Brain Health: Science and Strategies for Optimizing Brain Health

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, we are digging into brain health and understanding exercise's impact on brain health, foods and supplements that you can take and eat, digest, to improve cognitive function, as well as understanding stress, digging into some lab markers, and then, of course, sleep, alcohol. Then at the end here, Dan Garner actually just wrote a book with Sugar Sean O'Malley, the number one MMA. I don't know all the weight classes. Let's be honest. I definitely don't even know what those weight classes are called.

But he wrote a book, with Sean O'Malley that they've been working on together, for brain health and, kind of like a concussion protocol. So if you know anybody that has had a concussion or a recent concussion or wanna just get the book, make sure you check it out, over to Amazon. And as always, friends, you can head over to rapidhealthreport.com. Check out doctor Andy Galpin as well as Dan Garner doing their thing, a real analysis on labs, lifestyle, and performance. And you can see that over at rapidhealthreport.com.

Friends, brain health. Let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Anders Marner, Doug Larson, coach TravisMat, Dan Garner. Today on Barbell Shrug, we're gonna be talking brain health.

And guess what? At the end of the show, Dan Garner's gonna tell you where to, go get his brand new concussion protocol. I'm putting that at the top of the show even though you wanna talk about the end of the show. Right. So we're gonna make sure we get to the concussion protocol that you and O'Malley are working on.

Yo. But today, I wanna dig in, because brain health is really at, like, the top of it's like I think I figured out how this body works for the most part. And all the questions that I have, Dan Garner knows the answers too, so we're good there. The brain thing, though, my I have, like, some serious family problems on the brain side of things. My family lives a long time, and the brain disappears towards the end.

I love to even start out just more than, the long term, kind of dementia side of things, and and and really talk about kind of, like, the, the impact of, just basic exercise and and how brain health in in movement, training, how those things are correlated as just kind of like a a high level start to understanding brain health. Sure. So, I mean, at the highest level, going on walks is something that is something that is already beneficial for the brain. Like, there there are many complicated and nuanced conversations surrounding nootropics and, micronutrients and very complicated situations in, inflammations and fatty acids. But going on a walk, like the University of Illinois, they took, it was a 126 sedentary subjects and had them just walk 3 times per week.

And at the beginning of the study, they measured the size of their hippocampus, which is the center of memory consolidation. Yeah. And then after 1 year of going on brisk walks 3 times per week, as you age, your hippocampus actually progressively shrinks. After 1 year, the hippocampus did not only not shrink, it actually grew a bit with 3 brisk walks per week. And then at the end of this, they actually came up with their own progressive system and cutoff point to where beginning at 3:10 minute walks per week, and then you add 5 minutes.

So on week 1, it's 3:10 minute walks. Week 2, 3:15 minute walks. Week 3, 3:20 minute walks. You actually ramp that up until it's 3:40 minute walks per week. That was the conclusion that they came to for hippocampal health.

So just kind of off the hop, like, if you already wanna do something beneficial for your brain, and, I'm talking to a lot of people out there who just skip cardio because they think it's boring. This is not just about, you know, fighting catabolism, which you can actually walk with that anyways. But it's your brain health, man. It's it's your hippocampus. It's something that's been demonstrated.

I think that right out of the gates, I think that's something that absolutely everybody could do from an exercise perspective. But I also wanna actually kinda kick this off with something else that that veers away from the complicated and nuanced conversations and revolves purely around context. Context, we know very little about the brain at this point in time. There are people way smarter than me who know a lot more about the brain. But there are also things that are extremely misunderstood.

Like, for example, Lactobacillus rutai ruderi. That is a bacteria that has been demonstrated to lower, kids with ASD, autism spectrum disorder, lower symptoms, and even improve learning. So bacteria, lactobacillus reuteri, playing a big role in how the brain responds to stimuli and even learns. Or in mice, if you give mice the colonization of Toxoplasma gondii, they actually have this weird thing where they stop becoming afraid of cats, and they'll actually walk right up to them completely unafraid. They've lost their ability to recognize that that is a predator.

Like, bacteria actually is programming our brain to do things in in ways that we do not understand yet. So, like, as far as zooming out from a context perspective, I I always find it very difficult to just say this is good for brain health, and that's good for brain health, and this is good for brain health. Because what's the context of the brain health? Like, if somebody has anxiety like, let's just even if somebody has anxiety, I think you guys would probably all agree that instead of taking something to just wildly suppress anxiety, we should probably address where that anxiety is even coming from Right. To begin with.

Like, that's that's super common in the industry. What herbs can I take for anxiety? What can I take to lower anxiety? It's kinda like, well, where where's your anxiety coming from? Because, like, from a brain health perspective, the way in which I would coach you can go in so many different directions.

Because did you get some lab work back and your cholesterol values were really bad and your lipoprotein a was bad, and that resulted in anxiety? Well, should I give you ashwagandha to lower your anxiety, or should we actually get on a protocol to improve your cardiac markers and lose some weight? Because that's what's actually going to result in the thing that needs to take place in order to reduce anxiety. Or maybe you're walking around the day with a lot of brain fog, and and you're just you're you're lacking productivity because you have this brain fog. Well, in that case, a nootropic might actually be in order to stimulate productivity, to stimulate focus and attention, stimulate memory consolidation, something like NUPEPT, which increases acetylcholine to help with all of those things.

