Brain Inflammation and Stress: Cognitive Health Plan
===
VARSHA: ~ The memory lapses, the brain fog you've been dismissing as normal aging are actually signs of brain inflammation. I just realized that is in my,~
~yeah, that's annoying. Maybe I should move that. Well, I can move it real quick.~
~Okay,~
~that's better.~
~That also hides my horrible chin.~
~Okay. Oh, I'm still on. Okay. ~[00:00:00] The memory lapses and the brain fog you've been dismissing as normal aging may actually be signs of brain inflammation and the start of cognitive impairment. ~Chronic stress is linked to measurable changes. ~ Chronic stress is linked to measurable changes in brain structure and function, including smaller total brain volume and memory deficits, and may alter the parts of your brain that manage memory, emotion, and focus.
~The good news is many of these changes can be reversed and targeted. It can be reversed with targeted interventions. Today, you'll learn exactly how stress, God dang it. Sometimes it goes fast and sometimes the good news. ~Many of these changes can be reversed with targeted interventions. Today you'll learn exactly how stressed rewires your brain and ways to improve your cognitive sharpness.
All right, let's dive in. Before we get to solutions, you need to understand exactly what chronic stress is doing to your brain, because once you see how it can damage your brain, you'll understand why it's so critical to improve your brain health.
What actually happens when you experience chronic stress? Three specific brain regions undergo measurable changes. They've seen this on different scans. The first [00:01:00] area is the hippocampus, and the hippocampus is your memory center. ~Think of your hippocampus, the part. ~Think of your hippocampus like a sponge.
A fresh sponge can soak up water easily, just like your brain can soak up new information. But when your stress hormone, mainly cortisol is high it's like that sponge is being squeezed tight and a squeezed sponge cannot hold much water. And in the same way, your hippocampus can't hold onto as many memories or new information.
That's why when you're under stress, you may find that you forget. Simple things like. Where you put your keys, you may struggle what you just learned, where you may read something and you have to read it again and again
I. Your memory sponge doesn't have enough room to soak in all that information. The second part of the brain is the amygdala. The amygdala ~is like your body's ~is like your brain's smoke alarm. Normally, it's there to keep you safe, and it only goes off when there's real danger like a fire. But under chronic stress, [00:02:00] cortisol rewires that smoke alarm.
~And in, ~and instead of only ringing when there's smoke, it starts blaring at burnt toast, steam from the shower, or sometimes for no reason at all. Your amygdala, ~which is more reactive, enlarges~ gets bigger and more reactive. Everyday situations that aren't dangerous, like a work email, a crowded room, or even a minor disagreement can feel overwhelming like your brain is screaming fire when there isn't one.
This constant false alarm leaves you feeling anxious, hypervigilant, and emotionally drained. The third area is your ~pre front ~prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in your executive functioning.
Your prefrontal cortex is like your brain's CEO. ~It's the boss that keeps everything organized, making decisions, planning ahead, staying. ~ It's the part of your brain that keeps everything organized from making decisions.
Planning ahead and staying focused and keeping emotions in check.
The prefrontal cortex is normally very levelheaded and helps you make decisions, but when it's under chronic stress it's not in charge and the [00:03:00] amygdala's in charge, then you start. Feeling more hypervigilant and making decisions just based out of fear and avoidance.
Now, here's the devastating part. Stress damages the very brain regions You need to manage stress effectively. ~Think of this and~
so chronic stress shrinks your hippocampus. Make it harder to remember positive coping strategies you've learned. It enlarges your amygdala, making you see threats everywhere, even in safe situations, and it weakens your prefrontal cortex so you can't think clearly or make good decisions when you're stressed.
This creates a downward spiral where stress makes you worse at handling stress, which creates more stress.
~But it can get worse. Before we talk about, ~ but before we talk about the solution, there's another aspect that makes it worse. When you are stressed, it disrupts your brain chemistry ,
and this keeps your brain from ~function ~functioning optimally.
