Full Transcript Welcome and Summit Introduction 0:00 Hello and welcome to the Reversing Alzheimer's Summit. 0:03 I'm one of your host, James Maskell. 0:05 And in this summit, 0:06 we are giving you the tools that you need for yourself, for your loved ones 0:09 to prevent reverse Alzheimer's, to protect your brain and stay healthy. 0:14 And I'm super excited to have today my friend Dawson Church on the summit, 0:19 because I think he really brings so much value, meaning and, 0:23 and tool and many tools that can help in this regard. 0:27 So, Dawson, welcome. 0:28 I'm so glad to have you here, James. 0:30 A joy to be here, a joy to be sharing. 0:33 Yeah. I'm excited. 0:34 There's some there's so many places we can start, 0:36 but I guess you've been involved in in many different areas, related to 0:40 to human health and thriving. 0:42 And I guess I just wanted to start by asking you, like, 0:45 what is it about about this Alzheimer's and brain health thing 0:48 that really gets you and why you so passionate about this topic 0:52 and bringing the tools that you've spent your life working on, researching 0:56 and bringing to the forefront to this particular population? 1:00 I'm really focused on that 1:02 because people tend to accept a diagnosis as inevitable. 1:06 They read statistics like 56% of Americans, for example, 1:10 are involved in dealing with Alzheimer's in some way. 1:13 A friend or relative, a family member, and it sucks them in. 1:16 Americans spend about 50 million unpaid hours every year 1:21 helping people with Alzheimer's, and so it's a huge burden on society. 1:25 And my father died after 15 years struggle with Alzheimer's. 1:30 And I actually have the ApoE gene three four combination, which
Alzheimeru2019s Risk, Genetics, and Hope 1:33 from my early studies in genetics in 1970 is one of the first genes discovered, 1:37 says you have a strong predisposition to Alzheimer's yourself. 1:40 So what people tend to do is think all of this is inevitable. 1:44 And what new research is showing is that far from it, 1:48 that we can do things, we can apply changes to our lifestyle, 1:52 we can adopt mindsets and mental approaches. 1:55 We news energy therapies that dramatically affect our health outcomes. 2:00 And so what I want to counteract is the prevailing view 2:04 that if you had the APA gene 3 or 4 combination of the four four combination, 2:07 if you have a genetic predisposition family history, 2:11 if you have a certain lifestyle 2:13 that if you got a certain diagnosis that you are doomed to a certain result. 2:17 And that is not at all true. 2:19 So that's that's the big message here. Amazing. 2:21 Well, let's jump into to that straight away. 2:24 And I guess, you know, yeah. 2:25 Epigenetics is is the mechanism by which this all happens. 2:29 You know, if you had to, you know, meet with someone and talk to them 2:33 about what you think is like the most important thing 2:37 for them to know going through this journey. 2:40 And, and obviously there's some way that you've had to, like, think through 2:44 what is the highest leverage tool where where do you typically 2:48 think to start with people 2:50 and, you know, 2:51 start in terms of research with the study 2:55 published in 2020, that was really pivotal in linking 3:00 negative thinking and positive thinking to Alzheimer's plaques. 3:03 And we have really sophisticated scanners at our disposal nowadays. 3:07 MRI scanners look at like the resolution on your cell phone. 3:10 If you had a cell phone that was 20 years old that had very, 3:13 very blurry resolution or your screen on your laptop back 20 years ago 3:17 today, we can measure the activity, the firing of a single neuron. 3:21 So we have now these high resolution devices. 3:24 And what these allow you to do us to do is to study the brains of people, 3:28 not intrusive, including Alzheimer's patients. 3:31 And what that study in 2020 showed was absolutely stunning. 3:35 It looked at the buildup 3:38 of Alzheimer's plaques, Beta and Tal plaques in the brain, 3:43 and it found that there was an association between 3:48 all kinds of different lifestyle factors and mental factors, 3:51 and the build up of those, including the Alzheimer's genes. 3:55 And that's was fairly unsurprising that all of these things are affecting 3:59 the build up of those Alzheimer's plaques. 4:01 If you look at them under a microscope, they look kind of like, 4:04 you see you see this bright white neural tissue. 4:07 They look kind of like tar. They look like gun. 4:09 It's like stuck to the neurons. 4:11 That isn't allowing them to fire properly and transmit signals. 4:14 And so that stuff builds up over time. 4:17 It doesn't get clear out of the brain properly in Alzheimer's. 4:19 And then people gradually lose their neural ability. 4:23 And so what this study showed was that negative 4:26 thinking was correlated with the build up of Alzheimer's plaques. 4:30 But the stunning thing about it is that it showed that negative thinking 4:34 was linked to Alzheimer's far more strongly than genetics. 4:40 Even if you had the the APO gene, which again produces 4:44 a strong genetic predisposition to Alzheimer's, impair the APO gene.
