Unlock the secrets of your mind with Dr. Paul Nussbaum, clinical psychologist and brain health aficionado, who brings his expertise front and center to educate us on nurturing our cognitive functions. Whether you're in a high-stakes profession or simply aiming for personal excellence, Dr. Nussbaum's insights on focus, decision-making, and problem-solving reveal how a deeper understanding of your brain can propel you to new heights. Get ready to be empowered as we tackle the challenges of reshaping our brains for resilience and success in every walk of life.
This conversation takes an unflinching look at anxiety, its intensification through the COVID-19 pandemic, and the consequent shifts in our social behaviors. We probe the essential nature of human connections and the surprising neurobiological perks of sunshine—factors that play pivotal roles in our mental well-being. Dr. Nussbaum arms us with brain health strategies and practical tips for aiding those grappling with social anxiety, underscoring the transformative potential of lifestyle choices on our emotional and cognitive landscapes. Tune in for a masterclass on leveraging the marvels of the human brain to navigate the complexities of life with vigor and optimism.
Unlock the secrets of your mind with Dr. Paul Nussbaum, clinical psychologist and brain health aficionado, who brings his expertise front and center to educate us on nurturing our cognitive functions. Whether you're in a high-stakes profession or simply aiming for personal excellence, Dr. Nussbaum's insights on focus, decision-making, and problem-solving reveal how a deeper understanding of your brain can propel you to new heights. Get ready to be empowered as we tackle the challenges of reshaping our brains for resilience and success in every walk of life.
This conversation takes an unflinching look at anxiety, its intensification through the COVID-19 pandemic, and the consequent shifts in our social behaviors. We probe the essential nature of human connections and the surprising neurobiological perks of sunshine—factors that play pivotal roles in our mental well-being. Dr. Nussbaum arms us with brain health strategies and practical tips for aiding those grappling with social anxiety, underscoring the transformative potential of lifestyle choices on our emotional and cognitive landscapes. Tune in for a masterclass on leveraging the marvels of the human brain to navigate the complexities of life with vigor and optimism.
Good afternoon folks. Hello and welcome back to the Little Mill unfiltered podcast. I'm your host, charlie Shaw, and we were back today with another special guest and an interesting topic for you all. I hope that this will be inspiring and motivational to you, each and every one of you. Today's guest is Dr Paul Nussan. He's a board certified in clinical psychology and geropsychology and also the founder of Brain Health Center. Welcome, dr Paul Nussan. How was your day, sir?
Speaker 2:Hey Charlie, I'm doing well. I hope you are as well. Thanks a lot for having me on your podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you for coming All right. So, paul, I mean, I'm sorry, dr Nussan tell me a little bit about your own your practice and what your concentration is on which is your practice?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah. So, like a million years ago, charlie, I came out as a pretty traditional clinical neuropsychologist it's called that's a fancy word for a person who studies human brain, relates it to behavior. And you know I won a lot of years in school and worked hard to learn how to be a clinician taking care of people with brain disorders, traumatic brain injuries, alzheimer's disease, these kinds of things. I was doing a lot of research and writing and speaking and the academic ivory towers, and I continue to do some of that. But it's interesting, about 15 years ago I had a nudge probably more spiritual than anything else, charlie which was to do what I really wanted to do, which was to talk to people about health, because prior to that I was pretty entrenched in disease, which our healthcare system tends to be, tends to train providers with disease.
Speaker 2:So I broke away and sort of made it my life call to teach the general public you know, not necessarily other PhDs or MDs the general public, moms and dads across the dinner table about the miracle that sits between their ears the human brain, the single greatest system ever designed in the history of the surrounding universe. And what we've learned over the past 20 years is that the human brain can be shaped. In other words, it's dynamic. It's not this rigid thing, it's dynamic, and it can be shaped, and shaped for health, and there's a lot of research on that.
