Brain Blast: How to Improve Your Memory, Learning, Attention, and Focus

 

She’s license agreed as a doctor of chiropractic and epigenetic human performance success coach, who is board certified in holistic health with a masters in wellness, leadership, and performance. She has dedicated her career to uplift, inspire, and enhance states of health, wellbeing, and human flourishing across the planet—very cool—taking a systems based approach by providing precision performance care. Dr. Melissa leverages genetics, epigenetics—and we’ll ask her the difference between all those, peak performance and mindset mastery, along with the most advanced neuro and psychosocial, psychological modalities together with her clients. She helps to create a synergistic approach to infinitely expand one’s capacity for success in facets of life. So she seems to do the whole ball of wax and really get your brain working and show you how to use it. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yes, there you go. That’s exactly right. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Well welcome, and thank you for being on the summit. Really looking forward to speaking and hearing about all the very cool stuff that you’re doing, and you’re really on the cutting edge. I think a lot of this is the way of the future. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Thank you so much, doc. It’s really an honor to be here with you today, 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So congratulations. And we’ll get going. Yeah. So what the heck is epigenetics and why the heck do I want to know? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

I like it—hey, let’s just get down to the brass tacks here. So I actually love epigenetics. It’s something that we all are impacted by whether we know it or not, each and every moment of every single day. The easy way to understand it is that epigenetics is really the science of how our outer world is communicating to our inner world. So that’s a kind of super, super simple way to think about it, but why we really need to care about it is that at our foundation, we have kind of this human blueprint, our genetic DNA blueprint, but our genes are not our destiny. They’re just our potential. And what happens is that’s laying there—I like to think of it kind of like ingredients to your favorite recipe that you want to make. Ingredients by themselves means nothing, right? 

It’s how are you going to mix those ingredients in a precise way that will actually determine if you’re going to have a tasty treat or something that’s like rock hard and you gotta throw it in the garbage, right? So when we think of epigenetics, it’s the signals, the input, the information that comes from the outer world, the foods we eat, the thoughts we think, the air we breathe, the environment that we are interfacing with sending in signals to our inner world, that then communicates to basically say this is safe, or not. This is a good environment or an unhealthy environment. Based on what’s happening out here, we need to respond accordingly in here because, of course, what is our body always trying to do? Number one main thing, keep us alive, right? So it’s this constant kind of back and forth of, are we thriving or are we not? And what do we need to do? What do we need to dial up or dial down to respond to that outer world? 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think it’s very true and you look at—people say, “Oh, it’s a genetic cause.” Or look at diabetes, is it genetic or is it environmental? I think very few things are not one or the other, they’re both. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

You can have a genetic predisposition, you can have a severe genetic predisposition, you gotta work really hard to keep that from happening. And again, I think we’re moving in—people doing like genetics where they think, “Oh, I got this gene, I’m going to get it.” But the key is is that you can turn these genes on, turn them off, and we’re learning more and more about that. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Absolutely. And that’s really, really important for everybody to really understand, because there’s still a lot of confusion in the marketplace. We have been told the story that genes are our destiny, and if you’ve got it, you’ve got it and that’s absolutely not the case. Again, all your genes are are coding. Coding of potential. It’s what do you do with that potential? What do you do with that code? What determines that is how we’re showing up for life every day. You just mentioned diabetes, according to my genetic phenotype, I actually have an increased probability for insulin resistance. So insulin insufficiency, yet my A1C is 5.0, my glucose is 83. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, you don’t look like you have a problem.

 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Right? So even though I have the genetic potential, how I live is negating that. So I’m keeping that turned off or dialed down. Now, if I were sitting every day and eating lots of sugars, and cakes, and sodas, and not moving, then I would absolutely be activating that. So then my genetic potential would in fact become my reality. And yet, the good news is we can always be in control. Once we know, then we can be at choice. “All right, well, so maybe I do need to change some of the things I’m eating, because I really want to be ultimately feeling my best, looking my best, living as long as I can, as well as I can.” 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think it’s really nice, and I tell people too, it’s like being able to take all these supplements, “Hey, this is good for you.” Well, yeah. Maybe I can give you a thousand things that could be good for you, but what is gonna really impact your health? So you can really target the things that you need. I’d like to hear your thoughts and I’ve found we’ve been doing this and, even for myself, I have some terrible genes. I could’ve told you that without testing, but the genes that I had, the abnormal snips and issues with, that’s where I had the problems. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah, and isn’t it interesting? Like we kind of get a sense, we get that gut feeling almost of like, “Hm”. I naturally over time stumbled into my optimized nutrition plan and I didn’t do it by following a fad diet. I just kind of innately listened over time. I did a lot of wrong things earlier on. When I finally got my genetic report, I was like, “I’m eating exactly right for my genetic potential.” But it’s that same thing, the more I listen, I kind of had that knowing, “I really feel like it’s—I feel better when I do more of this and less of this.” And it works in the other way too, right? Like, I feel worse when I do more of this and less of this. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think it’s totally true and I ended up—I’m on 70% of the things that they recommended and I kind of just let the other stuff go on the wayside. ‘Cause, of course, we all have hundreds of supplements that we all try and you go, “Well, you know, yeah, the studies are good, but I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right.” And I find that people will put people on a lot of things, they tend to just go off of things that don’t work, or they don’t seem to make a difference. And the doctor says, “No, this study shows that this is good for you.” But you’re not a study! 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

