Road Trip Resilience & Neuroplasticity: The Curious Clinic 2/10

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Alright, episode two, Road Trip Resilience and Neuroplasticity. Alright, learners, welcome back to the Curious Clinic, our 10-part series. We are in episode two today. As a doctor and a mom, I know summer road trips can test our patients. I'm looking forward to our road trip, but what if we turned the family minivan or Prius into a mobile science lab? Why do we get so tired of the car and how can we biohack the journey? Alright, so first, if we think about like getting our brains moving and focus on something and building plasticity, because we know that our brain can grow and it can shrink. Not in size, let's say, but let's talk about synapses. So when we learn something new, when we refine a skill that we have, like music or reading or playing a game, a sport, those things allow us to have more synapses, connections in the brain, and allow us to build different areas of the brain so that if we do have head trauma, if we do have issues, that uh we have the best chance of having a healthy brain. So building that in the car can mean listening to an audiobook. Um, some of the audiobooks, so for me, somebody who wants to learn how to become um more harnessed on habits, right, as an entrepreneur, I tend to have lots of ideas and no follow-through. So the past few years I have really honed in on moderation and am trying to follow through, thus, me creating episodes, and then I have a roadmap, and then I can follow through better. So listening to a book is gonna help your brain. So when you're getting in the car, you can pick many of them. But there was one really that came highly recommended, and I'm looking at actually reading myself. It's called Atomic Habits by James Clear. Now, this is for more of people who are entrepreneurs that you really enjoy building habits or breaking bad habits. Um, but for the kids, they're probably gonna be bored out of their mind. So The Wild Robot, the Wild Robot by Peter Brown, it's also a movie, but it allows you to get your brain to visualize the story. This builds cognition, this builds the reserves or the growth of cognition in us and our children. When you look at these books, you go, hmm, building habits. Oh, that sounds boring. Well, to me, that sounds great. Like, give me more. What's going on? How do I build these habits? What are some strategies? Um, and listening to that can really help your neuroplasticity while you're on the road trip. I do also like to listen to music, but that's always, you know, just keeping me awake, or putting the kids to bed when I listen to my slow Christian songs, and the kids are like, oh my gosh, mom, I'm sleeping. Um, that's a good thing to put them to bed. But when we listen to books in the car, that allows their imagination to bloom and they can look outside at the scenery and they can be imagining what is going on in that story. I also like to listen to the Bible, um, an audio Bible, and you can pick what kind of narration you want. But all those things is gonna it's going to build and satisfy your brain. So when you skip like iPads and screen time, and you and you are able to listen and get our imagination going in the car, the kids are gonna be different. They change. If you're involved, they're involved. So get excited about it, allow your brain to go into that area too. There's also a game, it's called the Story Zipper, and it's it's kind of like this. Alright, guys, we're gonna we're gonna build a story together. And instead of doing one word, well, you can do that too, depending on how goofy you want to be. Um, but instead of doing one word, you can do one sentence. So I have a six-year-old and a 14-year-old, and then it's my husband and I. So it would be like keep it short, um, or add on to it. So one person would be like, Okay, I'm gonna start the rabbit jumped over the bridge, and then the next person would go, and they landed on a big cat. I don't know. And then the next person and everybody, you can start seeing the story unfold, and it's kind of like a mad lib, but in real time. And what that does is it allows your brain to come up with an idea to rapid fire um any of the cognition that's going on in there and to get them excited about it. So you're laughing and you're using your imagination, you're using your words and your auditory, um, so you're using all your senses, and it's a really fun idea to do in the car. So you should definitely try that. Um, we do mad libs in our car, and every time it's all about, you know, butts and farting, and I'm like, oh my gosh, kids will be kids, you know, it is pretty funny. However, this is a way to do it where you're not writing on something, you don't have to have anything but yourself in the car, and it really builds memories on your road trip. But kids, they might get rambunctious in the car and they might, mom, are we there yet? Mom, are we there yet? Dad, are we there yet? When will we be there? I have to go to the bathroom, right? So you're on this road trip and you're going through, or maybe it's just your monotony of your 30, 40-minute drive, going somewhere in the morning to drop the kids off. These are fun things that you can do. What if you're in the car for a long time for work or a long time for your road trip and your butt goes numb, or your body gets tight? These are the things that we're talking about to get blood flow and not having to stop on the side of the road. So you can help your lymphatic drainage, you can help your blood flow into your muscles, and you can help keep yourself awake by doing isometric exercises in the car. So if you're listening to me right now, get ready because we're gonna go over two things. Two things that I like to do. First is gonna be the glute squeeze. It's almost like a keggle, but you're using your butt, your butt muscles. So all the kids listening right now, we are talking about your glutes, which is on your butt. So if you squeeze your glutes for five seconds, count