Speaker 2:It's exciting time to be in neuroscience, and so that's what I do, because I think it's so important for everyone to know this part of their being right. I mean, we probably know more about our elbows than we do about our own brains, which is too bad. But you know, I've had the opportunity, from that Charlie to speak to gosh gosh all kinds of different audiences, from kids in schools to, you know, ceos, to professional athletes, to high school athletes, to teachers, you know insurance salesmen, whatever it is, it doesn't matter because they all have brains that can benefit from this kind of content.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. Does that include a military? Because that's my background military and law enforcement. Have you had any of those as your clients or folks that you try to educate on now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I have, and and I'm also, I know, your, your back when it's also a little bit in law enforcement. I've also had had that as well and and you know, when you think about it, first of all from a clinical perspective, the military, you know we, the general public, knows a little bit about this, but the military certainly does in terms of traumatic brain injury, right, or post traumatic stress disorder right, but also just the amount of you know think of it another way From the military work or police work, the amount of focus and attention and the ability to make good decisions and problems solve rapidly and work with individuals who are not, you know, always of their right mind, right, you know, that's a high level brain Power and so, you know, working with those folks. And the military is really, really advanced on this. They've got research going on that helps one brain communicate to another brain even without opening the mouth. There's also Telepathic thing going on in the military, because they have to, because they have to be quiet and it's it's survival. So there's some really cool research going on on that end.
Speaker 2:But it really carries the, you know, human potential and the ability to be the best that we can be whether it's in the classroom or the boardroom or in the playing field. You know it's, it's, it's the master's golf tournament, right, everybody does. Okay, up till Sunday afternoon. You notice that suddenly the greatest players in the world start missing three-foot putts and that's, that's all mental what's going on between their ears and and so to me that's just fascinating and that's that's sort of the arena where I've been and it's, like I say, gets me into all kinds of nooks and crannies that I never dreamed I would be part of, in companies I've never dreamed I'd have the, you know, the opportunity to work with, because people need to, you know, are always interested in health and wellness and always interested in how does my company do better? How does my child do better? How do I do better? How do I become a better person?
Speaker 1:So basically, you're helping a person learn how to focus and basically using the, the tool, then in between their ears and yeah, yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 2:I think it's helping people. You know, take a pause and say you know who am I, you know what are my strengths and weaknesses. Why do I have these weaknesses? What are the things, for example, that you know? What are my speed bumps in life? What are my? What are my potholes? What's stopping me from being the best that I can be? Why do I get bees rather than eggs? Right, you know, why am I able to compete to the semi-final but I can't win the final? Why? Why am I a good leader and not a good leader? You know these kinds of things are.
Speaker 2:You know how do we help our kids in schools Learn? Well, I get in front of a lot of teachers because they are Probably you talk about a frontline group that's working with the brain. Those are the teachers, and because they're teaching and learning. You know, just saying the word learning, that's, that's a product of the brain, and so there's a lot of things there that you know people can benefit from learning about how the brain works and what, what they can do To help improve what it is they're trying to build or trying to grow right you know it's interesting that you said that prior to A starting to show, I told you about how long I've been doing the podcast, which is a little over a month, and I'm okay up until the point where I hit record.
Speaker 1:And then I start getting a little nervous and this is something I'm sharing with with all my guests because I want them to know that we're all not perfect and you basically told me a calm down. You told me you know what you're doing and I know what I'm doing. But that's kind of the training that you, that you, that you study, is the human behavior or the thought process of right up until the point that it's time to perform. You practice you, and now it's time to perform. And why? Why am I getting these glitches in my actions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, and you know, sometimes anxiety is, you know, first of all means you care, right, but then, you know, trying to help people understand what's the role of the anxiety, what do you? What do you? What's your biggest fear? And then how are we going to get through this? You know, and and then, like you said, you know you haven't been at this a long time but you've had some success you were sharing with me and, and those are baby steps on your journey towards bigger, you know, steps towards success and Um, you know, and you're going to get more and more comfortable.