Your brain uses chemical messengers to control your mood and motivation. We call them [00:04:00] neurotransmitters. Serotonin helps you feel calm and steady. Dopamine helps you feel motivated and rewarded, and GABA helps you relax. ~But when you're under chronic stress, it's like the wifi connection. ~When you're under chronic stress, these neurotransmitters.
~Signals keep cutting out. ~The signals don't get delivered properly to your brain, and instead of feeling calm, focused and motivated, you end up feeling anxious, depressed, low or restless, and you can't make decisions.
That is why long-term stress can lead to depression, anxiety, and trouble winding down. The brain's messaging system is jammed,
and to even make it worse, this structural and chemical damage becomes even more dangerous. Not only during the day, but it sabotages your brain's ability to repair itself at night During deep sleep, your brain activates the glymphatic system.
~The glim, ~the glymphatic system is what clears out all the gunk and waste in your brain, including proteins like beta amyloid. That has been shown to accumulate an Alzheimer's disease, ~but it, ~the [00:05:00] glymphatic system tries to clear all that out. So if stress is disrupting your sleep, even one night of sleep loss can raise beta amyloid by approximately 5% in healthy adults.
So sleep is so important for your brain, and most of us, when we're stressed, we're not sleeping well. We find it hard to fall asleep, we may actually fall asleep, and then we get up early morning and as a result, we're not getting that good quality deep sleep that we need for our brain to rest and recover.
So here's the question. Can we reverse any damage that's already been done or can we prevent anything?
~And the good news is, of course you can. ~And the good news is you can
now make sure you work with your healthcare provider, though before incorporating any of these strategies or starting any supplements, especially if you have any other health conditions, symptoms, or you take any medications or other supplements.
So there are important things like good lifestyle habits, which we've talked about in other videos like nutrition, sleep, [00:06:00] exercise, . But sometimes initially you need a little help to calm down the stress system. ~And we call these, ~and there are special supplements that you can take to do that. And we call these adaptogens.
~ the, ~the adaptogenic herbs are special plants that help your body handle stress better.
And most of them just modulate your stress system. It's kind of like a thermostat. When you're too wound up, they help calm you down. When you're too tired, they help give you more energy. They don't force your body one way or the other, except there may be a few that actually do lower cortisol, which I will talk about, but most of them just try to work with your own natural biology to help your stress system work more efficiently.
So ~one, one of those is awa. ~One adaptogen is ashwagandha and ashwagandha at about 300 milligrams daily in studies showed
about a 28% less stress hormone in their blood after just 60 days.
When using the high concentration root extract. Now, I will warn you, ashwagandha is one of those that actually can lower cortisol, so I would work with your healthcare provider because you may not [00:07:00] need to take it long term. I typically tell my patients to use it for about eight to 12 weeks, and then to wean off and stop it,
because if your cortisol gets too low, then that can also cause some symptoms.
Another adaptogenic herb is rhodiola. This herb reduces stress related fatigue and supports performance ~in certain studies. ~In some studies
now, Rhodiola can be a little more stimulating, so I usually dose that at the start on a very low dose. In the morning, and then slowly increase and you do need to watch like your blood pressure, your heart rate, if you're taking any of these herbs really.
And the third one, which is one of my favorites, is holy basil. It's also called tulsi. And you can get this in a tea as well.
~But studies may show that this also helps reduce significant. ~This also helps reduce stress.
You also wanna incorporate certain techniques to help calm your nervous system, and one of those is mindfulness.
Mindfulness isn't just about relaxing. It's actually a way to change how your brain works. Mindfulness means [00:08:00] paying attention to what's happening right now without any judgment, just acknowledging. What you're feeling, and you can do this through meditation, through breathing exercises, or just taking a walk and being focused on the sensations in your body and your thoughts.
Eight week mindfulness training is associated with changes in brain areas like the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. In some studies,
~what, and mindfulness in some studies may. Oh, I don't know. I don't have to go through all that. And ~the important thing is to do it in a consistent pattern and just doing it for short bouts of time, like 10 minutes. ~I, ~you can also do breath work. One of the most popular patterns is a 4 7, 8 breathing pattern where you breathe in for four, hold for seven, and then exhale for eight.
