neuroplasticity Archives - Fusion Health and Wellness

Quick and Dirty Tips

My latest blog post is taking a while, so here are four quick tips to read in the meantime. Enjoy!

1. Coconut oil for weight loss, improved cognition, and boosted immunity – While coconut oil has definitely started to verge on becoming a fad, there are quite a few reasons to add it to your diet.

In place of other fats, coconut oil may aid weight-loss – 60% of the fat found in coconut oil are medium chain triglycerides, or MCTs. These shorter fatty acids bypass normal digestion and are absorbed straight into the bloodstream through the liver, where the body preferentially burns them as energy instead of storing them away as body fat.

The MCTs in coconut oil are readily converted to ketones, small molecules that the body can use for energy, just like it would for sugar. This provides an immediate supply of energy not only for muscles, but for the brain as well. While normal folk may enjoy a nice boost of clear headed energy from coconut oil, it’s especially important for those with Alzheimer’s disease, during which brain cells can become resistant to burning glucose, leading researchers to believe that some forms of Alzheimer’s disease to be a type of diabetes. However, these glucose-resistant brain cells have no problem utilizing ketones as a fuel source.

Finally, coconut oil is nature’s richest source of lauric acid, comprising nearly 50% of it by weight. Inside the body, lauric acid is converted to monolaurin, a powerful little compound with antiviral, antimicrobial, antiprotozoal and anti fungal properties, with many infections being unable to develop a resistance to it. Coconut oil also contains capric and caprylic acids, two more anti-fungal compounds.

My suggestion? Spend 20 bucks on a few months supply of coconut oil and use it in place of other fat sources. Concentrated MCT oil is also available.

2. Avoid Carbs in the Morning – Cortisol, a catabolic, fat-storing hormone, is highest in the morning.

This is actually a good thing, as it acts as a natural caffeine, waking you up and preparing you for the day. But because cortisol increases fat storage, it’s best to make your breakfast low in carbs, instead having a healthy mix of protein, low-carb, high-fiber veggies/fruits, with a small to moderate amount of fat.

Think an omelet with onions, mushrooms and peppers, a smoothie with blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, chia seeds, protein powder and unsweetened almond milk, or even a breakfast salad.

3. Keep cortisol low to reduce stress, lower body fat and have more energy – Let’s get some things straight about cortisol – it is an absolutely essential hormone, responsible for proper energy levels, feelings of alertness, and even helps regulate blood sugar. The problem, as with all things health related, is the balance of cortisol. Too little and you’ll be plagued with fatigue; too much, and you’ll be constantly stressed, unable to put on muscle and unable to prevent fat gain, the dreaded skinny-fat.

Fortunately, as long as you haven’t dug yourself into adrenal fatigue, there are easy ways to lower cortisol to keep it right in that optimum range.

According to this study, yoga is an easy and effective intervention to reduce cortisol to a normal range –

The findings support that yoga may act at the level of the hypothalamus by its ‘anti-stress’ effects (reducing the cortisol), to bring about relief in depression.

Further, considering the fact yoga results in an almost 30% increase in GABA, our main calming neurotransmitter, you’re getting a one-two punch in reducing stress levels.

One of my most favorite herbs, ashwagandha, has a strong cortisol-lowering effect as well. According to a 2008 study, ashwagandha “significantly improved scores on a standardized measurement of stress intensity… Moreover, at the end of the study period subjects that received 500 mg of ashwagandha daily had cortisol levels nearly 30% lower than subjects who took a placebo, and their DHEA-s levels were significantly higher as well.”

DHEA is a mood-boosting, muscle-building, fat-reducing hormone that starts to decline each year starting in the early 30s, at roughly 2% a year. Any increase you can get in DHEA is a good thing.

You can also use phosphotidylserine, a phospholipid naturally present in milk and soybeans. This study states –

Pretreatment with both 50 and 75 mg BC-PS (phosphatidylserine) significantly blunted the ACTH and cortisol responses to physical stress.

You can buy 120 capsules at 100 mg each here.

4. Meditation lengthens life, improves cognitive processing speed, improves neuroplasticity, and delays the aging of the brain.

It’s incredible how certain single activities have such a multitude of benefits – exercise, yoga, looking before you cross the road. You can now officially add meditation to that list.

