Summary: You Can Fix Your Brain

You Can Restore Your Brain (2018) serves as a sys­tem­at­ic hand­book for enhanc­ing cog­ni­tive func­tion and over­all brain health. Through dietary pref­er­ences, envi­ron­men­tal adjust­ments, and oth­er health rit­u­als, you can dimin­ish brain haze, ampli­fy your rec­ol­lec­tion, and height­en your men­tal lucidity.

Commencement: Dispel the Fog and Elevate Your Brain

Do you encounter this sce­nario fre­quent­ly? While attempt­ing to com­plete a work assign­ment on your com­put­er screen, it appears as though your ideas are nav­i­gat­ing through a dense fog. Con­cen­tra­tion seems unattainable.

Alter­na­tive­ly, have you expe­ri­enced this? Engaged in a phone call, pre­pared to inscribe a cru­cial detail. You scur­ry to locate pen and paper – “Where did they van­ish to again?” – how­ev­er, by the time you retrieve them, the infor­ma­tion to be jot­ted down has slipped your mind.

If you have encoun­tered instances of brain fog or mem­o­ry hic­cups, rest assured, you are not alone. Count­less indi­vid­u­als, regard­less of age, grap­ple with cog­ni­tive symp­toms and lim­i­ta­tions that impede their stan­dard of liv­ing and efficiency.

But here’s the opti­mistic view­point – there is unde­ni­ably room for improvement.

In this sum­ma­ry, we will dis­sect the fun­da­men­tal caus­es of brain mal­func­tion, often inter­con­nect­ed with inflam­ma­tion, and the means to ascer­tain if they are impact­ing you. We will also grasp some tac­tics for com­bat­ting these issues through lifestyle adap­ta­tions and dietary alterations.

You hold the pow­er to boost your cog­ni­tive capa­bil­i­ties and achieve supe­ri­or mem­o­ry, com­pre­hen­sion, and vital­i­ty. Let us com­mence on this journey.

Resistance, Inflammation, and the Brain

What links demen­tia, despon­den­cy, anx­ious­ness, and mem­o­ry decline? They all stem from unchecked cycles of inflam­ma­tion and autoim­mu­ni­ty. Remark­ably, all these con­di­tions are amenable to treat­ment by iden­ti­fy­ing and erad­i­cat­ing the root trig­gers. Let’s delve into this process.

The pri­ma­ry role of the immune sys­tem is to safe­guard your body from exter­nal sub­stances – detri­men­tal intrud­ers encroach­ing on your sys­tem. An effi­cient­ly func­tion­ing immune sys­tem can dif­fer­en­ti­ate between your body’s cells and exter­nal men­aces, ensur­ing that only gen­uine threats are targeted.

How­ev­er, what unfolds when this mech­a­nism mal­func­tions? Autoim­mu­ni­ty tran­spires when the immune sys­tem mis­con­strues your healthy cells as invaders, incit­ing an assault on them.

This cul­mi­nates in inflam­ma­tion with­in the impli­cat­ed cells and tis­sues and could even prompt your immune sys­tem to oblit­er­ate these cells pre­sum­ing they are impaired.

So, where does this cas­cade ini­ti­ate? It fre­quent­ly com­mences due to the exis­tence of alien sub­stances, envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tants, or foods to which you might bear an indi­vid­ual sen­si­tiv­i­ty, or which are gen­er­al­ly deleterious.

Alas, the con­tem­po­rary world expos­es your sys­tem to a mul­ti­tude of such assaults. These onslaughts can chron­i­cal­ly trig­ger your immune sys­tem – sus­tain­ing a per­pet­u­al­ly hyper­ac­tive state. Brain man­i­fes­ta­tions such as brain fog, mem­o­ry chal­lenges, and even angst and despon­den­cy, sig­nal that inflam­ma­tion is tran­spir­ing with­in the brain, stalling its prop­er functionality.

How do these sub­stances infil­trate your brain ini­tial­ly? Let’s broad­en the scope to the rest of your body. First­ly, your gut. Your gas­troin­testi­nal sys­tem has evolved to ful­fill a daunt­ing and intri­cate duty – per­mit­ting the absorp­tion of all required nutri­ents while siev­ing out haz­ardous or unnec­es­sary elements.

