Sharper for Longer: How to Keep Your Brain Healthy and Fight Neurodegeneration

Podcast Intro and Guest Introduction 0:00

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This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Welcome to this episode of the Reverse Alzheimer's Summit. I'm your host, doctor Heather Sanderson, and I'm bringing back a dear friend this year, doctor Isaac Elias. He's a leading expert in the field of integrative medicine, and he specializes in cancer, but also has a lot to share when it comes to detoxification and Alzheimer's immunity and other complex conditions. He's a respected physician, researcher, bestselling author, educator, and mind body practitioner as well.

Doctor Elias partners with leading research institutions including Harvard and the NIH, Columbia, as well as many others. And he's coauthored studies on integrative therapies for cancer, heavy metal toxicity, and other toxins. He's the founder and medical director of Amitabha medical clinic in Santa Rosa, California, where he has pioneered the use of therapeutic aphorisms as an adjunctive blood filtration treatment for detox and chronic degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's. Doctor Lise, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me back. And I loved our discussion and I'm looking forward for some for sharing some updates today. It's such a privilege always to get to chat with you and to catch up. Last year when we chatted, you had a brand new bestselling book out, The Survival Paradox.

The Survival Paradox and Brain Health 2:06

And so I want to revisit some of the concepts that you presented in this book, because it's really a paradigm shift from the way we've thought about things previously. So what exactly is the survival paradox and how does it relate to brain health? So the survival paradox is in new paradigm. That explains, our health and our aging in our life in a, in a deep way. And we all aware of the role of inflammation in practically every disease. But inflammation is really not the cause. Inflammation is the result.

And what drives inflammation is the survival paradox. So we are why is it a paradox? Because we are wired to survive. And every cell in our body is wired to survive. But it's part of our survival mechanism. When it's threatened, we respond either by fighting or by running your way in these basic movements, devastating for our body. So because it's innate in us, naturally and logically, it's automatic and it's practically immediate. It's instantaneous. So the system responsible for this is the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system.

It responds with fighting and respond without the freezing and running away, which really equates to isolation to creating boundaries. The drives in many diseases, including the Alzheimer plaque, which is really an isolation, a fixation in a place where it's not supposed to be. So in this sense, once the autonomic nervous system triggers, once we have this survival threat, the biochemical system is right behind by by activating alarming survival proteins in the cue. And I've been researching for almost 30 years and made some of the most important discoveries in blocking it.

It can attenuate inflammation and fibrosis. The galectin three. We'll talk about it a little bit later. But in the context of the nervous system, this survival paradox also triggers in hormonal change naturally, right? I mean, if if adrenaline, epinephrine or epinephrine goes up, glucagon is also goes up. Insulin is the response. Cortisol goes up. Now the whole system is being compromised. But also neurotransmitters in their endocrine aspects. So this is known. But I want to take a little bit of a deeper look in and really look what is the meaning.

Bigger understanding of the relationship between the survival paradox in our brain. So our brain and our heart, which really has its own brain. People are not aware govern our being. You know, really, you know, we want to do something right now we are talking. So we have a thought come up. We have, we are, we are thinking about it and we are verbalizing and we also creating a movement. It all starts in the brain. Hopefully it starts in the heart. But for most people it starts in this part of the brain, the hard wired connection that really inseparable.

But it's where we will touch it. Need to be on this. This discussion. So because it is such, it is extremely sensitive and it will respond immediately and powerfully, which means it's small changes in the brain will have devastating effects metabolically endocrine or logically circulatory, immunologically and effects within the immune system of the brain within the inflammatory system of the brain. And this is why it's so important to recognize it. And whatever tools that are going to help us to mitigate this response will help our general health and will help.

Dementia, brain health and Alzheimer's are really inseparable. And the idea that, unfortunately, that conventional medicine is looking for a magical bullet that will block a protein, I don't it's it's almost in an in an insulting misunderstanding not to say about if the fortunate has been, has been spent on it. You know, it's a simple diet. We get the same, you know, results that some, most some of these drugs. So in this sense, it's just important to understand that this survival response puts our brain under crisis.