You’re not a study, exactly. That’s why I love what I do because I take a very bio individualized approach because when we can look at somebody’s—not only their blueprint, right? We’ll get into talking, making this connection into the brain because the brain and the body are all interconnected and yet—so I can start with a blueprint. I can layer in. I can go ahead and layer in biomarkers. I can look at labs. I can look at blood pressure. I can look at HRV. Then I can layer in biometrics and I can already see based on your genotype and your phenotype that you have a propensity that you would do well with X, Y, and Z supplements. But then I can get even more precise and now take an exact look. I can run a micronutrient test. I can look at lab values and I can see, are you in fact defficient and you have an increased need for this? 

We absolutely need to formulate and get you on this specific regimen, versus the next person is going to need something totally different. So while we have all been raised in kind of a time from a traditional lens of population based studies and taking kind of this group approach and trying to learn a lot—and we can learn a lot from population based studies, yes. There’s a big picture out there. And yet, exactly to your point, not a single one of us is a study. Even if vitamin B12 is good for both of us, the form that you may need it in, versus the form that I may need it in could be totally different. 

So it’s just really, really fascinating how we are in a time where we don’t have to guess anymore, if we choose to. We can dial in, we can learn a lot about ourselves and we don’t have to feel overwhelmed as the client, right? Because it can be super confusing. What’s the next fad diet? What’s the next study? What’s the next this or that? Yet we’re in a time where science and technology are rapidly converging. So what we’re able to now see, and know, and understand, and apply if we choose can radically transform the expression of our health, and our vitality, and our wellbeing. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. Just because it works for Kim Kardashian doesn’t mean it’s gonna work for you. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Right, right. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It is interesting with treating these multi-system chronic illnesses, people read a line and this person, miraculous recovery from some nutrient or herb and everyone’s taking it, like, “Hey, nothings happened!” Well, there’s a reason. So very interesting stuff. So let’s talk about the brain. How do you specifically use it for the brain? And again, I’m very interested in this because as I mentioned before videoing, I had the worst memory of anyone I’ve ever met starting out, from day one. So I’ve had to do tricks. It’s interesting, I can remember medical studies. I can remember any of that because I think you have like different connections that all make sense. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And I’m interested, I’m super ADD. So it’s like, if I’m not interested, I don’t remember. We’ll go out to dinner with someone and my girlfriend will say, “Oh, remember them?” Like, “Never met them before in my life.” 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

We can tell how interested you really were.

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. So it’s embarrassing. So I gotta come see you and—but yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yes. Well I love it and I think it’s— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So tell me how you evaluate someone that says, “I have memory problems. I can’t concentrate. I can’t think.” What type of people do you usually see? I know you normally teach the teachers. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yepp. Yeah. I do teach the teachers. I am the coach of the coach and a doc to many docs. And yet with the—I only work on a referral base or in a situation like this. This would be a referral base where somebody reaches out. And I first, I take a very small amount of clients in, because I want to make sure that I’m the right fit for them and they’re the right fit for the process that we’re going to approach, because I always want to meet and exceed the expectations. What I mean by that is if somebody truly just thinks that optimizing cognitive function and performance can be done with one pill, or one supplement, or one this or one that, that is very, very, very rarely the case. Many of us want the outcome without the—work is the wrong word—but without the participation, right? 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So I gotta stop my Skittles for breakfast? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah. That would be a good first start. [Lauging] And that is an important place to start, right? So here’s what I’ve learned after many years in clinical practice that—look, I know food is personal for all of us, right? The last thing that we want to do when we go to a provider is be told all the things that we can’t do. In fact, that’s one of the prohibitive steps for many people, is they’re like, “Well, I’m not gonna go because I’m just afraid of all the things they’re going to tell me I’ve got to stop doing.” And if we want to get anywhere, it’s where areewe at? Where do we really want to be? And what are we truly willing to do to support ourselves to get there? So when I work with a client first and foremost, I’m going to do a deep dive on lifestyle assessment, on social history, on health history. 