That can actually give you the productivity you need so that you're not as behind on your schedule as you currently are so that you can relieve yourself of the anxiety that you're giving yourself on a day to day basis because of productivity and not because you need to suppress a chemistry associated with anxiety. But if it is truly chemistry based, then, yeah, you know, ashwagandha when the sun goes down. That's something that can be really beneficial in lowering anxiety. So brain health, as it pertains to utilizing certain foods and certain nutrients to create an efficacious result, is still context specific. It's it's it's, it's something that you need to actually have an assessment for first before you just start diving into things.

And I think that one thing that I think is globally recommended could be the walks per day. But but after that, beyond just eating a healthy diet, I do think things are very, very context specific. When you say that, have you read the book? What is it? Oh, man.

John Rady spark. The book spark where they talked about, there was a school in is it Naperville? Naperville Central in Chicago. It's like a Chicago suburb and where they introduced PE back to the students and then their grades shot through the roof, which sparked this guy. He's a he's a psychiatrist at Harvard, teaches psychiatry at Harvard.

And, so they started doing more research and they realized, you know, that exercise would spark, you know, work in the hippocampus or would spark action activity in the, in the hippocampus. And then they started doing they've recently done more research that they're about to write about where they've added now, not just resistance exercise, but things like either gymnastics or martial arts or like Olympic weightlifting, something that's more complicated, which has sparked other areas of the brain that led to better balance, all more creative thinking. But, aren't there, though, some best practices is my point. Yeah. It's funny because, like, something like the the journey of martial arts is one that, I think is so beneficial for so many reasons.

I think that that's a great a great way in which someone could go about improving their overall health, but also their brain health. You know, obviously, contact aside, that's something that's, of course, gonna gonna negatively impact that. But the pursuit of, accomplishment, getting your next belt. Like, I remember when I was going through the ranks in Taekwondo. Like, man, getting that next belt, it was the best feeling in the world, but then all I wanted to do was get the next one.

Like, you just you just kept freaking it's something that just It's a doubling response. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that that dopamine response is kind of what I'm getting at here because it's so rare where people do something for themselves these days.

Like, when when I'm working with someone who is, wants to drop body fat, like, it's super, super common because they recently had a breakup, and now they wanna get lean again. Or because they're doing something and they wanna show someone. Or they're doing they're getting a great body because they want it for social media. Like, it's very rare. Before you get a breakup.

I'm just I'm just a little hang up there. I won't get a breakup then. Yeah. But, like, it's super rare that people do things for themselves these days. And you're talking about building dopamine pathways.

Why don't you build a reward pathway for yourself? Like, that's actually what I think is so beneficial about martial arts is you're actually building discipline. You're building confidence. You're doing this for you. You are the one who is now empowered by this new skill that you're learning.

Not to mention the skill acquisition is going to play towards brain health. Sure. Being leaner and more mobile, is going to play towards brain health. The kids having physical education in school, well, that activity is going to play towards brain health, but activity in and of itself improves sleep quality, which also improves brain health. So these things all have great cycles, but one of the best cycle you could ever be caught in is the dopamine pathway that serves you and not serves others.

Shrug family, I wanna take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapid health report.com. When you get to rapid health report.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now you know that we've been working at rapid health optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now what does that actually mean?

It means in 3 parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not gonna be guessing your macros. We're not gonna be guessing, the total calories that you need. We're actually gonna be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you.

Nutrition, supplementation, sleep, and then we're going to go through and and analyze your lifestyle. Doctor Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns, and then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things things first. This truly is a world class program, and we invite you to see step 1 of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and it's my my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapid health report.com.

Watch the video of my labs and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapid health report.com, and let's get back to the show. Because if you keep staying on a pathway, which is you against the world, well, your body has a weird way of staying in these rhythms and staying in these path pathways. You can actually, like, stay stuck in a pattern of depression.

You can stay stuck in a pattern of anxiety. You can stay stuck in a pattern of doing everything for everyone else and not for yourself. These small things that have, no complicated discussion behind and simply just doing something for you, losing weight for you, is some of the most brain healthy things you could ever do acutely and chronically on yourself. You just mentioned sleep a second ago. I I really kind of assumed unconsciously that that was gonna be the first thing that you mentioned.

You mentioned the walks as the the first thing on this episode. I really felt like sleep was gonna be the first thing. How do how does sleep play into this, compared to something like going for a walk? Feel like it's gotta be, like as far as, like, the hierarchy goes, it's gotta be toward the top of the list. Right?

Sure. Yeah. And and, honestly, I think a lot of things could have been the first thing depending on, you know, where where we where we have the context. Yeah. And, man, when it comes to the brain, if there is, like, a top ten things to do, I feel like it would be, like, number 1 and then number 1 and then number 1 and then number 1.