And when we are in a crisis, the deterioration, the degeneration, the the aging, the the wear and tear on the brain is much, much greater. And the reason why you and I are bringing it up because there is something to do about it. Otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it, right? No, it's so empowering. In fact, right there literally this an inflammatory this inflammation, this inflammatory process, this is there to protect us. It happens for a reason. And it's when it gets out of control or when we adopt a lifestyle that continually triggers that inflammatory response that we get into trouble.

So in your book, you talk about the role of neuroinflammation and cognitive illness. Can you explain this process of neuroinflammation and how it directly leads to cognitive decline?

Neuroinflammation, Blood-Brain Barrier, and Dementia 7:22

And then what the what we can. Yeah, like you said, I want I want to get into what we can do about it. So let's set up how it happens. And then let's talk about yeah, yeah, of course I know. I don't skip to the what to do about it. It too quickly because understanding it gives power because there's something we can do about it. So we look at inflammation as a protective mechanism in general. And so as the same immune system in the body with the immune system that protects us. And we all are acquainted with the cytokine storm and the damage it caused from Covid and the narrow inflammation and never damage it causes.

Right, for so many people. So in this sense, we have the the the macrophages of the immune cells are challenging the body for the clean up for killing invaders, but mainly for the cleanup. They will turn a non inflammatory area into an inflammatory very quickly with a mitigation of this survival protein galectin three that we'll talk about. So in the brain we have a similar process. The cells that help to build the structure. The cleanup of the brain that many years ago we thought are not important. Now we know they're extremely important.

They're microglia in relationship with the astrocytes and the brain because it's so I mean, the body's so smart. I mean, the fact that we can talk with 50 trillion cells, each of them is 1 million reactions. A second is a miracle by itself. But the brain has multiple protective systems. For example, the brain will always get glucose and other organs. We could be compromised first because it needs it needs nourishment. It can also function on alternate fuels very easily because it has to keep function.

And as such he has. It is a gatekeeper called the blood brain barrier. So large molecules, heavy metals, toxins are not supposed to penetrate into the brain. But when these get disrupted for multiple reasons that we will discuss a little bit later on because each of them has a solution. You know, so much of your work of the consistent change in lifestyle, in diet, in habits, because they take is really what starts to reverse it, because it's almost like going to a mountain and trying to take you down with the brush.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. You know, it's. And then, you know, you don't see the different of the one day, but suddenly, wow, you see a difference. So the blood brain might get disrupted. It gets disrupted by this survival response. Galectin three disrupt the blood brain barrier. It gets disrupted by stress. It get disrupted by toxins of different kinds. Glyphosate being a leading one. And now we got things that are not supposed to get into the brain, coming into the brain. We also have signals coming to the brain that are because of emotional toxicity, psychological toxicity, epigenetic triggered, toxicity.

And within the brain with this amazing part of the brain, you know, now that's an interest in psychedelics and a reemergence. And I'm I'm mainly I'm a meditation. I've never tried psychedelics, but I've I've spent decades meditating for extended periods of time every year on my own. Now we start to understand the the relationship between the inhibitory parts of the brain that keeps us together but also inhibits us, create restraints, create isolation, limit us in the amazing connectivity that the brain has.

So the brain, without going into the anatomy, his parts that are suitable for time of relaxation, where we can develop our executive plans and executive power, where we can see into the future without being threatened, that somebody is going to eat us alive in a few minutes, and we have some more animalistic survival parts that are very, very triggered easily. So when we are in a time of stress, of survival and we have a near inflammatory response, the survival of the brain turns on. And this is what starts.

This is like turning the field on fire instead of watering it. And it's this is really so the microglia signals eat but many things will trigger it. I will go over it in in a few minutes hopefully, because really we got to address each of these to really get a profound effect on dementia. On memory decline in on Alzheimer. And within it. We have to remember in the autonomic nervous system that is a sympathetic activated part where the fighting equates to inflammation and the flight equates to fibrosis to hardening and dysfunction of the tissue.