Your intestines boast a semi-per­me­able mucos­al lin­ing that serves as this sieve. How­ev­er, in cer­tain indi­vid­u­als, the mucos­al lin­ing may dete­ri­o­rate and grow exces­sive­ly per­me­able, iden­ti­fied as leaky gut syn­drome. A leaky gut facil­i­tates the pas­sage of unwar­rant­ed sub­stances like bac­te­ria and toxins.

Yet, your sys­tem retains anoth­er pro­tec­tive bar­ri­er to safe­guard the brain – the blood-brain bar­ri­er. Anal­o­gous to the intesti­nal lin­ing, your blood-brain bar­ri­er acts as a sieve, per­mit­ting only essen­tial sub­stances to tra­verse it – siev­ing out unde­sired intrud­ers like an ultra-fine mesh. Giv­en the brain’s sen­si­tiv­i­ty and sig­nif­i­cance, this fil­ter is even more dis­cern­ing and selec­tive than the gut lin­ing, func­tion­ing at the mol­e­c­u­lar lev­el and obstruct­ing extra­ne­ous components.

Nev­er­the­less, this fil­ter too is sus­cep­ti­ble to com­pro­mise – denot­ed as a breach in the blood-brain bar­ri­er. Once this tran­spires, for­eign ele­ments gain access to your brain tis­sue. Con­se­quent­ly, your sys­tem launch­es the immune response we dis­cussed ear­li­er. Brain tis­sue becomes inflamed and com­mences to degen­er­ate, ensu­ing in pro­gres­sive­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ing symp­toms as the tis­sue incurs increas­ing damage.

For sev­er­al indi­vid­u­als, the notion of brain harm is par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­tress­ing. A com­mon appre­hen­sion stems from the belief that this impair­ment is tru­ly irre­versible. His­tor­i­cal­ly, sci­en­tists held the notion that we pos­sessed a fixed quan­tum of brain cells, and once they per­ished, they were gone for eter­ni­ty. While cer­tain­ly trea­sur­ing your brain cells and war­rant­i­ng their vig­i­lant safe­guard­ing, mod­ern sci­ence indi­cates that the regen­er­a­tion of brain cells is plau­si­ble. This instills hope that restor­ing com­pro­mised brain func­tion – heal­ing the brain – is feasible.

How­ev­er, pri­or to embark­ing on restora­tion endeav­ors, it is imper­a­tive to tack­le the under­ly­ing issues that facil­i­tat­ed the dam­age. Rec­ti­fy­ing leaky gut, reviv­ing the blood-brain bar­ri­er, and ulti­mate­ly elim­i­nat­ing the per­ilous tox­ins that incit­ed the issue ini­tial­ly are key.

But how can you ascer­tain if these per­ilous autoim­mune process­es are oper­a­tional? This will be elab­o­rat­ed upon in the forth­com­ing section.

Your Physiological Panel

Fol­low­ing a pro­longed work­day as you jour­ney home, antic­i­pat­ing a serene evening, you detect the tem­per­a­ture alarm on your dash­board illu­mi­nate while tra­vers­ing an incline. Per­turbed, you steer your vehi­cle to the mechanic.

“You made a pru­dent deci­sion to vis­it,” they con­vey. “You had a leak­ing water pump, caus­ing your engine to over­heat. Con­tin­ued dri­ving could have led to sig­nif­i­cant engine impair­ment. But wor­ry not, I rec­ti­fied the pump. You’re all set to resume your journey.”

The advi­so­ry indi­ca­tors on your vehi­cle play a piv­otal role: they serve as an ear­ly noti­fi­er of an anom­aly, enabling you to rec­ti­fy the predica­ment before any harm ensues.

When safe­guard­ing your brain, this anal­o­gy holds true. Bio­mark­ers linked to spe­cif­ic health con­cerns may sur­face years pri­or to the actu­al onset of any ail­ment. These act as pre­ma­ture indi­ca­tors of immune dis­or­ders that, if untreat­ed, could induce harm to brain tis­sue subsequently.