Like, the list would all be ones and not 1 to 10 because it's revolving around your freaking brain. Right? Like, it's I I think that if we were all asked, like, what's the last thing you wanna give up? It'd be your mind. I would give up my biceps before my mind, and that's saying something.

Yeah. Hey. Just so you know, Dan, you're not giving up that much, but I I understand the point. Oh, I walked right into that. He's gonna start back on the 4 0 5 bench program.

And you know what? He's going down right now. He's deflating. He's deflating right now. Said that.

Now he's gonna be saying that. And now I'm gonna build the wrong pathway, so I'm gonna show Anders what the fuck is up. Yeah. Exactly. You get some dopamine response now, baby.

Right. Right. But to to go back to sleep, sleep is a is a is a big one because, most all systems are anabolic when you sleep. The bones are anabolic while you sleep through osteoclast and osteoblast. The muscles are anabolic when you sleep, rebuilding and creating protein synthesis.

The hormones are you you have many pulsatile activities and hormone activity happening while you sleep. Neurotransmitter pools are being restocked while you sleep. Like, this is the entire body is systemically anabolic. The purpose of sleep is to restore, repair, regenerate. A part of that process is, a, to restore neurotransmitter pools, which play a huge role in brain health and how we interact and react with the world.

But then, b, cerebrospinal fluid actually crosses our blood brain barrier and can clean up waste products within our brain, which is a super, super fascinating discovery. So just like your muscles, if you went and trained really hard and you build up a lot of fatigue metabolites, and then our cardiovascular system's gotta get all that stuff out of there. Well, when you've been thinking all day or stressing all day or working all day, you're building up, quote, fatigue metabolites just like your muscle would. But instead of the cardiovascular system pulling it out like it does with our metabolite waste system with hydrogen ions and lactate and all of that, it's our cerebral spinal fluid that actually goes into our brain and removes waste products from our brain. So our brain truly detoxifies while we sleep, and that's one of the the most important brain health components that, anybody could ever have.

Wow. What about where Andy talked about lactate being, like, the the brain food in which, you know, caused me to think you know, you think about what I said about doctor Rady where exercise caused people to be smarter in the hippocampus, especially. But what do you what are your thoughts there with lactate being a more efficient fuel for the brain than even, book glucose? Sorry. Right.

So lactate is definitely a fuel source for the brain. It's also a fuel source for the heart. And you'll actually see this, in diabetics. That diabetics, they'll actually have if you have a real problem with glucose control, your body will have an increase in lactate dehydrogenase, which is an enzyme that helps you produce more lactate to to supply more readily available fuel to important organs. So lactate has absolutely been demonstrated as a a excellent fuel source for organs.

But beyond its true, like, mechanistic pathways, I wouldn't really be able to explain at a at a granular level. Right. Go back to referencing the walks again. Like, there's many things happening during a walk. There's, like, the actual movement itself and the circulation and whatever else, and then there's, like, the being outside component.

There's I'm assuming you're outside. You're going with the walk. Right. Yeah. There's the kind of the peace of mind component where you're you're not, you know, entertaining yourself or distracted by anything.

It's it's quiet. You have time, you know, just time with your own thoughts, so to speak. You know, there's no pressure on you to get anything done in that time. It's like there's the relaxation component to it. Like, certainly, it's it there's many factors here, and one it might not be one single thing versus the combination of factors.

But what what do you think are, what's, like, the main thing there? Like, if there's as an example, like, the peace of mind component, if you go for a 40 minute walk and you're just, like, relaxed for 40 minutes versus, like, sitting and meditating outside for 40 minutes, like, is that roughly the same as far as brain health goes, or is, like, the walking component really the movement side of it really that, critical versus maybe going for a 40 minute jog? Is a 40 minute jog even that much better because there's, you know, more movement compared to walking? Like, what are all the the distinctions there do you think? I think that that would come largely down to the health and fitness of that existing person.

I think that if somebody was already lean and fit, then meditation would likely have a very similar value to walking. I also know a lot of people who don't like to meditate, who has said would rather walk and would rather just keep moving. I am one of those people as well. I find Yeah. Like movement meditation.

Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. So all of us then.

Yeah. I I find movement meditation to be a lot more, relaxing for me. If I I am absolutely in a meditative meditative state when I'm walking my dog, Lucy. I think that that's a very, very huge component to it. A big part of this simply just comes down to doing what you need to do in order to reduce stress.

There's something known as the cortisol to DHEA ratio, which plays a huge role in brain health. Basically, on one end of the spectrum, you have DHEA. And DHEA is a precursor to many things, androstenedione, androstenediol, testosterone, estrone, estradiol, estriol. It's a precursor to all of these things. But on the other end of the spectrum here, we do have cortisol.

And in states of higher stress, we can produce excess cortisol in relation to how much DHEA we produce. That's really important to care about because Reacher's has demonstrated that excess cortisol creates oxidative damage to the hippocampus. So we can actually, quite literally, in a mechanistic way, impact our memory consolidation and memory storage through excess cortisol, damaging through oxidative stress, the hippocampus. DHEA is protective against that. So when we're making less cortisol, then we're allowing more DHEA to be present in order to protect our hippocampus from the damaging effects of stress.