Speaker 2:And that's really a good example of Shaping your brain, because at first, something that we're not used to, we're, we're uncomfortable with it, feels awkward. You know, quite frankly, I'm not very good at whatever it is. I haven't done yet, but you know, as I do it a little bit, suddenly I start to feel a little more comfortable and that's a lay person's way of saying. For me, the brain is actually laying down brain cells and neural connections To help you feel more comfortable. Right, you're kind of, you're kind of building a new pathway in your brain that helps you do whatever that exercise is that used to be foreign to you now. It's not so far any more comfortable with it. That's, that's growth, that's development right.
Speaker 1:You know, um haven't worked in law enforcement and been been around Weapon systems through military and law enforcement. One of the things that we always do is practice, practice, practice, practice and more practice, the repetition of it. And you do see some people hesitate when they're in high stress situations, and what's your thought on why they do that? Is it, like you said, the anxiety of being faced with that situation and maybe wondering if they're going to fail or perform as they were trained?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, for whatever the circumstance may be, you know our anxiety, our stress level, our fear can impede our ability to learn, our ability to perform. But, like you said, one of the ways to overcome that is to gain further exposure and to repeat, and to repeat and to repeat, so that whatever it is that the person may have as a real fear or perceived fear, is mitigated. It's kind of a rift, and that's, you know, that's the important thing. A lot of times. What happens, though, charlie, is when someone is confronted with a fear or an anxiety, they'll withdraw, they'll go away from that situation, but they'll avoid it. That's the worst thing you can do. Fight or flight. Yeah, in order to get over that, you have to.
Speaker 2:Whatever it is that's causing you the fear, you have to kind of confront it and learn that. You know, hey, there may be a better way to think about this, a better coping mechanism. Maybe my thoughts then my life's in jeopardy with this aren't true. Maybe my thoughts that I can't do this, I'm not good enough, aren't true. And the only way we're going to find that out is if you stay in that situation, you kind of keep working at it and work through it. Work through it. Yes, the person who's standing in front of the roller coaster, looking up at the roller coaster in line, saying I can't do this, I can't do this. And then they get on the roller coaster and nine times out of ten, charlie, they get off the roller coaster and they say what? I want to do it again, you want to do it again. That's a metaphor for life.
Speaker 1:I just did that at Busch Gardens.
Speaker 2:There was a roller coaster. Hey, I wanted to do it again, but the line was too long.
Speaker 1:There you go, you know, speaking of anxiety, let's talk about that. A couple of years ago, we've had the COVID situation go yeah, Coming to our lives. I knew people that were very outgoing, extroverted, and you catch up with them two years later and now they're introvert, they don't want to do anything social. How do you? What's your thought? What's your thought on that? How people just changed over over a period of time.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, covid, really, really was a very difficult time and situation and experience for so many different reasons. You know, we isolated, we segregated, we stayed away from each other. We didn't touch each other, we didn't talk to each other, we ate poorly, you know. We stayed away from religious beliefs and things. We we're afraid and scared to death. We've been bombarded by social media. It was just like if we wanted to create a situation where we scared the living. You know what out of public we did it Damn good job.
Speaker 2:That's not yeah, that's not to say that we didn't. You know, you got to take certain sort of precautions and try to become educated. We weren't that educated. We did a lot of stupid things, to be honest, yes, but but you know, you're right, there were, there were a lot of consequences, particularly for the younger folks. You know they, they, they're not going to catch up with the learning that they lost. There's still a lot of mental health issues out there and suicidality with the younger generation. That because of this COVID thing.
Speaker 2:So it's one of the hazards that we have with social media, to be honest with you, with watching a lot of cable news networks. To be honest with you, yes, and you know, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a politician at all. No, there's a lot. Politics seems to paint everything and it's usually not a good way. So one of the things I try to encourage people is you know your listeners, charlie, and the general public, we're smart, we're not dumb people, exactly, and we can. We know right from wrong and we know what's best for us.
