WEBVTT - How to fix brain fog with Neuroscientist Dr Sarah McKay 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.160 Why is it so hard to get real answers about 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.560 your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine, 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.680 but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it. 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:13.200 That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.439 better understand what's going on inside your body so that 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.680 you can take the targeted action needed. With a functional 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.560 health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.960 uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:31.160 with Doctyesmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together we will 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.879 help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.880 why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight? 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.520 Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe missing key nutrients? 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.800 Because when you understand your body better, you can transform 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.680 your health. Visit v three sixty dot health or check 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:54.240 out the show notes for more. My ability to focus 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:58.600 has dropped so significantly in the last decade or so, 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:01.920 I cannot tell you. I get so distracted, but I 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:06.400 also get this really foggy brain as well, so much 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.120 so that now when I sit down to work on 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:14.119 my computer, I actually have to use this platform called 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:18.319 Tomato Timer, and it's this great platform. It's essentially just 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:22.559 a timer and it uses what's called the Pomodoro method, 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:25.520 and it's twenty five minutes of a focus block and 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.839 then a five minute brain break. So for that twenty 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.680 five minutes, my goal is do not pick up your phone, 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.520 do not check your emails, do not get up and 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.560 walk around. You just have to work on that one task. 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.039 And I cannot tell you how hard that is for 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:42.920 me to do, but I do it. And I set 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.240 myself little daily goals of you know, trying to do 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.880 ten focus blocks today, ten twenty five minute focus blocks. 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.560 What was really interesting was a couple of weeks ago, 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.000 I went to my mum's place for a writer's retreat 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.480 because I'm just getting to the really pointy end of 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.160 writing my book, and and so I thought, I'm going 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.120 to leave Tim with the kids and I'm just going 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.360 to go to mum's. And for three days all I 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.720 did was woke up early, I wrote, did a little 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.280 bit of exercise, and then I wrote, and my mom 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.440 would bring me cups of tea and then she cooked 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.560 me a lovely dinner. But just leave me alone. I 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:23.640 cannot tell you how productive I was. I cannot tell 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.519 you how these words just spilled out of my brain 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.920 onto the pages. It was such a beautiful, meditative experience, 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.840 and it just got me thinking that is it actually 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:42.040 my pery menopausal brain that is the problem with my 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:46.080 distraction and my fogginess, or after that experience at my mum's, 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.640 is it maybe just my insanely full life that is 0:02:49.680 --> 0:03:05.440 the problem. This is healthy heer with Amelia Phillips. If 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:11.119 you're a woman in midlife, in perimenopause or postmenopause, chances 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:15.160 are you have experienced that foggy, distracted brain that makes 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.359 you feel like you are slipping from the articulate, sharp 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.720 woman you once were. It's certainly not a nice feeling, 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.320 and I know that feeling so well, But I want 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.760 you to know rest assured, we are not alone. This 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:30.920 is so common, in fact, that many of the global 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.800 surveys on perimenopause symptoms show the same results time and 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:39.000 time again. The most common peri symptoms are not the 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:43.280 hot flushes and the night sweats that we associate, but actually, 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:47.480 in fact, the most common symptoms are brain fog, cognitive 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:52.640 changes like poor memory or difficulty concentrating, along with low 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.760 mood and sleep disturbances. So what is happening during this 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.720 midlife transition that impacts so many of us destined to 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.840 become the dottery versions of ourselves? Or is there some 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.520 hope for us, some strategies for our brain health to 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.560 get back to the sharp, witty, funny, vibrant women we 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.360 know we are deep down well, to help fix our distracted, 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:18.400 foggy brains, I have bought in the big guns today 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:23.560 neuroscientist doctor Sarah Mackay. Doctor Sarah is not just a neuroscientist, 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:28.000 but she is an educator who specializes in translating complex 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:32.080 brain research into practical strategies that we can use every 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.960 day so that we can improve our health, our mood, 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.240 and our performance. She's the author of three books on 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.680 brain health, the Women's Brain Book, which is all about 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.640 the neuroscience of health, hormones, and happiness. She's also authored 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.520 Baby Brain, which explores how pregnancy and motherhood shape the brain, 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.480 and her latest book, Brain Health for Dummies Love that title, 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.200 published earlier this year. Doctor Sarah was also recently on 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.320 the Mel Robins podcast. She appears regularly on TV and 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.920 in the media and has a fabulous Instagram page, which 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:07.719 I'll pop a link for that in the show notes 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:12.800 all about helping our female brains thrive, Doctor Sarah, thank 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.160 you so much for joining me in studio in the 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:16.000 Novas Studios. 