So that's absolutely huge. So comparing meditation versus walking, I think, 1st and foremost, what you need to do to reduce stress is more important than the exact vehicle in which you choose to do it. But I would suspect that you would probably get a greater health response from walking if you're currently over 20% body fat as a male or over 30% body fat as a female. The further you are away from optimal leanness would likely infer a greater benefit towards active meditation rather than seated meditation. But once you are lean, I I think that it would really just be a vehicle towards what is gonna allow you to reduce stress and improve the cortisol to DHEA ratio in your body.

Yeah. Yeah. You're just mentioning being lean. Like, how how does being lean versus being overweight play into this as a single factor? Those those I guess.

Sorry. No. He said sorry, Anders, because you're overweight. That's why he said. Yeah.

Oh. If Anders is a burden, we're out of trouble. For those for those who don't know, we have an internal, fitness challenge, so to speak, with it within the company right now. So Anders and and Dan have been talking endless shit to each other. So Yes.

It looks more more of that. The amount of, crap being spoken back and forth between Dan and I makes me think nobody else is even doing it. I mean Well, I'm just speaking the truth. I'm not trying to talk crap. We have a 20 pound difference come cut time starting, like, right now.

Dan, 207. Anderson, Who is the race to 175? Fitness. I think he he might he might get you, Dan, on this one. Anders?

Yeah. That dude he he that dude is mister CrossFit. Once I saw him whip into makeup, see he's Oh, he whips some ass on in fitness. Oh. I'm not talking to Shodanners about anything fitness related.

Oh. Talking a little bit more about the, performance. Not squat Yeah. Then we'll we'll do that. But, like, that's fine.

Individual event. We just gotta play play the game long enough till everybody else falls off. Okay. Yeah. I'm I'm so embarrassed.

I I don't even know the the question anymore. It's not. You wanna talk about brain health? This is how you mess with Dan's. Tell him I'm gonna beat him yourself.

Yeah. He's pissed now. Sorry. Hey, Travis. This is a lameness contest.

It's not a fitness contest. Yes. Oh, seem to get the most ripped. You got how are you gonna measure? Before and afters.

That's it. Are we doing decks there? What are you doing? It's gonna be clear. Oh, okay.

Alright. There's a part in there's a part in, like, pumping iron 2 or 3, one of the one of them that I watched. And I interviewed the the judge at the end of mister Olympian, he goes, everybody's world class until you put them side by side, and then the winner is just so obvious. So obvious. Even a competition.

Yeah. That's what I'm gonna look like. Alright. Back to the cell. Completely deep railed.

How do we unwind Dan's brain fog at this point? Yeah. Being being lean lean versus not so lean, how does that play into brain health? Oh, right. Right.

Right. Well, a huge part of it is people so insulin resistance has actually been associated in the literature to brain shrinkage. So that all by itself is something huge, and insulin resistance, number one correlate is body fat percentage. And body fat percentage, when you have elevated body fat percentage, that creates inflammation. Inflammation creates oxidative damage to the brain, not just to other, your joints.

It doesn't just make your elbow hurt. It's that creates system wide oxidative damage. Things like, IL 6. Things like, that are downstream. Like, for example, cortisol.

Like, serum cortisol is higher in those who are overweight. Serum cortisol, not even free cortisol via salivary measures. Serum cortisol, just morning in the blood, is associated with Alzheimer's. So the the fact that you can drive all of these correlates towards blood flow to the brain, brain trinkets, inflammation, stress hormones, these are all things that's in combination absolutely results in a in a less effective, approach towards brain health if true brain health is something that you wanna have long term. Weight loss alone is going to correct many, many, many things metabolically, which in turn improve health systemically, mind and body.

Yeah. Go ahead, Doug. Did you say? Yeah. I'm gonna tell you about that question.

Go. Gonna cut cut you out twice in a row here. Yeah. Go ahead. Yo.

Regarding stress in general, like, we've I mentioned with the walks, like, there's the relaxation, meditation, blah blah blah. What what does stress reduction have, to do with this? Like, you mentioned the cortisol to DHEA ratio. You know, just simply, like, taking time off and going on vacation or intentionally getting a massage or just you know, for some people, like, working out is is stress reduction even though it's a a stressor in in many ways. Like, how does just eliminating stressors from your life play into long term brain health?

The the correction of cortisol to DHA ratio. I think that that has an absolutely enormous way to it. I think that it's probably twofold. Like, I think the the chemical answer to this would be the correction of the cortisol to DHEA ratio so that the reduction of stress reduces cortisol, which reduces oxidative damage that's unique to the hippocampus. That's absolutely huge.

