Your Mental Wellness Podcast for Your Voice and Sanity

Foods against brain farts and for mental well-being

September 06, 2021 Dr. Sibylle Georgianna's Leadership Practice Season 2 Episode 1
Your Mental Wellness Podcast for Your Voice and Sanity
Foods against brain farts and for mental well-being
Show Notes Transcript

Learn about how you can overturn your "brain fart" or forgetfulness and brain fog! There are a lot of helpful things we can do to protect our cognitive health. Believe it or not, the brain is composed of about half and half fat and water! Getting enough healthy fats in the diet will help nourish the brain - think things like olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds, and of course, omega-3 fats at least twice a week from seafood, ground flaxseed and chia seeds.    

Staying hydrated will also lubricate the brain and help it function properly. In the last few years, there has also been research on how excess sugars can "gunk up" the brain, and may contribute to the development of dementia.Focusing on building a plate with mostly proteins with healthy fats, vegetables and whole grains, limiting sugary drinks and treats to once or twice a week, and drinking at least 8 cups of fluids daily can help keep up brain health. There is also a lot of research that promotes the role of low-impact exercise & doing puzzles (think crosswords, sudoku, etc) on brain health.

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Tools for Vitality: Therapy, Coaching, Optimizing Nutrition and Movement for Mental Wellness

Sibylle Georgianna:

So welcome. And I'm so excited to be here with Sarah. And with our today's quest to understand what we can do even with purposeful nutrition, to navigate the season of change from moving out of COVID into continuously less than less COVID influence circumstances, from a cold winter into hopefully as soon to be more and more warm spring. And so I was so excited to have Arya Drexler, the nutritionist who I met in California, and she was open enough to answer a couple of my questions, specifically, about the changes from the season, as well as picking her brain on how nutrition may have changed over the years. And then as I have in laws and parents who are older, to see ways even that we could eat that keep us in a good state, to delay decline, and as well prevent, basically impairment in our thinking now coping, as we all have had so much going on. So when I just asked you, Sarah, if you were open here to, to join on the call here, what would inspire you to eat? Well,

Sarah Hohmann:

for me, I'm a I'm a vegetarian, so I, I've kind of balanced my, I went through this journey of balancing what makes me feel good when I eat, and what kind of makes me feel bad when when I eat that. So what inspires me eating well, is how well I feel when I eat.

Sibylle Georgianna:

That's awesome. And I really feel Yeah, I mean, that's like really something you can only do with that self self inquiry as as we came up with Casey Peters in the last time, you know, do to try it out yourself. Yeah. And you and it's funny, because I feel I was thinking just with me getting older, I'm more aware of that, than I was in my you know, early on in life but and I think that will be the same answer for me. Not that I'm a vegetarian, but that yeah, basically eating healthfully, lots of vegetables, things like that, that it really makes you feel so much better. It's already something we can even talk about more maybe in another thrive car here. But the brain I picked was read Rex's brain. She's a registered dietitian, in California and in Colorado, and deals with all types of specific chronic illnesses, as well as with the older population, or anyone with more wisdom and maturation in their biological years. And so she spilled the guts to understanding how we can influence us, even with the seasonal change, moving out of that more secluded life, but with COVID, she says in as we move into, from winter into spring, the biggest nutritional consideration comes with making sure that we have enough vitamin d3. And on the website that we will have a link to a she describes the optimal level of vitamin D, as they may change with age and biological sex. And we can get through dietary to dairy products, animal lover, and sometimes she says, you know, with the advice of a primary care physician and a registered dietitian, then supplementation may be indicated. So she says it's really good to be aware that any dietary habits that may change during the year can also bring a change in the nutrition. So eating maybe more fresh fruits and vegetables in the summer months. She says which I didn't know that if you buy a frozen fruits and vegetables in the winter. Those may even have more nutrients than the fresh food we got in the in the summer season. And I was I was on your thing for me. I was like, well, that's good to know. Yeah. So let's see, what else did she share with us? Yes. Oh,

Sarah Hohmann:

yeah. And I know, she left us with one of the quotes and it says one of the most exciting things that has been that has developed since I was in when she was in school has been the advent of personalized nutrition, often looking at a person's genes to see which kind of nutrition is best for them. And whether or not they need supplementation. I that's very interesting. Looking at someone's jeans and, you know, seeing what kind of shoes they need. That's nice.

Sibylle Georgianna:

That's That's amazing. And

Sarah Hohmann:

technology, who

Sibylle Georgianna:

are you really how would you do? How would you do that with like a swab? test with you use like that? I mean, that's Yeah.

