02 - Preventing Cognitive Decline the Naturopathic Way

EPISODE 2: Nourish Your Mind - Naturopathic Wisdom for Memory, Focus & Brain Health

Struggling to concentrate, recall information, or feel mentally clear? You're not alone - and you're not broken. In this powerful second episode of our 3-part workshop series, Emma explores the root causes of cognitive decline and offers a naturopathic roadmap to reclaiming your brain health, clarity, and calm.

You’ll learn:

* The hidden connection between memory, hormonal health, blood sugar, and gut function
* Why hydration (and the right kind of coffee) matters more than you think
* How environmental stressors like EMFs and poor lighting affect your brain
* The role of fermented foods, choline, omega-3s, and B12 in regenerating focus
* Simple daily habits to support memory, prevent cognitive decline, and boost your mood
* Natural tools like castor oil, red light therapy, and sauna use for brain rejuvenation

Plus: Emma shares the critical early signs of nutrient deficiency that often get missed - and how to prevent long-term cognitive issues naturally.

🎧 Whether you’re postpartum, perimenopausal, or just feel mentally “off,” this episode offers clear, actionable support to help you feel sharp, steady, and inspired again.

🌿 Loved this episode? All of my full workshops will soon be available inside The Naturopathic Voice Private Podcast. Sign up now to be the first to listen when it launches! Click HERE TO JOIN THE WAITLIST

Inspiring conversations, practical tips, and holistic strategies for vibrant, conscious, and naturally healthy living.

💬 Leave me a voice message: Visit my SpeakPipe Page

🌐 Learn more: schoolofnaturopathicnutrition.com

Empowering you to take control of your health — naturally.

Transcript

Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining me this evening. We're here to talk about cognitive health this evening, and particularly memory, concentration, and actually why we decline in these areas and the link actually with hormonal health, blood sugar, gut health, and the impact actually when we work on these areas, how we can massively improve our recall, concentration, memory, and actually prevent things happening to us in the future.

So many people who talk on this subject, they talk about really preventative is everything, because when someone actually becomes diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer's, it takes much longer to reverse. And so we want to really prepare in advance. And it does sound a bit morbid to a certain degree that we need to prepare. 

But if we're doing daily tasks, actually prevents anything big going wrong then in the body longer term. And I believe it's a collective issue these days where we're actually all talking about actually compared to five years ago, our memory concentration, we have to work so much harder in this area. And I think it's a we're hugely multitasking between managing your emails and your telegram groups or your WhatsApp groups or managing your children and your job and everything else that is, you know, you're juggling at this moment in time, the brain is kind of split energetically. 

And cognitively, our brains actually are looking different, you know, compared to the previous generation, because of the way that we multitask and the amount of pressure that we have to manage all of that. So I believe that's one of the factors. I believe stress is has been huge, particularly for many of us, you know, since 2020, there's been huge changes globally. 

So people are really thinking about, you know, what actually makes them happy more deeply now and are trying to manage a life maybe that they've set up that has become unmanageable. Yeah. Because of the factors that I mentioned, you know, that's been moving at such a fast pace, etc. 

I think also diet is huge. And that's the large part of what we're talking about this evening. And lastly, we have the impact of electric magnetic pollution. 

So I think prior to 2020, with the advent of 3g, 4g, etc, the impact of mobile phones and Wi Fi, etc signals, people were already starting to make a link between the impact of using electromagnetic equipment, and how they felt. I certainly used to think to myself, actually, I feel quite different since I've had the iPhone. So at that point, I was researching things like, you know, blocking agents, my phone and, you know, getting the house turned back to wired rather than Wi Fi, because I had noticed an impact on my cognitive health already at that point. 

But I think post 2020, when 5g was rolled out, when we're all in lockdown, that had a massive impact on how people are cognitively feeling, because what it does, basically is chronically dehydrates us. So our body has gone through an adjustment period of being able to trying to be able to cope really with the impact of huge cellular radiation. And to say, I mean, we can certainly overcome it if we do the right things with the body. 

But there's been an integration period where I feel since, since 2021, up until now, our bodies have thrown up various symptoms in order to cope with that. And one of them is the impact on the brain. Because of course, if you if you put an egg next to something that's given out a strong radiation signal, it will literally cook it right. 