Negative Thinking, Plaques, and Epigenetics 4:48 If you didn't have negative thinking, that didn't trigger 4:52 the expression of that gene as much, and so that factor of positive 4:57 thinking and negative thinking actually overrode 5:00 all of the other risk factors for Alzheimer's and the effect scaled. 5:05 That was the other remarkable thing about that study. 5:07 The more negative thinking people did, the greater the deposit of those beta 5:12 and tau proteins in the brain, 5:14 and the less likely thinking they did the more positive they were, 5:17 the more they're laughing 5:19 and they're grateful and they're happy and they're thankful 5:20 that is doing all these good things we know are good for health. 5:23 Generally, the lower the level are, those plaques was in the brain. 5:27 So that's really a powerful, 5:30 a powerful 5:31 argument for us to do all we can to affect our mindset. 5:36 It is having a dramatic effect on our bodies, regardless of our genetics. 5:41 Yeah. It's amazing. 5:41 And I just want to reflect back on that. 5:43 You know, if you look at the methodologies that have been proven 5:47 to be successful at reversing Alzheimer's, if you look at the Ornish methodology. 5:51 Right. 5:52 And one of those is is love and connection, one of the pillars 5:55 that it's built on and in Doctor Christine Burke, who's the, 5:58 you know, the co-host of this summit, you know, in her true neuro methodology, 6:02 you know, many of the actually three out of the eight pillars 6:06 that she recommends are psychosocial pillars, right. 6:09 Connecting with others. 6:11 But there's also reflection and growth. 6:14 Because ultimately, like I think what you're saying 6:16 is that it's one thing to think that like a biochemical protocol 6:20 could reverse these kind of things, but ultimately, like if you think that 6:24 what you just said is true and that you need to be in this mind 6:27 frame, it's actually like those psychosocial factors 6:29 that are going to determine, determine this sort of long term trajectory. 6:33 And that's why I'm super glad that you're you're, 6:35 you know, bringing all of this research at the forefront 6:37 because ultimately, you can spend a lot of time 6:39 working out what supplements to take or what drugs to take or otherwise. 6:43 But if you don't meet 6:45 that fundamental criteria, you're not on the right trajectory. 6:48 What are some of the ways that you found to engender 6:52 that in people who 6:53 maybe that's not their natural disposition or actually in the process of, 6:57 you know, coming into this diagnosis, find it quite depressing 7:01 that maybe they're not going to go back to their old life. 7:03 What's, what's how do you turn that back on? 7:06 Yeah. 7:06 So there are all kinds of simple things you can do. 7:08 And you're right, there are supplements. 7:11 You may need a medication that there are all kinds of simple things you can do. 7:14 Like for example, what I did first thing this morning 7:16 when my wife woke up and walked out of the bedroom. 7:19 I gave her a hug. 7:20 Not just a quick hug, but, you know, about a 15 or 20 second hug. 7:23 So you're really settling into that sense of love and connection. 7:27 I walked by my neighbor, I smile, how hard is that? 7:31 You know? 7:31 So we're doing all of these things and we, we, we share these connections 7:35 with other people. 7:36 If you don't have enough people in your life, focus on your inner life. 7:41 And there are remarkable studies on it's called relational spirituality 7:45 and relational spirituality. 7:47 The earliest days were done in the 1990s, and they showed that 7:51 over 100 genes were being affected when we had, relationship 7:56 with something larger than ourselves, a sense of connection 7:58 with our higher power, with nature, with ourselves. 