Simple Brain Health Hacks For Better Sex Right Now

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Hey, everybody. Doctor Diane, your summit host here again, welcome back to another episode. Another interview on our summit. I'm so excited about our next guest. This is Doctor Laura. Disastrous. And she is going to speak to us about so many different things around brain health, how brain health beyond what you're just thinking beyond just like the the psychological component about brain health, really from a physiological body perspective, what's going on in the brain that can directly impact your sex drive and of course, what you can do about it.

So welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation. It's going to be a really good yeah, it really is. I've been looking forward to this. And let's jump right in. Which is tell us a little bit about your background, your history. I know we talked a little offline about this, but how did you get into the world of functional medicine. But you can also link in, just for our listeners, how you got passionate about brain health, about things like sexual dysfunction in that component of the work, as well?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I like a lot of other functional providers. I found functional medicine originally through my own health journey. When I was back in grad school, I had initially gone to grad school pursuing a chiropractic degree. I've always been a lover of movement, the physical body. I've just been fascinated by it. But I was 22. You think you're at like the the apex of life in terms of energy and vibrancy? And that was not my story. I was exhausted, I was gaining weight even though I was doing everything right.

I was, you know, in class all day and I would be collapsing into bed at 6:00 at night. Just I felt terrible. And there was this moment where I was like, gosh, I'm studying to go into health care and something is seriously not right with my body. But I don't even know, you know, everyone just tells you you're fine, your labs are fine, and you know what we were speaking about offline was I. I accidentally met a functional medicine doctor while I was in chiropractic school, and she changed my life.

She found out I actually had Hashimoto's disease, an autoimmune thyroid condition. Even though I thought I was eating healthy, it was not healthy for me. The whole whole green food pyramid thing was probably the worst possible thing for my body and my brain. Brain fog was a real issue for me there. And still to this day, when I have, you know, too much gluten, too many grains, it manifest as brain fog. But, you know, by working with her and learning in real time, like, oh, okay. My gut health is connected to how my brain is functioning and my hormones are tied into, the stress levels and not sleeping.

And, you know, the body is working together is this really beautiful thing. We can't keep separating it into parts the way that conventional medicine always showed us. So I made the decision just through that experience to start pursuing functional medicine. And I went and got my master's degree in clinical nutrition. I studied with the Institute for Functional Medicine and an academy for anti-aging medicine. And, you know, the rest is kind of history. I worked a lot with women who had Hashimoto's, who had autoimmune issues, ones that were often showing up as I can't remember things, I can't.

Everything is cloudy, I'm anxious. A lot of brain based symptoms that, you know, weren't really getting explained to anyone else. They were just being told, oh, it's just your hormones. That's just life. That's just how it is. And I kept thinking, there, there has to be something more to this. There has to be a better way. And I found that there's so many incredible, you know, functional practitioners out there who are looking at our hormone health, right, who are looking at, you know, energy levels and things like that.

But until recently, like, there hasn't been much focus on the brain aspect. You know, it's like adrenal health gets really sexy. And we do supplements for that. And we do gut cleansing and detoxes, and we don't always think about that.

Brain Inflammation and Sexual Dysfunction 4:06

The brain is communicating with all of these other symptoms. And if the brain is inflamed, if it's not getting enough blood flow, or if it's not getting the the rest it needs. So, you know, I've been guilty of this in the past, looking at all of you who are scrolling on the phone or at Netflix late at night, not letting it drain line down. But if we're not doing brain self-care along the way, we don't get the results we want in those other systems because it has to be part of the conversation. It's controlling all of these other areas.

So for me, it made sense that it was always very central to anything that I had to do, whether it was for my own health or with clients that I'm working with. And now I'm just really passionate about helping women, especially women who are in these hormone transitional times, you know, late 30s, 40s. Things are starting to shift. We can't focus just on, you know, the sex hormones and the weight. We also have to think about how's your brain changing? How how's that? How is that impacting the way you're showing up?

The way you're feeling, the way you're reacting versus responding. So I think it's just a really central part of this entire conversation around women's health, sexual health, sexual dysfunction. Yeah. I appreciate so much of what you said. I think there's so, so much to kind of spin off of as far as what you said around adrenals and that component being sexy. And we have all of these other types of protocols and even conventionally, you know, it's like, conventionally speaking, there's not really a diagnosis for brain fog, even though so many people are running around with it. Right.