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:17.920 Today feels very professional, doesn't it. 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.600 I know, look at us go very professionally here. 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:21.960 We could have just met and had to walk along 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:23.960 the beach in a chat. But here we are, I know, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:25.880 re recording our thoughts. 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.160 No, this is all too important. I want to capture 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.440 everything you tell us today. It's so so important. Now 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.160 I have heard you say that the fifty year old 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.440 brain is not the same as the twenty one year 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.560 old brain, a bit like our bodies, not quite the 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.440 same as we were in our twenties. But it's actually 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.560 good news. You say that there are many cognitive abilities 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:49.200 and skills that peak in midlife. So I'd love to 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:50.760 know what are some of these peaks. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.880 I'm glad that post resonated because I am fifty one 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.360 and my social media algorithms, which of course are then 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.679 and turn influencing the conversation that people have in real life, 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:05.000 all about how once we reach this age we become 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:12.560 like these foggy, sweaty, useless tired, depressed, anxious, faff abouts, 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.840 and it just felt like I was constantly being told 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:20.240 that at this age I was, I might as well 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:21.640 just give up and the rest of my life should 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:23.840 be a dementia resk reduction project and I should just 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.200 slap on loads of like hormone therapy. And I wanted 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:29.960 to just talk about what we know about the brain, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:31.960 what we know about cognition, what we know about the 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.680 trajectory across the life span, and not just put a 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:36.800 positive spin on it, because it's not just about let's 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.479 flip the script, but let's talk about what we do 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.920 know about how our brains change across the lifespan. And 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.839 it's not just the sort of decline from a peak 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.119 at kind of age eighteen nineteen twenty, you know, perhaps 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:50.880 if you went to UNI or those you know, kind 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:55.200 of first few years outside of school to now, we're 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.800 learning a whole lot more and getting more thoughtful, careful 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.720 ways of studying the brain across the life span and 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.960 looking at different types of cognitive tests and finding out 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.120 there are actually lots of skills that we have that 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.120 we can measure that peak at different points in the lifespan. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.120 So how do our brains improve in a way through 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.440 midlife because I agree with you, Like, we have evolved 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.840 to live beyond our reproductive years, so there's a reason 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:27.280 why women survive evolutionarily from our reproductive years. So what 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:28.720 is happening in our brains? 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:30.119 That is good news. 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:34.120 Yeah, there's so much we can talk about brain fall. 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.640 We can talk about sleep, anxiety, depression. Leave all of 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:38.480 that aside. Let's just talk about what we do know, 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.840 which is some of the upsides. So there are what 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:43.960 we might call when we could call it wisdom, right, 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.280 Like we've always talked about wisdom, which is just kind 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.160 of having years of experience. So if you think about 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.440 the career you're in, and I've been in the same career. 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.160 I've did an undergraduate degree in neuroscience straight out of UNI, 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.480 so I've been doing this for a very long time. 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.640 I now have not in built pattern recognition, but I 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.040 can look at a neuroscience study, I can hear someone 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.800 talk about the brain. I can think about a neuroscience 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:10.480 topic and get a very quick, almost intuitive sense about 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.080 kind of what that is about. Because I've been doing 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:15.160 neuroscience for so long, Like I kind of I know 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.160 my staff, so we might call that kind of pattern 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.920 recognition or intuition, which you develop when you've been in 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.480 a career for a very, very very long time. You 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.160 just kind of know your shit. You've been around, You've 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:32.200 got this long career of kind of gathered up knowledge 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.560 and wisdom. We tend to think about cognition as being 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:37.800 kind of how quickly you can remember something, Can you 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.679 remember someone's name, How quickly could you solve mental maths 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.680 in your mind's eye. Those are some of the cognitive 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.320 skills that might peak maybe in your twenties, but we 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.200 then think that they're the only things that matter, not 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.760 this kind of wisdom, knowledge, and experience that we've gathered 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.280 over a lifespan. So there's this these two types. We 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:59.280 sometimes call them like types of intelligences. Sometimes we call 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.920 them like kind of crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence. And 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:05.960 fluid intelligence is kind of like the quick thinking that 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.000 we might have in our youth. It might slow down slightly, 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.440 but that does make way for our whole lot more 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.240 of what we would call crystallized knowledge, which is kind 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.960 of the information that we've gathered and learned and the 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.920 knowledge that we've developed over our say, over our careers. 