
Unlock Your Brain Health: Simple Steps To Thrive

Founder, Solcere Health Clinic and Marama
Unlock Your Brain Health: Simple Steps To Thrive
Heather Sandison, ND
Full Transcript
Getting Started with Small or Big Changes 0:00
Welcome to day three of the Reverse Alzheimer's Summit. We've had such an exciting week already and it's only day three. Sometimes it can feel like you're drinking from the firehose and it's hard to know where to start. And so I offer in our coaching courses, I offer 2 directions to go. Then I hope will make it easier for you to put this exciting information into action. First, think about what would be easy to get started. What are you already doing? Maybe you already go for a walk every day, but you could go for a little bit longer, walk and make sure you're getting in your 10,000 steps.
Or maybe you could introduce hills or more intensity into your walk. Maybe you use some wrist or leg weights or you put on a backpack. There's lots of ways to mix up what we're already doing. Perhaps you feel kind of socially isolated. Maybe you struggle with hearing or your loved one does. Maybe you don't have a driver's license anymore, but you make it to church once a week. And you already know there's a Bible study a couple other days per week. And you could probably ask a friend or somebody else at church who's already in that Bible study to pick you up along the way.
If there's a way to make a small change, that will have a big impact and get you a win, then do it now. That's a great place to start. The other place to consider starting is the place you already know will make a really big change. Maybe, you know, you haven't had the best diet. You've been drinking too much alcohol or consuming too much sugar or processed foods. And you're ready to finally go keto You've heard enough already.
Using Supplements to Support Brain Health 2:01
And it's time to make that change. And it's going to be a big impact. Or maybe he's been mostly sedentary. You haven't had a lot of motivation to get up and move around, but you've known for a couple of years that you really need to. Maybe you've finally healed from that surgery or that injury. And it's time to get in shape and get the support you need. Maybe it's committing to having a personal trainer put together an exercise routine for you that's going to build strength and get you the body you've always wanted.
It's time to make a change whether you're going to make that great big change or you're going to make those small incremental changes. Commit to something right now. One of the easy things to do is sometimes just to add supplements and hopefully this is just a few pills a day. You just swallow them maybe once or twice a day. They can sit on your countertop, maybe even in pillboxes that make it easy to remember. So you don't have to do a lot of how many in this one? How many that one. You can just open it up and swallow those pills.
Adding nutrients can also make a big difference, and it might give us that extra energy. If we get the right ones, it might reduce inflammation in a way that reduces pain significantly so that we can get more movement or sleep better. So sometimes this is a great place to start. I want to share with you my top five supplements. The first one is specifically for cognition and it's called Qualia
Qualia Mind for Cognition 3:34
Mind. Q U A L I A. Qualia mind. And it's by neurohacker collective. They have a product that has caffeine. And if you're sensitive to caffeine and tend towards anxiety, they also have a caffeine free version. But we notice the caffeine not to light up the brain and help us think more clearly. I'm sure many of you listening have had that experience of Don't ask me anything until after my first cup of caffeine, whether it's coffee or tea. So qualia mind at 3 to 7 capsules per day can be very, very helpful for cognition.
It can help us to be more articulate. It think quicker on our feet, sign those words. It helps to increase dopamine and acetylcholine, but it also helps the metabolism of neurotransmitters in the brain. I personally find I take Qualia on big days when I have talk to give or when I have a lot to get done and I want to be really productive. I notice that not only do I feel better mood and more articulate more on it during the day, cognitively I sleep better at night, which is a little counterintuitive because it does have caffeine in it.
So that's number one. My favorite supplement for cognition at any stage of life is qualia mind. My second favorite supplement for anyone looking to protect their brain health is an Omega. We use MonoPure by Xymogen and I aim for 3 to 5 grams of EPA and DHA. Now not all fish oils are created equal. We want to make sure that there is not mercury in them. We want to make sure that we're not causing more harm than good by using rancid oils.
