Help to Heal Your Brain

By: Catherine Ebeling, RN, BSN

The pharmaceutical companies are making massive amounts of money, especially when it comes to the treatment of mood and behavioral disorders. Record numbers of people turn to medication for psychiatric medications. Medical treatments for depression, autism, attention deficit disorder, insomnia, eating disorders, learning disabilities, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, bipolar, and dementia are huge and growing every day.

Along with that, there are also disorders that are not always classified as a treatable disease, but disabling nonetheless. These include chronic stress, brain fog, anger, mood swings, sleep issues, irritability, memory loss and more. It's the 'invisible epidemic' that affects 1.1 billion people worldwide and 1 out of 6 children.

What if the cure for brain disorders is not with the brain, as conventional medical professionals think, but in the body? What if mood, memory, attention, behavior problems, and most other brain diseases have their root cause in the body's systems? Perhaps the conventional medical approach to dealing with brain disorders is totally backwards.

Doctors used to speak of the 'blood/brain' barrier in terms of medications, toxins, foods, etc. The premise was that many things we ingested or that our bodies were exposed to, do not cross that barrier to the brain. Now we know that is not true, and it holds very true for many of the foods we eat. Toxins in the form of preservatives, hormones, pesticides and other chemicals do cross that barrier, and often the result is dementia, ADHD, depression, anxiety, insomnia, brain fog, memory loss, autism and more.

We have found, however, that in the 21st century, it is also very clear that the brain is very much linked to the body, and that what happens in the brain can affect the body and what happens in the body can affect the brain.

If any of our body systems are in trouble, then the brain is too.

The chemical imbalances underlying "psychiatric illness" can now be seen as linked to more systemic biochemical, metabolic problems; and these can actually be treated at the bodily level, with a great deal of success. While just treating the brain with pharmaceuticals may lead to drug dependence, a dulled reality, and not treat the real problem - treating the body's systemic chemistry can fix the brain chemistry imbalance and lead to real healing.

The truth is, imbalances in our basic core systems - nutrition, hormones, immune function, digestion, detoxification, energy, metabolism, and mind/body explain all the symptoms and diseases we think are purely "brain" problems. Truthfully these are imbalances in the body that show up in the brain.

Messed up physical systems in the body can offer cause and effect explanations for the epidemics of depression, anxiety, dementia, autism, and attention deficit disorder.

Conventional treatments treat only the symptoms, not the root cause, and therefore don't help or make things worse.

Your body and brain and all of your physical systems interact together very much like a symphony, and are one dynamic system. If you heal your body, you can heal your brain.

- Think about this - does a sugary snack make you feel anxious, jittery, irritable and then sleepy later?

- Does eating a large meal make you feel foggy and mentally slow?

- Have you ever exercised and felt calm, relaxed and happy afterwards?

- Ever tried to read or focus on anything when you are sick?

You know that pms is the result of fluctuating hormones and the winter blues are the result of too little vitamin D and sun, but did you know that alcoholics can become 'crazy' with a condition called Wernicke's encephalopathy from vitamin B1 deficiency and that simply treating with this vitamin can cure this condition?  Did you know that antibiotics for strep infections can cure some children who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder? Heal the body, heal the brain.

Changing your diet, nutrients, sleep patterns, substances you use, exercise, getting rid of toxins in the body, balancing your hormones, correcting issues in the digestive tract and boosting your cells ability to make energy and stopping food allergies can all radically transform your mood, behavior and brain function. Sound like a lot? Actually it is not that hard.

There are a few steps that can make a huge difference in your brain function:

1. Eat right for your brain
2. Tune-up your brain and body chemistry with necessary supplements
3. Incorporate these things into your lifestyle: exercise, relaxation, and quality sleep
4. Live green and avoid everyday toxins

If you can follow these steps for at least 6 weeks, you can begin to change your life, and not over years or months, but literally in weeks or days!

Some of the changes you experience will happen almost immediately. If you are gluten sensitive and you stop eating gluten, your life and your brain can change within just a week.

If you are B12 deficient and you take B12, you will improve your mood and brain function in a few weeks.