We have to understand that it is balanced by the parasympathetic system. So we take a deep breath. We relax, especially if it's not a chronic sympathetic flow. We see a difference. But the basis of this is it. The body is dynamic. We know now that brain cells regenerate even when we are old, which means that anything and everything is possible and for something to change, what created the situation has to change. You can't us something to change if we don't change our habits, our diet, our exercise regime, our sleep regime and our view on life and within it, there are a lot of things that can assist us.

But this is why, you know, brain health is a dynamic process. It can be influenced. And this is why this summit is so important, because there is really not one person. It is not affected by this. Right? I know the more of this work I do, the more people I talk to, the more people I run into who are suffering there, who know someone who is suffering, supporting someone who's suffering, and then as a caregiver, you know, sacrificing and going through the heartache and stress of of the process. Toxins are a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to dementia.

And this I what I love about toxins, not that I love much about them, but it's a solvable problem. If we know that they're there, we can eliminate the exposure. And then there are great binders like the one that you've created packed us all see, and others. I was so excited when you came out with the glyphosate one, because I see really high levels of glyphosate in my patients. And sometimes you can't figure out where they're being exposed. And so I want to dive in to connecting some of these dots, like how specifically are these toxic to the brain?

A little bit about the blood brain barrier. And then absolutely, we need to talk about solutions. Right. So I, I, I would love to talk about that. I want to take a small step in kind of lay out the multi-factorial factor, factors of the, of Alzheimer's and dementia. And then I want to bring the, the, the toxin in. Today I will share for the first time because I just got the result, you know, the initial stages of life of detox. We now have a larger group and it's mind blowing except for one outlier.

Everybody's glyphosate is being reduced dramatically. I really you know, this was something with was it was said of mine and I actually found a solution to remove glyphosate. And well, this is going to change many people's lives. But now we actually have the data we are collecting. We probably publish on in 6 to 12 months, but we have our larger group coming in and it's well, it's truly amazing. So that's so exciting. I wanted to share that we had one really sad case of dementia, who I was caring for, and he stabilized for a long time.

He, cognitively, he got better quite a bit. He had very, very high levels of glyphosate. We had no idea where he was being exposed. They weren't in an HOA where they were spraying it. They were, eating 100% organic. He was drinking water. That was very, very clean. He was getting the mountain valley water, but his kidney function was deteriorating very quickly. And that's how he ended up dying was of a kidney failure. And his, glyphosate was stubbornly high. So I think that part of what was going on, not only were his kidneys not able to detoxify it, even though we were giving him some binders, maybe we didn't have the tools that are were, quite specific to to glyphosate.

And I can only imagine that this was a big part of why he had cognitive decline. So actually, it's interesting. It's not off topic because in Chinese medicine the brain tissue is controlled by the kidneys, actually. So it's interesting the connection that ancient Thai ancient wisdom knew. So glyphosate, in addition to its damage in the brain, it will recover soon. It's one of its major effects. That is not known is it increases chronic kidney disease and kidney failure. It's a major driver, and I'll definitely talk about it.

I'll share a story. It just happened to me last week on the personal level and about the misunderstanding. So if we really look at why Alzheimer's and dementia

Toxins, Glyphosate, and Detox Solutions 16:48

are so prevalent, and part of it is that also a connection, our connection to nourishment, our connection to the earth, our connection to to nourishment on all levels is weak in this part of the earth being weak, but from a from an energetic point of view, our required responses in life, the time response is really short, and if in the past we would write a letter to somebody and we would go see them, in two weeks, we'll make a phone call later. Now if we don't insert text in 10s, something is wrong, right?

They send you another thing. So this very fast response is putting a lot of burden on the computer on the nervous system. So the system is bombarded e-mail for example, all kinds of of radiation that we are exposed to of all kinds magnetic non magnetic estimated is compared to 100 years ago is ten to the 15th power. Great. Okay okay. So like million is 6 billion is 9 trillion is 12 zeros. So it's a trillion times but it's an infinite number. This body has to is to really hold it. And as such we are adopting.