So it literally cooks us from the inside out if we don't put certain measures in to be able to manage what's going on in the body. And so there's certain nutrients that protect the brain, the brain actually has an amazing fatty coating around it, and it should be protected. But as we deteriorate, you know, if we're if our body is deficient in certain nutrients, if we're chronically dehydrated, if we're under a lot of stress, or that we haven't actually looked after ourselves over the years, the the actual coating that keeps the brain safe deteriorates, and then we have an impact on our concentration, memory, etc. 

But some people will say that, you know, they don't feel any impact from radiation from phones, and others will say, I feel electrically stressed. And that's to do with the brain and its actual container then that protects it. So we're going to look at that as well this evening, how to build that amazing cell, fatty tissue back up. 

And also to really understand actually why the brain shrinks, because brain can shrink up to 40% when we're chronically dehydrated. And these studies have shown us that when women have had babies, there's a whole study that shows that women's brains can actually shrink up to 40% post birth, having been given a lot of fluid to the baby via the placenta. But also the fact is that people don't drink enough these days. 

And then breastfeeding, of course, really depletes the body of fluid. So there is an impact at certain stages of our life where we actually become, our brain shrinks if we don't look after it. So when we're looking at the first stage of treatment with cognitive health, we're looking at first of all good quality water, and the impact of things like tea and coffee, alcohol, sugar on the brain. 

When the brain chronically dehydrates, it builds sort of lesions on it, which basically try and prevent the cells from dehydrating. So we have like this fatty tissue, which is unhealthy fat around every cell at brain level. When that happens, basically our brain stops communicating, left and right brain kind of sometimes goes into chaos. 

So you start to then lose the connections, and that's when we slow down cognitively. So we could say that everything starts on a dehydration level. So starting with four pints of good quality water is the starting point and addressing stress in our lives and addressing the chronic dehydrators, such as, you know, poor quality coffee, highly sugary drinks, things like alcohol use, et cetera, that strips the body of fluid.

There is a study that shows us that good quality coffee that's high in polyphenols and an alkaline coffee or more alkaline coffee compared to the instance, et cetera, has a positive effect on cognitive health because we know that antioxidants are very protective for the health. And there's one particular coffee that's had done a research project. It's called Exhale, which is a coffee, which is, they have tested it. 

So one of the big problems with coffee is it's actually quite moldy. So mold really affects the body in quite a toxic way and it creates like an immunity response, a negative immunity response. So this particular company, there's quite a few out there, but this is particularly a nice one.

They've got some research, which shows us that one coffee is equivalent to having a hundred pennants of blueberries from an antioxidant point of view. So if we look at good coffee, this is where, you know, when we look at medical research, we don't, they don't tell us that the coffee they experimented on people with actually was high quality. You know, it's not your average instance or your Starbucks or your, you know, popping into a coffee shop. 

It's sort of organic, mold free. It's got alkaline qualities. It's got a high level of antioxidants. 

So if you use coffee in that way, we know it actually has an amazing effect on cognitive health. And there's one particular study that tells us that actually there's a strain of bacteria that actually only coffee drinkers have, which is very good for memory. So we know that gut health and brain health are massively connected. 

And in the Chinese medicine approach, in the way that I work, we know that if you clear the colon and if you repopulate it with the right bacteria, your cognitive health improves hugely. And not only that, we see an impact on blood sugar, the way the hormonal system works, et cetera. So we, again, next to hydration, we could actually say that gut health is everything in terms of cognitive function. 

So we're looking at really helping the colon to detoxify. First of all, so taking out those challenging foods. When I say challenging foods, I'm talking about dehydrating foods and foods that are highly processed. 

So your typical processed glutinous bread is not going to really populate good bacteria. It will attract all the wrong type of bacteria. So looking at gluten-free diet, if you are eating gluten, go down the sourdough route, the fermented foods, working with an alkaline diet and taking out things that would be challenging to the gut flora. 

So things that do that are things that are highly acidic. So your instant coffee, your processed white sugar, your glutinous bread, your pasteurized dairy, they're all really quite challenging to the gut lining, which then impacts attracting the wrong types of bacteria, which then affect the good bacteria of course. And we know that good bacteria, all the different strains work with different parts of the body. 

So when we're looking at cognitive health and blood sugar, we want to bring in all the friendly. If you think about, you know, those friendly friends that you want there, you know, the water kefir, the kimchi, the sauerkraut, your naturally brewed kombucha. And if you use dairy, fermented raw dairy, your grass-fed butter. 

So it depends on whether you're vegetarian, vegan, you can have a whole range of fermented foods, miso, for example, which will help you to repopulate the gut alongside some prebiotic foods. So things like your, your sort of beetroot salads, your carrot or carrot salads, bringing in, we all know about artichokes, you know, they're really great for gut health. They've got the prebiotics in there. 

