Ben greenfield Podcast 50
-
Upload
ben-greenfield -
Category
Sports
-
view
530 -
download
0
description
Transcript of Ben greenfield Podcast 50
Podcast #50 from http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/2009/07/brain/
Introduction: In this podcast episode: how to get smarter, the top 10
questions about fat loss, nutrition and human performance;
information about the HCG diet for fat loss, how to shock
your diet off a weight loss plateau, the link between
magnesium deficiency and heart attacks in athletes and
Listener Q and A on cafeeine , blood sugar levels during
exercise, weight lifting for tritahletes, liquid vegetables and
much much more.
Ben: Wow, as you may have guessed from the introduction there
is a ton to cover in today’s podcast. This is in my opinion
going to be one of our best podcasts ever and one of the
reasons for that is this is the 50th episode and we didn’t have
a podcast last week. So I’ve got to double up on the content.
Before I get to anything, you know I know that some of you
out there have had some trouble figuring out how to
subscribe to the podcast or maybe didn’t even know that you
could subscribe to the podcast on something like iTunes and
then some of you also didn’t know that you could subscribe
to the blog and you can literally get automatic emails
whenever anything comes out. I just put the finishing
touches on an update on the page that tells you how to
subscribe, so if you go to www.bengreenfieldfitness.com,
there’s a really apparent link in the upper right hand corner
that says how to subscribe. If you click on that or you know
someone who’s trying to subscribe and doesn’t know how
and they click on that it’s literally just like a 1, 2, 3 easy as pie
way to make sure that you automatically get the free audio
episodes and don’t miss out on any of the content. So as I
mentioned in the introduction to today’s interview – jam-
packed – we’ve got a featured topic which is an interview
with Dr. Arlene Taylor. She’s one of the world’s leading brain
experts. Brand spanking new Journal of Strength and
Conditioning Research just hit the shelves. I’m going to be
bringing you the most relevant research from that. We have
Listener Q and As on caffeine, liquid vegetables, blood sugar
and weightlifting for triathletes and I do have some special
announcements coming up as well and actually after I record
this podcast, I am throwing my podcasting equipment into a
backpack over my shoulder and biking down to the local
Farmer’s Market where a couple of weeks ago I came across a
Native American fellow who was selling a topical ointment
that’s been passed down through his family for managing
muscle inflammatory conditions and so I’m going to find out
exactly what he’s putting in that stuff. So look for that next
week along with a lot of other cutting edge next week
including some information about water. Let’s go ahead and
move into this week’s content.
Ben: This week’s Listener Q and A presents some pretty
interesting questions from listeners and I want to start off
with a question from Listener Andrew.
Andrew asks: I was hoping you could clear up some confusion I have about
caffeine. Currently I avoid caffeine at all costs. I consume no
caffeine whatsoever. My question is if caffeine can be part of
a good nutrition plan, would it be ok to have a cup of coffee
each day? Or perhaps to begin drinking green tea? What is
your opinion on the FRS energy products and the caffeine
they contain? I’ve heard glowing reviews of that product line
even from Lance Armstrong himself. (Ooh la la, the Tour de
France champion has endorsed it so it must be good.)
Ben answers: We actually covered FRS energy drinks quite a bit. I don’t
want to completely blow off your question Andrew, but I’ve
covered those drinks twice in the podcast so far. So I’m going
to put a link after your question in the Shownotes but the
synopsis when we covered is that the thing that makes FRS
energy drinks unique is the component in them called
quercetin and quercetin is actually an immune system
booster you find in things like red onions and apples and it
has been shown in research to help with immune system
support, or the time that someone actually had a cold or the
flu. But, the other things that are in the FRS energy drinks
aside from of course the caffeine were a little bit suspect.