And Alzheimer is really the victim because also I mean there's a key metabolic component really we have to look at Alzheimer is the metabolic disease not exclusively but driving it just like cancer is a metabolic disease. You know, it says immunity is only part of it. And the reason is it's limited. Metabolism is shifting to survival mode. And we know, you know, I know shifting to a survival mode means glycolysis. Even if there is oxygen in the area, which means no oxygen to the tissue means hypoxia.

And like just like I talked early, right. Smallest changes the brain goes crazy. You don't give oxygen to the brain. And I'll talk about it in a moment. Major change. So what we need to see what drives this metabolic change and what drives it is one circulatory problems. Hypoxia in circulatory is not only stroke circulatory enough, but for a short period of time. We don't get enough blood. Our neck is blocked. You know, sleep apnea. Yeah, yeah. Sleep apnea. ET cetera. And what happens the moment we have hypoxia?

Microglia freak out and started causing damage. And this is driven by collecting three. A study that published late last year showed that it's called perfusion injury reperfusion. You stop the circulation and you turn it on. Happens a lot. And I'm doing a lot of work with it in the in the in extreme condition like sepsis, enabling an agent for studying this with removal of galectin three through a for reasons. But putting it aside what happens. The brain responds to response through galectin three and it causes inflammatory response that ends up causing fibrosis.

This and tissue that is not functioning anymore in the brain. And when we introduce MCP, we reverse the process, which means blocking galectin three reverses the process. It's only one MCP being modified citrus pectin, right. Which is a binder. Right? I put it in that category of binders and then it's going to bind onto I almost think of it like a catcher's mitt. It's going to get that toxin and take it out of the body. Right. So that's one part. The other part. It blocks galectin three. Even more important in Mr..

The reason why it's in binder, but it's much more than a binder. It blocks the driving force for the inappropriate survival response. But a lot of things can help circulation. So this is one coat. But remember when circulation is is problematic. You have acute and chronic inflammation. Then we got oxidative stress relative stress for so many reasons. But it's really part of our inappropriate metabolism. No matter why you write on the cellular and mitochondrial level, so much of your work, you want to try to balance right the mitochondrial function.

And then suddenly, yeah, brain gets better, diabetes gets better, kidney gets better. I mean, chronic kidney disease is a reversible condition. I know, I know it from from and from my medical practice almost always. Yeah, I've seen it too. And then you get the contributing factor. And that's where you come to toxicity. Heavy metals, mycotoxins, pesticides are huge. So we know there's documentation on heavy metals in brain damage. Of course aluminum is well known. But lead and mercury there's documentation about mycotoxins damaging the brain.

And there is extensive documentation on pesticides and pesticides is huge because of glyphosate. So we were programed to accept that we can be poisoned at low levels. So every person has glyphosate in their blood. And you just and you just really mentioned this person. No, it was amazing about this person and said that they may have not had the genetic or epigenetic predisposition. They may have lived a healthy lifestyle and they their damage to the brain, the the intoxication of the brain was because of a chemical that they had no control over.

So now so so here is an interesting story. So I just came from a week I was away and I was staying in a place, and I was just going to ask the people maintaining this area, make sure they're not using glyphosate. And they look at the trees and my God, I can see that some trees have been sprayed. I think the day I arrived there were yellow and within three four days they when the weed was so dead, Heather, you couldn't see it. Yeah. So. And then I see the, the garden committee walking by. Told them, hey, can I ask you a question?

You usually live for this. They. No. We're going to use life with it. We use something safe. We use something called cheetah, like fuzzing. It will be like fuzzing. It is useful when the life of the resistant glyphosate blocks gluten synthesis. It's basically shuts down the mitochondria. A dog will eat the smallest amount. There will be dead. So this is directly toxic to humans. But these people are being fed that it's a healthy solution for glyphosate. It's already banned in 29 countries. And it's annual, you know, so this is what's happening.

And so we constantly have to fight big agro. And basically you know what this too is? You have to take out the weeds twice a year. Okay. It's almost the same. And the person always spraying. Yeah. It's more work to do it manually but healthier. They're probably getting poisoned because they are minority workers. They don't have the right mask. They don't know what's happening to them. So here is an example. And it keeps on always the same story. So we have to be aware of it. And we have to do something about it.