Opti­mal­ly, you could assess these bio­mark­ers to detect anom­alies even before symp­toms mate­ri­al­ize. Nonethe­less, if symp­toms are crop­ping up – if you are grap­pling with mem­o­ry issues, focus chal­lenges, or brain fog – it could sug­gest that an inflam­ma­to­ry process is already in motion. Prompt­ly seek­ing eval­u­a­tion is advisable.

So what are some cru­cial bio­mark­ers you can con­verse about exam­i­na­tion with your physician?

Espe­cial­ly cru­cial are anti­bod­ies that reveal a vio­la­tion of the blood-brain bar­ri­er, as these are indi­cat­ed in almost every kind of brain dis­or­der. It’s an exten­sive list of poten­tial mark­ers, but here are some sig­nif­i­cant ones.

Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the same anti­bod­ies that are con­nect­ed to a per­me­able intes­tine are also linked to a per­me­able blood-brain bar­ri­er. Instances of these are anti­bod­ies to zonulin – a sub­stance dis­charged in the intes­tine – and actin – a type of mus­cu­lar pro­tein. Anoth­er group is anti­bod­ies to lipopolysac­cha­rides (LPS). These are bac­te­r­i­al by-prod­ucts, the expan­sion of which has been asso­ci­at­ed with Alzheimer’s, Parkin­son’s, and oth­er conditions.

Anoth­er group is anti­bod­ies that were tra­di­tion­al­ly gauged to rec­og­nize proof of brain trau­ma, but are also sug­ges­tive of brain irri­ta­tion. These encom­pass anti­bod­ies to neu­ron-spe­cif­ic-eno­lase (NSE), myofib­ril­lar acid pro­tein (GFAP), and S100B.

The final group of anti­bod­ies we’ll point out are ones to the trans­g­lu­t­a­m­i­nase fam­i­ly of pro­teins. Fore­most among these are anti­bod­ies to trans­g­lu­t­a­m­i­nase 2 (TG2); this is one of the main indi­ca­tors of celi­ac dis­ease. Indi­vid­u­als with wheat sen­si­tiv­i­ty are inclined to have height­ened anti­bod­ies to TG2, TG3, and/or TG6, the lat­ter being an essen­tial enzyme in the brain and ner­vous system.

Apart from anti­bod­ies, some oth­er eval­u­a­tions should be a seg­ment of your health indi­ca­tor dash­board. There are immune reac­tiv­i­ty screens, which iden­ti­fy if your body is respond­ing to things like PCBs, phtha­lates, BPA, and diox­in. And last­ly, there are assess­ments for expo­sure to mold and heavy metals.

So what do you do if these anti­bod­ies or oth­er mark­ers are ele­vat­ed? Well, you can com­mence mak­ing health inter­ven­tions to tack­le the caus­es and bring down inflam­ma­tion. Give these some time – six months to a year – and then retest to ascer­tain if your pro­to­col has been suc­cess­ful in low­er­ing these indicators.

We’ll uti­lize the remain­der of this syn­op­sis to exam­ine what those health inter­ven­tions are.

A remarkable pyramid

When it comes to com­pre­hend­ing and deal­ing with brain-linked sick­ness, there are four main areas of focus, rep­re­sent­ing four aspects of what O’Bryan labels the pyra­mid of brain health. These four areas are formed, emo­tion­al and spir­i­tu­al, bio­chem­istry, and electromagnetic.

The foun­da­tion of the pyra­mid is your struc­ture. That is your phys­i­cal mus­cu­loskele­tal sys­tem – the frame­work that keeps your brain up and off the ground, so to speak. Sur­pris­ing­ly, mechan­i­cal issues such as pos­tur­al mis­align­ments and mus­cu­lar imbal­ances can cul­mi­nate in brain trou­bles in the future. An exam­ple of this is osteoarthri­tis, where phys­i­cal mis­align­ment and poor joint func­tion gen­er­ate wear and tear on the joint, result­ing in restrict­ed blood flow, local inflam­ma­tion, and ulti­mate­ly immune response.

Here, O’Bryan sug­gests chi­ro­prac­tic as a pro­phy­lac­tic solu­tion, to estab­lish align­ment in the spinal sys­tem. Addi­tion­al­ly, he sug­gests indi­vid­u­als take a scru­ti­niz­ing glance at their pos­ture while sleep­ing, work­ing, and dri­ving, as enhance­ments in these every day, time-inten­sive activ­i­ties can yield dividends.