And we have like mild cognitive impairment, but even conventionally there's not like a lot of answers or solutions for these type of scenarios where we know the brain's inflamed, we know the brain's not working well, and it's not dementia. Right. We know it's not that far gone. So it leaves people in this huge gap that you're right, I think is hugely and talked about. So I'm really glad we're talking about it today. And I'm really glad it's a passion of yours. And you did a good job of kind of overlaying a web of some connectivity of brain health and inflammation, kind of big picture.

So let's narrow it down a little bit more. Can you narrow it down for all of our listeners to brain health, brain inflammation, and from a physiological standpoint from that physical impact? Right. How does that directly tie into sexual dysfunction? Sure. So we all know that having too much information is not great, right. Sure. Inflammation acutely can be helpful. But generally we know that we want to be leaning towards anti-inflammatory. If we want a long, healthy, happy life. We talk a lot about gut inflammation, body inflammation causing pain.

But you know, the brain often gets inflamed as well. And something I think that is important for people to understand. You know, we understand that gut inflammation can happen when barrier integrity breaks down, when there's damage to the walls of the gut. But you also have barriers around the plate, the brain, the blood brain barrier. And when we have a lot of inflammation up there, it can impact that barrier system as well. So when you have inflammation in the brain, sometimes it looks like brain fog, like not being able to remember things like feelings of anxiety, feelings of depression, things that we might call brain based symptoms.

But what can also happen then is all of the communication networks, from the brain to other areas of the body, can also be impacted. So you mentioned talking about adrenals before. You know, we talk about when we talk about stress and we talk about adrenal health. There's this concept of what's called the HPA axis or the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. Right. Those first two parts, the hypothalamus and the pituitary there in the brain. And they need to be able to communicate with the adrenals to have a properly regulated stress response, to make sure that cortisol production is maintained, to not going too high or too low, and wreaking all the havoc that we know comes with, you know, irregular cortisol.

But if our brains inflamed and it's not being able to send those messages correctly, you know, you can start to see symptoms in these other systems of the body. Same goes when we're talking about sexual health. Now we have the hypothalamic pituitary gonadal axis. Right. Talking to the ovaries talking about you know the brain is important for ovulation. If the brain's inflamed it's not working. A woman's not going to be able to ovulate. Then next thing you know she's got low progesterone. She's feeling anxious. She's not sleeping.

And if we just focus on here's the melatonin, here's this and that, we're missing that whole piece upstream a little bit. And that requires a healthy brain that's functioning well. That can get all the correct signals and send all the correct signals. So sometimes when we're talking about, okay, I have no sex drive, like things aren't working the way they used to, does that come with, you know, the natural decrease of sex hormones over time? Sure. But I see it happen younger and younger and women to where it's happening to women in their 30s, even in their late 20s.

And it's it's that important brain piece. And I think this might be going on a tangent a little bit, but I think we're not doing the best job of educating women about what's actually happening in their bodies, around ovulation, around their menstrual cycle. You know, I think a lot of women may not even be aware that that brain piece is really where ovulation starts. And if you don't get that piece, if you don't get ovulation, you then don't get progesterone production. So it's such a central part of, of really a part of our menstrual cycle where we have the best sex drive around ovulation.

If we're not doing that, of course we're not going to have that desire. We're not going to feel like we want to do that quite as much. So it really is very central to this whole hormonal process. Yeah. Thank you. I feel like one of the things that might be going on in people's minds or their brains right now is or listening is as you're talking about the hormone cycle, the adrenal cycle, all these cycles going on. And we're linking that to sex drive. It might be easy then to start to think that, okay, sex drive, like we should always, always, always look for the brain and brain inflammation as a root cause of low libido.

So would you say that should always be in one of the top things people should look for? And if not, do you have and sense of what people should look out for from a symptom perspective, like besides brain fog to say, oh, okay, my low libido, there's definitely a brain inflammation component to it because of x, y, z symptoms. Yeah, I, I like the latter part a little bit better. If you're trying to kind of DIY figuring out why is my sex drive low. Like let's take a step back and look at how we feel in all areas of our life, right?

And like, this is why we love functional integrative medicine, because we're not hyper focusing on one area. We're taking that step back. So if you have a low sex drive and then when you start kind of thinking, okay, how does my body feel in general? Okay. Yeah. I'm not sleeping. Great. Brain fog, concentration. Not what it used to be. I keep forgetting things. Like having trouble finding the words, you know, feeling a little more anxious, like if it kind of lays out like. Oh, wow. Yeah. All of these symptoms kind of fall in this category of maybe my brain's not doing what it should be, then maybe it's definitely something to look into, right?