Sarah Hohmann:

Yeah. And I know we also asked her about how we can optimize brain functioning as well. And she said that getting enough fat such as olive oil, avocados and nuts and seeds and omega three fats and at least twice a week from seafood, add some ground flax seeds and chia seeds. So that's, that's very good. And also staying hydrated will lubricate the brain. So that's something I didn't know. That's I didn't know that either. Yeah, that's really interesting stuff

Sibylle Georgianna:

that reminds me of my grandmother that if she weren't drinking enough water that she would been a lot of times that would make her be maybe that's less than a little bit more impaired in her thinking that too much like the medication was just too strong in her body. And I thought that was a good reminder even that it's not just age related. But she also said that I mean, Aria said that the age related change in in our you know, our homeostasis, it's like how we regulate our appetite, maybe that if we are older we are not as aware that we are needing to drink so have a sense of thirst may not be as alert which I thought was very interesting. As well as here where she talks about how feelings can be influenced with food as well by for example, if we have cheap we eat excess sugar, that that can really be like a gank to the brain and that may contribute even to the onset of dementia. But having a having a healthy plate with mostly proteins, healthy fats, vegetables, whole grains, and then a limit of sugar and dietary drinks that then with the water intake, it can keep us in a good place and also with regards to our brain functioning. So that's really spot on with the vitality strategies from the self leadership protocol where with the attention to relaxation to exercise to healthy eating, no meaning and really, you know, as a as Kizzy Peters and said that we can make sure that our car is not like a barely moving car. If we think about our body as a car. That is literally you can like just ride along and you know, kind of be be even like a little bit like a faster car.

Sarah Hohmann:

Take care of your cars. There you go. So oils,

Sibylle Georgianna:

oils, and all that stuff. So let's see here. So Aria has a contact and information here provided Oh, nice. And she is with injury, injury, Titian and can be reached here for service in California and in Colorado. But also, we can read more, we can share the full article here on the to its vitality website, which is geared towards sustainable relaxation, nutrition and functional movement, to really augment your ability to regulate yourself and to lead yourself and others so. So that's basically for us here. And I really feel that moving into this new year. And with all the changes that we've been mastering the last year and I'm moving ideally, continuously in 2021. attending to the food is a fat, I mean is maybe not easy to attend to. But it's something that's right in our control, right, because we say, you know, how we consume. So, you know, I was like, you know, if you're thinking about an action step, what would be one that you would feel or takeaway from our time here that you would want to pursue in these next couple of weeks? About?

Sarah Hohmann:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Um, I dropped this presentation. I've noticed in throughout the interview, she, she talks a lot about hydrating and intake of fluids, make sure you get enough make sure you, you know, don't go into the dehydration and I feel and especially with the lubrication of the brain, I kind of want to challenge myself in a good way saying, Hey, you know what, if I do like, you know, as much hydration as I can throughout the day, I want to see how it affects my brain, like not not only my you know, physical vitality, but just like how, how am I going throughout the day, and I'll report back to say how helis gold.

Sibylle Georgianna:

I think that's really good. I think that's really good for me. I was thinking about this challenge by even thinking that to, to to make sure you know, you buy the foods, you're mindful in the shopping, you're mindful in the way how you you spending time. So for me, it's making the time to shop planning out when to quote what to cook and to be more deliberate with that. Maybe more specific, even on the weekends just to make sure that those good nutritional recommendations can be integrated, because it's not necessarily like things that are very hard to attain, but they just need a little bit focus to come about like drinking the, the liquids, and I feel wearing a mask more has Oh, yeah, I have had less fluids, because I wear that mask all the time. Yeah, it's drying, you know, it's like, yeah, as you know, you're not sipping your tea or your your, your, your water as frequently. So, yeah, just always things to stay flexible with to adjust to. And, and then I'm hoping that we have another guest with us at some point where we can talk even more about what type of foods can produce or contribute to certain emotional states such as anxiety, depression. I mean, we heard just a little bit how she, are you tapped into that topic? But yeah, really to see like, Can we eat that we have healthy emotions, right? Can we eat that we decrease irritability or withdrawal symptoms, depression, anxiety. So I want to dig a little bit into that and see what we could come up with and have another guest with us who was also very interested with in this subject, so. So that's more to follow, I guess.

Sarah Hohmann:

There you go. That'd be really interesting. Yeah. following up with that, yes, yes.

Sibylle Georgianna:

So and another thing was like, perhaps we can also, if there's people who want to comment on this thrive video here, feel free to reach out to us and yeah, any questions or comments you have?

Sarah Hohmann:

So we'd love to hear from you.

Sibylle Georgianna:

Good. So Sara, I'm so excited for having you. And again, can't thank you enough for your time. And then we will touch base again in two weeks.

Sarah Hohmann:

There you go. Absolutely. Yeah, I'll see you then.

Sibylle Georgianna:

Okay, yes.

Sarah Hohmann:

All right. Thank you so much, so much. And see you then. Yeah. Bye bye. Yeah. Bye bye.