partner with your loved one, if you’re practicing something like the Kanria or some other mindfulness and you’re getting into that calmer state, your calmer presence will help to regulate the environment around you.

01:02:42.000 –> 01:02:44.000
Your loved one’s nervous system

01:02:44.000 –> 01:03:01.000
So just setting that example, and they oftentimes will see people will start to mimic what you’re doing and there might not be full adherence to something like the Coutan Kriya, but still benefit

01:03:01.000 –> 01:03:17.000
And then for earlier stage patients, breathwork, we know how great that can be, but we can maybe sometimes teach it with hand cues or visual cues. So sometimes we’ll help patients by showing that you can inhale as you rise the hands

01:03:17.000 –> 01:03:24.000
And exhale as you lower the hands.

01:03:24.000 –> 01:03:39.000
There’s some different supplements, and I also talk about for supporting the HPA axis. So there’s different adaptogens. Adaptogens are usually different types of herbs or nutraceuticals that actually

01:03:39.000 –> 01:03:57.000
protect the adrenal glands and increase resilience, so you’re not producing so much cortisol in response to a stressor. I want to highlight in particular phosphatidylserine, because this is one that I use a lot when I’m looking at people’s cortisol

01:03:57.000 –> 01:04:12.000
And it’s high, especially at night. I love using phosphatidylserine. I’m sure a lot of you here, if you have seen myself or Dr. Sanderson, are familiar with this product, but it’s a phospholipid that’s actually

01:04:12.000 –> 01:04:29.000
Concentrated in our brain cell membranes, but it’s been shown to blunt the cortisol response and help with breaking down cortisol. So, particularly at night, I like to use phosphatylserine if people are having a hard time with staying asleep

01:04:29.000 –> 01:04:46.000
Magnesium. I mean magnesium is so foundational. We call it the stress mineral because it gets so depleted with stress. But it’s also just depleted by so many other things and most of us are deficient in it. So magnesium, particularly magnesium glycinate

01:04:46.000 –> 01:04:58.000
is really helpful for the nervous system. Magnesium threonate can be really helpful for the brain, but I like magnesium glycinate for the nervous system.

01:04:58.000 –> 01:05:07.000
Omega-3s, vitamin C, vitamin D, your B vitamins, your zinc, all of these things help to nourish the adrenal glands as well.

01:05:07.000 –> 01:05:18.000
There are some neuroprotective herbs like saffron. Saffron’s pretty cool because it’s been studied against different antidepressants to help with

01:05:18.000 –> 01:05:30.000
depression and also increasing serotonin. We’ve also seen that they can help with cognition. Some neuroprotective

01:05:30.000 –> 01:05:50.000
Combinations or nootropic blends like we’ll have saffron in it. We use qualiamine a lot for a nootropic blend, and that has a lot of that has some saffron. It also has things like bacopa, which helps with memory. Bacopa and ginkgo help with driving your blood flow to the brain

01:05:50.000 –> 01:05:56.000
But they can also have a calming or more anxiolytic effect

01:05:56.000 –> 01:06:12.000
Passionflower, chamomile, valerian, lavender. These are what we call your nervines. These are herbs that directly work on our nervous system to help us calm, anxiety, help calm the cortisol

01:06:12.000 –> 01:06:16.000
help directly decrease that nervous system stimulation.

01:06:16.000 –> 01:06:32.000
I really like glycine as well. Glycine is an amino acid. It can help produce that calming effect in the brain. It’s a very calming amino acid, but it also helps with

01:06:32.000 –> 01:06:49.000
Detox. So you’re getting like good sleep, better stress, and then we use glycine a lot when people are detoxing from glyphosate, actually, which is that chemical ingredient in Roundup or pesticide

01:06:49.000 –> 01:07:08.000
We talked about L-theanine and then lion’s mane. We know how great Lion’s mane is for the brain. It can help stimulate BDNF, which is neuroprotective as well as like fertilizer for the brain. So it helps with growing new neurons

01:07:08.000 –> 01:07:21.000
So I’m just going to check the chat again. Yay, organic gardening and knitting. I love that, Nancy. That is so fun.

01:07:21.000 –> 01:07:23.000
Awesome.

01:07:23.000 –> 01:07:43.000
Okay, I’m going to go back to the Q&A in just a moment. We’re almost done here. What I want to just end off with is we can test your cortisol. So we’ve talked a lot about what is cortisol? Why does it matter? But I want us to know that we can actually measure it to see is this something that we need to work on for you

01:07:43.000 –> 01:08:07.000
And a standard blood test isn’t usually sufficient. When you go to the primary care doctor, they might test it in the blood in a single blood draw in the morning. But what we’ve seen tonight, right, is that a single number is not necessarily what matters. We want to look at the pattern of it. What is it doing in the morning? What is it doing in the middle of the day? What is it doing at night? So that’s where I like to use