Other changes may take a little longer to achieve, but you can notice improvements right away.

There definitely is a connection between your behaviors, your choices, your habits, your diet, and how you feel right now.  Once you begin following these steps you will realize just how good you can feel, and you'll never want to go back to feeling bad again.

Feed Your Brain the Right Foods

Here's how to do it:

• Eat Real Food - Eat whole, real, fresh, organic, local and unprocessed food. If it has more than three ingredients (especially ones you do not immediately recognize), a package, or a barcode, you should avoid it. If your great-grandmother would not recognize it, then don't eat it.
• Get Fat for Your Head - 60% of your brain is made of the omega 3 fat DHA, which comes from algae, cold-water fatty fish, and grass-fed meats. 
• Protein Power - Eat protein for breakfast every day, such as omega-3 eggs, salmon or grass-fed meat, protein smoothies, or nut butters.
• Boost Your Brain Protectors - Eat a lot of fruit and vegetables that are deeply colored with phytonutrients. The deep reds, yellows, oranges, greens, and blues in food are a sign of powerful anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, energy boosting, and brain-powering molecules. So enjoy the blueberries, cranberries and dark leafy greens like kale and swiss chard.
• Eat the RIGHT Kind of Carbs - Eat foods with plenty of fiber, including raw vegetables, raw fruit, beans, nuts, and seeds. This helps to sweep the intestines clean, remove toxins, and keeps your body and gut bacteria healthy. A healthy gut has MUCH to do with the brain, and a healthy gut means a healthy brain!
• Eat Breakfast and Eat Every Few Hours - Eat something every 3-4 hours and finish your last meal or snack 2-3 hours before bed.
• Remove the Poisons - Eliminate sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, coffee, alcohol, trans fats, and food additives and preservatives, all of which poison your brain and disrupt your biochemistry.

If you can just follow these few steps, yes they may be big steps, but you can start instantly eliminating the brain damaging foods and chemicals from you diet.

There is one other PRIMARY step with dietary changes that is essential.  That step is to eliminate the two most common causes of food allergens and hidden reactions in our diet - gluten and pasteurized processed dairy. Why? Your brain and your body can become allergic as well. When this occurs, it is a definite cause for brain fog, depression, autism, ADHD, dementia, and more. Gluten has even been thought to be responsible for some cases of schizophrenia.

Gluten (a protein found in wheat, rye, barley, spelt, and kamut) and pasteurized dairy are the two main foods that most commonly set off reactions in people. They have been linked to conditions ranging from brain fog to depression and to even more severe conditions like autism and Alzheimer's disease. You don't need to break out in hives or have a dramatic reaction to these foods to be allergic. People often have hidden allergies to these foods and not even realize it.

Despite the fact that the immune system and the brain are closely linked and that food has a MAJOR impact on your brain and body, many of us just don't make a connection between what we eat and how we feel. Actually, that should be the FIRST thing you think of - "I am irritable today; or I feel depressed today,"...Think about what you ate.

You eat a piece of cheese on Monday and feel depressed on Tuesday, but you don't make the connection. You eat a lot of cookies one day and the next day you are irritable. Often reactions occur 24-48 later, making it more difficult to make the connection, but there IS a definite connection to food allergies and changes in mood.

Many people are affected by ongoing, low-grade, delayed food sensitivities or allergies. What you eat may cause allergic reactions that make you feel bad, but you might not know it, and often those food allergies are the foods you eat all the time and feel you just can't do without.

While there may be other food allergies, the quickest and easiest is to remove the most common allergens first and those are all wheat and dairy products.  This means a 100% elimination of these foods with no exceptions - not even a drop of milk or a crumb of bread for breakfast.

Then pay close attention to your body and mind when you do this, the first few days may be tough, as you have to break through your body's addiction, but after that it gets much better. The brain fog may lift; the depression may ease up.

The rest of the changes are small refinements and details. Stop poisoning your brain with sugar, artificial sweeteners, and uppers like coffee and downers like alcohol, high-fructose corn syrup, trans-fats, processed, packaged, fast food and junk food.