8:02 So you can do all of these things without any kind of medical intervention. 8:06 And they turned out to be powerful epigenetic influences. 8:09 And so, yeah, I may well need to go get that medication. 8:13 You don't need that doctor's visit. You don't need the supplements. 8:16 No, we need both alternative medicine. 8:18 We need conventional medicine. 8:20 We need self-help. 8:21 But look to what you can do to empower yourself, 8:24 because so much of it is available, so much of it is free. 8:27 And then again, if you're using pulling all these levers like being grateful. 8:32 The Gratitude Journal three Gratitudes today, how hard is that? 8:36 You know, to think of three gratitude today. 8:37 And by the way, you could cheat and repeat yesterday's gratitude tomorrow. 8:41 Okay, these are three, three new things to be grateful for. 8:45 But James, when you start to focus on what to be grateful for, I sit here 8:49 sometimes in my own meditative practice and I just tune it to my breath. 8:52 I'm so grateful I get to take 8:56 this breath, 8:58 then this breath, then this breath. 9:00 I stand up, I take this step, then that step, then the next step. 9:04 And so just being grateful for the pot plant outside your window, 9:08 the roof of your head, and simple things 9:12 like the body you have that functions is such a powerful practice. 9:15 And so you want to focus on those leverage points that are invisible 9:19 but incredibly potent, that stimulate positive mood. 9:23 In In yourself. 9:25 Meditation is able to dramatically shift your sense of mood. 9:29 We measure this in brain scans and the genes 9:32 by looking at the amount of gamma in in your brain and in long term
Simple Practices for Positive Brain Health 9:35 meditators, they have an explosion of that gamma frequency 9:40 in and their brains up to 25 times the amount of the average human being. 9:46 So you can make yourself simply by meditation, by spiritual practices, 9:50 by what I call in my book, Spiritual Intelligence The Practices 9:53 of Spiritual Intelligence. 9:55 You can have your level of gamma and your level of happiness go up 25 fold. 10:01 Now you're talking about a potent intervention for not only your mood, 10:05 but your gene expression and all of the effects 10:08 it has on your body downstream. 10:10 Wow. I know there's lots of different sources and educators 10:14 in the meditation space. 10:15 And and ultimately there's a lot of different styles. 10:18 Is there anything you've learned from your work as to what 10:21 a style of meditation or what structures or what, lessons can be most effective? 10:26 Because I'm sure they're not all equal when it comes to this. 10:29 Yeah, there are hundreds of styles of meditation, 10:32 and in my earlier book, This Brain, I cover seven of them 10:36 and different meditation researchers divided in different ways. 10:40 But I have seven of them, 10:41 everything from sitting quietly and observing your thoughts to a walk 10:44 in nature, moving meditation, qigong, yoga, things like that. 10:49 And so the best kind of meditation, though, of all those kinds of meditation 10:53 and of all the hundreds of styles that are out there, 10:55 the best meditation of all is the one you will actually do. 11:00 Take one. I say treat it like a buffet. 11:02 Walk down the buffet line, try your favorite things and 11:05 find your favorite food, your favorite flavor, and then do that. 11:09 But do it regularly in the yoga. 11:11 So it was a Patanjali. 11:12 You said there are three kinds of meditative 11:14 three kinds of people, on the journey, on the spiritual journey, 11:17 one group is people who are intermittent meditators, 11:20 intermittently interested in spirituality is a nice add on to life. 11:24 The others have a sense of duty. 11:26 The third group is what, some of these traditions called God intoxicated fools. 