And so we have this toxicity. And then we have the emotional psychological toxicity including multigenerational epigenetic toxicity. And in this sense now we can get to the to the toxin. And what toxin do. And let's take glyphosate as an example. But remember it's a mixture. Right. Because if you have glyphosate and you get elevated galectin three and you've got some other issues, they disrupt the blood brain barrier. The moment they disrupt the blood brain barrier, the molecules are not supposed to get into the brain to get into the brain.

Remember, it's like for us, when molecule gets from the gut to the bloodstream, right? Gut brain connection. It's not arbitrary gut because the response of the macrophage, the cleaners of the immune system, it's signals to the microglia that something is wrong in the brain. We get getting microglia. They're like brothers and sisters in different ways. So now you got the blood brain barrier disrupted leaky brain. You know, luckily it's a good term. Leaky brain. And other people use it. But I think we should call it leaky brain, you know, just like that.

And then you got your heavy metal coming in and you got immune reaction, immune regulation equates to inflammation equate to tissue. And then you got things like life of that disrupting neurotransmitter glycine. The life of that is very similar to is it never inhibitory, never protective neurotransmitter. You've got glyphosate which is now excitatory interesting. Like fuzzing. It will block the conversion of glutamate to glutamine into Gaba naturally. Yes. So you get a glutamate toxicity, a great pill to have.

Okay. Collect your glyphosate. And now in another one from another angle. And that's why you get so much damage. So we got to detoxify them. And in this sense when because like for the defectors and all levels on the level of, of our water level of our plants and meat and level of our soil, then also look for solutions from the same kingdoms. And so I won't go into the details, but like for detox, I've really spent a few years developing it. When I realized about four years ago, wow, Isaac, you have overlooked abilities and now you know the initial five five patient clinical initial pilot.

All of them had low, significant lowering of glyphosate in the urine. But now we've finished with 13 or 14 and only on one of them. There's not a significant reduction. All of them are moving to no. Two. Like there's no normal to lower level, especially the ones who are very high level toxicity. Just imagine, you know like two like this for your for you know, I mean it's it's really incredible. I've been asking for years why isn't there specific glyphosate binder. Because it's so ubiquitous. And I see in my patients with ALS and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's is some of the more severe cases of neurodegeneration that glyphosate level is so high.

So the scale that I use is, I, it's supposed to be undetectable is under 0.038 on the test that I run. And the people who I see with severe and or neurodegenerative disease are often like six, seven, eight. Now, when I test my own. Oh, so they're literally like 200 fold from, from the if not maybe more, right? Because when I test my own, it's usually under one. So it's not it's not at zero. And I eat exclusively organic, you know, and I run through airports and sometimes I'm having to grab something.

But for the most part, I eat exclusively organic and I'm not in. And what I see is some people are in an HOA and their animals are walking around, and then they track the glyphosate inside and people, it's somebody spraying the sidewalk so that the weeds don't grow and all that's coming in the house. And it doesn't rain in your house, it doesn't wash it away. So it gets stuck in the carpet, it gets stuck on the rugs, gets stuck in the house. And then when you take your shoes off, your you're absorbing it, right?

Exactly. And yeah. And you know, it's not only it's the water soluble, then you get the lipid there like dozens of, of, of pesticides. I mean glyphosate is one of them. We look at the list, the other ones are in pretty in pretty impressive quantities, you know, as the people may not realize, it's 1 pound a person a year is being sprayed 330 million pounds. And what you said. Yeah, it's it's it's literally insane in the end, you know, and because it's water soluble you get rain. It will flow miles and miles, you know, into the, in the, in the water table.

So yeah, it's a, it's, it's, it's a real problem. But it's important. Like for example, like for detox, it also is the ability to bind mycotoxins because of the formulations. But it's also delivering really essential minerals because there's some living parts in it. But pick the soil it offers another layer because of it also is, of course, a great binder, especially of heavy metals, positively charged, well documented, published, but also because of the galectin three, it attenuates, it attenuates the inflammatory response.

And what we are seeing and a lot of it people from your previous summit, they're using it long enough. We are getting remarkable benefits on transformation of the mental function. Remarkable, remarkable. That is why we're here. Yeah. And things take time.