Meditation protects telomeres, which are the end caps on your DNA. Longer telomeres are positively associated with prolonged life, meaning anything that protects telomeres will likely lengthen your life. Meditation prevents the shortening of telomeres, thus likely lengthening your life.

Recent research at UCLA shows that meditation helps not only strengthen connections between existing neurons, but increases something called gyrification. This is the amount and thickness of folds in the pre-frontal cortex – more folds, more surface area, and an increase in memory and information processing speed.

As the study states, “there seems to be a positive correlation between cortical gyrification and intelligence (Luders et al., 2008)”, meaning an increase in gyrification (through meditation or other means) should increase intelligence as well.

A 2009 study concludes that,

meditation may reduce stress-induced cortisol secretion and this could have neuroprotective effects potentially via elevating levels of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)… In one cross-sectional study, meditation practitioners were found to have a lower age-related decline in thickness of specific cortical regions.

This means two things. First, because of a decrease in cortisol and an increase in BDNF, meditation is neuroprotective, protecting the brain against damage and stress, while at the same time increasing neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to form new connections between existing neurons.

Second, meditation prevents the age-related decline in grey matter, literally preventing the aging of the brain.

Not to mention meditation lowers stress, boosts the immune system, lowers blood pressure, reduces pain and leads to a general increase in happiness and quality of living. Stay tuned for future articles on meditation and yoga, I’ll be getting pretty in depth with these topics.

Interested in how to utilize these concepts to get the most out of life? Contact me for a free initial consultation.

Tapas and Embracing the Uncomfortable – Keys to Success

There’s no doubt about it, I’ve lived a pretty comfortable life so far. That’s great for a little bit of personal enjoyment, but you know what it isn’t so great for? Moving up in life. Why strive for greatness, risk losing things and do a whole lot of work along the way (in short, get uncomfortable), when I can just comfortably stay where I’m at?

Turns out I needed to embrace the uncomfortable – I needed to roll my sleeves up and dive head first into discomfort. The truth is we’ll never really get anywhere unless we embrace the uncomfortable, unless we actively seek out discomfort.

The Stoics of ancient Greece, the Yogis of ancient (and modern) India and many others along the way welcomed discomfort into their lives, because they knew that if they weren’t experiencing some level of discomfort, they were likely stalling, not making progress in life, and wiring their brains to play it safe.

You aren’t making progress if you aren’t getting uncomfortable.

In fact the Yogis have a word for this very concept – Tapas. Tapas is one of the Niyamas, or Observances, needed in order to transcend the ego, which is the actual goal of Yoga. Tapas is the heat or fire needed to burn away the dross that covers and dulls the mind – examples of Tapas could include meditation, fasting, vows of silence, asceticism or even sexual abstinence. The physical postures, or asanas, are a form of Tapas as well.

When I first got into Yoga I was very drawn to Tapas, and in the course of about a month went from being lazy and hedonic to drastically cutting back on everyday pleasures. I went long periods without using social media, stopped aimlessly browsing the web, starting eating simple, plain food, fasted every Monday, and essentially cut out all “time wasters”. At the same time I read plenty of books on a variety of subjects (no fiction though) and did yoga and meditated daily. And by God if I didn’t notice the biggest increase in clarity of thought, calmness of emotion and a huge boost in productivity.

The reason I bring all this up is to help you realize that in order for you to reach your goals, whether it’s losing weight or making your first million dollars, you have to be willing to put in the time, work and effort and be uncomfortable.

Want to lose weight? You’re likely going to have to give up a few comfort foods, start eating new foods you’re not used to, start exercising with more intensity and regularity, etc. The good news is that not only will you start losing weight, but you’ll start adapting to these new discomforts – at which point you’ll have to adjust your regimen so as not to plateau.

I recommend getting uncomfortable every day – train yourself to embrace discomfort.

Maybe you fast on Mondays. Start your morning off with a cold shower. Pick up meditation and meditate 15-30 minutes each day. Do a hundred pushups every Tuesday. I highly recommend fasting from social media for one day once a week, or a few days in a row each month.

Do this toughness training along with the discomfort that comes with aspiring to achieve your goals. This way, when the going gets tough and you need to buckle down for the big storm, you’ll pass with flying colors because you’ve been preparing this whole time.

Train your brain to accept and welcome the uncomfortable, and recognize it as a sign of growth, progress and enhanced resiliency. Neurons that fire together wire together, so make sure your neurons are wired to embrace the uncomfortable.