Now you also wanna keep up your nutrition and you wanna feed your brain the right fuel. Your brain works really hard and needs good fuel to function and repair itself. When you're stressed, use up more and more of these nutrients that your brain needs. So eating the right foods gives your brain the tools it needs to fix itself and help fight off any [00:09:00] potential damage.
Anti-inflammatory foods have special compounds that fight the damage. That stress can cause.
My favorite nutrient is Omega-3 foods.
Often two grams or more of an Omega-3 that has just EPA and DHA in It can help reduce your stress and of course, speak to your healthcare provider because Omega-3 can interact with certain medications and health conditions. It's best to try to get it from foods like salmon. Or other fatty fish, which are mackerel, anchovies, sardines, and herring, which I know salmon may be the most appetizing.
, You can also get it from vegetarian sources. Your body has to undergo an extra step to extract the Omega-3, but it can be found in chia hemp and ground flax seeds. You can even get your Omega-3 level check to make sure that your level is good. And if you're eating these foods and you're not getting your level to a therapeutic range, then you wanna work with your healthcare provider about possibly starting a supplement.
Magnesium is another favorite of [00:10:00] mine, ~and magnesium comes in very. ~Magnesium comes in so many different forms. Every time I turn around there's a new form, but my favorite one is Magnesium L-Threonate, because this is one that can actually cross your blood brain barrier so that it can actually help your brain cells.
It can also help with sleep. And anxiety.
Again, work with your healthcare provider for the dose that and the form that's best for you. B vitamins are also very important. B vitamins get used up whenever you are under stress. And they're also used to make your neurotransmitters.
You also want to make sure that you are exercising consistently, ~and sometimes it's hard to find if you're very busy, ~ exercise is one of the most powerful ways to fix brain damage from stress when you exercise. After your session, your brain makes about 200 to 300% of a special protein called BDNF.
BDNF is like a plant fertilizer, but for your brain, it helps your brain grow new brain cells and makes the connections between them stronger. Research has shown that about moderate [00:11:00] exercise where you can still talk, but it takes some effort for about 20 to 45 minutes a day works best, and this can include ~fast walking, ~fast walking, bike riding, swimming, or any activity that makes your heartbeat faster.
And again, work with your healthcare provider to make sure that you're doing exercise that's appropriate for your level, and then as I'd mentioned, sleep, you definitely wanna make sure that you are getting good sleep so that your brain can clear out your brain waste and clear out those proteins that could potentially be linked with Alzheimer's.
If you, , incorporate these changes, you will start to work your way to better brain health. So after one to two weeks, you'll start noticing you have a little more stable energy, especially if you're getting better sleep, and you'll have better sleep quality. ~I,~
after, after about three to four weeks, you'll notice. A reduction in brain fog, and you'll notice better moods. And about two to three months you'll notice significant improvements in memory and focus and long term you'll be protecting yourself from cognitive decline. So start [00:12:00] small, pick one intervention, and then slowly build on top of each other.
~You can also follow my daily habits that I have been posting to get some ideas on some habits, but.~
~You'll have, you'll be able, whatever. ~You can also follow My Daily Habits Challenge on this podcast. Or if you're on YouTube, you can watch it on there as well. But your brain has an in incredible capacity to heal.
~And when you give it the right environment, every, ~your brain has an incredible capacity to heal when you give it the right environment. So every little change that you make, every time you do a stress management technique, every time you eat a food that's good for your brain, every night that you get of good sleep, they all add up and they are all reducing your risk for developing dementia in the future.
~And this month I'll be doing. And this month's, I'm saying. All right, so this month's pod, ~this month's podcast, ~and next month ~the theme ~is going to be about your brain ~is going to be about your brain and things that cause inflammation in your brain.
~So we'll be talking about. ~There'll be future topics coming up about how blood sugar can affect your brain, toxins, including heavy metals, mold, toxins, and microplastics, and much more. So make sure that you follow or subscribe so that you don't miss out on any of those feature [00:13:00] videos.
Thanks for listening or watching, and have a fantastic day.