So you could start to have a prebiotic rich salad before each meal, and then think about having two to four portions of fermented foods daily, which are brilliant for repopulating the gut. When I say portions, we're looking at about 30 mils of water kefir or kombucha and a couple of tablespoons of either miso, kefir, sorry, kimchi or sauerkraut. So you don't have to eat a huge amount of these things to get that benefit. 

And then your body will start to repopulate and overcome some of the negative bacterias. If someone has had antibiotic use, it takes up to two years to repopulate the gut. So it completely wipes out the whole lot.

So gets rid of the bad guys, but good guys really struggle. One of the ways you can fast track that from a, you know, if you're looking at fast tracking the body, is to do fasting. So the intermittent fasting, which has become popular, the 16 hour window where you break from food, is eating your meals within a certain window of hours. 

So you've got 16 hours where you're resting, particularly in the evening, that allows a certain bacteria to come in and eat up all the bad guys. So if someone has had a course of antibiotics and they're really struggling with their gut health, one of the biggest fast track methods is actually to do intermittent fasting. So allow your body to rest for a 16 hour window, which allows those bad guys to get eaten up biologically and the good guys come out to play again in terms of the bacterias.

And actually that has an impact on your mood because the more of the healthy bacterias that are present, the happier we feel. And this is all in studies. Science is now catching up with, you know, this is the impact on gut health, brain access, the impact on mood and the impact on hormones, et cetera. 

So when we're looking at cognitive health, a large part of it is actually relatable to our blood sugar. And now we're seeing that someone, for example, who has good bacteria present in the gut and a good amount of it can eat white sugar and eat various things. And actually there's no impact on their blood sugar at all to a certain degree compared to someone who has a very poor gut health profile. 

They might be avoiding sugar and carbohydrates, et cetera, but their blood sugar isn't as good as the person who's got those friendly guys present. So it's not just what we eat anymore. It's to do with actually how we repopulate the gut.

It's to do with really how well our hormonal balance is functioning. So there was a question at the beginning around, you know, is our hormones connected to the way the brain functions? And it's a hundred percent yes, because the challenge is if someone is insulin resistance or they've got issues with their blood sugar, there's an instant effect on the brain. And the way that works is that if your blood sugar is uneven, there's an impact on your metabolism. 

Thyroid function goes out of balance and the thyroid regulates actually how we recall information. So many people talk about perimenopause, men and women, because men go through it as well, how they suddenly feel a mental decline. And it can happen quite quickly if their hormonal profile is declining. 

Because if your hormones are declining, that actually has an impact on all the other hormonal glands, your blood, your pancreas, your thyroid, et cetera. And so therefore the more we work on the hormones, the better we feel cognitively. So if you didn't get to hear last week's recording around hormones, it would be worth revisiting that and having a listen, just to look at that as a lead into this evening session. 

And that allows you to really get an understanding of what we call the seven stages of treatment in this approach, which is to really address hydration and diet, cleaning up the diet, bringing in the right foods that have a good amount of the hormone formula within them. So just to recap on that, the hormone formula is omega-3, your B vitamin complex, magnesium, zinc, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin D, and iodine. So we have to have those present either through the diet and or through supplements in order to build the hormonal profile. 

And if you're deficient in the basics, there's no point taking herbs or homeopathy or doing other things because they don't really have the impact if you're low in what we describe as the hormone formula. So stage two is about diet and really bringing your diet up to speed so that you don't have to take a huge range of supplements to be able to compensate that. And if you are missing certain things, we go for naturally-based supplements that are food-based, that are closest to nature as possible so that you're then really working with the body in a natural state rather than falsely stimulating it. 

So let's look at the most important factors with memory concentration and cognitive health and brain function. We know that the brain is made up of fat and water. So without fatty acids present and water, it's very difficult to reverse any damage to the brain. 

It's very difficult to rehydrate the brain in the way that I was talking about earlier, where we're looking to re-inflate it really. If you imagine it's a ball that's deflated, the brain actually looks this way when you look at scans where people have had brain injury. So we know that when there's memory loss, there'll be things like lesions on the brain, fatty acids have gone wrong or haven't been present. 

The body's built up the wrong fats around the brain in order to retain the fluid within the cell. So we can see that this clinically, actually how we reverse it from a naturopathic point of view is to really up those essential fatty acids and we focus on omega-3. So omega-3 is really essential in the form of EPA and DHA for the brain. 