But I also think that your pursuit of the things that reducing the things that stress you out is also going to be the pursuit of you living a much happier and fulfilling life, which is going to play towards many correct decisions towards brain health, much like the martial arts rewarding pathway of continuing to climb and climb and climb, doing something truly for you. I think that the pursuit of reducing stressors means that you've gained a lot of self respect for yourself and that you deserve to live the life that you want to live. And that's just ultimately going to result in far better brain health over the long term when you're always doing something, when you're always striving for something new. There's even in the world of martial arts, to stay in that analogy, there's many, many, many old grandmasters who are, like, in their eighties and their nineties, and they're still involved in martial arts to some degree. Like, this is this is something that has been around for a very long time.

When you're always learning something new and you're always doing something for you, you're correcting the cortisol DHEA pathway as kind of a byproduct of being the person that you're supposed to be. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about kinda like chronic alcohol use and its impact on the brain? And I'm I'm kinda thinking, not even so much along the lines of, like, binge drinking, which obviously is like just bashing yourself over the head with pouring gasoline down your throat, and it just crushes your body. But, like, the, the very low level, like, tapping the nail every night, or just having, like, 1 to 3 drinks casually, you know, multiple nights a week, what is what is that impact over time to your brain, from alcohol?

Sure. So, again, fatty liver has been linked to brain shrinkage as well. So fatty liver is something that can, over time, tapping the nail 111 over the course of 10, 20 years, people do that. It's just 1 to 3 drinks. What's the big deal?

That is something that actually ends up tapping the nail slowly, slowly, slowly until it's fully in, and it ends up creating a a major stressor to physiology. So fatty liver is already associated to brain shrinkage as well, that, I believe we've talked about on a previous episode, the UK bio the UK Biobank. They came out with a study associating just alcohol, not even fatty liver, to brain shrinkage even at one drink. Even just that one drink, there there was no, like, low threshold. It was just that one drink was resulting, or creating a type of brain shrinkage in people.

Alcohol is also something that creates intestinal permeability. So it's been demonstrated in the past that just 3 shots of vodka can create intestinal permeability, which allows lipopolysaccharides, which is an inflammatory bacteria, to reach into blood circulation. Lipopolysaccharides actually suppress something known as BDNF, which is brain derived neurotrophic factor that is supportive of neuronal growth in the brain, neuronal growth and neuronal repair. It's something to, be aware of, for example, in post concussion. But, when somebody has alcohol, which creates the intestinal permeability, which allows lipopolysaccharides to seek into circulation, and those lipopolysaccharides suppress BDNF, well, then that's going to contribute to brain issues as well.

So on top of the liver issue, on top of the brain direct issue via shrinkage, on top of the suppression of brain derived neurotrophic factor, You're also doing a lot of other things that are just, nonoptimal for brain health, such as likely dehydration, likely Terrible sleep. Terrible sleep. Right. Terrible sleep. Likely depletion of micronutrients, among many, many other things like alcohol.

Alcohol is one of those things that's, it's certainly a social lubricant and allows you to, have fun with your pearls or whatever it's gonna be. But it's one of those things that is has, like, no positive to it. So it's certainly a decision that you make. Like, yeah, you know, I'm gonna have some fun tonight, and and that's that's the decision I'm gonna own. But, like, the lie that people tell themselves about how it helps them sleep is a complete opposite.

It reduces REM sleep and makes your sleep quality worse, or that, you're using it like, here's the thing with alcohol too and to tie into Doug's question revolving around stress. Like, alcohol, When you talk about or when people talk to you about alcohol and and they're in it. Right? They're having it every single day. One of the reasons you have alcohol every single day is because you're stressed out.

Right? You're stressed as a parent or you're stressed in a relationship or you're stressed out from work is super common. So the way in which to take the edge off or to reduce stress is to have a drink each and every single night. Right? Alcohol is a stressor.

It's not a destress. So you're actually adding a stressor on top of your stressed out lifestyle. It's something that is it's it's going to take more from you than give back because now, if you have alcohol tonight, it's probably gonna take away your ability to do a morning lock tomorrow morning or take away your ability to work out before work. It's probably certainly gonna reduce your sleep quality, which is gonna give you a shorter temper with the your loved ones around you. It's gonna reduce your testosterone over time through alcohol itself, but then also through reduced sleep.

A lot of people forget testosterone was actually originally prescribed as an antidepressant. And so you're gonna lower something that is very good mood altering mood altering capabilities. So alcohol, it seems so often as this destresser, but it's absolutely just adding another stressor, which is delaying you facing the things that you really need to face in order to actually reduce your total stress load in your life. Yeah. I always, kinda the the thing with alcohol that's so interesting to me is once I decided to start my taking my life seriously, that was, like, the first thing that I realized needed to go.

Yeah. Like Great. It was it was number 1. It was without a doubt. The the most important first step was to wake up feeling good every day.

And if you have, like, just 2 drinks and you're just, like, a person that goes to the bar to meet your friends, you do not wake up feeling good. You might No. It might be how you wake up every day. So it feels normal, but it's not good. And it kills your energy.

It kills your ability to function. Like, you know, when the the number of people that I talk to on a daily basis that have, like, brain fog, and they also have a bottle of wine each night. It's like, I wonder where all that's coming from. Wonder how that all fits together. And it's it's Yeah.