Leave a comment below and tell me about how you’ve had to embrace the uncomfortable in the past to get where you are now.

Fear and Failure

When was the last time you did something that scared you? It could be anything – confronting someone at work, letting go of something important in your life, skydiving or swimming with sharks.. When was the last time you embraced fear?

Fear obviously serves a very important purpose, namely keeping us alive. If we didn’t have a little bit of appropriate fear, be it of heights, wild animals with huge fangs or even of social faux pas (being ostracized from a tribe often meant death), the human race wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have.

Fear not, the creepy crawlies – just kidding, this thing’s disgusting

But what happens when we succumb to the little fears? The fears that are holding us back in our life, that keep us from reaching ever new heights? These are the fears that must be embraced and overcome if you’re going to truly thrive in this world, and almost all of them can be boiled down to just three things – fear of the unknown, fear of failure, and fear of success.

Fear of the Unknown has obvious implications – just what is in that deep, dark forest? Lions, tigers, maybe bears?

We fear the unknown simply because we don’t know whether it’s dangerous or not. However, most of our fears in the modern world in regards to the “unknown” aren’t life threatening or even any sort of substantial gamble. That new job you’ve been offered? It might be awesome, or maybe it will suck, but it’s not gonna kill you and you’ll likely bounce right back if things don’t work out.

Fear of the unknown stems from being too attached to comfort. The antidote? Get comfortable shaking things up, get comfortable being uncomfortable – actively seek out the unknown every day, or at least a few times a week. Go ahead and start small – strike up a conversation with people you don’t know, explore new hiking trails, try Ethiopian food or a new cuisine that is radically different from what you’re used to. Take bigger bites as time goes on – travel to a new city, a new country, move to a new state, take up a new job doing something radically different, or anything that fully submerges you in the unknown.

Summed up – Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Once you embrace the unknown, it loses it’s power over you.

Fear of failure is probably the most prevalent type of fear in today’s world. Who hasn’t felt that tinge of panic when attempting something you’re not sure will work? I’ve got news for you, it’s time to embrace failure.

The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried. – Stephen McCranie

Nothing great ever came from comfort zones! No progress is ever made without some discomfort, so go out there and get uncomfortable! You’ll succeed more than you thought you would, and each time you don’t is an opportunity to learn from your mistakes.

You have to reframe failure as a positive thing, or maybe even erase the word failure from your lexicon. Reframe “failure” as such – each time you attempt something and get a different result than you expected (which most would call failure), you recognize that something simply needs tweaking in your methodology. Become a scientist and think of things as an experiment – they don’t get their feathers ruffled when their experiment gives them a result different than expected, so why should you?

Further, failure is a sign of progress. How many times did you fail before you took your first step? How many times did you fail learning to ride a bike, or hit a baseball, or learning your multiplication tables? My sevens still get me.

“Failure” is simply a sign that you’re getting closer and closer to success.

One of the first tricks you learn on a skateboard is a kickflip, and it took me easily a full year to land my first kickflip. That’s a whole year of trying one trick every day and messing up again and again and again. But if I gave up I never would have found one of my first true passions, had a chance to film in videos, compete in contests or get an all-expense-paid trip to San Diego to compete in an Amateur world finals competition.

0M1vvDK8qh_1402473201070 — The Man, Elon Musk

Summed up – Reframe failure as evidence that you’re getting closer and closer to success. You’re simply a scientist, and each time you get results different than expected, just tweak your methods.

On the flip side of fear of failure is fear of success. Fear of success is insidious because it’s so hard to spot – we think we want success and think we’re doing all we can to achieve it, when in actuality we’re still stuck in our comfort zones. With success comes change, and so fear of success has an element of fear of the unknown in it as well.

Success may also contradict a deep held belief of yours – that you don’t deserve anything good. How so many of us got this belief in the first place is beyond me, but it’s very common.

Long story short, figure out what you want, plan out how to get it, and take action. Every so often take a step back and ask yourself if you’re really doing everything you can to achieve your goals, and figure out what your weak spots and sticking points are.

Summed up – Believe, deep down, that you deserve the best. Figure out what you want, plan out a course of action, attack, and constantly assess and tweak. As Tai Lopez would say, finding and consulting with mentors doesn’t hurt either.