You won’t be aston­ished to per­ceive that exer­cise is piv­otal for brain health. Aer­o­bic exer­cise that’s intense enough to make you per­spire aids you excrete and elim­i­nate tox­ins stored in your body fat. Strive to grad­u­al­ly increase to a tar­get of 30 min­utes per day, six days per week – leav­ing one day as a recov­ery day. And don’t over­look the var­i­ous brain ben­e­fits of exer­cise: reduc­ing inflam­ma­tion, enhanc­ing neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, and stim­u­lat­ing cel­lu­lar growth and repair. Exer­cise is sim­ply a no-brain­er – pun intended.

So that’s the struc­ture. The sub­se­quent facet of the pyra­mid is mind­set. This is your brain after all, and could any­one ques­tion that mind and brain are interconnected?

One area where your mind­set is cru­cial is get­ting a grip on stress. In this day and age, numer­ous indi­vid­u­als have their sym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem chron­i­cal­ly acti­vat­ed. When this sys­tem is con­sis­tent­ly switched on, your heart beats faster, breath­ing becomes shal­low, and your diges­tion is impaired. This leaves you fatigued and sus­cep­ti­ble to exter­nal threats.

How­ev­er, adjust­ing your mind­set tran­scends mere­ly decreas­ing stress. Accord­ing to a 2012 study, mind­ful­ness can effec­tive­ly dimin­ish inflam­ma­to­ry mark­ers even when stress is present. Oth­er stud­ies have found that med­i­ta­tion height­ens lev­els of brain-derived neu­rotroph­ic fac­tor – a com­pound impli­cat­ed in regen­er­at­ing brain tis­sue. And dis­tinct from the afore­men­tioned, med­i­ta­tion has also demon­strat­ed ben­e­fits con­cern­ing con­cen­tra­tion, focus, and emo­tion­al resilience. Oth­er meth­ods of address­ing the brain through your mind­set encom­pass psy­chother­a­py, breath­ing exer­cis­es, and prayer.

Biochemistry and electromagnetism

The sub­se­quent facet of the pyra­mid is bio­chem­istry. One tac­tic here is detox­i­fi­ca­tion. We dis­cussed ear­li­er how exer­cise can aid in flush­ing tox­ins out of your body. One tech­nique you can employ in this process is through inter­mit­tent fast­ing. Fast­ing has been uti­lized for thou­sands of years as a means of puri­fy­ing the body. The ancient Greeks under­stood it. Plutarch, for instance, is cit­ed as say­ing “Instead of using med­i­cine, rather, fast a day.” Or Paracel­sus: “Fast­ing is the great­est rem­e­dy – the physi­cian within.”

Inter­mit­tent fast­ing, oth­er­wise termed as time-restrict­ed feed­ing, is a prac­tice in which indi­vid­u­als con­strain their eat­ing to a spe­cif­ic time win­dow, such as the 12 hours between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Reg­u­lar inter­mit­tent fast­ing has been proven to, yes, incin­er­ate fat – lipids are tis­sues where many tox­ins are stashed – which enables the body to free itself of organ­ic pol­lu­tants. It also pro­vides the body an oppor­tu­ni­ty to han­dle dam­aged cells – which are then sub­sti­tut­ed by healthy new ones. To aid in detox­i­fi­ca­tion, ensure to ingest ade­quate water, as this facil­i­tates your body to cir­cu­late flu­ids and flush out the harm­ful elements.

And of course, you should endeav­or to evade expo­sure to tox­ins ini­tial­ly, by being cau­tious about which prod­ucts you uti­lize, such as per­son­al care prod­ucts and house­hold cleaners.

Last but not least is what you eat. Your bio­mark­ers and anti­bod­ies can help guide your deci­sions here. Regard­less, con­tem­plate exper­i­ment­ing with elim­i­nat­ing “The Big Three” dietary offend­ers – wheat, dairy, and sug­ar. Nat­u­ral­ly, focus on inten­si­fy­ing your intake of fresh veg­eta­bles and fruits, too.

