"Meaning is neuroprotective." How spiritual health impacts our brain and life and the necissary future of nurturing healthier brains and humans.
In the last of 4 episodes, Coach Britt interviews the brilliant Dr. Brant Cortright Ph.D professor and author of Functional Psychology for Anxiety, Depression and Congnitive Decline.
This cutting edge perspective on the brain, mental health and psychology will BLOW YOUR MIND! (pun intented)
We've been going about psychology and mental health all wrong.
You won't want to miss all four episodes with Dr. Cortright. For more on his work, books and interviews, you can find him at https://www.brantcortright.com/
Thinking aout getting certified as a Holistic Gut Practitioner, looking for a personal Gut Restoration Program or maybe you want to try our FREE course "How to design a gut health coaching practice," find everything you are looking for at enrollhwca.com
"Meaning is neuroprotective." How spiritual health impacts our brain and life and the necissary future of nurturing healthier brains and humans.
In the last of 4 episodes, Coach Britt interviews the brilliant Dr. Brant Cortright Ph.D professor and author of Functional Psychology for Anxiety, Depression and Congnitive Decline.
This cutting edge perspective on the brain, mental health and psychology will BLOW YOUR MIND! (pun intented)
We've been going about psychology and mental health all wrong.
You won't want to miss all four episodes with Dr. Cortright. For more on his work, books and interviews, you can find him at https://www.brantcortright.com/
Thinking aout getting certified as a Holistic Gut Practitioner, looking for a personal Gut Restoration Program or maybe you want to try our FREE course "How to design a gut health coaching practice," find everything you are looking for at enrollhwca.com
What if every experience, every hardship, every obstacle was given to you not to break you, but to mold you and strengthen you. What if the center of your suffering was actually the key to ultimate health? And what if your own pain was meant to be the catalyst for your rate is purpose. Welcome to bud belly life, empowering purpose, mind to microbiome. So, one thing that I love, I know that what I wanna talk about the future of brain and mental health. One part that I love that I shared with, um, some of my coaching community the other day that I just read in your book, functional psychology for anxiety, depression, and cognitive decline. Um, was that meaning having meaning, doing things of meaning is neuroprotective. Can you, can you elaborate a little bit on that? Because I am the hugest believer that each person was created for purpose and to create. And I think creation turns into purpose yet a lot of the time, not maybe a single solitary purpose, but purpose in life and that that can help people with addiction, um, with all the things, getting out of the rut of just trying not to do it, whether it be a diet, you know, issue of having a food addiction, whether it be a drug or alcohol or substance addiction or, um, depression or anxiety, though, if we can tap into purpose while we're, while we're working on, uh, nurturing our bodies and, and doing therapy and doing the things that it can just skyrocket us into a place that sticks and keeps us there. And when you said that in your book, meaning is neuroprotective. I, I think that is the coolest thing. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, sure. So again, this, this approach is holistic. Meaning we're working on every level, body, and brain heart, the emotional level, mind, the cognitive level and spirit as well, all four levels, all of these get integrated into the brain and the self, right? They all become synthesized into this unitary experience of ourselves. And I guess where I'm coming from is that underneath it all, we all our, our fundamental identity. And I think all the spiritual traditions really say this, our fundamental identity is spirit is the soul. And I think in many of these traditions, each individual soul, each spiritual being is unique. There, there is something universe, soul, and impersonal to our spiritual nature. That is one with everything and one with the divine, but there is also something unique to each individual soul. And that we incarnate. We take birth in order to learn certain things and order to contribute certain things to this world that our soul has a mission. Our soul has something that needs to do here. Some things that needs to learn and some things that needs to contribute and the degree to which we are out of alignment it with that is a degree to which we experience a lack of meaning, a lack of purpose, right? That the soul puts forth a new body, heart mind in this incarnation that has certain potentials certain abilities, certain. And as we, as, as the brain meets, the world Meets the challenges of the world that calls forth these abilities, that calls forth, these talents that we have inside ourselves, right? You know, people talk about stress as only a negative thing. Um, and chronic stress and severe stress is negative. It slows down the neurogenic rate. It creates inflammation bad for the brain bad for our mental health, but moderate stress short term stress actually is good for the brain. It, it increases the neurogenic rate and a short term stress is a challenge that forces us to sort of bring forth new abilities, new capacities, as we meet that stress, that moderate stress. And if we can find it's sort of a Goldilock zone of stress, where we, we are challenged by life in a way that is optimal, that sort of brings forth our brains capacities, our self capacities. And as we do that optimal, we entered this state of flow, right? What Chickie Miha talked about is the state of flow where this there's this optimal meeting between. It's like, if the challenge is too simple, it gets boring. If it's too much, then it's frustrating. But if it's just right, then it, this state of flow is, is created where there's this optimal meeting of our abilities, our potentials that then get actualized in life, right? We, we find our true work. We find the people we are meant to be with there's this, this state of flow. And that's where the program, the soul's mission begins to come forth, right? That through the brains, capacities and abilities, through the self, just inherent potentials in actualizing, those life is meaningful. We feel, and, and, and that state is neurogenic. That state is right, because that state is one in which we are around people who see us really get us, who, who love us for who we are, not who projecting, who we wanna be, but really get us and who we can really be ourselves with and, and be intimate with and vulnerable with. And, um, where there's a deep, loving connection. Love is highly neurogenic. And anti-inflammatory, it's really good for the brain. I mean, the spiritual dish have been saying this for thousands of years, that love a state of inner peace. A state of actualizing our soul in the world is the spiritual path. It turns out that's also really good for the brain as well. Um, I mean, it seems kind of intuitively obvious, but it's nice that there's research that actually shows this