Lifestyle, Galectin-3, and Metabolic Repair 29:38

Like like you said, not only for this in general. It takes time and it's on. You can't just eat yourself healthy. You got to remove them because we can't avoid them. You know, when you can. That's what we see is that you don't want to just dip your toe in the water and take one new supplement. You want to change your diet and change your sleep patterns and change your exercise patterns and really optimize all of these different facets of what can potentially put you at risk for developing dementia.

The hormone signaling and the the nutrients and all of it. The more of it you can do, the better the outcomes are in, the higher my confidence is that somebody is going to get better. So this is really exciting that we have these phenomenal binders, but also kind of this new signaling that's going to reduce that galectin three burden or response. And so I do have other other strategies for reversing Alzheimer's. So what do you think is kind of paramount in your mind. Where do you start. You know I think that lifestyle is, you know, you know, the basis of your work is essential.

We have to change the lifestyle because we have to change the metabolism. So one power that it starts with the simple things like diet, exercise, adequate sleep, stress relief. That's not straightforward, simple, inexpensive to do and hard to to to keep. Of course. Right. And blocking galectin three is essential. I'm the more I you know it's interesting. I just I just saw two patients who came to me for other reasons that they treated for cancer, one of the metastatic, one of them that is not supposed to go away.

And they came to me after a decade for for other reasons. And I looked at the program a decade ago and I didn't have picked a solo because I didn't realize then. I mean, once they finish the cancer, it wasn't I didn't realize about all the other benefits. You know, the thing that I discovered in the last decade, a lot of them. So it's one part we have to regulate and harmonizing metabolic function, including intracellular early. So we want to use compounds that will affect us intracellular. If it's berberine if it's some people live in metformin, if it's curcumin, if it's on Nokia, or the king of intracellular harmonizer because it penetrates the blood brain barrier and also we getting great feedback.

And we also and we got to address pesticides. But there are deeper ways and the deeper ways for us is to shift from survival driven reactivity which is ego driven which is thinking driven, which is habit driven and move from the brain to the heart. Because, as I mentioned it, I always mentioned every cell in our body wants to survive. It likes to take nourishment and it throws the way we doesn't want it. Nature naturally reacts to think. It doesn't want that to survive a response. The only organs that function differently is the heart.

The heart takes all the dirty blood from everybody. It accepts it. If it if it doesn't accept, it will be dead right now. So is the survival of the heart is acceptance. It's not reactivity. That's the moment we go into this mode. Our cells function differently in the electromagnetic field of the heart, which is 100 times bigger than the brain. The side effects every cell in our body affects our community, affects people around us. In fact, at some level, it keeps going. You know, even if you can't measure it, it keeps going.

It's a wave. So in this sense, when we can shift into this place and that's where meditation becomes very, very powerful. And we know people who meditate, the silken gyri are preserved in the brain proportional to one how much a day they meditate to how many years they've been meditating, and three, how well-trained they are in meditation. The UCLA did a lot of studies with imaging on it, and it's remarkable, which means you can preserve your brain, you can preserve your function. And all of us experience when we get stressed, our memory declines.

When we relax, our memory gets better. So we can't control outer circumstances, but we can control our response to circumstances. In this sense, addressing the topic which I've I've addressed for many years, but I talked about more in the last year, is the relationship between trauma, never degeneration, and our inflammation and trauma and diseases is a key component that is part of the healing from from from a from dementia. Yeah I love this because my, my two main goals were to talk to you about detox and that heartbreaking connection.

I think of you even as an expert certainly in both of those things and this whole conversation around trauma and healing from trauma, I think a lot of people think oh, early childhood trauma, like, did my parents get divorced or was somebody an alcoholic or was they abused or neglected? And yet sometimes just navigating the health care system is a trauma in and of itself. There's so many people aren't validated. So few people are given hope, especially when you're seeing a neurologist regarding Alzheimer's.