11:33 They are so absolutely passionate. 11:34 The Hildegard of Bingen is talking 11:36 about fiery lights from heaven pouring through her body. 11:39 Rumi, Mary Oliver, there were all these wonderful modern 11:42 as well as ancient examples of that, that passion. 11:45 So you want to find one, find a meditation style 11:48 that drives you to write poetry, to run through the rainstorm 11:53 screaming with laughter and and singing uncontrollably. 11:57 So once it brings that way of joy to your life, 12:00 because research shows that that kind of meditation 12:04 is one of the three things that sparks the quickest neuro 12:08 plastic growth in your brain. 12:10 Passion. 12:11 Your brain recognizes that when you're passionate about something, 12:15 it's important. 12:16 If you just sitting there and thinking, oh well, this is nice. 12:19 Nothing much is happening in your memory and learning centers 12:21 in the middle of your brain. 12:23 If you are absolutely passionate about what you do, 12:27 you know 12:27 if you're going to love your wife, love your wife unconditionally, your children, 12:31 your elders, the people around you fill your life with the passion of a Rumi 12:36 or a Hildegard, and suddenly it sparks remarkable shifts in the brain. 12:42 Andrew Newberg, one of my research colleagues, says the brain has had that 12:46 kind of passionate, intense connection with something larger than itself. 12:50 One time never goes back to its original state of information flow. 12:55 So find your passion experiment, find what really makes you alive, 13:00 and then like what woman picks up lit workshops at me? 13:02 Dawson, I been using your meditation and I said, I'll do it 30 days without fail. 13:08 And so that's great. 13:09 You made a 30 day commitment to using that meditation in my book. 13:13 And I said to, and what day are you on today? 13:17 She said, I'm on day 168. 13:21 That's passion. That's what you need. 13:23 Yeah. 13:23 I wonder about that, that concept, because I just feel like, you know, in 13:28 some of the other research that I've seen over time, you know, 13:31 it's really about connecting people to purpose 13:34 in their life, which is, you know, Aids longevity. 13:37 And it seems like, if I put those two things together, you know, 13:41 having that purpose is what gets you passionate, gets you excited. 13:45 And from what you're saying, 13:46 there's real changes to the brain from from engaging in that way. 13:50 And it's interesting that there's like a physiological mechanism to back up, 13:55 you know, sort of psychosocial efforts, you know, like, ideas. 13:59 Absolutely. No. 14:00 If you look at the rate of muscle growth, so you go to the gym, you start working 14:03 out, pumping iron, and after a while you see your muscles getting bigger. 14:07 It takes though six months or a year to see discernible 14:10 change picks up on the volume of your muscles. 14:14 Your muscles grow very, very slowly compared to you on your ones. 14:17 If you start firing a neural circle on your brain, there's one one case history 14:22 in my book, Spiritual Intelligence of a, of a TV host called Graham Phillips. 14:27 He began to meditate. Yeah, that meditation. 14:30 And he had brain scans, brain volume scans, measuring the volume 14:33 of each component of his brain before and after eight weeks 14:38 and after eight weeks, a part of his brain that governs emotion regulation. 14:43 Really important, governs regulating 14:45 be annoyed, angry, resentful, all those negative emotions. 14:49 That part of the brain. 14:50 In eight weeks it grew by 23%. 14:54 Now think about that. 14:55 Imagine if your muscles in two months the gym grew 23%. 14:58 You look like you know a Chris Hemsworth in a year.