You could also exper­i­ment with embrac­ing a keto­genic diet. You don’t need to remain on it long-term, but a brief peri­od of one to three months can occa­sion­al­ly bring about strik­ing cog­ni­tive advan­tages. You then have the chance to grad­u­al­ly rein­tro­duce oth­er foods to your diet, while metic­u­lous­ly observ­ing your lev­el of func­tion and your health markers.

The last facet of the pyra­mid of brain health is elec­tro­mag­net­ism. O’Bryan alludes to research indi­cat­ing that elec­tro­mag­net­ic fields – or EMFs – are a sig­nif­i­cant cause of oxida­tive stress in the body and that they impair the immune sys­tem, trig­ger inflam­ma­tion, and dis­rupt tis­sue repair.

EMFs are all around you. They are emit­ted by lap­tops, cell phones, Wi-Fi, and even the wiring in your home. They are
impos­si­ble to entire­ly escape, but you can take spe­cif­ic mea­sures to dimin­ish your expo­sure. Here are some point­ers: Put your phone in a suit­able pro­tec­tive case. To locate one, seek a type of prod­uct termed a “cell phone radi­a­tion cov­er.” And opt for wired head­phones over Blue­tooth head­phones, if feasible.

As you are aware, prop­er sleep is essen­tial for safe­guard­ing and revi­tal­iz­ing your brain. Thus, two tips for your slum­ber. First­ly, turn off or dis­con­nect your wire­less router – since you won’t be using it any­way. Also, make sure to keep your cell phone out of your room dur­ing the night. Apart from min­i­miz­ing your EMR expo­sure while you rest, this action will also pos­i­tive­ly impact your sleep qual­i­ty. If you do opt to keep your phone near­by while sleep­ing, acti­vate air­plane mode.

Overview

Cor­rect­ing brain func­tion isn’t a straight­for­ward task. The human body is intri­cate, and numer­ous inter­re­lat­ed sys­tems must be con­sid­ered. As Dr. O’Lough­lin states, if you’re dis­play­ing symp­toms linked to cog­ni­tive per­for­mance, your brain might be in jeop­ardy. Tak­ing ten­ta­tive steps won’t suf­fice – com­plete immer­sion is nec­es­sary. It’s not about a sin­gu­lar mag­i­cal solu­tion, but rather about sev­er­al minor vic­to­ries aggre­gat­ing to induce change.

You’ve now grasped the fun­da­men­tals of how autoim­mu­ni­ty and brain swelling lead to brain mal­func­tion. By lever­ag­ing the four cat­e­gories of the brain health pyra­mid – form, atti­tude, bio­chem­istry, and elec­tro­mag­net­ism – you can con­struct a plan of action for your­self to aid you in cut­ting through the haze and exist­ing with enhanced clar­i­ty, hope­ful­ness, and vitality.

Author Details

TOM O’BRYAN, is the writer of The Autoim­mune Fix and a glob­al­ly acknowl­edged speak­er and author on chron­ic ail­ments and meta­bol­ic con­di­tions. The founder of the web­site the Dr, he orches­trat­ed the esteemed Gluten Sum­mit in Novem­ber 2013 and a sub­se­quent one in May 2016. Dr. O’Bryan pos­sess­es over 30 years of exper­tise as a prac­ti­cal med­i­cine pro­fes­sion­al and is an ancil­lary pro­fes­sor at the Insti­tute for Func­tion­al Med­i­cine. He resides in San Diego.

Appraisal

“You Can Improve Your Brain: Just 1 Hour a Week to the Ulti­mate Mem­o­ry, Effi­cien­cy, and Rest You’ve Ever Had” by Tom O’Bryan is an all-encom­pass­ing man­u­al to under­stand and boost brain well-being. Tar­get­ed toward indi­vid­u­als aim­ing to ele­vate their cog­ni­tive capa­bil­i­ties, mem­o­ry, effi­cien­cy, and sleep stan­dards through a holis­tic method of brain health.