And so I wonder if you have suggestions for how to navigate that and how to how to make sure that that is not affecting us in an unhealthy way. That's going to drive the process of neuroinflammation. Right. It's a great question, and it's such a profound topic. And it's something that I don't only work one on one, but when I do meditation and healing retreats, which in the last decade I've done in person, mainly in Israel twice a year, but I'm going to start doing United States. I have to do a commitment.

So you get many people with severe PTSD, you know, from the Army, people who have been disconnected with the heart. So people with terrible personal stories, people who come to the retreat and they'll partner after 30 years, just, you know, hidden and feeling left them with the children and gone. And they're just crying. But they decide to come in five days later. You don't recognize the person they've healed. They've accepted. How can it happen? Well, to release and of course, the moment. So let's look at it for a second, a little bit deeper.

What is really trauma in a deeper way? There are two processes that basically we can experience to the extreme. Not easy to experience. The first one, which is a complete letting go, completely letting go, which means everything we experience, every thought that arises, every feeling, everything that comes into us, sensation from the outside we experience inside it expresses itself and it falls away without leaving a trace. The Buddhist metaphor is like a bird flying in the sky. It leaves the sky in the sky the same or like writing in water, but usually things leave a trace.

So when we are very young and we haven't had a lot of experiences in this life, when something happens like we get a cut, it repairs without a scar, right? Without a trace. But slowly we have experiences that start leaving traces in with and then experiences repeat themselves so we get the same trace in the same trace in the same trace, until the body knows that when there is an action, I'm going to have this reaction. And that's how we create habits. We no longer respond based on the moment,

Trauma, Meditation, and Heart-Brain Healing 37:18

which means that in the future we will respond based on what happens to us. And what we do now is about this relative to what we did in the past. You know, you call it karma, you call it epigenetic, you call it habit. It doesn't matter. It affects us and what it does neurologically. It triggers a neurological response because we can recreate our memories every time it triggers alert systems. So now you all we all know two people have an experience. One is, oh my God, I was in bliss. And the other said I was devastated.

How is it possible? Well, it's based on the habits. So part of the healing of the trauma is to try to clean these traces. So toxins will create these traces. Everything we talked about pesticides, heavy metals, makeup, mycotoxins. What am I could if it was so if you ever so micro toxin they don't grow in the sun in dry windy weather. They they grow in dark damp air. We augment stagnant that like oxygen. Right. Like in our basement and in our sinuses. And when we don't have good circulation. Right.

So of course they're going to affect closed areas that we don't have good, good circulation. So as we start to understand it, we want to see how we can repair. And so on a physical level. For example, novel therapy that injects, you know, broken into the skull is amazing. You inject broken into a skull. I use some homeopathic in the skull, get smaller by 10%, and then by 60, 70%. Wow. You know, it can be 40 years old. It will get smaller, but whatever gets smaller never comes back. How is it possible?

I mean, I'm not the only one who does it. I've done hundreds, probably thousands of these. How they happen because we are numbing the memory of the brain for 45 minutes. It's all we are numbing the signals that tells us that something is wrong and the body gets to recalibrate. The same thing has to happen with trauma in the context of no inflammation. And so when you integrate everything we talked about with meditation with this simple first grade meditation mindfulness, which is very popular with you, just slow down and create this space.

When we create a space and slow down, there's more room for repair. And slowly as we develop on the path of meditation to more sophisticated and developed methods, we are able to develop the quality of acceptance and of letting go. And then when we let go, then when we get let's go to the brain. I want people to imagine this. When you get a neurological input and you have to respond to the input into another 50 trillion other input, because we are talking in trillions and trillions, trillions, right?

There's so many things over our lifetime systems, life, epigenetics. It's tough to get it right, you know. But if now we are responding to the one thing and the and the congestion is down, everything becomes clearer, right? People who meditate say, I see things clearer with clearer thinking. A clearer cognitive function is exactly the opposite of what happens with dementia. When being slow to think and to align, to recall and to put things together right. Lots of confusion. Exactly. Very well. This is a power.

And as we first we create this space. And then when we move to our heart, then the whole pressure from the head goes away. You know, I've trained in it for decades, so it's not all the time. But usually when I talk, like when I'm talking to you now, I speak and I think from here I don't feel it. You actually feel it here. And there's nothing exclusive for me. It took a long time because I had a lot of habits to wipe out, but I was stubborn enough to go to the mountains for months. After months. Some people it's easier for them, but that's part of the healing.