The bottom line is to train your brain to embrace discomfort, to embrace fear, and to reframe failure as a positive thing. Remember, neurons that fire together wire together – the more you feel that twinge of fear and back down, the stronger those neural connections will be in your brain, and the more likely you’ll back down in the future. Rewire your brain to embrace fear and move through it, and watch as it loses all it’s power.

Now go get uncomfortable.

Into the Abyss – Sensory Deprivation Tanks and How the Internet is Ruining Your Brain

Yesterday I treated myself to something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time – a session in a Sensory Deprivation Tank. Sometimes called floatation tanks, they’re basically a pod filled with water that has been super saturated with epsom salts – in my case, 1000 pounds of epsom salts in just 10 inches of water. You hop in, turn the light off and shut the lid. Inside it’s pitch black, the water and air is body temperature, and while the pod itself doesn’t make things completely sound proof, the addition of ear plugs do. So you’re literally floating in what feels like nothing, with no sights, no sensations, and no sounds other than your own breath. It’s just you and the infinite abyss of your mind.

My floatation tank at Regenerate

Why would anyone voluntarily do this? Not only is it quite relaxing, it helps decrease inflammation, reduce stress, lowers blood pressure and may help one recover from strenuous workouts or other stressors. It also helps top off your body’s magnesium stores, as Epsom salts are simply magnesium sulfate. This is important as magnesium is critical for over 300 reactions in your body and the majority of Americans are deficient in this crucial mineral.

But that’s not why I’ve been wanting to try one.

I’ve been big into meditation for a while now and am always looking for ways to further explore my mind. Once you begin any meditation program or just take some time to investigate your mind, you’ll come to realize what a strange, ephemeral beast it really is. It’s hard to control; it’s constantly hungry for new stimuli; it’s able to be aware of and observe itself; and strangest of all, it seems to disappear if truly examined.

Here’s a little exercise for you – observe your thoughts as they come and go, and the accompanying feelings, emotions and sensations. Notice how your mind sometimes has pictures that accompanies thoughts, and sometimes doesn’t. Notice what the sensation of boredom feels like, or the desire to go do something else. Now go back to observing your thoughts, and as you observe them, ask yourself, Who is it that is observing these thoughts? Are “you” your thoughts, memories, desires and habits, aka the content of your mind, or are you that silent observer that watches these thoughts and feelings come and go?

So anyway, it’s been posited that while in a sensory deprivation tank, your mind, deprived of it’s usual bombardment of signals, starts to open up a bit, with thoughts and images flowing up from your subconscious. This can be very therapeutic, enlightening, frightening or some combination therein. You may remember things from the far past that you’d forgotten, or perhaps insights into a problem you’ve been trying to solve may suddenly flash into your mind. I personally didn’t notice much more than a profound relaxation and a sense of exhilaration as my body floated in what seemed like zero gravity, but I suspect that after a few longer sessions I may have more success in the psychonautics department.

But this session in the tank made me think; how many of us can handle an hour plus of pure black, silence and even a complete lack of physical sensations? In today’s world, my guess is very few, and we have technology and society to thank for that. In the West we’re literally trained to live a fast-paced lifestyle, to constantly seek out immediate stimulation, and we’re told that what we already have isn’t good enough. Just look at the ads on tv – your car could be better, your body isn’t up to par with this model’s body, and you’d attract more “babes” by drinking Bud Light. Instead of living a relaxed life, content with what we have, it’s being drilled into us that we never have enough.

Social media, the internet in general and even texting on cell phones further amplify our discontent. Take Facebook for example. Unchecked usage literally rewires your brain, causing a shorter attention span, decreased self worth and the desire for constant, immediate updates.

See, we’re biologically built to seek out rewards, and in the past these rewards were wholesome, they mattered, they meant the difference between life and death, and they were much fewer and more spread out. Quality over quantity can best sum up the difference in rewards in the past versus current times. When you achieved a goal, whether its eating food when hungry, or having sex with an attractive partner, or getting some physical activity, or experiencing something novel, or basically doing anything that ensures your survival and the survival of the human race, your brain releases the neurotransmitter dopamine in order to reinforce that behavior. Dopamine is a molecule that plays key roles in goal-oriented behavior, pleasure, focus, mood and energy levels. Next time you’re hungry and take a nice big bite of some tasty dish, pay attention to how satisfying it feels – that’s dopamine at work. That pleasurable feeling you get from coffee or chocolate? Dopamine.