We’re going to be looking at kind of all the variables that they have an awareness of, of how they’re already interacting with kind of day to day actions and habits. Food is a piece of it, 100%, because of the type of client that I work with—again, a lot of professionals and high-performers—a lot of these individuals have a lot of responsibilities on them, which I know that you do, right? You run a busy practice, you see a lot of clients, you’ve got a lot on your shoulders. So that means that you’re already running—you’re exerting a lot of energy. Well, the brain uses the most energy in the body. And one of the foundational places for many of us that we are a bit out of balance because we don’t connect the dots and we don’t recognize it is that we’re not really fueling ourselves in the right way for optimal brain function. We’re not hydrating ourselves in an optimal way. I mean, the brain is—depending on what you read and research—75 to 80% water. The body is about 70% water. Hydration, you would be amazed at what a simple, simple step that can be in just improving cognitive performance. Yet it does— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It’s good that beer is mostly water, so that’s good. How do you think—I think nowadays too, and I think myself—I think there’s 2 key things and I’m the biggest hypocrite in terms of, okay, stress and get good sleep. Like, I’m up til 5:30 in the morning and I’ve gotten 2 hours, 3 hours sleep for the whole week, every night. So I can’t go and tell someone—what do you tell someone with stress? Okay. “Stop being stressed!” 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah. Well, you can’t just stop stress, right? And that’s really—let’s just say that that’s one of the entry points, because if all of a sudden we are having a hard time remembering, we’re feeling a bit more anxious than usual, we’re not sleeping as deeply and as well, not waking up feeling as rested, feeling a bit more foggy brain throughout the day. It’s almost like we’ve got to push harder, right? We still have all the same things we’ve gotta do, but we’re just kind of pushing a little bit harder and things just aren’t happening as fluidly, as effortlessly as they once were. So let’s just say—let’s just call it stress as one of the main precipitators of this. And stress is physical, mental, chemical, emotional, and environmental. It comes in different ways, but let’s think of it for the simplicity of the conversation today. 

It’s an overload to the system. Okay? It is something that the system has perceived as a threat because it’s not getting its basic needs met in the right way. So now all of a sudden, if it’s too much or not enough, this is an issue to how things are supposed to work internally in the body. So yes, people come in with stress and I can’t just go, “Oh, doc, just take a chill pill, just breathe, just relax.” They’d be like, “Okay, that’d be nice.” There’s so much more at play. Typically one of the first things that happen is we get way out of balance between our sympathetic fight or flight and our parasympathetic rest and digest parts of the central nervous system. Think of this like a light switch. It can either be on or off. It can’t be a dimmer switch that’s somewhere in between. So if the gas pedal is on that we’re stressed, and that to the system—again for simple understanding—means fighting and flighting. We got stuff to do, or get rid of, or get away from, or deal with. 

Then we can’t be resting and digesting and where we rest and digest is where we repair, where we restore, and where we revitalize. So if we’re always having the foot on the pedal full throttle in that sympathetic dominance, we are completely out of balance with our ability to heal. So here’s how I look at this doc, is that I always think kind of in a triaged immediate, short term, longterm. So it’s a pairing of, where are you at and what’s essential? Like you may have this big vision of where you want to go, but like what’s immediate right now? What is the most important thing to you right now that we’ve got to determine if we can get you there? And what are you willing to do? How are you willing to show up for you? So hypothetically, if I all of a sudden find that you’re drinking all sorts of—you’re just drinking caffeine all day long, Coke zeros, coffee, whatever, and you’re taking in zero water. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Uhhh… 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

If you’re not even willing to start with some water—you know, like, I’m sorry! I can do a lot of good things, you are participatory because we can always do short term fixes. Right? But it’s—do we want a bandaid? Do we want a short term fix? Or do we really want a longterm, both correction—and hear this, this is really, really important. We’ve all, so many of us are so busy trying to get away from the pain or the problem that the moment that we feel like, “Oh, I’m out of that danger zone a little bit.” We let our foot off the gas and we’re like, “Okay, all right.” But we just come back to baseline. We don’t really think—we always think that the journey is trying to get away from the problem and just get to base. We don’t really realize that there can be more. So in the land of how I work with my clients, it’s in this kind of spectrum from unbalanced, all the way over to enhanced, and homeostasis is right here in the center. 

So depending on where my clients come in, and where they’re at, and where they want to be, and how quickly they want to get there, is going to be where I determine what do we need to do to first get you to baseline? ‘Cause first we gottaaget you back to homeostasis. We do have to regulate that stress response. So I am going to bring in neurotechnologies, we’re going to bring in biofeedback and neurofeedback and neuromodulation therapies. I’m going to go ahead and utilize some of my tricks in my tool belt as a practitioner, as I’m thinking, “What can I do?” If you’re my client and I’m saying yes and committing to you, and you’re committing to you, then I want to do everything in my power to genuinely get you that result as quickly as I can and as comprehensively as I can. So that means if I know that the work we have to do—and I always start with a brain map and I’m able to see what’s happening with your brainwaves and how they’re shifting. So sometimes we have a neurotransmitter imbalance. Sometimes we have an issue where the brainwaves and how they’re—they’re like gear shifts in a car— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

What brain mapping do you use? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah, so I use—I do QEEG brain mapping. So we’re gonna look at either a 12 or 19 point analysis, depending on kind of how the client’s presenting, but we’re going to go ahead and map all the brainwave frequencies across the brain. Then it’s gonna allow me to see where you’re at. So beta is your busy wakeful brain, alpha is kind of that flow state. Beta is where we start moving into more of a sleep state and that’s the state of imagination, deep creativity, deep trance, and then we get down into delta, which is deep sleep. Now, many people are just not able to gearshift. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

So these frequencies all have a different speed and they’re appropriate at different times. But with anxiety especially, we have—again, in a lot of high stress people, high-tasked people coming in to work with me—are really having some insufficiencies moving between beta and alpha and then they’re really not sleeping, right? So getting down into proper theta delta, but they’re stuck up in these high ends of their busy brain. So we have to work in stages to begin to retrain the brain. This is something that’s really beautiful, is that the brain is like a muscle and there is something that’s called neuroplasticity. 