And those are only found in fish and algae. So the fish eats the algae and the fish becomes rich in those components of omega-3. So vegans, vegetarians really have to go down the algae route in order to really get the brain up to speed. 

If you're looking at that particular memory concentration and also to rehydrate the brain effectively. So fish oil, omega-3, some people use krill or looking at, you know, the high quality algaes, which are going to be high dosage. So on average, 500 milligrams to a thousand milligrams a day, equal measures of EPA and DHA for cognitive health. 

There are some studies that coconut oil has a very profound effect on the brain. So coconut oil does contain omega-6, but it's got particular components in it that actually really support memory. And so using a teaspoon of coconut oil for two a day is very effective and supportive. 

We also know that choline, choline is a B vitamin and it's particularly high in something called lecithin. So lecithin usually these days comes from sunflower lecithin, although there are some companies who sell soy. So sunflower lecithin is particularly great for rebuilding the cellular membrane at brain level and at the liver level as well. 

So really great. Many people say that when they start lecithin that things actually quite improve quite quickly. There's one particular brand that I really like for lecithin, it's the Cornella Holdings brand.

They do the sunflower lecithin and it's particularly high in plant sterols, which is again showing us now in research that's particularly good for gut health and brain health and blood sugar. So Cornella Holdings is one of the companies I recommend for powdered lecithin, which you can just add to food, put in smoothies and really support the body in that way of breaking down the wrong fats but increasing the good fats. So there are a number of different types of choline and you've got choline bitartrate which works on the liver and choline in the form of lecithin rebuilds the brain cells. 

You've also got something called phosphatidylserine, which is a long name but we call it phosphatidylserine, S-E-R-I-N-E. This in clinical research is particularly good for memory recall and people who even after a month have taken it show much better IQs etc when they're on that. So you can see there's a lot of solutions there for people who may be noticing the early onset of certain things and just by taking good amounts of choline daily we can prevent things happening in the future.

So very much choline is top of the list alongside omega-3 and then we have the other B vitamins. The three that I focus on in clinic would be vitamin B3, vitamin B6, sometimes known as P5P and vitamin B12. You can get those in a complex so good quality B complex is very effective at around 100 milligrams in total overall for the B vitamins and I think a particular emphasis would be B12. 

For people who eat maybe limited amounts of animal products, maybe they're vegetarian or vegan, for people who have poor quality gut health B12 is going to be really essential. So B12 is made in the gut and actually store it there. We can actually make it through friendly bacteria so if people have poor gut health they're not really doing that and of course vegans, long-term vegans, they may have low quantities in the diet. 

So vitamin B12 is absolutely essential for oxygenation to the brain. It actually helps to improve iron absorption and vitamin C absorption so if it's not present the whole blood system suffers and of course blood circulation that is relatable to oxygenation. So oxygen shortage to the brain basically is the outcome of B12 deficiency. 

So we can see sometimes when people are chronically B12 deficient they can actually mimic the symptoms of dementia and for people who then work on B12 they reverse it quite quickly. So sometimes someone may be misdiagnosed with a early onset dementia even Alzheimer's when they were chronically low in B12 for a long period of time. So B12 deficiency really shows dramatically in the way that we function with our memory and concentration and our mental health actually. 