I am challenging you to eat this way for 6 weeks. Perhaps make it your New Year's Resolution. See how you feel. Then continue throughout your lifetime and you'll have the raw materials and ingredients you need for a vital and healthy body, AND a healthy brain.

Tweak Your Body and Brain with Vital Supplements - Almost all of us are deficient in at least one or more vital vitamins and minerals, vitamin D, and essential omega 3 fatty acids. While it is difficult to get all these things merely by eating a healthy diet, adding in supplements will fill in the gaps, and they are essential for brain health.

Everyone should be taking a basic multivitamin and mineral, B vitamins, calcium and magnesium, extra vitamin D, omega 3 fats, and probiotics as the foundation for good health, as well as a healthy brain. Here is what should be included:

1. A high-quality, high-potency, highly bioavailable, broad-spectrum multivitamin that contains all the basic essential vitamins and minerals
2. Calcium (600 to 800 mg daily) and magnesium (400 to 600 mg a day)
3. Vitamin D3 (2,000 to 4,000 units a day)
4. Omega 3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA in a ratio of 300/200; 1,000 mg twice a day)
5. Methylation factors: Folate (800 mcg), B6 (50 mg), and B12 (1,000 mcg daily). Often, special activated forms of these nutrients are needed to be most effective for brain health
6. Probiotics or beneficial bacteria to improve your digestion, reduce food allergies, and reduce gut inflammation

And finally, incorporate these lifestyle changes - exercising, relaxation and good sleep. What do these things really do? Well, I will tell you...

Exercise is absolutely better for your brain than any antidepressant. It not only makes you look better and helps your body function better, but it is also essential to the brain as well.

Exercise naturally carries out all these missions for your body:

• - Eases stress, releases feel-good endorphins

• - Balances all your neurotransmitters

• - Increases brain-derived neutrophic factor, which is like fertilizer for your brain

• - Prevents dementia by increasing blood flow to the brain

• - Balances hormones like insulin

If you find it hard to make it to the gym and spend an hour or so, just do this - walk vigorously for 30 minutes every day. That's it. That will help. Walk with friends or family. Walk your dog. Walk your neighbor's dog. Just move your body more!

You may be surprised at how much better your body, and your brain, feels. Besides relieving stress and helping your brain, exercise helps you sleep better, the other key lifestyle component to a healthier brain.  The key is to get 7 to 9 hours of restful sleep every night.

Finally, the last step in changing your brain and improving your brain health is this - Live Green.

Here are my suggestions for how to take care of your own health, and the health of the planet, at the same time:

• - Drink clean water

• - Limit your exposure to chemicals and metals

• - Limit your exposure to household, gardening, and personal care products

• - Keep your bodily fluids moving

• - Reduce electromagnetic radiation

My hope is for you to be able live a life that is vibrant, awake, engaged, present, focused, delightful, refreshed, and balanced. Making changes in your diet and lifestyle and fixing your body will most definitely help heal your brain as well. It is only by having a healthy body that you can have a healthy brain too.

You can have a brain that allows you to fully experience every day, and all the joys and delights of your life.  This will allow you to show up, focus and do what it is you want in life without being slowed down or numbed from reality by pharmaceutical medication that destroys your ability to fully live and prevents you from fully being your best self you can be for your family, your friends, your work, and most importantly your own heart and soul.

Your body, your brain, your health - it's all one. Take care of it, and experience the joys of living well.

Sources:
Dr. Mark Hyman, M.D., "The UltraMind Solution", copyright 2009 Hyman Enterprises, LLC.

Brownlee, C., 2006. "Buff and Brainy: Exercising the Body Can Benefit the Brain," Science News, Feb 25; Vol. 169, No. 8. [accessed April 20, 2007] http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060225/bob10.asp.

Report on brain aging at the National Institute on Aging:
Elias, M., 2005. "Want a Sharp Mind for Your Golden Years? Start Now," USA Today, Aug 17, 2005. [accessed April 20, 2007] http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-08-17-save-your-brain_x.htm.