We can create new pathways. We can enhance what’s there. So if we think about—I go to the gym and I’m going to work out, I’m going to enhance my muscle. Neurotechnologies, neurotherapies, allow us to do that same type of action within the brain, yet that doesn’t happen in one treatment, right? So that’s where I like to then look and say, “Okay, what’s in my tool belt?” And specifically with peptides, one of the things that I’ll—one of the things I’ll defer to is going to be Cmax. I can kind of bring that in as a really quick hit to support both immediate, short, and longterm effects of what we’re doing with the brain training and the brain stimulation optimization. That’s just an example. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I remember when I did my brain map and I was done, the guy says, “Do you sleep?” And, “Can you remember anything?” You know, so it’s right there, but yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah, it’s right there. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

The brain peptides, I think are a huge area. We love them. Can you—you mentioned Cmax, mention a little bit what they do— 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

There’s so many studies and they do so many things. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

They do. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

They do. And I love the research that’s out there. So we’re seeing kind of—and there’s a lot within the cognitive department of peptides, right? So some are really helping with healing repair of trauma, neurodegeneration, and then we look at other sides of it, which is what I love with Cmax is it’s helping to improve memory function. It’s helping with kind of that stress and that anxiousness, that ADHD type of response. And it does—it has this very neuroprotective, if you will, component with increasing the BDNF in the brain, right? So we look and we can see in the studies, these increases in perfusion, and health, and function, and increasing neurotransmitters, and in helping with these pathways, with being able to really be neuroprotective over time. 

So one of the ones—and there’s a bunch of different things, but something that I will defer to a lot—and you and I were chatting about this before we started—which is BPC-157. Some people look at that as really for gut health and/or as body protective compound, right? It’s kind of this whole body protective. Of course, there’s great research on that, of the role it can play with soft tissue injury. There’s great research around what it can do with gut lining, so if there’s any kind of gut permeability. But with the role of cognitive performance, there’s this connection between the gut and the brain. So with the blood brain barrier, kind of the communication goes immediately two ways. So depending—and this is important to say, is that at least from where I stand, because I take a very precision based approach—there isn’t a one size fits all. So I’m not going to just use BPC on everybody, right? I have clients that I don’t use it on. I have clients that I do use it on, and I have clients that have nothing to do—they’re not coming to me for brain optimization. They’re working with me on other areas and we’re working on the gut because the gut is a foundational pathway in the whole health of our body. I could—we have a whole conversation just around that. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh, yeah. It’s huge. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

I’m sure you’re going to have guests that are talking a lot about gut health. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And with BPC in the gut, but it’s shown to work for traumatic brain injury. It works systemically at equipotent doses as injectable. People just don’t seem—they don’t know whether it’s the gut brain access doing the effect or actually a direct effect, it looks like both. And showing—even preventing traumatic brain injury and also Thymosin beta-4. We use actually the active fragment that’s orally available because standard Thymosin beta-4, which is a Thymic protein, is not absorbable orally, but an active fragment that does everything that TB4 does, except stimulate mast cells. So that’s a good thing. It absorbs whole and has all the systemic effects and so many studies showing it helping the heart, the brain. I mean, yeah, there’s so many tools in the toolbox with the peptides. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

There really are. I think that’s what’s so exciting about peptide therapy because it is a tool in the toolbox. I like to explain them as keys to very specific locks because they are exact, right? So with these peptides, when we look at kind of the peptide structure, just the amino acid sequence chain, like we have 7, we have 8, we have 27, we have 47, whatever, we’ve got these. Depending on what it is, it is just an exact key to unlock specific pathways and they’re naturally occurring to the body. So this becomes incredibly disruptive to the pharmaceutical world because it’s not a synthetic. It is a naturally occurring, which means the body identifies, it understands what it is. So the effectiveness of peptides—and that’s why we’re just seeing such a massive kind of growth. Of course, they’ve been around for many years, but the conversation keeps growing and growing and the public is wanting more accessibility to it because they’re safe with minimal to no side effects, right? And highly, highly effective in what they’re doing within the body. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Which is why they want to shut them down, Big Pharma. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Absolutely. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think what you said, is they’re sent down a pathway. Where you take a drug, it usually has a specific effect, where the peptides will stimulate a pathway of healing. So you get multiple effects where the drugs do one thing and then it also has so many side effects as doing the one things instead of setting down around the natural pathway. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

And I think this is something that’s hard for—unless we specifically decide we have a passion for medicine, health, and wellness, and go down that route, we don’t get an instruction manual on how this body works, right? So the understanding, many of us don’t have an appreciation for why we would take the things that we would take, why we need to eat certain foods or not eat others, why we need to drink water, why we need to consider a peptide versus a pharmaceutical. I love what you just said, that it’s pathways versus a very specific. 