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.959 So you're saying that our pattern recognition improves, and this 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:29.240 crystallized intelligence, which is essentially the crystallized intelligence, is essentially 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:30.199 the wisdom. 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.760 That crystallized intelligence is kind of like knowledge. We've learned 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:36.800 more because we've been alive longer, so we know more stuff. Right, 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:40.480 We've also had more life experiences, so we can be 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:42.880 Whilst we might not be in this kind of quick, 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.280 sharp thinking, growing fast like bang bang bang kind of 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.000 way that we are when we're in our twenties, when 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.120 we are literally building, particularly when we're posting in a pausal, 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:55.080 particularly when we're in later in midlife. Sure the processing 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.280 may slow down slightly, but that gives us a little 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.720 bit of time to let ideas bubble to the surface. 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:06.959 Perhaps there is a genuine adaptive upside to slower thinking. 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.200 We're not building because of ourselves or at the point 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.640 when we can impart knowledge we've got that you picked 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.040 up on that idea of pattern recognition. 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:17.120 Explain that in the real world. 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:19.079 So what you're saying is in you know, in our 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.560 postmenopausal brain, our patent recognition is often a lot better. 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.000 But what does that Actually it's not just about menopause, 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:26.600 like just aside making woman. 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:27.760 You know everyday. 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.080 When you have been working in a profession for a 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.400 really long time, you're an expert versus a novice. When 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:36.800 you start out, you don't know you're learning. When you 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:41.079 have spent twenty thirty forty years learning information, you can 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:42.960 kind of spot the signal from the noise. You can 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.120 spot the red place, just kind of have an intuition 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.040 about what's right, what's wrong, how to make decisions. You 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:49.840 don't need to kind of labor through the kind of 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.400 the processes as much anymore. There's also this other skill 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.600 that we've started to understand a little bit more about 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:57.320 and measure at lots of different ages, and we would 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.400 call this cognitive flexibility. So this is the idea to 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.360 be able to kind of pivot or shift or see 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.600 shades of gray or look at a you know, look 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.120 at a particular problem and think of multiple different ways 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.840 to solve it, rather than being what we might be 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.840 in our youth, very black and white thinker. There is 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:14.400 one way to go about this. This is it, and 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:16.559 I'm not going to like listen to anyone else's opinion 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.160 or perhaps more set in our ways as we get older, 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.760 So we almost see this kind of U shaped curve there, 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.960 whereby at midlife, we're much more flexible in our thinking. 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.080 We can kind of sit with because we're not in 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.320 a rush and we're not so slow. Yeah, so we 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.040 can kind of go, Okay, I'm just going to take 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:36.800 my time to figure this out, and you know what, 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:39.720 there could be like multiple shades of gray here. We 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.960 can kind of take our time and be more flexible 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:44.840 in our thinking. We're not so stuck in our ways, 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:46.640 and we often see that in mid life people pivot 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.119 in their careers. You know, you're talking to a teenager 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.200 about like their belief system and you're like, dah, you've 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.040 got like you've got years here you think that, or 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.120 you know, perhaps someone who's much much older than us, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:11:59.400 we might think, oh, they're a bit more set in 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.960 our ways. Midlife we can appreciate the shades of gray 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.600 and the nuance and that comes from experience, but it 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.560 also comes from this cognitive point and time that we're at. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.640 So again, there's remarkable things that can come from those 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.200 deploying those skills and everyday life get we never talk 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:20.920 about them because what we're busy valorizing and then perhaps grieving, 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:23.960 you know, is that really super fast sharp thinking of 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.319 our youth. But it may be that there's an evolutionary 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.520 kind of mandate there whereby we're kind of building and 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:34.480 growing and developing careers and families, and you know, our 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:36.040 place in the world when we're young, so we need 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.000 to be quick and sharp. But later on it's more 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.680 about imparting that wisdom, and it's more about sitting back 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:46.640 and kind of like looking across the life span, seeing 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:48.559 the other people around us, and then taking on that 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.640 kind of more matriarchal role which might be more still, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:55.240 which might be more kind of measured. Yeah, and then 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.800 we can impart that kind of information on which you're 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.000 not which kind of adapted to do when you're young, 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.440 when you're building and thinking about yourself and making babies 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:06.679 and building a career, that's all that matters is being 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:07.440 quick and fast. 