Speaker 1:Well. And I, I think it's easy too. When we live in such a, a technology driven, uh, material world to forget a lot of the non-material components of life and how things work or, or people get confused. And they think that it has to be associated with religion or it's anti their faith, their religion, or all these things. And they don't realize that you're not just, it, it's just, it's, you're not a robot. We're not just these mechanical, you know, EMBAs, you know, like with nothing to us, we have feelings. We think thoughts, we create, we, we do art, we have true trauma. And, you know, I think, I think people who have experienced hard things or yucky experiences, um, if they can believe in their purpose, in purpose in general and seek it, that they not only find healing for things of their past, but realize they come to a, a realization eventually that they have something major to contribute to this world in that every experience before this was a piece of, of the journey to cultivate them and into who they are. And, um, if we can believe that, then we're not a, not a sitting duck. And we don't feel that we're, you know, our life is out of our hands. I love, I love that. I love that. So, um, the future of brain and mental health, I I'd be line if I didn't say I wasn't. Um, in as most PC term, as I can put it highly disappointed with how mental health is handled, I support, I know we have hotlines for, um, you know, if someone's feeling suicidal and all that. And every time I see that stuff, it really, it, it bothers me, bless the people's hearts behind those phones and, um, the intention, you know, to do that. But I feel very strongly that we are dropping the ball with people in suffering, in prevention, and we are band symptoms and profiting off of their suffering. Yeah. So what is a, what does a perfect world look like for treating and preventing and working with mental health and cognitive, um, dysfunction? Yeah. You,
Speaker 2:That's a, a great question and a huge question, right? Um,
Speaker 1:I like to ask huge questions, doc.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. It's great. No, no, it's good. It's good. Um, because it really starts with healing myself first, right? It's like, yeah, if I'm gonna have kids who are gonna come into this world, I first of all need to do some of my own work. I wanna heal my own brain. I wanna heal my own self so that when my kids come into this world, it's inevitable to pass on some of it, but hopefully a lot less than I got. Right. And so to create a culture where having a child is really supported, where motherhood is really honored and where the mother really has learned how to be deeply empathic to have this kind of empathic attunement with her infant, and to be able to raise child, that is where we are tuned into the child and tuned in not just psychologically and emotionally, which is really important, but also physically that is building a brain that is really going to be robust and strong. Um, yeah. And is, again, this kind of holistic atmosphere where physically, emotionally, mentally there is stimulation spiritually. There is an environment in which the, the deeper being can come forth and be honored. Um, I think that this kind of holistic or body heart, mind, spirit environment is important. And what we see in the world today is, as you're saying very technological, very materialistic, very consumer oriented, very oriented around pharmaceuticals to treat things rather than really looking at what does the brain need to heal? What does the self need to heal and most important of all? How do we prevent this? Right? An ounce of prevention is worth bound, a cure.
Speaker 1:Do you have a desire for fulfillment? That's helping people tap into their own health mentally, emotionally, and physically fire you up. Do you believe in the impact of the gut microbiome on overall wellness, you may be an H WCA coach for more info on our cutting edge health coach trainings visit H w C a coach.com. I think his mother Teresa said something nearly when she was asked, you know, where does one start? Because she had done so many amazing things. And she said something to the effect that if you wanna heal the world, the best thing to do is go home and focus on your family, like focus on which, which feels it can feel weird sometimes for people who are really driven to, to give and do things, a purpose, because it there's a whole world out there that's suffering, you know, but, but if we all in order to be the best with our kids, I've learned this, my husband and I have a combined family of six children below the age of 11.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's crazy. And we've never delved so much into our own healing in growth through this process of coming together, the two of us and the raising of this blended family of children, and it has been incredibly difficult and deep, and, but also uproots a lot of stuff that you didn't realize just laid there and infected you because you gotta figure out why it's coming on your child. And, um, so I love that. Um, on a more basic note, I know this is a touchy subject for people, and I'm, I'll make this statement. I'm not gonna put this on you, but, um, you know, when it comes to what we are feeding our kids, that obviously the emotional nourishment is so important, but I know that I am very keen, I to the damage that we cause to our mental health of our children and with the, the absolutely skyrocketing rates of mental health and even suicide amongst teens and young children, kids, um, I know that a huge that what we are feeding and how we are nourishing their internal bodies affects their little brain in so much as they're grow and developing. And it's almost a taboo subject to talk about because we don't wanna invoke shame in people. But also I feel like it's like ignoring the person, the secondhand smoke in the car with the child in their, I think it's important for, to know what it's doing with our kids and what the food that they're consuming is doing to their