down, and release, and you do this 10 times, maybe every hour, maybe every half an hour, um, this will keep all the blood flow from leaving there and allowing it to return so that you don't get deadbutt syndrome, right? So you can do this and you can focus on that. Um, and also steering wheel squeezes. Now, when we're talking about steering wheel squeezes, we're not talking about death grips, we're not talking about you know, cranking the wheel or anything that would cause you to have an accident accident. These are things that should not affect your driving. But when you have your hand at nine and at three, and you push your hands inward for 10 seconds and relax inward, it's gonna affect more of your pecks and your shoulders. Not gripping the steering wheel with your fingers, because oftentimes you know it can be wet and rainy, or you know, a deer comes out in front of you, or another car, yay, and you just wave at them instead of being naughty and giving them a naughty sign. You just say, Oh, have a great day. Um, because you know this is a friendly kid show. So when all these things happen and you get tired of the car, and you get tired of doing these songs, or in the midst of these um story times and all that, you can be doing these um glute squeezes and steering wheel squeezes to help your upper body and your lower body retain and maintain blood flow. And what that does is it brings oxygen to the tissue, right? It brings blood in, which is gonna be rich with oxygen, and it's gonna bring waste products out, which is gonna be your carbon dioxide. There's other nutrients with it as well, and it does affect your lymph. So if you get swelling, you know, in your ankles, doing the glute squeezes, that's gonna help with that. If you get um pain in the back of your thighs, all of those things. Ergonomics is a different story, but we're just talking about something that can keep you on the road longer. Maybe so you don't have to stop every two hours, but you can stop every four or three hours when you're doing the long road trips. So remember when we are traveling, hydration because you're moving and you're not thinking about it so much. You're moving in a car, but you're not moving in your body. Sometimes you're not sweating because it's cool in your car because you have the AC on. Um, but when you are traveling, you need to make sure you stay hydrated because dehydration drops your concentration by 20%. When you're talking about dehydration, you can lose energy, you can lose focus. A lot of times there's studies about Alzheimer's disease, and when they give intravenous um solutions for hydration, when you hydrate somebody with Alzheimer's, they their cognition gets noticeably improved. And we know that the majority of Americans are chronically dehydrated. When you're chronically dehydrated, you get headaches, you're tired, you confuse your hunger signals for thirsty signals. So remember, you're supposed to be drinking half your body weight and water. Obviously, there is um debates about this, and if you want to learn specifics, please go to my YouTube channel and I go over the four pillars of health and we talk about all of those things. Like, if you have um, if you have more fresh food, that's gonna have O3 or HO H O H2O3 or H3O2. Oh man, it's gonna have a better hydration. Wow, I need to like solidify that in my brain, the neuroplasticity. Let's talk about that one. Okay, so what I'm saying is if you have good hydrating foods and you're drinking plenty of water, you're gonna get the electrolytes you need, you're gonna get the nutrients you need, and your body is going to stay hydrated, which is going to increase your concentration. So if you ever feel, excuse me, if you ever feel, man, I'm always getting these headaches. I'm always, you know, when we go on road trips and when we do these things, I'm so tired all the time. Get a glass of water. I know you're not gonna want to pee all the time and stop more frequently. However, you're gonna you're gonna have better concentration, better reaction times. So here's just a couple tips for you steering wheel squeezes, make sure you do um 10 seconds on and relax, right? Do 10 reps of that every hour. Same things with glute squeezes, five seconds on, release 10 reps of that. Those are the things that's gonna get you the blood flow. Hydration is gonna improve your blood viscosity and the amount of blood that you have, which is gonna do so much for your concentration. So these are gonna help with your road trip resilience. You're planning a road trip, you're on a road trip, and you're tired, you're fatigued. I don't know how I'm gonna make it 25 hours in the car. Well, these are some things that's really, really gonna help you. Get an audiobook, play these games and stories with your family. It is going to make you laugh. It might be the highlight of your trip. Just do it. Kids, get your parents to do these things. Ready, go, mom, you start. Dad, you start, because whoever starts get to kind of have the theme of it, right? If we're talking about animals, if we're talking about sunshine, if we're talking about destination, if we're talking about the brain, whatever that is, the person who starts usually gets to dictate the theme. So, kids, definitely get on your parents about having audiobooks, renting audiobooks. Um, I believe there's audiobook options through all the public libraries. So if you have a library card, you can just log in. Sometimes they use Libby, sometimes they use other ones. I know my daughter would probably be better at this, and she would tell us, but um, those are the options. That's where you can get the resources. So find your local library card, log in and your account, see how you can't download some and how that works for you before you go on your road trip. So I hope you guys have learned so many good things today. I can't wait till our next episode. And next time we will be talking about backyard botany and the longevity garden. Oh, that's gonna be fun. Okay, so come and stay tuned.