Speaker 2:But we got to become educated and but at the end of the day, you know, when we're confronted with things where, whatever it is, people are trying to get us to be the person that we're not or to get us to do things that are not healthy.
Speaker 2:You know, we know better and we should never be in a situation where we're being bombarded by a lot of messages and things that are, like you said, are very stressful and cause anxiety. You know, you think about if you had a like I had an older mother at the time and I'm not, you know, anything unique here. There's a lot of people that went through this. We weren't able to visit our parents, you know, and in long-term care facilities, if you will, and if anybody needs, you know, a visitation in their handheld, it's the older, frail, adult, older adult, and you know, that's just one little example that was so detrimental to that segment of the population. So, you know, covid definitely had a Huge, huge spike in anxiety, huge spike in mental illness, and we still have not, or where we forth, four years later, five years later now, still have not even come to grips with the mental health issues that have been caused by that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're still talking about it. Um, you know, absolutely still feeling it, yes, still feeling the Residue of it all. Um, what I've learned through that COVID, um, from just dealing with I was actually working at the time and I was covering a large territory in Florida and just amazing how no one wanted to See anybody. You know, I know that they were protecting themselves from, from the home done on diseases, but as things started getting lifted, um, you have folks to just them Didn't want to interact and I think that one thing, one thing I thought and one thing that I was thinking, was that people missed that touch of another person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just a handshake.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 2:You know, look at looking into each other's eyes, right? Right, you know there's a neurobiological the connection we're getting like. Yeah, like you're, you're in the southern part of the country, as I am, and you know we, we have more exposure to sunlight, right? Well, you know, If you, if you don't have that exposure to sunlight, you literally your hormones get all out of whack, your sleep cycle gets way out of whack, your depression and mood can change. Um, and that you know we were told to stay inside a lot with COVID, so I mean, just just those simple things Caused a lot of changes in our mood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, whenever I had, whenever I came in contact with anyone that was, you know, moody or not, in a, you know, had a good move, that is, I will tell me you might need a little sun, a little sunshine on your forehead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're right, you know, um, yeah, you're right in a lot, a lot of different ways. No doubt, right, a seasonal effective disorder is a real Tense to occur in the northern parts of our country. But it's a, it's a serious. Yeah, I had to do a talk once online for a group up in, uh, north Dakota. You know I'm down in the Florida area and they're you know the, the numbers that they have with seasonal effective disorder. Just, you know, really high Charlie, we don't have that down where you get a lot of blue sky and a lot of sunlight.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah you, you have um Like out there in seattle it's always raining. It's pretty mean. You know we can understand why that's right. People really don't want, you know the mood is changing. All the time I mean down here in Florida we have our problems, but it's nothing like what what the other part of the country's having.
Speaker 2:But that's another good example of how the environment can shape your brain. You know, like we talked about the beginning of this podcast, that there's things going on out there, decisions we can make at times. You know, should I get outside or not get outside, for example on a nice day? You know well, if you get outside it's probably going to be health promoting for you. You know, like a good walk is going to be health promoting for you around the city on the couch you just little decisions every day that can really promote the health of your brain.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I have a couple of friends that's like that. I talk myself blue in the face. You know about you need to socialize a little bit.
Speaker 2:I'm not telling you go out there and meet everybody, but you need to get out and socialize.
Speaker 1:What recommendations would you give somebody like me, who you know have a friend or a loved one that you, you see that they're struggling with, with social anxieties or just anxieties period? What would you, what would you say to that person? Or give a recommendation?
Speaker 2:to a person. Yeah, yeah, one of the things you want to do is just let them know that they're empowered to have the ability to kind of shape their brain, because a lot of people don't talk about that. They would just go right into, you know, recommendations. But the reason the recommendations are important, because what they do with the recommendations is actually change the functioning structure of the brain, their emotions. They're experiencing.