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.800 I have heard you have put together a fantastic framework 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.120 to really help us understand and just to put a 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:18.040 little bit of structure around that for us everyday people. 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.960 And you call it the bottoms up, outside in and 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.640 top down. Can you just give us a quick overview 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.360 of what you mean by these kind of this three 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.000 three pronged framework. 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:31.600 It puts the brain in the middle. And if anyone 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.679 has any kind of healthy medically background, they would have 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:37.000 heard of the BIA psychosocial model. But that sounds like 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.760 really boring, Wow an academic, so by I love your 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.080 bottom the bottom up. So a brain's sitting in the 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.000 middle of like this complex ecosystem of your body, and 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.280 your body is in this complex ecosystem of the world, 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.640 and so your brain is receiving all of this information 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.760 from your body. So it's receiving information from your ovary 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:55.760 is about you know, your hormonal state, but it's also 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.079 receiving information about body temperature and heart rate and the food. 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.160 You Wait, you've got your kind of genetic background, You've 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.120 got all of the things that you could do with 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.040 your body. Your brain is getting this constant feed about 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.199 and then your brain is constantly making meaning. 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.559 Of that genetics. 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:14.959 Everything from your genes to the food you've eaten, to 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.040 your sleep, to your bone density, to your gut pH 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.520 to you know, your muscle. You know you've got a 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.760 full bladder, you've got a kicking baby, you've got a 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.320 sore back. Think about all of the things in your 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:28.360 body your brain is making. 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.920 That's almost like the body stuff body a market. 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.320 So just imagine information getting from your body. 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:35.560 Body into your brain to your brain. 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:35.920 Got it. 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.280 Brain's going right, twenty million things to monitor, hear, and 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.000 then we're the outside and will and that's the world 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.040 around us is making its way into the brain. And 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.920 it's not by magic. It comes in through our senses. 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.560 So what we see, people think, how does it get 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.840 in through what we see? Through what we hear. As humans, 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.200 our sense of sight and hearing are really important. So 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.080 the outside what we see a but if something's close 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:00.880 enough to us, we can like smell it or taste 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:01.600 it or touch. 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:03.600 It, so that influences our brain. 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.800 And that is everything from you and me having a conversation. Yeah, 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:08.520 all of the social cognition. 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.240 That brain is going crazy right now is I'm looking 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.000 at you and interpreting what you're saying. 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:15.840 That's outside the room we're and the rising and the 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.200 setting of the sun, your social interactions and that includes 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:20.720 and then you can kind of stagger it out a 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.080 bit further. So we're looking at like your family structure, 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.800 you know, the social structures you live in, your neighborhood, 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:30.120 your socioeconomic kind of situation, the culture that you're in 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:32.880 all of that outside in makes its way into your brain, 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.520 and then your brain's making meaning of the context it's in, 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.640 what it senses and also kind of getting the feed 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.120 from your body. So it's kind of bringing those two together. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.840 But then, because we're humans, we've got this mind that's 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.720 the top down. That's the top down, and that includes 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.400 that the experiences that we've had, so all of our 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.400 prior memories, you know, kind of our biographical past, everything 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.280 that we've learned that. Our brain went, hey, that was awesome. 0:15:57.680 --> 0:15:59.120 I'm going to remember that and do it again. 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.120 Don't time, don't touch the hot plate because we got burnt. 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:03.160 Last home sucked. 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:05.560 Never going to do that again, don't don't want to 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:06.880 do that, going to stay. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:12.840 Away, leaf memory, belief havebit, cultural value, values, thoughts, thought, 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.760 your thought patterns all worthy enough and those and. 