Some artificial colorings, some artificial sweeteners that are
suspect in terms of their health and of course the large
amounts of sugar and typically the small amount of
phosphoric acid and things of that nature that needs to be
placed in a soda or energy drink. Caffeine in general is in my
opinion a great tool in your fat tool box, in your energy tool
box. The problem is you can’t overuse it. I personally do an 8
to 12 oz cup of coffee in the morning and occasionally in the
afternoon if I have a very busy day or very hectic day I will do
an energy drink that’s the equivalent of about one quarter
cup of caffeine and it’s a green tea based energy drink. I use
one called Delta-E. It happens to be the same one that Dr.
Arlene Taylor also uses. She’s the lady that I interviewed
today. But that’s one that I use. Caffeine is something that’s
beneficial. If you build up a tolerance to it, it’s not that
beneficial and you could actually do a little bit of damage to
your liver and your kidney if you’re one of those people that’s
consuming three 30 oz cups of coffee during the day. But a
little bit of coffee to give you a jumpstart is great. It has
what’s called a glycogen sparing effect, meaning that it helps
you to burn less carbohydrate, a little more fat. It helps with
your focus, it helps with your energy levels. It helps stimulate
your central nervous system which is a good thing in a lot of
cases, especially for those of us who need a little jumpstart to
our day. So absolutely I do condone the use of coffee on a
limited basis. As an athlete I do abstain from coffee for at
least 7 days prior to competition and then I take it on the
morning of the competition. So you can use it as what’s
called an ergogenic aid as well. For more information
specifically on what my opinion is on the FRS energy
products – that I’m not super convinced Lance actually uses
– write into me if you’ve seen him drink it. All I’ve seen is
him endorsing it but I didn’t see him suck one of those down
before the individual or team trials in the Tour de France this
week yet. So, listen in to my previous podcast about that
Andrew. Great question.
Amy asks: I’d like to see if you can clarify some information I’ve been
hearing. Set me straight in other words. I’ve heard if your
blood sugar is between 70 and 90 before you exercise, you
will burn more fat. That is apparently the optimal level for
burning the most fat. Can you confirm whether what I’m
hearing is true or false? Also I’m told that you are supposed
to drink your blood sugar level 20 minutes before exercise.
Ben answers: Amy, I don’t know if you’re diabetic and that’s why someone
was talking to you about this, but for those of us who are not
diabetic, checking our blood sugar levels, monitoring our
blood sugar levels before and during exercise is really not
necessary. Granted you could get it to an ideal level, but in
most cases our body, if it is insulin sensitive and if it does
operate directly – which it does not if you have diabetes type
1 or type 2 – then your blood sugar levels as long as you’re
eating a healthy diet are going to be right where they need to
be. However, I want to answer your question a little more
specifically. You say that you’ve heard that blood sugar levels
are supposed to be 70 and 90 before you exercise if you want
to burn more fat. Well yeah, 70 and 90 – it’s called
milligrams per deciliter in terms of your actual concentration,
but 70 to 90 is low. Ok? You are going to tap into your body’s
fat reserves because you don’t really have much carbohydrate
circulating around to burn. Look at it this way, when
diabetics have a blood sugar that’s lower than 100 that’s too
low for them to exercise safely. They risk passing out or
having even bigger problems if their blood sugar is lower
than 100. So if your blood sugar is 70 to 90 and you go
exercise, you probably aren’t going to have much energy at
all. Yeah you’re going to burn fat but I mentioned a few times
the research that shows that people who consume a
carbohydrate based meal at the 30, 60 and 90 minute mark
during exercise end up having a higher exercise post-
metabolic rate and they end up burning more calories overall
during the exercise session than if they exercise starved. So it
returns to the point that I drive home over and over again to
my clients and on the show. The one time that you do want
to take care of your body and the one time you don’t want to
be at a caloric deficit is when you’re exercising because if you
take care of your body from a fueling standpoint while you’re
exercising, you will actually in the long run burn more
calories and burn more fat. So as far as blood sugar levels 20
minutes prior to exercise that you mentioned, not really
necessary unless you are diabetic. And if you are diabetic you
want those numbers to be about 100 to 250. Definitely not
70 to 90. So that’s really low.