I do think it's more common than women think. But of course, there's other reasons than brain inflammation for low sex drive, right? Sometimes it really is just the hormone production side of things. Sometimes it's a little bit more of a gut issue in the way we're metabolizing hormones, just not feeling well.

Testing for Brain Health and Inflammation 11:30

I think the big takeaway that I would love people to understand is that a lot of these systems, they work like a web in the body, right? Like we want so badly for it to be A11 problem with one solution, because that would be easiest, right? And a lot of times it's all of these systems having communication errors or just not talking correctly. But I like the idea of kind of buckets. If you do have an issue with low sex drive with with feeling like, you know, sex just isn't what it used to be. Let's see what else is going on, right?

Because, you know, stepping away from just the physiology. Then there's the whole other side of what's my nervous system doing? What are my stress levels like? Am I giving myself the chance to kind of relax and be more in the moment, things like that. You know, I'll be the first to admit when I'm super busy on the go. Not paying attention to those things like that can definitely tank my sex drive too. So I think it's it's something to think about. It's not always just the biochemist. Terry is also those other human needs along the way.

Yeah, yeah. I really like the the way that you use the word web. I use that same word when I describe that. And I think it's one of the best descriptive words I have found to really illustrate, you know, that interconnectivity. And I think another question that we might have coming up now is regarding things like testing. Right. So we're talking throughout this summit about tasks such as sex hormone test, adrenal test, gut tasks from a brain inflammation standpoint, are there any other like common tasks that you would just have people either ask their doctor about, come see you, and they're commonly run like any other, say, big picture tasks from brain health perspective that you feel like people should really have on their, you know, on their mind.

Yeah. I wish there was like one test that told you specifically like, this means there's inflammation in the brain, to my knowledge, that does not exist. But there's a couple other ones that I think can can give you a lot of insight into what's happening. Like, of course, overall inflammation and like an omega index, just telling you about what our inflammation levels in the body like right now, that's of course, I think an important baseline one to know it's a simple blood test for most people that they can go do.

I do like sometimes doing neurotransmitter testing. Now this is something we can do via saliva or via a urine test. It tells us about things like serotonin, things like dopamine that impact, you know, things that are in our brain chemistry that impact some of these processes. Now, of course, neurotransmitter production, it's also can be a reflection of the gut. But if we do neurotransmitter testing and we see that these people, you know, brain chemicals are all over the place, that can, of course, influence the way we feel.

It can be impacting the way our brain is communicating. If levels are too high or too low. So especially if you're someone who's dealing with a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of racing mind, racing thoughts, I think that's a great one to have. There is one other test I it's called the mental map. I cannot remember the company, but I just know it's Brendon Vermeer is the the guy who came up with it. It was specifically to look at neuroinflammation levels. That one is a little more geared towards people that might have, you know, treatment resistant depression, things like mold issues, things that we know impact the brain as well.

But I think that's a really cool up and coming test for people who really have severe symptoms around the brain and who are really trying to figure out, like, yeah, I've tried everything for my brain fog, for my anxiety. Nothing's cutting it. That could be a really good avenue to go down as well. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. I don't actually know that last one. So I'll check that out. And just to throw one more in there that I'm thinking about in this moment is vibrant. Well this is neuro zoomer that one right.

That looks like those autism markers in the brain. So I just want to throw that one in there also for everybody. And let's talk. Let's look what people do. So they know their brain flame. They have these symptoms. Maybe they've run these tests. Maybe they just have enough of these other symptoms. And you don't know how common it is to have a level of brain inflammation and all these symptoms we're talking about here. So what do people do? Let's start with diet and nutrition. So you know going back to what you experienced in your early 20s around well I'm eating the wrong diet.

It's like there's so many times right where I find that people think they're eating the right diet. And they've been reading on all the sites online and they think they're doing great. But yeah, they're eating the wrong things in this example for their brain. So where do people start? What is the guidance on on nutrition. Yeah. And I before I jump into that, that I just made me think when you were talking about people think they're doing the right diet. They're reading up on it. And I, I want to preface this by saying, understand also that the same diet you may need when you're healing from something, when you're starting to fix health issues that may look different than the diet, you actually need to maintain that later.