Meditation Styles and Finding Passion 15:01 His is emotion 15:02 regulation areas called the dentate gyrus grew 23% in only eight weeks. 15:06 Your brain is exploding with activity when you do this, 15:10 and all of the parts of your brain that handle emotion regulation, 15:14 that handle effect of top down control, but you aren't subject 15:17 to all of your impulses that govern memory and learning. 15:21 Those parts of the brain in Alzheimer's patients started to go. 15:24 They start to degrade the memory. 15:26 Learning centers of Alzheimer's patients who meditate get bigger. 15:30 They actually reverse that brain shrinkage and they increase. 15:33 So you're having this remarkable effect on your brain by by doing this. 15:38 And it isn't happening in a year or five years or ten years. 15:42 It's happening within a couple of months. Wow. 15:46 Well, look, I'd love to just to to take this to the another level 15:50 because I just feel like, 15:51 you know, having experienced it myself in the last year with my father, 15:54 you know, there's a there's a very special relationship between the carer, the 15:58 especially the family carer and the potential patient or the patient. 16:02 And, you know, as you said at the beginning, 54% of people involved 16:05 in some way, it's because most people are in the care of someone who is in that. 16:11 And I just I see those numbers and those numbers look staggering. 16:14 If we don't really turn this around, 16:16 you know, it ends up being like 100% pretty quickly, right? 16:19 Either people who have Alzheimer's 16:20 on the path, Alzheimer's, or people who are looking after them. 16:22 So there's a lot to do. 16:24 But I also see that what you're saying, there's some special connection 16:28 that can happen, you know, in those moments and ultimately, 16:30 like for a carer to start to meditate and to meditate with the potential patient 16:36 and, you know, could be a really lovely thing to do together. 16:39 Can you talk to, like, some of the interactions in the brain 16:42 that happen from the sort of like two people in agreement over 16:47 what's happening, as opposed to just one person trying to do it by themselves? 16:51 It's powerful when you have both people participating. 16:54 And also the data for caregivers is shocking. 16:57 One study showed that 16:59 caring for an Alzheimer's 17:00 patients shortens your life by 5 to 8 years. 17:05 Take a deep breath and think about that one 17:06 5 to 8 year shorter lifespan for those carrying with Alzheimer's. 17:09 For Alzheimer's patients, it is that that's stressful. 17:13 And so when you have people meditating together as a group effect, 17:16 and I've looked at the whole range of MRI research 17:20 and one of the three things that really stand out in terms 17:23 of producing quick, positive change in the brain. 17:26 One of those is intensity, which we mentioned before. 17:29 Another of the three is community. 17:32 If you meditating in a community, the effect is enhanced in the research 17:35 into that in months studying, doing meditation in a cave alone 17:39 versus those studying in a monastery, we find that those in the monastery 17:43 meditating together have quicker, positive neoplastic change in the brain. 17:47 The third of those three factors is compassion and just feeling compassion. 17:52 Now, compassion again. 17:53 It can be a two edged sword if you have that compassionate connection 17:56 to somebody else and of suffering and you can't help 18:00 that can turn into a deficit in your life. 18:05 But compassion, when it flows from that sense of connection 18:08 to something greater than yourself. 18:10 Again, this is this is a game changer. 18:12 When you are able to relax your grip in meditation 18:17 with spiritual intelligence, if you can relax your grip, the conviction 18:21 that your own little life is all you have to think about, 18:25 and you're able to merge with something greater than yourself 18:29 if you're able to release your what, Larry Darcy calls your local mind, 18:33 your local self, and merge with something greater than yourself again, 18:37 hundreds of genes change their expression in a healthy way. 18:42 Then you have compassion and caring. 18:45 You have love. You have unconditional love. 18:47 And it's not coming from that clinging little local cell. 18:51 You're simply participating in the endless, boundless love of the universe. 18:57 And you notice this little local expression of that. 19:00 Rumi says that we aren't a drop of the ocean. 19:03 We are the ocean in a drop. 19:05 So here you are. 19:05 You're living your life as an expression of that grand whole. 19:09 And it again radically shifts everything you do in the outer set. 19:14 So it's powerful to connect with people. 19:17 And when you connect with people in this meditative space. 19:19 And I think that also we did one range of studies that we had to do during Covid. 19:24 We had to see and assess the results obtained 19:29 from these practices done on zoom versus those done in person. 19:35 And we were pretty nervous. 19:36 We're thinking, you know, we'll probably not get anything like the results on zoom 19:40 that we got from the in-person interaction. 19:43 We got the same statistically significant results 19:46 from zoom connection as we did from in-person connection.