So that's an important one to test and to look out for and if you have people in your life who you're noticing there's a change in that area that's the first area I would look at in terms of test the B12 or put them on B12 at a higher dosage to see there's any difference there first before you do other things and that actually is for most people who have sort of memory loss usually that's one of the culprits as an issue deficiency wise and it may be because they've had issues with their gut health longer term maybe they're sensitive to gluten and they didn't know it and they've continued to eat it and it's then affected the absorption of B12 and maybe they just didn't have enough through diet or they've had a lot of antibiotic use in their histories therefore they've wiped out all the good friendly bacteria which would have then be the supportive mechanism for producing the B vitamins particularly B12. So just to recap on that the oils the omega-3 especially EPA and DHA the next step is cholines so you could use glycothene as a choline or you could go down the choline phosphatidylserine route that I mentioned and that then leads us into the B vitamin complex with an emphasis on vitamin B12 and then from there we would just do a general overlook of diet making sure there are B vitamin rich foods in the diet an emphasis on B12 your fermented foods particularly if you're avoiding animal products and then working with actually the blood sugar so sometimes I recommend that people have to do an insulin test where they wear an insulin monitor blood sugar monitor some companies offer a free service with this for two weeks where you can test them before you buy and I can send you the details of that if you're interested it's useful to do because sometimes you may feel that your diet even though it might be healthy once you test your blood sugar it may not be working for you so when people have done this clinically with me I find that people are have been eating things that may be sending their blood sugar so of course and they may be healthy things like dates or even bananas or sweet potatoes but some people react quite badly to certain high carb foods and they hadn't known it so they're thinking they're doing the right thing with their diet but their blood sugar is doing strange things relatable to that food and it could be because of food intolerance or it could be to do with dehydration at a deeper level so when you're dehydrated the liver becomes fatty in the same the brain does so if you're not drinking water people who are drinking coffee may be fasting for too long at the wrong times of the day so blood sugar is doing uneven things and that can really impact your memory and concentration and so there's a direct link with fatty liver and the impact on the brain and relatable to blood sugar so things that really improve the eating usually that's better to do towards the end of the day when the sun goes down you stop eating have a good few hours before you go to bed and then do a 16 hour window so start your breakfast a bit later and also to think about you know if you have blood sugar issues to eat the right things at the right time so not going longer than three hours you know between midday and afternoon so that long lengthy fast between midday and afternoon can sometimes do really odd things to the blood sugar for some people eating the right things so high protein will regulate blood sugar lowering the carb content in the diet so taking out the gluten taking out the white sugar even replacing it with things like brown sugar or using some of the alternative sugars like coconut sugar having a limited amount of fruit for some people works so that then evens out the blood sugar a bit more so making sure you're eating right for your body really for your body type and eating at the right times of the day and then when you're breaking your fast eating the right things to break a fast such as vegetables protein rather than a rich meal so you're aiming really to keep that even blood sugar and then your mental health and your memory will be more on top form that's that's interesting you know with researchers it's again you know sometimes we think we're just eating healthy and it's great for us but you could be eating those you know date rich energy balls which are doing crazy things to sugar and that will impact how you feel and how you think longer term so fasting can be good but for some people you know they're fasting at the wrong time of the day and it's always better to fast in the evening if you can because that will allow the right bacteria to come out to play and the wrong ones to go away really sort of does a clean sweep on the gut health cleans all the the lining of the walls of the gut if we fast in the evening we allow that to happen and if we don't then you get toxic food which impacts then the next day and the days to come you know if you continue that lifestyle really of eating late and not resting enough in the evening so we're just going to recap on what I've just shared so stage one hydration really important to take out the caffeinated drinks and there you go for high quality coffee that's antioxidant rich you can get decaf versions of the brand that I mentioned so it doesn't have to be caffeinated as long as it's antioxidant rich so working with the hydration process and if you've ever tried that type of coffee you can't drink more than one anyway it's quite strong you feel the effects you know it's not something you could overdo really compared to like the poor quality coffees stage two clean up the diet take up those challenging foods work on your blood sugar make sure you've you're eating at the right times of the day and you're resting at the right times work on antioxidants work on essential fatty acids with the diet and think about fermented foods stage three address your essential fatty acid profile that would be looking at your omega-3 either through fish or algae and address choline so the best form of choline is lecithin or choline that comes from phosserine which is phosphatidylserine which is brain food basically stage four address your supplements and that could be through diet and or using supplementation so there's an emphasis here on b3 b6 b12 particularly and you can take that as a complex and I would possibly isolate b12 as well in most circumstances where there's memory issues and then stage five we would look at then other areas of the hormone formula so that would be magnesium magnesium is amazing for helping with energy or hormonal health so once we've got happy hormones you usually have a good brain function so magnesium particularly is helpful iodine in some cases especially if your thyroid is connected to the problem so you might have slightly underactive thyroid which iodine of course supports the thyroid you could use iodine foods you could also use seaweeds in your supplementation regime and using you know anything that's algae based that's going to have a large amount of iodine in there with iodine we can't use it if you've got an overactive thyroid so in those cases we'd go down the selenium route the tyrosine route which supports the thyroid but doesn't stimulate in the same way that iodine does. Stage six we would aim to use some naturopathic techniques so one technique that we use naturopathically is to put castor oil through the hair and you leave it on for one hour and then you the oil actually sinks in at the brain level at cellular level which actually acts like an anti-inflammatory agent but also switches cells back on so it opens up the cells allows detoxification to happen allows the body to rejuvenate at that level.