So I say that because I see this a lot in women in particular, they'll try a therapeutic diet like maybe keto or gluten free or something like that. And initially it helps them so much because it was a great healing diet. But when they stay on it long term to maintain, then all of a sudden it doesn't work so great anymore because their physiology changed, right? They fix some health issues. So I say that not to confuse you. If you're listening to this, but understand that nutrition can always be

Nutrition for Brain Health and Libido 16:54

changing and shifting the diet that is best for you right now. That may change the year or five years from now. So I like approaching nutrition with a curiosity around making sure I'm checking in with my body and trying to figure out what are some common threads in the lens of this conversation that really help us support brain health, reduce brain inflammation without picking like one niche diet to stay on forever. Because, you know, our bodies are just too complex. I think sometimes for that. So I think the best approach for nutrition, for the brain, regardless of whether you are plant based, whether you're an omnivore, whether you like carbs, whether you don't, I think a diet that aims to keep your blood sugar as balanced and regulated as possible is going to be one of the best ones for your brain.

We know it's going to decrease your risk of dementia, of Alzheimer's down the road, helps keep energy stable, helps keep a steady supply of glucose going back and forth to the brain. So, you know, I'm a big fan of using some some health data there just to help people figure out like, okay, this diet that makes me feel good and that addresses things. Does it also keep my blood sugar as stable as possible versus sending it swinging all over the place? Right. Something that really helps support that metabolic health.

I find for most people, that looks like looking at our plate and making sure we have some quality protein, some healthy fat and some fiber on the plate, fiber could be vegetables, could be certain foods, might be, you know, gluten free whole grains, if that's appropriate for you. But it's something that has the combination of those macronutrients that lets that steady energy supply happen. And like, look, there's so many different tools we could go down to help people get to that point. Right. This is where intermittent fasting comes into play.

Like each of us are so uniquely different, it's hard to say there's one best diet, but I think a blood sugar balancing diet is really the best. Like big picture lens of how do I need to eat for me, in a way that keeps my blood sugar stable? Because that's what's going to help keep everything else at bay. I'm not going to get weird sugar cravings that are going to inflame the brain. I'm not going to be, you know, brain foggy and can't figure anything out during the day. Things are going to be nice and stable.

I then also like, oh, sorry, go ahead. Now you go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, I was going to say the next part that I really like to say is make sure that we're including lots of, you know, antioxidants and phytonutrients too, right? Like brain. You know, we look at these lists of brain boosting foods a lot of the times it's a lot of brightly colored foods. Right? We got salmon, we got blueberries, we got green tea. Things that we know have plenty of antioxidants which go in and help fight that inflammation.

Keep the brain nice and healthy, keep the blood flow going really well. And regardless of what eating approach you're following, you can fit these antioxidants, you know, into your diet. It's all about variety versus eating the same exact thing every single day, every single meal. Yeah, I really, really appreciate how you started this response around. There's not one diet right for every person, nor is there one right diet right for every person at every stage of their life. Right. So I think that's something that just like we was talking about from a root cause perspective that I've oftentimes people want that one thing, and it's that web of interconnection, if you like.

This is a different example of that, right? That oftentimes it's so easy to be like, just give what is that perfect diet? Everybody's looking for that perfect diet that's going to manage their brain and their weight and their blood sugar and all these things. Right. But it is so individualized, so do you you in your work, do you tend to ever recommend things like food reactivity tests or food sensitivity tasks to help people truly identify from the standpoint of what is working for them, what's not working for them as part of the picture I'm so well, and I my personal feeling is that food sensitivities are symptoms, not root causes.

So people may have food sensitivities. And then my question is always why. Right. So I'm a big fan of if we are going to do that. And sometimes especially if I have someone coming in and they're like, I can't eat anything without having these major symptoms, then we can at least try and see, like, okay, there's some major reactions going on, like can we see if they have gluten antibody reaction, what's happening just so we can clear some space for a couple of weeks. Let the body calm down. But always pairing that with good comprehensive gut microbiome testing because I want to know what's the you know, what's the basis of that.

What's happening that is causing this person to react to so many foods. So, you know, from the biochemistry side, I think that's really important. And even if I see someone's gut test and the gut test is a mess, right? They're not they're not making digestive enzymes. They've got, you know, stomach acid issues. There's inflammation in the gut. It's then peeling back that other layer of okay, well why is that happening. Right. And that's where we got to bring in that lifestyle piece. Is this a person who's super stressed out?