So, of course, with medications it’s going to, again, turn something on off, block it, shunt it, right? It’s going to try to trump the system, it’s going to try to say, “Nope, you don’t see this.” Or, “You do see this.” And a peptide is, again, think of it as opening the right pathways so that functions can occur. Because most functions in the body, they are a pathway or a chain effect. It’s a bunch—think of it like a bunch of helpers and each person—all of a sudden, I’m kind of seeing like we’re passing, like when they would try to stop a dam or something, there’s a line and people are turning buckets to the next person, to the next person, to get the water. Within our bodies, we have these helpers, like one person sending the signal to the next, and then that converts into the next, and then to the next, into the next to get the outcome. So peptides— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It’s like telling the head person to do this, and everyone does it, or the drugs will pick out one person to do a particular thing. Yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Right, exactly. So you’re going to get a more comprehensive support to the entire aspect of the system with it. So that’s why there’s just so many benefits. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It’s like, for most of them they gave them at a thousand times a dose. They can’t find a toxic dose. Try that with Tylenol, you’re dead! 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Right, right. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Try it with water, you’re dead, you know? Yeah, it’s interesting how safe they are. Then doctors get very confused and nervous and it’s kinda—you can’t screw up because— 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

That’s what’s really nice. You can’t screw up. And it does—we all come into the role as a provider and a clinician because we do want to give and love and serve and truly help our fellow woman and man to express their greatest health and wellbeing. And yet the reality is we live in a world where if something goes wrong, then are we the one at fault? So there is this really interesting kind of—we’ve took an oath to do no harm, right? So we want—and that’s what I love about peptides is that there is this kind of inherent safety net built in, again, because it is already the exact sequencing used by the body. It is more supportive in its process. So I think it gives us as providers greater peace of mind, greater certainty, and that helps us to have confidence about the way that we can support our clients and our patients. That’s always what it’s all about. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Great. Great. And other peptides that you like for the brain? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

I’ll tell you, because of some of the work that I do, running—so I’ve got work in my centers. So some of the other ones that I’ll pull to specifically around kind of cognitive optimization is going to be Selank. I have definitely used Cerebrolysin— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

You mentioned Selank. What is Selank? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

So Selank, typically it’s in a nasal spray and that’s gonna really help for more of a calming effect. It’s great for people that maybe have been on benzos, they’ve gotta make a transition off, but what’s beautiful is the effect that it has on the system. So when we’re thinking about the brain and we’re thinking about an overactive or overstimulated brain, what we need to help calm it is going to be the neurotransmitter GABA. So with Selank, specifically, it’s really GABA binding. So it’s going to actually help to in essence increase the availability of GABA to that overactive brain. So it’s very calming. It doesn’t have any side effects, it doesn’t produce any drowsiness. It doesn’t knock a person out. 

So it just really gives more of that calm brain. It allows for focus, it allows—that’s when I really like it is when I’ve got somebody that’s got a really ramped up brain. This is an also where I pair things back to their genetics, because believe it or not, one of the phenotypes, there’s a variant called the GABA 1 variant. There is a correlation of propensity that somebody with this particular phenotype is going to have an issue—potentially, so it’s all in the epigenetics—of being able to convert the excitatory glutamate, glutamic acid, down to GABA. So certain foods are very high in this. This is kind of now where we have the [inaudible] going well. I can use a peptide to immediately elicit a response in the brain and help to calm that overactive brain. And what else can the client know? So then I like to take a multimodal. I like to stack in. So all of a sudden, if I see that they’re eating foods that are high in this GABA 1 and t 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. Even things like NutraSweet, all the— 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah. I try—I want to sit here and not come across in a really harsh way. I have my own opinions about all those neurotoxins, there’s the word, of all the artificial sweeteners. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I have a personal interesting story on that, is that I developed the worst stuttering problem you could imagine. I could not carry a phone. I couldn’t say hello, “H-h-h-h-h-h”, you know? Then I was going to go to this clinic in Irvine which actually turned out to be run by a guy who I did all my rotations with in medical school. Then I read a study on NutraSweet causing stuttering. ‘Cause it is an excitotoxin, it’s addictive! It’s hard to get off. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So I stopped, two weeks later, I don’t stutter. Now if I accidentally get—I don’t know, I switched from Starbucks and whatever, the skinny, their artificial stuff to Coffee Bean, and they use NutraSweet, they only use Splenda. So I got some, and then about two days later, I started stuttering. I’m like, “What’s going on?” So it really shows that neurotoxin, type thing, excitotoxin. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Exactly. And what’s happening—even something as simple as caffeine. Many of us love caffeine, “Don’t take our caffeine away!” Right? I am a slow metabolizer and I didn’t know that. I mean, I could’ve told you kind of going back to earlier in our conversation, that gut feeling. On days that I would have a lot, or if I would have it later in the day, I would notice I’d get like this really low grade headache kind of at the back, the occipital region. I’d always be like, “Oh, I’ve had too much coffee.” ‘Cause that was when I 

would feel it. Well, it wasn’t until later, I get my report and, “Oh, I’m a slow metabolizer!” Isn’t that interesting? 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