Brain Changes from Meditation and Purpose 19:50 So it's not like you'll never even see another human being in your whole life 19:54 other than on a screen that you want to find a way of meditating with people. 19:57 When I meditate in the morning, I visualize all the millions 20:00 of people meditating that same time of day. 20:04 And that connection is powerful. 20:06 I have I have a meditation buddy. 20:08 She lives half the world away and I hardly ever see her in person. 20:12 But once a week we meditate together and that energetic connection is so powerful. 20:17 When that begins, like last week when our time came arranged 20:21 time for our meditation together, even though it was virtual, 20:24 it hit me like a ton of bricks. 20:26 I mean, it was so powerful to feel the energy enhancing there. 20:29 So find that connection. 20:31 Find community. 20:32 In Buddhism, this is called the Sangha of people. 20:35 The community of people practice with them. 20:38 And that's going to reinforce everything else you're doing. 20:40 Compassion, intensity and community. 20:43 Wow. That's like, I really feel like getting like a step by step guide. 20:47 And I would just reflect back to you like, inadvertently 20:50 find myself like, you know, finding those things, you know, at this time. 20:54 And I feel really grateful for that. 20:56 Yeah. 20:56 I'll just share from my own experience we, you know, I wrote a book 20:59 on group medicine, and I was really looking at 21:02 how groups of people could come together and support each other and healing. 21:06 And, you know, all kinds of things happen in those groups. 21:08 Some of the groups, like Jim Gordon's groups, were focused on mindfulness 21:12 based stress reduction, 21:13 but other groups were focused on specific diseases or otherwise. 21:16 And we always see this like sort of potentiation right 21:19 from groups of people doing chronic disease reversal work together. 21:24 And it was funny, I brought out 21:25 that book in in January of 2020, and then Covid hit, 21:28 and I was so passionate about groups and I was like, 21:31 there's not going to be any groups. 21:32 And we started a journey to work out. 21:34 Would groups work over zoom as well? 21:36 And we found, there was actually some, some potentiation of it 21:40 because, yes, maybe a session on zoom, 21:43 you know, may be equal or not quite as equal to a session in person. 21:47 There's something special about being in person, 21:49 but being able to connect with people in between the sessions, 21:52 we found, was really valuable, because it was like continuing the relationship. 21:56 Yes, you're not in the run. 21:57 People are going about their everyday life. 21:59 But if you could get a message from someone else 22:01 in that group, hey, I was thinking about you. 22:02 You know, you mentioned this, that something you were going to be doing. 22:05 I've been part of a men's group for the last five years and and just seen 22:09 the power of just having other people caring about you enough to check in on 22:14 what's going on and holding you accountable and, and, 22:17 you know, supporting you through the journey. 22:19 I think there's something really powerful there. 22:21 I think, you know, particularly when it comes to Alzheimer's, 22:23 there's a lot that can be done in this sort of like people supporting people way, 22:28 and we are going to have to get a lot better at that, because ultimately, 22:32 if we have a society where everyone either has Alzheimer's or is supporting someone 22:35 with Alzheimer's, there's not a lot of time for productive work. 22:39 Yeah. 22:39 And so 22:40 by those people who make your heart sing, I also want to go a little further. 22:44 And I was I want to say ditch those people who don't. 22:47 People hang on to old friendships like my wife had some old friends do. 22:51 You're saying? 22:52 Yeah, you know, I really enjoy being with them, 22:53 but I've been friends them for 20 years. 22:54 It's like, if they aren't supporting your well-being, if you know 22:58 people's has a connection to them, if your life's just a pathway, 23:01 has has distance itself from their life pathway, it's time to let them go. 23:06 Find people who absolutely make you inspired, who 23:09 bring out your vibrance, who bring out your your genius. 23:13 And so do that on the lateral level. 