They're living in fight or flight all the time. They have crappy water in their house. You know, there's toxic lifestyle coming in and everything else. So it's again, it's not to sound like a broken record with this whole web concept, but it's it's never just one step. So I when sometimes when I see people come to me and they're like, I had some sensitivity testing. I can't have these 20 foods. That's why I feel this way. It's a lot of unlearning of, okay, yeah, you may be reacting to those foods, but that test was five years ago, and if you're still reacting to these foods, there's something else going on, right?

Like we're not fixing something at the base level. So making sure that we keep peeling back those layers and, and get this person to the point where they can bring sometimes really healthy foods back into their into their lifestyle. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. And then going even another layer into treatment and lifestyle. What people do is supplements, right. So what do people when we're thinking about brain health improving inflammation. Obviously there is that connection to I feel like what functional medicine does best, which you explain is why why why why why why why right.

Always asking that deeper level of why. And so obviously with supplements there is going to be some sort of dependency, right? If it's like a gut, if there's a gut problem and the gut problems leading to leakiness of the brain, not only weakness of the gut, but leakiness of the brain, we're of course going to give supplements for the gut. So besides the obvious of we need to figure out like what to figure out, you know, treat from a root perspective. Are there things that are more like general type of supplements that you can say, hey, brain health, no matter what the root cause, this might be something to try to help you.

Are there any supplements you would recommend from that aspect? Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's always a little bit of a dance. Right. Like yes, of course it's important for us. And you and I are going to preach this, that we want to help you figure out why this is happening so that you can have a sustainable answer. I also understand being on the other side of the table, having severe brain fog, having these issues and being like, what can I do today to feel a little bit better as I'm peeling back these layers?

So I totally get that. And you're right, some supplements are dependent on testing, but I still think there's a couple that can generally start pushing the needle in the right direction that can provide some relief. And there's some that have just really great research, particularly around the female brain. So the first and that most people are probably familiar with is a good quality omega three supplement. We know this is important for brain health. Most of us do not get enough of that in our diet unless we're having a lot of, you know, fatty fish daily, which most people aren't, let's be honest.

So getting a couple grams of quality omega three and immediately helps start shifting that inflammation towards a more anti-inflammatory profile, immediately, that can help start alleviating some of those symptoms, whether they're brain based symptoms, whether they're helping us focus better or not, the brain has a lot of fat in it to begin with. So we want to make sure we're feeding it that, that's the first one that that comes to mind. I also really like creatine for women. A lot of times when people hear creatine, they jump to bodybuilders.

That's kind of who made it famous, right? But there's actually really amazing research around creatine for brain health, especially for women as we start hitting like this, perimenopause and beyond option, phase of life. So I think like getting a scoop of creatine every day, whether you're just putting it in water, whether you're putting in a protein shake, it can really help alleviate some of the brain based symptoms that come along with hormonal transition times. Some of this, you know, brain fog, some of like, the learning and memory consolidation thing.

So I think that's a really a really great one for women to consider. And it's also doesn't taste like anything. So it's very easy to, to bring into your life. I also like, I'm trying not to go with a specific supplement label. I'm thinking of this one by Thorne called The Brain Factors. But it has a lot of stuff in it, like NAD, like BDF support Alpha GPC.

Supplements for Brain Support 25:48

And if you're listening like that sounds like another language. I get it. It's a lot of antioxidants and specific brain support that helps with the neuronal connections and the communication within the brain. So it helps a lot with memory, with clearer thinking, with things like that. So if you're really suffering, that's one that I found has been really, really effective. I wish I was I could think of one that wasn't naming a specific supplement label, but that one was just blaring in my mind. So I think those are three of my my favorite ones just off the top.

And it really comes back to inflammation, right? Omega three is to lower inflammation and antioxidants to help reduce inflammation and improve the connection. And then the creatine piece of it as well. Yeah. And some and some of the things that you're saying in that label product. Right. Your alpha GPC like those types of components, just everybody is listening. You can also buy those kind of components that Doctor Laura mentioned on their own without buying and or that, you know, particular brand as well as an option.