Speaker 2:So being with other human beings is kind of an anti-depressant, okay. So you know isolation is going to cause increased cognitive problems and increased mood disorder. You know, same thing with physical exercise it's an anti-depressant. I mean, it's not just good for your cardiovascular health, it's really good for your brain health. But emotional perspective and from a cognitive perspective, right, you know we talk about eating less processed foods and in America we're all addicted to sugar, yes, you know. So, if we can. Just, we're not going to change this overnight, but just a couple of days of the week where you change more to eating what are called plant-based foods. You know, less processed foods, more fish, you know more healthy foods the better off we're going to be.
Speaker 2:I'm a big believer in prayer and I'm a big believer in meditation or breathing even breathing or being one with nature. And the reason for that is because what you and I talked about earlier with anxiety, those are the, those are the counter-stress anxiety when we, when we settle down and we slow down, you know, we turn the TV off, we just have some time to ourselves. That also, I would say, sleep fits into that, because sleep is so very important. And then, finally, you know, part of my brain health lifestyle that I advocate for is you know being mentally stimulated.
Speaker 2:You've already talked about the podcast with something new for you. That's a really good example of what I call novel and complex. It's new and difficult because you haven't done it before, and so for everybody out there there's everybody's going to have one or two things that they can say. You know, I've always thought about maybe trying that, I've always wanted to, but I have it. You know, here's your podcast, giving them a little nudge, saying hey, go for it. You know, it's okay, it's actually good. If you make mistakes and you don't do real well at first, that's a good sign because you're going to get better. That's a sign that your brain is being shaped for health when you, when you continue to get a little bit better at something that was foreign to you.
Speaker 1:Right, I try to use myself as an example, um, because I'm not perfect and all and one of the things I've always told people is uh, if I can do it, you can do it also, because they're you know, I really have to push myself sometimes. I pushed myself through my career, I pushed myself at the retirement. Just after I just retired, in September, um, I told myself hey, listen, you know what you got to break away from norm. I broke away for a month and traveled, and you mentioned earlier that getting out, getting out in nature, helps. I liked to, I liked to hike a little bit. Um, people that know me, they kind of like you're hiking.
Speaker 2:I was like, yeah, I like, I like to get out and just be disconnected from electronics, something as simple as that.
Speaker 1:you know cause we've rushed to answer our phone, for you know for what reason, I don't know, but um, it just seems like we're all great example, right, we're always in a rush, but we're not taking care of our own mental and physical health. So you know what?
Speaker 2:That's right. Travel actually has been shown to be good for the brand because it's new and difficult. So, um, now you're spot on, and nature has been shown to be very, very good good for the body and the brain.
Speaker 1:Well, it all depends on what highway you're on. But I think the back rows helped me better than uh I for here in Florida.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so before we end, could you give us some practice tips, um, like with the meditation? Uh, because some people just think that meditation is going out sitting on a rug and, and you know, I've learned that meditation is just sitting, sitting still for a moment going over your thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really. It's really harness. It's really harnessing your mental focus inward, right it's, it's, it's. We're very distractible species and, like you said, part of it's because we have phones and all these gadgets around. But we also internally, you know, sometimes it's called them monkey brain, literally, because we were in our thoughts of jumping all over the place and we have to work at, you know, harnessing our attention inward and just working at being still and as those distractions come up and they will, it'll be frustrating at first but you'll get better at it.