Omega-3 Fish Oil for Brain Protection 5:09
And so I recommend looking for a really high quality product. Carlson's Nordic Naturals, Xymogen there are a handful of really good, high quality fish oils on the market, but make sure you're not just getting potentially the Costco brand that if you open it and it ever smells like rancid oil, throw those away or take them back, get your money back. Not only are they not good for you, they are actually harmful. So 3 to 5 grams of EPA don't look at that total omega number. Look at the EPA data and add those numbers up and you want to get 3 to 5 grams are 300 to 500 milligrams per day.
Of those high quality fish oils that are going to help with cognitive function. Number three, vitamin D. Now, if you struggle with osteoporosis, make sure your vitamin D has a vitamin K with it. As long as you're not on a blood thinner where that might interact. So to protect your bone health, vitamin D plus K can be very helpful. But discuss that with your doctor. Vitamin D alone, it's actually a hormone, not a vitamin. And it's one of the signals that go to our goes to our brain and a healthy brain that tells our brain to create new neurons and new connections between them.
So we need a healthy amount of vitamin D in our in our in our system.
Vitamin D and K for Brain and Bone Health 6:29
Number four. So we've got Qualia mind, number one. We've got omega three EPA DHA at 3 to 5 grams. We've got vitamin D potentially with K, K two, D three, K two and the number four is a probiotic. We know that gut health and brain health are distinctly connected. There is a lot of signaling going back and forth along the vagus nerve, but also through other and explicable mechanisms. Having the right good gut bugs is going to help us digest and absorb our food. It's going to help us to maintain a healthy gut lining so we don't end up with leaky gut and more inflammation in the system.
And we know that particularly good gut bugs are associated with better cognitive function. There's a link here that although we don't fully understand, I have a reverence for the complexity of it. We know that if we add good gut bugs, either through fermented foods or a great probiotic supplement,
Probiotics and the Gut-Brain Connection 7:34
we can increase that positive benefit of having a healthy gut on the brain. So I recommend a ProbioMax by Xymogen I'm a fan the Xymogen products I think they're high quality so we use ProbioMax the hundred billion dose once per day with a meal. I also like Garden of Life, which is available many places. The pendulum probiotics are very high quality and quite unique, and I like the orthomolecular ortho biotic product as well. So hopefully you can find those out in your community or we're happy to help you with Solcere My fifth favorite supplement is so hard to choose because there's a lot that really support cognitive health.
But I love magnesium three and eight. We use Optimag Neuro, which actually comes in a powder formula and this can help to support neurotransmitters, but it also can help to support relaxation. So magnesium three and eight versus some of the other magnesium like magnesium citrate or magnesium oxide, those can cause diarrhea. Now, if you struggle to have a bowel movement every day, you might want to add magnesium citrate or magnesium oxide, but magnesium glycine and many of these other magnesium, they all work in the body, but magnesium three and eight is the one that is it does cross the blood brain barrier a little bit more than the others.
And so it's going to have a bigger impact on the brain specifically. So starting with the low dose may be 2 to 400 milligrams
Magnesium Threonate and the Top Five Stack 9:07
and then going up to see if you need more, if you could get more benefit from a little bit more magnesium in the brain. So my top five supplements for cognitive function and for optimizing brain function for most people is going to be a no tropic stack qualia mind. It's got a bunch of stuff in there that's great for cognitive function, including B vitamins and minerals. choline It's got CoQ10 and herbs that all help to support the production and metabolism of neurotransmitters in the brain that can help with cognition.
Second, we talked about Omegas getting 3 to 5 grams per day of EPA and DHA third, we talked about vitamin D3 potentially with K2 follow your labs with you, work at your provider, make sure you're getting an adequate amount, but not too much. Number four, we talked about a probiotic to help with that gut brain connection, really optimize digestion, absorption and function of the gut so that your brain benefits. And number five, we talked about magnesium three and eight the version of magnesium that is best for the brain.
I hope that this helps. It gives you a place to get started. If you need additional resources, please reach out to us at solcere.com S O L C E R E.com And also if you're struggling a little bit, this can feel like a lot. So please know that there are additional resources that you can tap into. Feel free to go to startreversingalzheimers.com and learn more about our coaching programs. Thanks so much. See you in day four.
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