What about people that tend to get their omegas and their omega threes through like nuts and seeds? Like, I especially like our chia seeds or flax seeds. So what are your thoughts on getting omega threes that way? And do you feel like that potentially can give somebody enough omega threes? Or do you feel like hey for people in that regard they really need to be going more to either their fish sources like the salmon like you mentioned, or more like a cod liver or fish oil. Yeah. So well, I think flax and chia seeds are still great for a lot of things, and they also have a lot of other benefits besides just some omega three content.

When we look at the types of omega three fats, flax seeds and chia seeds are a little earlier up the chain, so it requires a couple of conversions to happen in your body to get to those specific long chain fatty acids called EPA and DHA, that we see in fish oil supplements. So it requires you to eat more of those things to get the same amount of EPA and DHEA. And that's making that's even just to make sure that your body can do that. So a lot of times if people have micronutrient deficiencies, meaning maybe your vitamin C levels are an optimal, you don't have enough magnesium.

It's really difficult for you to make the conversion into the long chain fatty acids anyway. So I think when you look at how much you would have to take to get, you know, two, three, four grams of omega threes per day, and it turns into a lot of flax and chia seeds. And for some people that might be a little upsetting on the on the colon, that might be a lot of chia seeds going through the if the system a lot of bathroom trips. So it might be better to look at, you know, even if you don't like fish, if you like, I don't want to eat fish, a quality fish oil or, you know, they have, algae based omega three supplements that are these long chain fatty acids.

So it's just easier for you to take it and utilize it. You're not having to do all these conversions in the body first to get that, that anti-inflammatory EPA and DHA that we want so much. Yeah, it's such an area where I feel like there's a lot of confusion around like, oh, I just, I, I take all these flax, I grind my flats, I grind my chia. So I'm good. So thank you for covering that so well because I really think it's a area that people don't always understand that that micro difference, which of course can actually turn into a macro problem of not getting enough of those, you know, there's there's end stage products like you're talking about those end stage, omega threes.

So I want to make sure we're tying this all back to our topic of sexual dysfunction. So just to kind of orient everybody who's listening remember we're just to tie it all together here. We're saying that okay, there's brain inflammation or the brain's not doing its job. It's signaling job as well as it should. That can downstream lead to a lot of difference through a lot of different mechanisms lead to sexual dysfunction. Now one of the things that is a little bit less physiological and brings us a little more psychological, but is really also related to this topic of brain and sexual function, really is about staying in the moment, right?

Because the brain gets inflamed sometimes we're having memory loss. It's hard for us to stay in the moment, and that can trickle down to staying in the moment, in intimacy, staying in the moment when our partners touching us or cuddling us. Or it doesn't even have to be like sexual intimacy, just intimacy in general, because our brain is all over the place. So what do you have to comment to say to comments on that, as well as like if somebody is noticing like, gosh, I forget my keys. My brain's constantly on the list.

Maybe my brain's inflamed. I'm not able to show up mentally for my partner the way I want. Where do they begin? What can they do? And I, I think that sometimes we don't always make that connection. Right? Like we're we know it's important to like, have be in the moment and have these intimate moments. But when you're when you're super stressed, when the brain is stressed, when the brain's inflamed, when you're constantly worrying about your to do list or worrying about what's next, you're anxious about this or that.

Like it is really hard to anchor yourself and kind of be able to push all that aside and be like, okay, where am I here right now to enjoy this moment of intimacy with my partner? Right. So first, I think flexing a little bit of like a self-awareness muscle and this isn't easy. I'll be the first to admit I struggle with this sometimes when I'm really busy too. Like, how do we create space each day to just, like, check in with ourselves?

Mindfulness, Presence, and Intimacy 31:06

Like, let me just drop into my body? And if you don't know what that means, I mean, literally create five minutes where we're just going to scan and be like, how am I feeling today? How am I feeling physically? How am I feeling mentally? Are my thoughts kind of going all over the place? Do I feel anxious about something? I think a lot of us, we kind of just we bump up against a little resistance when we when we are busy, when we feel anxious and we're kind of like, okay, I just need to go do more and that'll that'll make it better.

And sometimes we just have to do this little examination of, okay, well, why am I feeling that way and what am I not giving myself? Because I think oftentimes what we actually need, instead of trying to do more to feel better, is we actually need to do the opposite. We need to step back and do less and maybe even, dare I say, do nothing sometimes, which is a novel thought for many of us I know, and just give ourselves time to calm down, to regulate, to let the body relax, to kind of be able to to drop into the state where we can maybe feel a little more sensual, you know, be able to be more present and, and have these more intimate moments because we're not constantly scanning for what we have to do next.