Starts with dinner each night. And, dude, then in terms of, like, reducing anxiety, like, alcohol in in a big way, a lot of people take it to reduce stress or reduce anxiety. Right? Alcohol, in the short term, does reduce anxiety. It does increase serotonin.

It does help you reduce anxiety dramatically. But alcohol, actually, through the back door, depletes your own body's ability to make serotonin. So what happens is alcohol in and of itself early in your relationship with alcohol reduces anxiety because it's increasing serotonin. But as you consistently drink alcohol, it actually depletes your own endogenous production of serotonin because the body is the ultimate efficiency machine. Why is it gonna make something if it knows it's gonna come in from an exogenous source?

It simply won't. So alcohol actually depletes your brain's own ability to make serotonin, which makes you even more susceptible to feelings of anxiety in the absence of alcohol, which creates a dependence on alcohol. So alcohol in the beginning reduces anxiety, but then it reduce your own endogenous production of the chemicals that help you, deal with anxiety naturally on your own. That creates a dependency with alcohol, but then alcohol is also dose dependent. So over time, we end up increasing the dose that we require in order to still get the antianxiety feelings, and that's when you run into things like fatty liver, reduced testosterone, reduced sleep.

It's all one cycle of things that ends up impacting your entire life. Yeah. Beautiful. I actually think I was gonna Go ahead. Sorry.

I was just gonna say, what about, like, you know, as we get older, continuing to read, or sometimes you'll see these, like, you know, brain games or whatever. Is there any do those, you know, like, those have anything to do with keeping the brain, you know, and the, you know, the nerves continuing to, you know, grow, continuing to be strong? I I I know they absolutely do, but I wouldn't be able to explain the mechanism behind them. Much much of my research has been involved in athletic performance, general health, and post concussion. Right.

But I am aware actually that, actually, one of the greatest things that you can do to keep your brain healthy as you age is learn an instrument. I saw an absolutely fascinating study, and it would that that's what actually was a conclusion of is that learning an instrument is one of the absolute best things that you can do to maintain skill acquisition and brain health because you are doing something new physically and neurologically, but you're also learning something at the same time. And it's also activating creative pathways in your brain. So between logical skill acquisition, acquisition, creative, creative structure and pathways towards goal setting and creating something on your own and doing something new, it was extremely, extremely beneficial. It checked so many boxes all at the same time, just starting the instrument that you wanted to learn, that you told yourself you were gonna learn over the past 20 years that you just never did.

I wanted to with doctor Rainey talking about, you know, doing the martial arts or something, you know, something that wasn't you know, like, if you go to the gym and you do machines, you don't have to do a lot of thinking. But, like, when you do martial arts, jujitsu, for example, you know, there's a lot of thinking involved. I wonder if it's the same pathways, you know, as learning, like, an instrument. Both are brand new. Both, you know, is using multiple, you know, parts of of, like, you know, touch, taste, all the different feelings.

Thoughts? Yeah. Probably better because you're you're I was gonna say it's probably better because there's a life and death scenario that your your body is kind of adapting to. It needs to adapt quicker when you're getting choked out. It's it's my understanding that it's it's the newness that it it's not the challenging aspect of it.

It's the newness aspect of it that seems to be the most beneficial for brain health. Like like, if you're if if you have a like, like, we have our active day to day jobs, like and it might be very challenging the work you do, but if it's not actually learning something that's truly new ground for you, then then it's not quite as beneficial as if you're learning, say, like like Dan mentioned, a new instrument or a new, I was here a new language is one of the things that's like it's tough to learn a new language. Like, there's a lot that goes into learning a new language, and it's hard to do. It takes a lot of work to actually become proficient. It's it's the newness of it that really helps, with the maintenance of of brain health long term.

Yo. Who did we interview recently that was really talking about this? Tommy Wood. It was Tommy. That's right.

That's fantastic. We don't know what it was. It was it was really fantastic. We took a deep dive into it was I think there was, like, 66 main things they found. 1 was language, training, social interactions, obviously fitness.

There was there was, like, 66 pieces of it, that him Galpin was on that show as well. So you can you can scroll back. I wanna say it's probably 2 months ago that we that we had him on or late late, 2022. Nutrition on that list? Nutrition was on there, but it was the skill acquisition piece.

I remember that was, like, the most important piece. So, I shouldn't say most important, but it was what they specifically studied in that. The acquisition of skills and what skills lend itself to keeping your brain as up to date and and constantly learning so that there isn't that, slow just basically atrophy of of the brain. And language was language was a big one, and then kinda the music one that you talked about was was also something that they that they discussed, which is, very cool. So, basically, what we need to be doing is lifting weights and in between sets, learning how to play the drums while we talk to people in different languages.

And now that's the recipe for success. Beautiful. You actually got to the end of that show, and we realized that we we talk about so much stuff, and it was fantastic. But we we hadn't even gone into the nutrition, piece of it. And so we really need to do a part 2 with Tommy to talk over nutrition.