We know that red light therapy now is improving people with brain injury and this is all in the research and we know that red light therapy actually helps with depression memory etc so that's something that's come into research recently and so there's many people reporting that their symptoms improved dramatically when they took up red light therapy. So naturopathic techniques can be very powerful using light therapy it has a huge impact on how we feel making sure we are out in the sunshine you know at the times that we have it if you can't have the sunshine you mimic it somehow you know through light therapy so broad spectrum light bulbs etc red light is all very powerful for healing the brain and then lastly really addressing stress in your life looking at reducing cortisol through meditation practice breath work exercise being in nature these are all healing methods which seem really simple but many people find that they don't create the time now to be able to bring in these natural methods as part of our healing so using saunas the hot and cold therapy being outdoors in nature at least 20 minutes a day minimum getting a good amount of light of oxygen so the environment is plays quite a big impact on how we feel cognitively. I saw some research recently which was in one of the medical journals and it was talking about how people who use sauna three times a week reduce their chances of dementia by 40 percent like it's quite a massive number that isn't it you know three times a week just using a sauna so that really sort of proves to us that detoxification within the body is huge when we're looking at our membrane concentration and stress levels and so we can see that when we reduce our cortisol we improve our connection to ourselves our oxytocin we're feeling good about ourselves more relaxed usually we function better cognitively and so really the impact of our environment and how happy we feel has an impact on our memory and concentration etc so the brain you know is an organ that can rejuvenate you can rebuild and if people have issues in this area doesn't mean to say you know it's doom and gloom you can totally make steps today to make that difference on your memory concentration whatever place you're at with that process and then we've got clinical studies now that are backing this up it's not just with sort of trial in it it's just that people are actually reporting that they've had huge changes when they start to put these lifestyle habits into place and start to actually build on it over a period of time then you can start to see quite big changes in this area and there's a my colleague who works with me at SNN she runs a company called food for the brain with Patrick Holford which you might have heard about and they're doing all the research at the moment around there's more in our field in terms of nutrition and naturopathy around you know the statistics around gut health and brain health hormonal health and blood sugar relationship with the brain and their philosophy really is to look at you know it's preventative that we need to do before we actually get to the you know the big problem I think if you've got you know relatives or people in your life where there are big problems you can make a difference with these steps today you have to really start with the process that I talked about this evening hydration being the first point of call the next step is to address the diet if you can't do a huge cleanup in the diet start bringing in some of the gut health foods which start to improve the healthy bacteria which then helps the gut overall and then fatty acids have to be given in supplementation usually if people are already there and they're in cognitive decline so the omega-3s are going be essential with the brain food formula such as choline etc alongside your b complex so it's almost like you can't just do it through diet when someone's in that place where they're already suffering from these problems you sort of have to bring in those supplements in order to make fast track a person back to health really and then addressing the environment so it could be you're having nice music on in the environment essential oils burning some measures to make the environment as uplifting as possible where there's natural lighting coming in and an ability to be able to be outdoors you know having oxygenation to the body etc so environment is quite a big part of feeling good on a mental health level as well that's an important factor alongside diet and I think uplifting energies you know having the right people around as well can really improve and remembering that we're always learning you know if we continue to learn it keeps our brain function up to speed as well so you know being interested in new things and taking on new subjects and researching is a big part of actually having a healthy brain as well so I think I've covered most things that I want to talk about I just wanted to mention a couple of herbs before I finish one of them being ginkgo biloba ginkgo biloba is particularly good for circulation to the brain and ginseng is particularly good also for this these are two herbs in research that show the biggest results with memory and concentration and focus and so ginkgo biloba sometimes is used for tinnitus as well we know that it just improves circulation to the brain and it helps people who may have had heart issues in the past and maybe their cognitive health has declined because of that we know that ginkgo has the least side effects for people as well you can usually combine it with medication but I would check with the GP or the pharmacist if someone is on a multiple of medications and ginseng is particularly good for energy but particularly works on cognitive health as well and particularly siberian ginseng so those two are a good combination alongside choline for improving brain function okay so we're going to go over to questions now for people who are hearing the recording do get in touch if you need any more information on the courses that are coming up we've got the new coaching course coming up shortly in May and the new hormone course the coaching course is a seven-day course where you can actually become a qualified health coach and the hormone course is a six-week consecutive training which allows you to really work on yourself so it's a hormone-based course for men and women where you can actually really set some goals and transform your hormones within six weeks and then of course in September we have the naturopathic nutrition training courses which is for people who want to train as a nutritionist or a naturopath so any of this any of that information you need just get in touch you can email me and you'll get the recording so you have my email address and if there's anything I can help with just get in touch and thank you for listening