Tom O’Bryan, a prac­ti­cal med­i­cine pro­fes­sion­al, escorts read­ers through an expe­di­tion to bet­ter com­pre­hend the com­plex and mul­ti­di­men­sion­al realm of brain health. He accen­tu­ates the sig­nif­i­cance of brain health in our com­pre­hen­sive well­ness and con­vers­es about the impact of numer­ous ele­ments such as nour­ish­ment, envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins, ten­sion, and hered­i­ty on brain oper­a­tion. O’Bryan ini­ti­ates a notion called “You Can Improve Your Brain,” propos­ing that indi­vid­u­als can man­age their brain health and insti­gate mean­ing­ful enhancements.

The man­u­script is struc­tured around the notion that you can allo­cate mere­ly one hour week­ly to lift your brain’s well-being and effi­cien­cy. O’Bryan fur­nish­es a straight­for­ward roadmap to accom­plish this by explor­ing var­i­ous facets of brain health, encom­pass­ing nour­ish­ment, rest, ten­sion man­age­ment, and exer­cise. He stress­es the sig­nif­i­cance of rec­og­niz­ing and deal­ing with fun­da­men­tal health con­cerns that may influ­ence brain oper­a­tion, like autoim­mune dis­or­ders and intesti­nal health.

O’Bryan fur­ther scru­ti­nizes the impor­tance of decreas­ing expo­sure to envi­ron­men­tal con­t­a­m­i­nants and adopt­ing a brain-nur­tur­ing diet, like a gluten-free and anti-inflam­ma­to­ry diet. He talks about the impor­tance of incor­po­rat­ing par­tic­u­lar nutri­ents, enhance­ments, and herbs to bol­ster brain oper­a­tion. The man­u­al also embraces prac­ti­cal hints and recipes to assist read­ers in inte­grat­ing pos­i­tive nutri­tion­al modifications.

In exten­sion to nour­ish­ment, O’Bryan shines a light on the piv­otal role of rest in brain health. He extends coun­sel on opti­miz­ing sleep habits and con­struct­ing a sleep-friend­ly back­drop. Ten­sion man­age­ment meth­ods, mind­ful­ness, and exer­cise are also touched upon as indis­pens­able com­po­nents of a com­pre­hen­sive method­ol­o­gy for brain health.

“You Can Improve Your Brain” pro­vides an all-inclu­sive and approach­able roadmap to ame­lio­rat­ing brain health. Tom O’Bryan’s strat­e­gy is ground­ed in the prin­ci­ples of func­tion­al med­i­cine and is but­tressed by sci­en­tif­ic exam­i­na­tion. The man­u­script is well-arranged, ren­der­ing it straight­for­ward for read­ers to pur­sue the one-hour-a-week pro­gram and imple­ment encour­ag­ing amend­ments in their lives.

One of the strong suits of the book is its focus on the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of diverse aspects of health, encom­pass­ing intesti­nal health, nour­ish­ment, rest, and ten­sion. O’Bryan effec­tive­ly demon­strates how these ele­ments impact brain oper­a­tion and gen­er­al well-being, fur­nish­ing a com­pre­hen­sive stand­point on brain health.

The inclu­sion of prag­mat­ic hints, recipes, and enhance­ment sug­ges­tions ren­ders the book even more valu­able for read­ers striv­ing to mate­ri­al­ize the knowl­edge into action. O’Bryan’s writ­ing flair is engross­ing and user-friend­ly, mak­ing intri­cate health notions acces­si­ble to a broad readership.

While the book fur­nish­es a wealth of insight, some read­ers might encounter dif­fi­cul­ties in com­mit­ting to the one-hour-a-week strat­e­gy, espe­cial­ly if they have packed sched­ules. Fur­ther­more, exe­cut­ing some of the nutri­tion­al and lifestyle mod­i­fi­ca­tions pro­posed in the book might demand con­sid­er­able endeav­or and adap­ta­tion for cer­tain individuals.

In con­clu­sion, “You Can Improve Your Brain” is a valu­able arse­nal for those intrigued by enhanc­ing their brain health and com­pre­hen­sive well­ness. Tom O’Bryan’s acu­men in func­tion­al med­i­cine stands out, and his holis­tic strat­e­gy endows a well-round­ed out­look on how to actu­al­ize the ulti­mate mem­o­ry, effi­cien­cy, and sleep qual­i­ty. Read­ers ready to invest time and exer­tion into abid­ing by the pro­gram delin­eat­ed in the book are like­ly to yield ben­e­fits from its coun­sel and insights.