You know, we're not laying in bed thinking about our to do list the next day. So as important as it is to talk about the nutritional side of things and the testing and the supplements, I think we're also a society where we're rushing around a lot and we're making ourselves really busy. Not always productive, but really busy, and we feel like we have a lot to do and we're not intentionally creating that space to slow down, to examine if we're giving ourselves what we need and to to literally force ourselves to just be still and be present and tap in with all of those other human needs we need outside of nutrition, outside of exercise.

Right? Like like real self-care, like intimacy, like connection with other people, like connection with ourselves. And I think that's just that's such a big piece of it. I think a lot of this I think of this woman who's in her late 30s, she's in her 40s, she's in her early 50s, and there's just a thousand things to do all the time. But if we start creating this space, it lets us tap into what we might actually need to start having an easier time with being present, with being in the moment, with switching our brains out of go, go, go into the here and now.

You're reminding me of some of the studies on meditation, which have actually shown that when we do exactly what you're talking about, right? When we take those moments, do nothing to just be to take actual breaks, the efficiency quotient really goes up and we actually wind up getting more work done and not last, which is so hard for so many of us to wrap our brain around, around like, oh, I could like, take more breaks and actually be more productive and more efficient. But there is data that says that.

So everything that you're saying, I just so, so, so agree with and I want to we're reaching kind of the end of our time here. So I want to wrap up and talk about how people get a hold of you and all of that. But before we do that, are there any major things that we did not say today that you feel like we definitely need to say, oh, any other major things? I could I could pick a lot, but I think the big one, especially if we're, we're thinking about, you know, this conversation of brain and sexual health is sometimes the thing that you want to do the least, that your body is putting up the most resistance against because it feels so unnatural is exactly the thing that you really need to do to get the desired results.

So if you want things to be different, change requires change. So maybe that is the nutrition, maybe it is the meditation, maybe it is the slowing down, maybe it is the clocking out of work at 5 p.m. sharp and I'm talking to myself a little bit here too. I'm not working late into the night, so, that I, I love that you brought up those studies on meditation and self-awareness, because oftentimes that's the thing that we put on the back burner the most often. That's usually the one that we really need to focus on the most.

I love this advice so much. And yeah, I think as holistic care providers, oftentimes when we give advice is also just like reminders for ourselves because we're all human at the time. Easiest humans right to just like get lost and all the things that need to be done. And it's self-care. It's so easy for these moments to be put on the back burner and be last and all of that. So which brings me to one of the reasons why I'm so excited about what you're giving to our audience. Because all of this being said, one of my core values personally is efficiency.

I love when we get things done in a very efficient time period. So even the title of your opt in to me of your giveaway, what you're doing today

Closing Thoughts and Free Brain Fog Guide 35:48

for our audience, even the title of it to me, just like says, oh, we're going to get results fast, which is my favorite thing, right? So getting some instant change, or maybe not instant, but getting some quick change by putting in a little bit of effort. So tell us a little bit about that giveaway if you would. Absolutely. So I'm actually giving you my rapid relief brain fog. Go to guide. It's literally a one page guide that will tell you every area of your life. You can do this scan and check in with yourself and figure out where are some of these brain based symptoms coming from.

It's it is the the hallmark entry point to, what we call amplify 21 over here, which is really this, like you said, super efficient, 21 days of increasing your energy, like amplifying just how you feel, amplifying that vibrancy. So if you look at this kind of brain based protocol list that we're giving you, you can start implementing those things right away one by one. Make sure that you find the area that again, maybe you're like, well, I don't want to do that one. That means I probably should and really start getting relief and feeling your best sooner rather than later.

Yeah. Thank you so much for that. And I know there's so much value in there. And like I said, it's just so easy to take these steps and start to see these results when you implement these changes. It's just such a wonderful gift. And I really appreciate your time. Today. We're going to have all of your information about how people work with you, how people get Ahold of you. All of that will be in Doctor Laura, speaker bio is there anything else you want to make sure that we say as far as how people get Ahold of you?

Besides that, no, any of the links are great. You can find me most often on Instagram or LinkedIn. So I love talking to people in my DMs. It's always me, I promise. So you can shoot me a note if you have questions or found this interesting and I'd love to chat. It's amazing. Well, thank you again so much has been a pleasure. Well, thanks for having me. See you all in another interview.