Speaker 2:Absolutely eating organically. First of all, would be the single most important thing anybody can do. The other thing I think would be making sure that the kids have enough omega3 fat acids. If there's one change I could, would go back and make with my kids, I would add a lot more omega three to their diet. Cause again, it's the fundamental building block of the brain. Um, and also eating this neurogenic diet neurogenic. Um, I don't think ketogenic is so important when you're, uh, raising a child, but certainly anti-inflammatory, um, and gut friendly, you know, not doing antibiotics unless absolutely necessary, and then doing some probiotics, but more than doing probiotics than increasing the numbers of strains, right? So we not only need to heal the tight junctions of the intestines and heal the gut, but we need to increase the number of strains. So it used to be thought that we had way more bacteria than we do cells of the body, but they had recount and they figure, they now think it's about the same about we have about 40 trillion cells in the body in about 40 trillion bacteria. And of that in indigenous cultures, they have about 20,000 different strains of bacteria in the west. We have about 10,000, sometimes as little as 1000, which is a disaster for the immune system, right? Because immune system is there. And so we need to increase the number of strains. Probiotics are helpful. Like there are certain probiotics which have been shown to decrease anxiety and depression scores by 50%. There are other strains which have been shown to increase cognitive scores and, and the book goes into these, but more than I think doing those is important, but more than that, we need to increase the number of strains by hundreds at a time like eating a lot more fiber Increase the number of strains going in.
Speaker 1:Cause it feeds them. It's their preferred food.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. Um, it's like the, uh, the obstetrician telling the pregnant woman, you know, you're not just eating for one. Um, here, you're eating for trillion.
Speaker 1:Um, yes, that's um, I'm gonna make a note to quote that, cuz that's a good one.
Speaker 2:And, and going into nature, when you just inhale in a forest, you are taking hundreds of rains of bacteria, which get into your nasal passages, going down to your throat and colonize your gut. If you're swimming in the ocean, just swallow a couple of gulps of ocean water, you'll be taking in hundreds of strains. Um, if you're working in the garden, don't wash yourself off. Immediately let some of those bacteria, you get onto your skin and they'll eventually find their way into your body. Um, so we need to be not so antiseptic. Um, you know, another difficulty with the whole coronavirus thing is that everybody was cleaning everything all the time, a disaster for the microbiome.
Speaker 1:And then let's also add sugar consumption to that list, especially with our kiddos, I would say, you know, um, I was astonished at the things that were being offered at some of our kids' schools, our kids, our kids go to two different schools. Um, but one of'em she, we asked, you know, what do you eat? One of the schools we have to pack all lunches, always have done that pack lunches, you know, whatever. But the other one, and we share our children, not in just our house and things like that. So, you know, they're eating school lunches. And, and we found out from our five year old that she was picking the veggie tray every day. So I asked what was on her veggie tray and every day it's something similar to this. It's a chocolate chip muffin, a sugared yogurt, a string cheese, and chocolate milk. This is every day, this is considered lunch. And I, I haven't even done the math to add up how many grams of actual sugar that is. Um, and how void of actual nutrition that is and how the heck we are giving this to our kids and calling it nutrition. Um, but you wanna grow the gram negative bacteria in your gut rather quickly. You just consume a lot of sugar and starve them of fiber. Like you said, that good solid fiber that's supposed to feed all the bugs. So sugar, sugar, sugar be for,
Speaker 2:Thank you for saying that. Um, I, I didn't say this back then when we were talking about this on, on a previous one, but it turns out that a high sugar diet will cut your neurogenic rate in two. Whoa. So you imagine being a kid who has a high rate and needs a high Egen rate to build this brain, cutting that rate in two, that's gonna have a disastrous of that. And you look at the standard American diet, you know, sugar cereal. Um, it's just like
Speaker 1:What you describe.
Speaker 2:It's unbelievable. That is a disaster for American kids' brains. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And then we're trying to diagnose them with a D D ADHD, behavioral function, you know, focus issues and everything else. And we're not even coming back to the drawing board of how we're supporting or not supporting their brain and it's functionality.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And then you add to that screens technology, and we're not shame in anybody, you guys, this is just education is power. And then we make the choices. So if we don't know, we don't know what we don't know, but once you know it, you can choose different. And I think that's, what's important with that. I'm gonna put all the links, you guys in the show notes, and you can find, I'm sure you can find on Amazon where I did. If you want the book that I'm reading right now, it is called functional psych call for anxiety, depression, and cognitive decline. And you can go to brat, courtright.com, which is B R a NT C O RTR I ht.com. Find more information about Dr. Brant Courtright and everything he's doing. Thank you for joining us for another empowering episode of Budha belly life. For more information on gut health and mindset, resources, visit Budha belly, life.com and remember heal yourself and then empower others to do the same.