Speaker 2:You know, research tells us in about about 12 minutes a day For eight weeks. Now, that doesn't sound like much, but that's hard to do, right, 12 minutes a day. You pick a time period. You know, maybe it's morning for you if you can put the alarm on 12 minutes and you just sit and you begin to work on turning inward, being quiet, turning all the you know the gadgets off, mmm, breathing slowly inward on a four count and exhaling on an eight count. You always want to exhale more than you inhale because that'll settle your system down and then just see where that takes you and then, at the end of 12 minutes, see where you are, see how you feel. But you know the two is going to be better than week one. Week three is gonna be better. Week two and what they have found by by about eight weeks, you're when they've done scans of the brain pre and post the brain changes structurally and Ashley shows Brain growth in areas that are very, very important for sort of being emotionally in balance.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so that it's. It's not. It's a very physiological sort of intervention that you can do yourself and I think a routine for everybody can be very, very good because you know whatever it is for you, if you're, if you can get up and have some things you do to take care of yourself Before you start your day, if you will, you know whether it be the breathing, whether it be a walk, whether it be meditation, whether it be prayer, sitting and listening to some soft music, whatever it may be, you know that's that's before you start your day, that's that's kind of like your, your launch. It's taking care of yourself and getting yourself in a position to succeed that day. Basically, fine, I'm on feeding it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just kind of getting it into balance, and I think you know people need to take a little time to kind of think about it and even write down. You know what are your stressors in life. Put them on paper, because if you put them on paper it gets out of your head and you won't ruminate about it. You can actually see it on the paper and you can actually manage it then. And then try to identify everybody's different, try to identify what it is that helps you overcome those moments of stress, anxiety and poor performance, and then write those down.
Speaker 2:Well, first, now you got a little toolbox that you're building to kind of intervene for yourself and use as a way of coping adaptably to get to a better place for yourself, because life's always gonna throw us curveballs, always gonna throw you. It's always yeah, yeah. But I think the more your audience turns to themselves and begins to work on themselves and kind of be selfish in a way not in a negative way, but in a positive way, being selfish the more they're gonna learn about themselves, the more they're gonna understand what it is that they have within themselves to cope and overcome, even in moments where they don't think they can or they got themselves.
Speaker 1:Do you recommend? Do you recommend folks go see counselors or somebody outside of their network? That's somebody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes, sure, sometimes that's. There's nothing wrong with that Sometimes, you know, it's just the same thing as going to see a doctor to make sure your blood pressure is in line, maybe checking your blood pressure. I've got a blood pressure kit now so I take it just to kind of keep track of. You know, I wanted to learn is my blood pressure different in the morning than in the evening? So I took it for, like you know, four weeks, morning and evening, and I learned a little bit about myself and then I shared that with my doctor. You know it's the same thing with the.
Speaker 2:There are emotions in our psychology. Sometimes just balancing some ideas off, a trusted friend or a spiritual leader or a counselor, that's a wonderful thing. I mean, most people that have gone through counseling will say you know, everybody should do this and there's probably some truth to that. But part of that counseling begins by a person starting to turn inward with themselves first, kind of be their own counselor first, to kind of, you know, try to learn about it. We get so, like you said, we get so busy, we forget about ourselves. Yes, yes, and that's not a good thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're too busy trying to fix everything and everybody else and then we don't realize that we need our own wheels rotated. Yeah, that's right, yeah we all do you have to do madness on yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, I really enjoyed your conversation today and I appreciate you coming on the show. You do have YouTube channel. You have a YouTube channel and you also have a website where you can be found and see some of the things that you're talking about, or hear some of the things that you're talking about, correct?
Speaker 2:I do so and folks can find all that and it's all free. It's a YouTube channel and it's a Twitter feed, and my website is a lot of free information. It's wwwbrainhelthctrcom. So brain health CTRshortforcentercom.
Speaker 1:Okay, excellent. And if they want to email you, it's also on your website there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get a hold of me and contact me there and via that, that's right.
Speaker 1:I would enjoy having you back on the show if there's any topics that you know come across that you want to share with my audience. I really appreciate it. This is very valuable to me. It made me, even though I was practicing some of it. It helped me refocus on a few things that I need to take care of with myself and I hope that on- Terrific. Charlie, I hope that anyone listening they can find that in themselves as well, cause we're not perfect. We're just out here trying to support, like any other being.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one day at a time, just try to get better. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast and thanks for your good work. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, folks. That concludes our show today, and I'd like to thank Dr Nussbaum again for coming on the show Also. Thank you for watching.