23:15 Know the family members as as much as you possibly can. 23:18 It's limited to the family members, because sometimes that new member 23:20 is going to be more difficult than others. 23:22 But to the extent you can do that with family members as well, 23:25 just sitting with even a difficult family member 23:27 and just listening and doing active listening and reflect, 23:30 this thing is going to have a positive effect 23:33 and then do it on levels other than the physical. 23:36 And for example, those things are relational spirituality. 23:39 Show that connecting with your higher power, whatever you can see above to be, 23:44 you don't have to believe in any, any, any particular religion or philosophy. 23:48 And if you do have a religion that really supports you, 23:51 use that those religious beliefs. 23:53 But even if you don't, simply having a sense of connection with that 23:55 which is greater than yourself is going to amplify your ability
Caregivers, Community, and Compassion 24:00 to nurture yourself and to have that sense 24:03 of connection to all the epigenetic gifts that it brings. 24:06 So connect laterally. 24:08 In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras again, which in one study of Alzheimer's 24:12 patients, they used meditations based on these Yoga Sutras. 24:16 And over the course of six months, MRI scans before 24:21 and after show that using these body based 24:25 methods that Battaglia espouses and recommends, their brain 24:30 shrinkage stopped and their brains began growing again. 24:34 Then their meta learning centers began growing again. 24:37 The emotion control centers began growing again, the executive said was 24:40 began growing again, and the control group just kept on degenerating. 24:44 So it's powerful to use these these techniques, these body based techniques, 24:50 they can literally reverse the shrinkage typical of Alzheimer's brains. 24:54 And again, you do it laterally. 24:56 And Patanjali says in the Yoga Sutras, be friendly. 24:59 He says it in their four books, in the Yoga 25:01 Sutras and all four books he says, be friendly, be friendly in one place. 25:05 He says in book three, here's the secret of accelerating your spiritual growth. 25:11 Be friendly. 25:11 Be nice to other people. 25:12 Be nice to random strangers. So then you're doing it. 25:15 They're laterally in local space and time. 25:18 Do it in non-local space and time. 25:21 Tune in, breathe in and connect with your higher power. 25:25 Connect with that which is greater than the greater than yourself. 25:27 Who knows what might be out there on the nonphysical level? 25:31 And when you invite that energy in our benevolence 25:34 of kindness, you know, pick a mentor picks and Francis, pick on your own. 25:37 Pick mother married and just have these invisible sources of well-being 25:42 in addition to the lateral ones. 25:44 Now, when you're alone, say you have a eight hour car ride all by yourself. 25:50 You're tuning into Saint Francis, you're having a having a, 25:53 you know, just spending eight hours with some Francis or Mother Mary. 25:56 I mean, now you're having all of this sense of support 26:00 from the invisible as well as the visible. 26:03 And when you do that, you have community in every sense of the word. 26:07 Wow, Dawson. 26:08 Well, look, I really want to just share my appreciation for, you know, everything 26:12 that you've shared here today. 26:13 I know that, like, taking on these kind of new, ideas for many people 26:17 listening to this, you know, could can be sort of somewhat overwhelming. 26:20 But what I really appreciate about what you've shared in the last, a little while 26:23 here is just how practical and simple and straightforward so much of this is. 26:28 And I recognize that, like, 26:30 some of the shifts you're talking about are simple but not common. 26:34 And that ultimately, you know, if we can make this more of a commonplace 26:38 starting point, I think there's, so much that that that can come from that. 26:42 And, yeah, I would say, like, obviously this is a lifetime of work for you 26:46 and that there's a lot, there's a lot that anyone can do. 26:48 If someone's interested in following this thread, where would they 26:51 where would you recommend that they start in your body of work? 26:55 Well, one good place to start is my book, Spiritual Intelligence. 