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.480 So each of these bottom up, outside and top down 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.360 factors coalesce in the brain, and the brain kind of 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:23.800 makes meaning of it all and goes, Okay, this is 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:25.200 what we're going to do next. And what we do 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.440 next could be sweat because you're hot, or it could 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.400 be I don't know, run up and hug your mum 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.120 because you haven't seen it for a while, or it 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.960 could be I don't know, pick your phone up because 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.600 it's ringing. But they can also influence each other. And 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.360 this is where I think it gets really interesting. So 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.000 you could think about, well, how does a thought influence 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.720 my kind of physicality? So you could go, oh, well, 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.440 I'm I've got like a really important exam coming up, 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:51.800 and you're thinking about that, and then you get like 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.120 an upset tummy, you get really a really nervous tummy. 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:58.640 So your top down thoughts can influence your bottom up biology. 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.280 Where's perimenopause is, where's the hormones? Is that bottom up? 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.800 Because I would call hormones bottom up bottom up? 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.240 So and the and the midlife brain where you've got 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.520 like your bottom up hormones and they're roller coastering, but 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:15.119 they're also roller coastering on an overall health baseline, you 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.000 know your immune health, your gut health, how much exercise 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.080 do you do, your cardiovascular health, how much sleep you're getting, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.240 what's your kind of stress response, like, what's your entire 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.080 life history up to this point, what's your reproductive history, like, 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:29.399 what's your mental health history? Like, what was your levels 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:31.679 of education when you were you know, at school and 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.120 then in a high school UNI, all of that will 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.439 feed in you're looking at a menopausal brain. We're not 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:39.840 just looking at a brain that's influenced by roller coastering 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:41.960 ovarian hormones and then flatlining later. 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.200 We're looking at a brain three structure, a brain. 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.240 That's making meaning of its biology. A brain that's making 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.960 meaning of the context that you're in and the messages 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.600 that you're receiving, particularly what you're absorbing from the social 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.680 media feed and your entire life history up until this point. 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:13.720 Why is it so hard to get real answers about 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.119 your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine, 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.199 but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it. 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.720 That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.000 better understand what's going on inside your body so that 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.240 you can take the targeted action needed. With a functional 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:34.080 health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.520 uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.720 with Dottyasmina, an incredible integrative GP and together we will 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.399 help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.440 why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight? 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:54.080 Am I inflamed, insulin resistant or maybe missing key nutrients? 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.360 Because when you understand your body better, you can transform 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.600 your health. Visit V three sixty dot health or check out. 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:01.480 The show notes for more. 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.359 I mean, what I find so fascinating about this, and 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.440 it's such a big unlock, is that when we think 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:20.119 about perimenopause and our brain. You know, the messaging out 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.600 there at the moment is so much about hormones and decline. 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.560 But when you use your framework of those three big inputs, 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.600 you realize that hormones are just one part of a 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:34.480 very complex puzzle. So when we come to the solutions, 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.360 because we don't want to feel distractive, we don't want 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:41.880 to feel foggy in the brain, it has to be 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:46.240 more holistic. And this is where I want to shift 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.240 gears and talk about solutions because we're here today because 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:50.920 you know, I don't want to feel foggy. I don't 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:55.320 want to feel distracted from your perspective looking at brain health. 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.280 How do we tackle this? Where do we start? 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.280 If we do, do you feel like there has been 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:05.320 some kind of decline or should I say increase in 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:06.399 those symptoms? 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.479 And for many women. It can be something as small 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.399 as my something which lasted for it. It was kind 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.040 of like a few weeks and I paid attention to it, 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:15.480 and then I decided I'm not going to be a 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:19.200 brain foggy person, so I just kind of went away. 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.879 Was I don't even know whether it was real or not. 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.040 This is the thing, was I was switching words that 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.480 were really closely semantically related. 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:29.320 So I might say, oh, like. 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.119 My son walked in and I said, oh, listen, new 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.320 that's a new lid, I mean hat, yeah, Or I'd 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.359 call a dog a cash or whatever. So it was 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:37.160 very similar. 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:39.159 I call my kids all the wrong names. I go 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:41.600 through everybody, including the dogs, all of that. 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.080 What I find as often another way to kind of 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.200