We get access to a fresh show brain that is moving all the time. The heart always moves, the brain always stops and analyzes. So it's how to create a flow in a system that is all the time suspicious and analyzing. It's much easier to create the flow in a system that is built to take all our difficulties, our our dirty blood, connect with the universe with the breath, and give us nourishment, love and compassion. A system that nourishes itself only after it finishes its work. Totally selfless. That was the heart is out now.

This is itself only after it pumps the blood out. It after it gives, it relaxes in the coronary artery. Fill in. But the first organs that get nourished by the heart, anatomically, is the heart itself. It's self-love is part of loving others. So when we get this, when they struggle, when the defense goes down, when there's more inner connectivity, sense of community. Right. Your work is so big about creating community, right? Where community between the heart and the body, 50 trillion cells with community between the body and the 101,000,000,000,000 trillion organism in our gut.

So no surprise it when we disrupt the gut microbiome, the brain goes away. All right. There's no surprise. The meat so logical. Right. It's a and now we discovered it thing. That's how it is. Well it's ancient wisdom because it's a gut brain connection is the principle of connectivity. And this is the connectivity. We see that the blood giving nourishment with good quality nutrients and and then clean and good clean up. And there is a connectivity on the level of energy, the electromagnetic field of the how that affects every cell.

And then there's connectivity in the level of intention. And the intention is hard. You know, it's hard for us when we have something that gets us upset to create a response of compassion, to turn reactivity to responsiveness is and as they say in Los Angeles, fake it until you make it. You know, so you kind of have to produce it until suddenly something happens and wow, you are not reacting quickly. When we react with anger and we all do, I do. I assume you does. Everybody does. It doesn't feel good and it's not good for our liver.

And it's not good. Definitely not good for our brain. Right. We can see it this way. This there's the wonderful story of someone who had, an audience with the Dalai Lama. He was in a big, It must have been some sort of gathering. Decades ago. And he had a chance to ask a question. So he asked the Dalai Lama, how can I be as compassionate as you are? And the Dalai Lama's response was, act as if you are right, and it's it's the fake it til you make it. But via the Dalai Lama, although they're very, very great.

A psychotherapist who Will wrote on Transforming Anger felt it agreed to it. Great job. And he said he shook the Dalai Lama with him and he said the transformation he had, he realized, oh my God, 30 years of work and one handshake did it did a bigger effect. So that's the power. We all have, this power. We all have our, you know, the the major, the belief system. We all have this divine quality within us, right? If it's Judeo-Christian, we are made in the image of God. If it's Buddhism, it doesn't matter what it is, it's in us.

It's really our journey in life. And there is a maintenance brain and then all this inner connectivity. Right? It's it's why I mentioned the psychedelics because we get connected to this other realm. The meditation connects you naturally without substance. And then there is the hard brain. And there is an area like brain cells in the heart that allows us to use ourselves in a, in a bigger way. And the more we connect to it, the more our brain gets revitalized. And that's why you can see people who work very hard, and actually they are in great shape.

And the brain function is amazingly awesome. How come? Because you are doing something that they love, they feel like they are giving back.

Closing Remarks and Resources 46:08

So really it's it's a dilemma, said to be selfish, to be selfless is a very good thing. From a selfish point. That's great. Doctor les, it is always a pleasure. I feel so inspired by you. And and just also common, clear being in your presence even remotely. It's just an absolute privilege to have you involved in the summit, to have you here today. To share your wisdom and experience with us. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. Please tell everyone where they can find out more about you and about Gen X and the products we discussed so they can go to doctor realize that that.

Com they are Elias iac.com with that org and I have a newsletter that is very informative and I will start teaching retreats in the second part of this year. So fantastic. I'm going to sign up. I'll be there. It's after decades and decades of training and refinement, and that's one thing and people can go to pick to solve.com auto econ eugenics.com and and find lots about, glide for detox in Honolulu, which I mentioned. And I look forward to being in touch with many people. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

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