What about asking the genius here? Like, damn, what is the best for nutrition? Yeah. I actually I wrote, or edited, an email that you wrote where there was a that I think you wrote an article for XPT about, specific foods that are, very beneficial for health. And if I remember correctly, blueberries were one of them.

So that's why I take as many as I can into my hand and then slam them all into my face at once. Yes, sir. Yeah. Blueberries and basically, like, things that are blue or purple. So when when you're a grape or you're a blueberry, you're in the sun with a very thin, thin skin.

And the way in which you can protect yourself from the sun is to produce your own antioxidants to protect against that. So not like a banana. Banana doesn't have the actual banana itself is not dark at all because it didn't need to produce the same type of, antioxidants because it has such a thin I mean, such a thick peel around it. Whereas grapes and, blueberries, these are things very high in anthocyanins, which are produced in response to direct sunlight nonstop and having a thin skin. Anthocyanins have been demonstrated to reduce oxidative damage within the brain, but also even improve things like memory and even brain performance.

It's something that I use with my athletes actually quite frequently, but also kinda through the back door. Blueberries contain vitamin e. And vitamin e is is a lot more beneficial in nature than it is in supplementation form because nature actually has 8 different vitamin e's. There's 8 vitamin e is actually a family. There's 8 different vitamin e's.

Whereas in supplement form, you're typically only getting the alpha or gamma versions. Now those have been demonstrated to create the most effects in physiology, but nature tends to always find a way to know better than us about what should be in certain things and what shouldn't. And vitamin e in nature's form, it's actually very, very good for the brain because there's 2 actually heavy metals, copper and iron. When they are in excess in our diet, they actually create oxidative damage within the brain. They're they're one of those things where a small amount, a small amount is absolutely fantastic, like a u shaped curve.

A small amount a too small amount is not good, but the perfect amount is excellent. But then as you get too much copper and iron, it actually becomes a a pro oxidant and creates inflammation that is connected to Alzheimer's. Vitamin e is a fire extinguisher that helps us neutralize that inflammation and oxidative damage. So on top of the blueberries being a vehicle for anthocyanins, it's also a vehicle for vitamin e, which aids in the health of the brain as well. In terms of other nutritional, therapies towards aiding in brain health, the Chicago, the it there was a Chicago Health and Aging project.

And they basically took thousands of people, followed them, tracked their diet, and identified when they were or when or if, that was going to take place with dementia or, which populations develop dementia. And what they found was diets higher, kind of unsurprisingly, diets higher in saturated fat and trans fats actually increase your risk for Alzheimer's way, way more than diets lower in trans fats and saturated fats. And then that by itself kind of kicked off a lot of people just purely trying to isolate saturated fats and trans fats to Alzheimer's. So then researchers in Finland, they actually repeated the study and found the exact same thing, and then they repeated the study again utilizing an actual gene. So they said there's something known as an apoegene that's becoming pretty, popular in conversations these days.

Apoegene, it's a gene that increases your risk for the development of Alzheimer's over time. If you get the apoegene from one parent, it triples your risk for Alzheimer's. If you get the apoegene from both parents, it creates a 15 x risk of your development of Alzheimer's in your life. Now why I'm bringing that into this equation here is the researchers in Finland, they not only repeated the Chicago study, but they demonstrated that even if you have the APOE gene, a diet lower in saturated fats and trans fats was still dramatically reducing your risk compared to the diet higher in saturated fat and trans fats. So even when they adjusted for and corrected for the gene that is directly associated with increasing your risk for Alzheimer's, diets higher in saturated fats and trans fats still increase your risk, regardless of gene status.

So, basically, what was found in that study is that, basically, genes aren't destiny. They are your current gene set, and there's nothing you can do about it because you can't change your parents. But the actions you take today determine whether or not those genes actually get turned on or not. So cleaning up the diet and doing the right things with your nutrition and supplementation, even if you have those genes, it's it's not a destiny. You can do a lot to prevent, issues from taking place and improve your overall brain health.

What about healthy fats? Aren't, aren't they supposedly good for the brain, and why is that? Or is it not true? No. Our brain is made of 60%.

Our 60% of our brain is fat. So much like when you are breaking down a muscle in the gym in order to create a stress response to pull the fat up. Yeah. If you want protein to support that muscle tissue, if you have a lot of energy expenditure happening in within the brain, and by the way, it's one of the most energy expensive organs in our entire body, it determines a lot of our metabolic rate. You're gonna create waste products that, yes, get, removed from the cerebral spinal fluid while we sleep.

But we also need to supply the things that actually support what the brain is to begin with, which is an array of healthy fats, which is why eating from the sea has been demonstrated to be good for, brain health so many times. That's actually in the XBT article that I wrote, Anders, was wild salmon. Wild salmon is one of the brain health one of the healthiest brain foods that you could ever have with respect to healthy fats, but also omega 3 content and what that does for the neuronal connections and communication efficiency in the brain. Gotcha. Hey, man.