01:08:07.000 –> 01:08:25.000
Salivary testing that is throughout the day, so we can get the pattern. Cortisol that we see in the blood is bound to protein, so if we are measuring it in the saliva, it’s what’s free, it’s a little bit more of a sensitive test for cortisol

01:08:25.000 –> 01:08:43.000
And then we get that pattern. So that’s where I use something called the adrenal stress index test. You can ask your doctor for it or come get it from us. But this is salivary testing that you do throughout the day so we can understand what is your cortisol look like

01:08:43.000 –> 01:09:00.000
And how can we address it, right? If we have the data, then we can address it a little bit better. This test also tells us things like your blood sugar response. We know that that plays a big role. Your secretory IgA, which is your gut immune stress marker. There’s a big

01:09:00.000 –> 01:09:16.000
Gut brain connection there. And then DHEA, which is like the adrenal buffer hormone. So when that’s low relative to cortisol, it tells us that there’s a big strain on the stress system

01:09:16.000 –> 01:09:33.000
So, tonight I’m thrilled to announce that we’re offering the ASI Test Plus Console package, so you can get this full 24-hour cortisol panel, plus a one-on-one appointment with me where we can go through your results, build a specific plan for you

01:09:33.000 –> 01:09:52.000
So we can see exactly is it the morning that we need to target, the night, is it too little, too high cortisol? And so we’re… for this month, only going to be doing a package of 495, normally at 625, Santiago, if you wouldn’t mind putting that link in the chat

01:09:52.000 –> 01:10:08.000
This is where you can register and sign up to get that test plus consult. So you can understand what is your cortisol look like and then what can we do about it and how can we continue to protect your brain?

01:10:08.000 –> 01:10:24.000
I am so thrilled to have gone through all of that with you tonight, and I really hope that we can see that our brain is so remarkably responsive. There’s so much neuroplasticity, so much we can do with mindfulness

01:10:24.000 –> 01:10:39.000
With meditation, with our lifestyle, with our community, and so if you feel like you need support, or you want prevention, we are here, and we can continue to patch up all those holes in the roof.

01:10:39.000 –> 01:10:57.000
The replay for this webinar will be sent out to everybody tomorrow if you were registered. And please, if you have questions, put them in the Q&A because I do want to go through any questions.

01:10:57.000 –> 01:11:03.000
Okay, I see. I want to go through the chat a little bit first. So I see that

01:11:03.000 –> 01:11:14.000
Elizabeth, you asked which kind of magnesiums. There’s so many different ones. You’re right. There’s so many different kinds of magnesiums. I like to think about thank you, Santiago. You put the

01:11:14.000 –> 01:11:17.000
Link in there.

01:11:17.000 –> 01:11:39.000
Magnesium citrate and magnesium oxide. Great for the gut. They help to stimulate gastric motility. They will help with drawing water into the stool to help push stools through. But then there is magnesium glycinate, which is really good for the nervous system. It helps promote a calming sense. It can also help a little bit with muscle tension

01:11:39.000 –> 01:11:56.000
And then magnesium threonate also can help with calming a bit, but that one actually has been found to get into the brain a bit more. So we find for cognition that magnesium threonate is really wonderful. Magnesium sulfate is typically what’s a topical magnesium

01:11:56.000 –> 01:12:12.000
That’s in like Epsom salt or in topical muscle tension creams and gels. So magnesium glycinate or threonate are really helpful

01:12:12.000 –> 01:12:30.000
I see Lily, you recently completed a 24-hour urine test for hormones. So that’s, like, something like the Dutch. So, that actually might have some cortisol in there, but it probably is more looking at your sex hormones.

01:12:30.000 –> 01:12:40.000
Like progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, that could be helpful. What we find, though, is that the most sensitive way of testing cortisol is through the saliva.

01:12:40.000 –> 01:12:56.000
So if you can get that salivary test, and sometimes those urine tests through Dutch will have also a salivary component to it. So talk with your doctor and see if that’s something that you could potentially add on.

01:12:56.000 –> 01:13:03.000
Let’s see, I’m going to go to the Q&A.

01:13:03.000 –> 01:13:19.000
Britt, I have a question here about red light therapy from Elizabeth. So there’s different forms of red light therapy. We’ve specifically for cognition and for brain health, we recommend the V-Light which

01:13:19.000 –> 01:13:39.000
This cap that directly has different electrodes on it that basically is directly pushing red light through the cranium, and then also has a little clip, so it can go through the sinuses and penetrate into the brain tissue. That one has a preset setting for about 20 minutes, and we say that if you can do that

01:13:39.000 –> 01:13:54.000
for five, six days a week, it can be a bit stimulating. It’s directly activating the mitochondria, so it’s bringing more energy and more blood flow to those cells in the brain

01:13:54.000 –> 01:14:06.000
So if it’s too much, then we’ll back off a little bit, but in general, we say if you can do that about 5, 6 days a week. And then for red light panels, it’s the same thing. I use the mito Red