But here’s the thing. If I didn’t know that, and I was a person that was drinking coffee all day, guess what that’s going to do? It’s not going to break down and leave my system, it is going to be more stimulatory, excitatory. So all of a sudden, if I’m not sleeping, if I’m feeling anxious, I’m not connecting the dots. That’s what happens, we’re all living busy, full lives. Something by itself seems benign. “Oh, yeah. I had some coffee, I drink coffee at 3 o’clock in the afternoon for my pick me up.” 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Everyone drinks it, yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Right? But if I’m a slow metabolizer drinking coffee at 3 o’clock, and all of a sudden I’m trying to get to bed and I’m laying there wide-eyed and busy brain still at midnight and I’m like, “Crap, I gotta wake up at 6:00 AM.” That’s gonna be a real problem. So all of these things start to stack and weigh on the system, but just the same way they stack up and create these—what do I want to say? 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Snow ball? Vicious cycle? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah! 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think everything in medicine is a vicious cycle, you know? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

It is. But we can also take them away, right? So that’s the beautiful thing. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And then it works in a good way. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

I want everybody to really hear that. Like you totally have power and we also, again, we think it’s gotta all be overnight and everything now, but what’s beautiful and I love—I always give the example of compounding interest. So you will win when you can do small, consistent actions over time. I would so much rather—for a long time, years ago, I did a lot with women’s health around weight loss, and thyroid, and Hashimoto’s. I did a ton around hormone optimization and people—and I think—I know you do some of this in your clinics, doc. We did a lot with HCG and all of it. So people can dig in and, “I can get rid of all the crap, I’ll eat 500 calories or whatever for X amount of time.” 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah.

 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

And then really bringing somebody back into a kind of “normal”, what’s healthy eating, like it would just not necessarily sustain. So then people would get so in their head and I would just start to say, “Look, just have 4 days clean, 1 day off, 4 days clean, 1 day off.” 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I like that. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

I would explain it ’cause every 72 hours is the inflammatory cycle, right? So if you can give it an extra day, you’re gonna actually get ahead and heal. And I’m like—so this now becomes almost the 80/20 rule, because if you can spend 80% of your days over the course of your year, that means—and I did the math at one point, but I’m just like, “That’s going to give you holidays, vacations, birthdays, special occasions, where you can eat whatever the heck you want!” [Laughing] 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think if you try to make it perfect and you mess up, “Oh, forget it!” It’s like people with the gym, and also we find for weight loss is they work out, people think they’re not, whatever, and then they don’t lose weight. They forget it. They’re not gonna do anything. So you gotta make it so they do. You mentioned one more Cerebrolysin? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yes. So Cerebrolysin has a lot to do with memory impairment. So there’s a lot of research around the use and the effectiveness around just really bolstering memory, any kind of TBI trauma, so if there’s been trauma to the brain, if we think that there’s a potential risk of Alzheimer’s, dementia, it’s a really great one to utilize. There is a portion of my population, I have a lot of my high performers that they will refer in their retired mothers. And it’s beautiful. So I love my client base. So I have a percentage of my client base that are women in their later 60s, early 70s, who they were professional women. They remember what it was like to live at a high level and the fact—and they were smart, and brilliant, and their brains are just not keeping up the same way. This is one that I’ve used a lot. Of course, there’s been some changes recently with our compounding pharmacy and the FDA, we’re not able to utilize that at this time. But it is one that I absolutely love. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, it’s very hard to get and I love it, it really helps me. And I’ve mentioned before, we’re bringing it out as a supplement, and the oral form has shown the studies to work and change EEG patterns and that should be out with some other things as well. So we’re excited with that because I was like, “Okay, I gotta get this!” I’m calling—for myself—like Russia and trying to get it. Yeah, the studies are great on Alzheimer’s patients. What percent do you treat like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, like neurodegenerative diseases? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah. So, I don’t do a lot of treatment of those patients because I do work more in the land of optimization. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Help people to help themselves— 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

So with some of my women that are, again, in the retirement years, they have more of a “I’m concerned that what I’m exhibiting could be—I’m starting to have early forgetfulness.” Right? Like they’re not in that—I’ve only had a very small percent that I’ve worked with in the past that actually are Parkinson’s and have had some outstanding results, it’s always a multimodal approach. And I will say I wasn’t doing peptides at that time, so I can’t say specifically in regards to that, but I’m really looking— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

What’s your thought if they haven’t been on estrogen for 20 years? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