The problem is that the internet and social media in particular are hacking into this system of reward and using it to their advantage. These things are intentionally designed to be addictive, to keep you coming back multiple times throughout the day. When you see that little red number for the notifications of all the likes you’ve gotten on your new status, you get a nice little hit of dopamine, which encourages you to keep updating your page and checking back to see how many likes you’ve gotten. Why is your brain rewarding you for this? Because to be a social outcast in the past meant to be ostracized from the tribe. A tribe can defend itself out on the African safari. A single person? Not likely.

Facebook is further compounded by the novelty factor – if you keep scrolling long enough down your Facebook feed, you’ll eventually find something interesting and novel. BAM! more dopamine.

But perhaps most addictive of all is that Facebook is ego-based and takes advantage of intermittent reward. It’s well known that the best way to train lab animals is not to give them a reward each time they do something correctly, but to give them rewards only some of the time, at random. This keeps them guessing and in suspense, and more eager for that next hit of dopamine.

Facebook makes good use of intermittent reward. When you make a status, you’re never exactly sure how many people are going to like it, or who out of your friends will like it (will your crush like it??) And when you open your Facebook app, you’re never sure what kind of notifications, if any, you’ll have. Did someone friend request you? Did someone post something funny on your page, or did nothing happen involving you at all? Poor you..

Over time this behavior reshapes the brain, due to neuroplasticity.

Neurons that fire together, wire together

Neuroplasticity is the term for how the brain will reshape itself according to the stimulus it receives. So the more often you get angry when someone insults you, and the more often those certain neurons fire together in the brain when this occurs, the more likely it is to happen in the future because you’ve already laid down the neural network for this to occur. So when you’re opening your Facebook app 10, 20, 30 or more times a day, you’re actually rewiring your brain to crave this constant immediate reward, which makes it a bitch to stick to longer tasks that don’t have these immediate rewards. Unfortunately those tasks are usually the ones that matter, whether it’s paying attention to your kids, getting your school work done, or finishing that big project that’s due at work next week.

One more doozy from all of this – overusing social media actually damages the brain. See, the brain, like the rest of the body, is always trying to maintain homeostasis, it’s always trying to keep thing in a state of balance. So if the brain starts getting bigger releases of dopamine more frequently, it will compensate by desensitizing the receptors that are getting the extra dopamine – this makes them less sensitive so they don’t burn out. However, if elevated dopamine levels are sustained, eventually the brain starts destroying some of those receptors to compensate for the extra dopamine. This is the basis for drug addiction.

The red square of dopamine

Let me give you an example. Remember the first time you had a cup of coffee? Caffeine has quite a few effects in the body but a major one is a nice big hit of dopamine. It likely lifted your mood, enhanced your focus, improved your sense of well being, and you may have gotten giddy and excited about things, possibly even euphoric.

I remember my first cup vividly – I was in the 10th grade and my teacher prepared us some cheap Folgers coffee. I had one 5 oz cup of very weak coffee. It was the last class of the day, and I left school laughing maniacally on the bus, and then promptly crashed a few hours later. Now what happens when you drink coffee? You may feel like a zombie prior and feel just “normal” afterwards, but certainly not euphoric or giddy. This is because your brain has adjusted to the extra dopamine by becoming less sensitive to it.

So whether this desensitization occurs through caffeine, other drugs or things like social media, it leaves you with a brain that is less sensitive to dopamine, the main neurotransmitter involved in pleasure, reward, and goal oriented behavior.

This doesn’t mean you should delete your Facebook account, it just means to practice some moderation. If you’re going to use social media, try to limit it to just checking once in the morning and once in the evening, avoid the mindless scrolling, and turn off the notifications from your phone so you’re not getting those constant pings and buzzes. Try a going a few days or a week without it – I promise you’ll be able to function just fine. If, while on your sabbatical, you find yourself constantly checking your phone, or wanting to, to see if you have any updates, you may need to be a bit more strict with your usage.

Remember, there’s a reverse side to everything. Some things leave you less sensitive to dopamine, which makes you less motivated and lead to experiencing less pleasure. But there are also ways to improve your sensitivity to dopamine, and thus increase your drive, motivation and the pleasure you’ll get out of life. If you’d like to know more, contact me.