01:14:06.000 –> 01:14:25.000
The Juve is also a great red light panel that you can get. But if you can use it for about 20 min, four to five times a week, maybe 6 times a week. It doesn’t hurt to do it more. That is going to be really helpful for, like I said, mitochondrial function for blood flow

01:14:25.000 –> 01:14:32.000
I mean, it helps with collagen as well. There’s red light face masks, but it’s also very calming

01:14:32.000 –> 01:14:50.000
Sleep, I see there’s somebody talking about doing a lot of these things but still having trouble with sleep, waking up very early, sometimes trouble falling asleep. Still often very stressed, not enough co-regulating. Yeah, I would really recommend looking at your cortisol. There might be some targeted therapies that we can do there

01:14:50.000 –> 01:15:14.000
To help either support too much cortisol stimulation or being stimulated at the wrong time, like in the middle of the night. There’s also different vagal nerve stimulators. If people are more into the gadgets, right? There’s these things called like True Vega or Pulsetto, and there’s these devices that you can hold up to the neck, which is where

01:15:14.000 –> 01:15:20.000
The vagus nerve runs through, and it uses

01:15:20.000 –> 01:15:31.000
Pulsation or maybe vibration to activate that vagus nerve. So it’s similar to how if you hum or sing, you can activate the vagus nerve. There’s different

01:15:31.000 –> 01:15:36.000
gadgets is what I call them, to do that as well.

01:15:36.000 –> 01:15:42.000
Elizabeth, there was a lot of supplements and oils and different things. Can you take all stuff in one?

01:15:42.000 –> 01:15:58.000
You know, I don’t think there’s one good adrenal support out there. I think some people respond differently to others. Some people I know will do great with things like valerian or Melissa, which is lemon balm. I like to start with some nutraceuticals

01:15:58.000 –> 01:16:13.000
And start with one at a time so we can see how people feel. Phosphatidylserine is a great one to start with. Lavender is a great one to start with, but it’s more of just a see how you respond

01:16:13.000 –> 01:16:28.000
Somebody asked the name of the salivary cortisol test. It’s called the ASI, or the adrenal Stress Index. And Santiago, thank you, he put that link in the chat for us.

01:16:28.000 –> 01:16:38.000
Dosage of magnesium glycinate. So that can depend. Some people usually are, I would say anywhere from like 200 to 400 milligrams.

01:16:38.000 –> 01:16:58.000
What is the impact of an anti-anxiety or antidepressant have on cortisol effects specifically? So I don’t know of a direct impact on cortisol, but if there are any side effects of the anti-anxiety or antidepressant that are inhibiting sleep or are doing something with neurotransmitter signaling

01:16:58.000 –> 01:17:20.000
That could have an impact on cortisol. There’s some GI side effects from certain SSRIs or SNRIs that may impact cortisol, but I don’t know of a direct correlation between those. If anything, it might help. Sometimes we need something to just, like, take that bite off, take the edge off of our anxiety, and if that’s helpful, then that’s okay.

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It’s more about the other side effects.

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Let’s see. Mary, I don’t know of a magnesium glycinate, magnesium threonate combo. I know there’s a trimag by Da Vinci, but I don’t think it has both of those. Usually people take those separately.

01:17:42.000 –> 01:17:49.000
Oh, the VCAP, Elizabeth, that’s the V light, V-I-E light.

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And that you can get online on the V-Lite website

01:17:55.000 –> 01:18:03.000
I think Dr. Sanderson has a code too. So if you want, reach out to us and we can give that to you.

01:18:03.000 –> 01:18:06.000
All right, I’m just going to go through

01:18:06.000 –> 01:18:14.000
See if I miss anything

01:18:14.000 –> 01:18:28.000
I see somebody said my daily high stress mostly comes from family who need to assist more reliably with caregiving. Okay, how much should I try to impress upon them the necessity of what they committed to help versus

01:18:28.000 –> 01:18:43.000
try to remove any reliance on them as part of the care team, no matter what I say and how I say it, they keep dropping the ball. Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, that sounds really frustrating, as well as really exhausting.

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I urge you to absolutely do what you can to protect yourself and your own brain, make sure that your own, you know, health is coming first, make sure that you’re putting on your own oxygen mask

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And sometimes with family, it’s hard. It’s really hard to have them think and see what you’re seeing and what you would like done. It might be helpful to bring somebody else in, you know, whether that’s

01:19:14.000 –> 01:19:23.000
A third party or some other kind of caregiving support that’s not in the family.

01:19:23.000 –> 01:19:38.000
Okay, I’ll give it another minute or so, but I just want to check to make sure I’m not missing anything. I’m so grateful to everybody to have come here tonight for your amazing participation

01:19:38.000 –> 01:19:49.000
It’s not only helpful for this community, but for everybody that will getting the replay as well.

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If you want to sign up for the testing, use that link from Santiago.

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Thank you so much again, everybody, for

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for being here tonight. It’s been really a pleasure, and I’m so honored to

01:20:06.000 –> 01:20:09.000
be here with everybody

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I’m getting emotional. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, everybody. Good night.