So, again, from a whole system— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Put you on the spot there! 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah. I mean, for me, I don’t mean to make it a complicated answer, but I need to see more than just that. Obviously that’s going to be a component in it, especially for women, right? Like that is very vital to their brain health, but then also what’s that in relation to testosterone levels? We need to look at a comprehensive picture to be able to understand how the system is—where it’s at, what immediate support it needs, and then how do we titrate that out or create really that plan over time. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I really like that, the way you said a comprehensive picture. I tell patients and they go to the lab and there’s 35 tests, like, “This is crazy. This doctor doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Whatever, like no, we do. I want to paint a picture. I want information and then we can do the best treatment. So let’s— 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Oh, I’m so sorry doc. Obviously we love this conversation you can cut me off at any time, ’cause I’ll keep chatting, clearly. But I would have—really everybody tuning in right now think about information. You are, each of us are, a biodynamic informatic organism. Like information is what it’s all about. Information is always coming in. So data, labs, biometrics, all of this good stuff is data points that allow us as providers and clinicians to really hone in. So we can—the more we know, the more we can rule out, the more [inaudible] or the more pieces that we can see where they connect and overlap, so that we can really zone in on that orb of probability so that we don’t have to guess. That’s really what it’s all about because if you come to me and in a couple of weeks, you’re not feeling significantly different, you’re going to go, “Oh, that doesn’t work. I’m onto the next thing.” Yet, the more we can paint that picture and you can see where you’re at in relation to where you want to be. And then one of the things that I do a lot is we constantly are assessing and monitoring biometrics. I have a dashboard for my clients. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

So the more that you can understand the importance of those data points— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Show them, yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

It engages the client too. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think people get so much information on Google and then they’re just overwhelmed. They do nothing. So, I’m a woman, 50 years old, I can’t stand—I’m losing my keys all the time. What’s my next step? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Well, like I said—so next step. Let’s think of some basic things. First and foremost, before we determine, am I really having some potential cognitive dysregulation? So let’s just look at realizing how you interact in your daily world matters. So the body is like a battery, are you fueling it? If you’re asking your body and your brain to perform—the moment we open our eyes, we’re asking it to perform tasks, cognitive function, to make decisions, to assess information. So are we first and foremost fueling it? Are you eating ideally 3 meals a day? Let’s just keep it general right now without knowing your most preferred genetic diet type. Let’s just keep it safe, a nice kind of Mediterranean style, each meal having some kind of a protein, some type of a complex carbohydrate veggie, and some type of a healthy fat. 

So are we at least getting 3 meals a day? Are we hydrating? Are we hydrating with water? So kind of the simple rule of thumb, half our body weight in ounces should be clean, filtered water. We do not need more than that, unless we’re really working out and depleting ourselves. So are we at least getting some of these minimum requirements? Are we then—so once we look at some of those basics, are we resting? Did we get a good night’s sleep? And a good night’s sleep, just by looking at genetics— 7 to 9 hours is the range, typically for most. So let’s just say, are you getting at least 7? I have the chronotype that I’m able to do better with less sleep, but others need more. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

So let’s just pretend like minimum is 7, ideally 9. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. Do you monitor their sleep? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Absolutely. 100%. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Do you use an app? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

So most of my clients, I have them use the Oura Ring or I’m a big proponent—I have a Garmin, we do Garmin a lot because they get some really great biometrics. But even something like a Fitbit or an Apple watch does pretty good with being able to collect sleep data. Some of the other markers that I might want to look at, I like to look at through other devices. So, we’re tracking and we want to see trends over time because just a weird one off night is not gonna completely disrupt our system. So did the—I’m 

forgetting where I put my keys. I’m feeling foggy brain. Is that a once in a while, or is it becoming a common occurrence? 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Then what are those things that you’re doing each and every day? We might be able to make some super simple, obvious changes. I’m literally working with a client right now that when I tell you she was not—simple, so simple, not getting enough nutrients at all for the demands. And in her blood work we’re seeing that she’s hyperglycemic, she has too many blood blood sugar spikes. She’s not stabilized with it, wasn’t eating enough. Although she was drinking, she was micro nutrient depleted. So when we think about the brain, and we mentioned this a little bit ago, something as important yet as basic as magnesium. 

Magnesium helps to regulate more than 400 functions in the body. Right? A lot of them dealing with how nerves are firing, how signals are being communicated. So we don’t recognize that sometimes all we need to do is start with food, water, hydration, and are we at least getting some sound micronutrients in? Now, let’s say we’re doing all those right things, then we’re going to go deeper. Then the next thing that we really want to look at is we do want to do a brain map and we do want to do some foundational lab—I want to look at blood work, right? Because do we have hormonal issues that are happening in there that are at play within this? Do we have inflammatory? Do we have dysbiosis in the gut? Is there an issue between how the gut and the brain are talking? I’m going to map the brain and that’s going to tell me a lot. I can already see by certain patterns, just like the doctor that said to you, “Are you sleeping? Are you remembering anything?” It’s kind of right there in the maps. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Then when we get that information, then we’re able to determine how we can begin. And doc, here’s the last thing I’ll say, because that may sound like a lot, but one of the simplest things, simplest places that I start with all of my people, because all of a sudden, “Wait! Food, rest—if I were eating—if I were doing all that, I wouldn’t need you!” Okay. So let’s go even simpler. Back to when we talked about sympathetic parasympathetic dysregulation, stress imbalance, which is what most of this begins with. And the longer we are in chronic stress— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