I wanna, let you talk about this concussion protocol you just put together with, O'Malley and, where people can find it because I think, hey. Rogan's giving you the shout out of doing something, just I feel like I I get used to you being, Dan Garner and things like this happening in our lives. But this is, really special stuff and and kind of the first of its kind. So I'd love to kinda turn it over of just where did it come from, what can people expect, and then where can people find it? I appreciate that, man.

Yeah. So like I kinda said to to Travis, much of my research in this world has revolved around the concussion area of things, and the athletic performance area because that's really where I built a name for myself. And, UFC has been, my favorite sport, or MMA has been my favorite sport. UFC, the best vehicle to watch it, has been the it's been 20 plus years where that's been, like, my absolute favorite thing to watch. And then through, like, a manifestation and a law of attraction, I ended up working with tons of UFC fighters.

So I've worked with a lot of UFC fighters, easily over 20, probably over 30 at this point in time, and, on a 1 on 1 basis. And I'm I always wanna find a way to help my people the most. And I one thing I found in nutrition was a lot of nutritionists, they get they're very, very wrapped up in purely the muscle cell. How can I provide electrolytes for the muscle? How can I hydrate the muscle?

How can I provide amino acids and glucose to the muscle? What can I do to perform? And it was always very muscle specific. But these fighters were so conscious of their brain health as well. And then also at the end of the day, you know, what tells the muscles what to do?

It's your brain performance. Brain performance is as important as muscular performance because it's your brain that's telling your muscles what to do. Like, you take 2 fighters and of equal ability, but one's in the zone that day and the other is not. Well, I can tell you who's gonna be the hammer and who's gonna be the nail. Like, your mind state and your brain performance is absolutely huge.

So a way in which I was able to differentiate myself from other nutrition coaches was to emphasize brain performance. And then now emphasizing brain recovery is just the next level of that. There there's enough research now on the world of post concussion, what we can do, and I I basically break it up into 3 phases. Immediately post fight, within the 14 days post fight, and then within 30 days post fight. So it's basically on fight day and then 2 weeks after the fight and then up to day 30.

That's phase 1, 2, and 3. Phase 1's damage control. We're immediately gonna reverse things that happened in the fight. Phase 2 is the overall repair process, and then phase 3 is actually brain resilience. You you can do certain things in order to create a more resilient brain towards trauma in the future.

So I've included all of this into that manual. It's the it's the exact protocol that I give my professional athletes who pay a lot to work with me. It's the exact same formula, and it's accessible for people on Amazon and Kindle. One of the number one questions I get is, I don't have a Kindle. How how can I get this?

You don't have to have a physical Kindle. A Kindle is a free app. So you can download the free app on your desktop. You can download it on your phone. It's a it's a free app.

It's not you don't have to have the physical thing. So you just go to Amazon Kindle. You download it there, and then have it on your app, and you're gonna have the exact protocol for brain repair, brain recovery, and brain resilience moving forward for I'm getting that today. Awesome. Is that something, is that something that, for call it the high school soccer player that goes up for a header and bangs head with the with the opponent and goes down, is that is that the same as coming out of a fight?

Can that can this be used by them? Dude, I recommend it for basically everybody. And I know that sounds very self serving, but I mean it. Probably all 4 of us on this podcast have suffered a concussion in the past or many of them. Yeah.

But a concussion's a concussion. If you're in soccer, if you're in football, if you're in hockey, if you're in MMA, like, it doesn't matter who you are or where you're at. I think that it's very beneficial to have this. And don't wait for a concussion to get it because then you're still gonna have to order supplements. You're still gonna have to go to the grocery store and get the foods.

And I include the foods, the exercise, the supplements. It's a full protocol design. So don't wait to get it. You wanna be prepared if anything like that ever happens because it's your brain. Awesome, man.

And, where can people find it again? Go to Amazon. It's available worldwide. So whatever your, country's Amazon is, and then type in the brain synergy protocol in Amazon, and you will find it. It's written by myself and my fighter, Sean O'Malley.

There it is. Sugar Sean. Yes, sir. Soon to be number 1 in the world. Current number 1 in the world, but doesn't have a belt yet.

Yeah. Soon to be the new. That's alright. We're we're we're actually currently kicking off a a bit of a camp here in case someone pulls out of the Henry Aljo fight in 9 weeks. There's a good chance.

Let's see. I feel like someone pulls out every single match. It's like We're gonna be ready. Never what is planned. Yeah.

I'm gonna be ready. Where can people find you, Dan? You can find me at Dan Garner Nutrition on Instagram. You can also find the BrainSynergy Protocol through the link in my bio on Instagram. There you go.

Beautiful. Travis. Mashlee.com, but I'm gonna go to Dan's bio right now and and buy that. Yeah. There it is.

You gotta click. You gotta click. I like that. Doug Larson. Yep.

On Instagram, douglas e Larson. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are barbell shrug shrug at barbell_shrug. You can also get over to rapid health report on Instagram to follow us up there. And then, of course, head over to rapid health report dot com.

That is where Dan and doctor Andy Galpin are breaking down lifestyle, performance, and lab analysis, for one of our clients inside Rapid Health Optimization. You can see them doing their magic. That's over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.