26:58 And when I began to write the book, I had hadn't given a thought 27:02 Alzheimer's disease. Since my father died many years ago. 27:05 And yet I found as I was reading studies 27:08 done on spiritual intelligence, that it grows your brain. 27:12 And then I began to wonder about research showing spiritual intelligence 27:16 with Alzheimer's patients. 27:17 And that's where this whole body of work began to become apparent. 27:20 So definitely read Spiritual Intelligence. 27:23 It'll show you the research. 27:25 I'll explain it in simple layperson's terms. 27:27 Not a hard book to understand. 27:29 And so there you'll get a sense of how to apply this, not just if you are 27:34 directly involved in Alzheimer's, but for brain health at any age. 27:37 The Alzheimer's plaques show up in the bloodstreams of people 27:41 30 years before any Alzheimer's symptoms become apparent. 27:46 So we're taking blood samples from 30 year olds, 27:49 and if they have elevated levels of those plaques, 27:51 they'll be the ones to develop Alzheimer's. 27:53 30 years later. 27:55 So you want to make sure you're doing this 27:56 at every age, even when you're 20 or 30 or 40 years old. 28:00 And so that's one thing, is that that book, Spiritual Intelligence, it's 28:03 that the paradigm that we need now after emotional intelligence 28:07 and that that's a good starting point. 28:09 You can also download a free meditation at my website, Dawson gift.com. 28:15 That's just my name. Dawson gift. 28:17 Dawson gift. There's a meditation there. 28:20 And that meditation we used with people and we did MRIs on 28:26 then on a group of people before and after using that meditation for 30 days. 28:31 And we compare them to a control group and the control groups. 28:34 Brains didn't change. 28:35 And in a month the group using that meditation at dose giphy.com,
Where to Start: Books, Meditation, and Testing 28:39 they had growth in brain volume 28:43 to do with emotion regulation and with cognitive development. 28:48 So rapid brain changes in only a month 28:52 using that meditation that and giphy.com. 28:55 So just download that free meditation, read the book Spiritual Intelligence. 28:59 And again you'll start to feel the changes right away that meditation unlocks 29:04 neurochemicals like serotonin and dopamine and oxytocin 29:09 and nitric oxide and beta endorphin and anandamide in your brain. 29:13 And you literally feel the flood of these neurochemicals in your body. 29:18 You start to feel much better. 29:20 That's why that woman who took the 30 day meditation challenge 29:23 was still meditating at day 168 because she just got hooked 29:27 on all these wonderful feelgood drugs in her brain every day. 29:29 So give yourself that support and don't wait till you have a crisis. 29:33 Build resilience now when you don't have a crisis, 29:37 when the next event happens in the world, or in your own life, 29:40 or in your own health, you are a resilient person. 29:43 You've been firing 29:44 those neural circuits, wiring them in your brain before you need them. 29:49 That way, when we had life's inevitable setbacks, we are well prepared. 29:53 So don't give up on meditation, 29:55 read spiritual intelligence and open yourself to blessings. 29:59 When you are attune to that greater cause of something larger than yourself, 30:05 you have no idea how much love might be there for you. 30:09 And it turns out that the wisdom, the kindness, the love, the well-being you 30:13 do you you access when you're when you're there is incredibly powerful and changes 30:18 not just your body, your cells, but your entire outer life as well. 30:23 So love yourself enough to start practicing these things. 30:26 Not tomorrow, but today. 30:28 A great message doesn't church. 30:29 Thank you so much for your wisdom and bringing it to the reversing 30:32 all sign of sun. That so much for everyone in there. 30:35 And I'm really glad 30:36 that you mentioned the, the blood testing too, because ultimately 30:39 I feel like that is information for everyone. 30:41 Thank you so much for being here. 30:43 And, thank you so much for listening to. 30:44 I hope you'll take some of the tools that Dawson is talking about, 30:47 implement them in your own life and chart your journey back 30:50 from Alzheimer's and prevent reverse, protect your brain. 30:54 I know your host, James McGill, is the Alzheimer's summit reversing Alzheimer's. 30:58 And, thanks so much for tuning in and enjoy the next talk.
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