If you take a person that is chronically ill, they’re just fight or flight. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yes, and then the more imbalanced our hormones become, the more our gut gets broken down. The more our immune system gets dysregulated, everything falls apart. So if I only had one thing that I could tell somebody right now, I would say, start with your breath. And specifically what’s called a state of coherence. So a very simple biofeedback communication between the brain and the body is to start by simply focusing on your breath, breathing in and out through your nose, not your mouth, keep your mouth closed. So soft, easy in and out breaths through the nose. Then as you’re breathing in and out through the nose, you wanna bring your awareness to your breath and envision as if that breath is actually moving in and out through the heart. 

There are over 2, 3 decades worth of research on coherence over at HeartMath Institute and this very simple act—I will tell you on my Garmin—I’ve done this with my son. I do this with my clients. I’ve done this with myself. I’ll look down and I’ll see my stress levels elevated. So I will just take 60 seconds and I will do exactly what I’m telling you to do. I’m not even gonna tell you fancy breathing. We can go into all sorts of places with breath work, but for right now, just soft in and out through the nose, bring the awareness to the breath and imagine the breath is going in and out through the heart. Then as you’re feeling good with that, just focus on a neutral feeling of appreciation. Just something that feels nice, neutral all the way up to joyful. So I’ll do that for 60 seconds and I’ve watched my stress levels go from 79—which is super high, I’m not often there, but when I get there, I get there—all the way down to 19 in 60 seconds. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

What are your wearing? A Garmin? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yes. Mine is upstairs charging right now. I keep doing this ’cause it’s usually on this wrist. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, I’m like, is she a little crazy? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

I’m missing my data right now. But yeah, I mean any kind of device. But what I love about—so a wearable piece of technology. WHOOP is a really affordable band and they do a really good tracking of stress and HRV. So what I like about something like a Garmin is that I can real time look down and I can see my HRV, I can see my stress level, I can even see what’s called my body battery. Which is again, really looking at metrics that are showing my energy availability. So what becomes super cool now about leveraging data and technology is I can go, “Okay, I’m forgetting my keys. My brain is foggy. I don’t know what the heck it is. I don’t know what to do. I feel totally overwhelmed. I’m feeling anxious.” Like, too many decisions, food, sleep, all that crap will overwhelm the heck out of anybody. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It’s a different world. We used to write a letter, send it in the mail, wait for it. [Inaudible] Once a year we got chased by a bear, now it’s faxes, email, checking your iPhone all the time. Yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

It is constant. But we have to be the ones to set our own boundaries and the emails will still be there, right? They will. It’s a really interesting psychological process that we all go through and kind of like, “Oh, I need to pick up my phone. What’s going on? What’s going on?” Like, there’s—I mean, we’re literally getting a freaking serotonin hit every time. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

We’re addicted. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Like we’re constantly shooting up when we click that darn phone. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

So we’re always in the stimulatory mode, but it is absolutely important just to remember that there’s a balance. There’s a balance to it all. We have to sleep. We’re programmed, we’re driven by these circadian rhythms, these on and off switch, rest and digest. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I need to record just that part and I’m going to play it every night to myself. We need that balance. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

We do. So today—I mean, I could talk forever and I love this— 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, I know. I love talking about this, it’s so interesting. I could keep going. Where—just very quickly—where can listeners find out more? 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

Yeah. So I think the easiest place, docmelissa.com, and you can find out anything there from working with me one-on-one to the work I do with Apeiron Academy with our students and we teach peptide courses. So as people want to learn more about all the cool stuff you’re bringing to the world, which is so great. Yet, as we wrap up today, I really want to thank you for your time, for this platform. I hope that for anybody that’s still listening or watching that you remember that it begins with you. Each and every one of us. Like it has to, we have to pour into ourselves first so that we can pour into others. 

Put the life vest on yourself first. Take a deep breath and it really does help. It doesn’t have to be 20 things at once. You don’t have to get it all right, and all perfect. But know that every moment that you are willing to care for you, to put you first, knowing that as you care for you, you can care for all the other people, and places, and things in your life that matter. Well, each moment is that compounding effect that will continue to stack up more of what is good, more of what supports and enhances a thriving state for you. So, there we have it. Just breath. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Wow, you’re good. I feel calmer right now already. That’s great. That’s wonderful. I think it was great. A lot of great information for all the viewers. I thank you for your time. You’re doing wonderful things. Thanks for being on. 

 

Melissa Grill-Petersen, DC, MS, BCHH

It was my pleasure. Thank you. 

 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Alright, bye. Bye.