Wayne asks: I’m shooting to go 9:40 or lower at Arizona. (Ok, let’s set this
up. He’s an Ironman triathlete. When he says 9:40, he means
he wants to do Arizona Ironman triathlon at 9 hours and 40
minutes.) And I’m going to be doing some intense training
for it. My question is should I hit the gym again during the
summer for strength training, etc.? I think the answer is yes.
I’m currently sitting right around race weight but lifting
weights tends to make me put the weight back on.
Ben answers: Now when I am writing up strength training plans for the
Ironman triathletes who I coach online, the way that I do it is
we do quite a bit of foundation building. We do quite a bit of
hip strengthening, core strengthening, rotator cuff
strengthening and spend up to 3 hours a week in the weight
room during the offseason and during what’s called the base
season. However, once we get around to race season, time is
precious. Unless you’re a professional triathlete who has a lot
of time to train, time is precious and those 3 hours that
you’re spending on the gym are 3 hours that you could spend
swimming, biking or running. So what I do is I use a
technique. I’ve got about 12 different workouts that I draw
on and for anywhere from 2 to 3 times a week, we do shorter
exercise circuits of 20 to 40 minutes that are short, that are
high intensity but that allow the athletes to maintain the
benefits of the foundation phase that we laid in the offseason.
I actually have all those workouts put together. That’s what
my book – The Top 12 Resistance Training Routines for
Triathletes – that’s what that book is actually all about. It’s
just those workouts that we use during the race season as in
boom, hit the gym, get the 20 minutes in, the 30 minutes in
and then boom, leave and go back to your life. Go back to
your training. So for example, on a typical bike day in the
offseason I’ll ride my bike for 45 minutes and then I’ll be at
the gym for an hour or 2 and a half hours, 15 minutes by the
time I get out of there. And that just about flips during race
season. During a race season on a typical bike day, I’ll bike
an hour and 15 minutes and I’ll be at the gym for maybe 20,
30 minutes. So, it really does flip. It really does change in the
race season. The other thing I design those workouts to do is
not put on mass, not put on muscle. Just to maintain the
amount of muscle that you do have. And then our final
question was a call in question from Listener Sue.
Sue asks: Working 14 hours day right now, I don’t have any time to eat
vegetables. Is there any creative way or good way that I can
get vegetable nutrients aside from putting a salad in a
blender and drinking it on my way to work? I look forward to
hearing back from you, thanks a lot. Bye bye.
Ben answers: Sue, yeah. There is. But if you’re listening to the show or for
anybody listening to the show, I don’t want you to use what
I’m about to tell you as an excuse not to eat vegetables. All
I’m going to give you is some information about a way that
you could get in the equivalent of a few salads in a blender on
your way out the door to work. But I really want you to focus
on eating raw vegetables and raw fruit sources as well
because the interaction of all those components in their
whole raw form is going to be a lot better utilized by your
body than a supplement. But if you do want to drink your
vegetables, there are many types of supplements out there
that are basically green powder – the one that I personally
take is called EnerPrime. I’ll put a link to it in the Shownotes
but it’s everything from spirulina to green barley grass. It’s
got a vegetarian enzyme complex in there. It’s got rice
maltodextrin, shitake mushroom extract, beta carotene, the
full spectrum of multivitamins and it really is what you can
get if you were to grind up a few salads in a blender and then
some. It’s got about 32 different nutrients in it and what I do
when I’m in a rush is I take a teaspoon or a tablespoon of
that and I use it in a powder and I just mix it in a glass of
water. Sometimes I’ll pour a little bit of OJ in to sweeten it
up but you drink that down, and that’d be one way to do it.
The same company that makes this stuff – the EnerPrime –
they also make a capsule form. If you don’t like to take it in
powder. So that’d be one way you can do this, Sue. But I
really encourage you if you’re doing that, when you finish
your 14 hour day, still try and get a big salad in. Still try and
get some real food in if you can and bring some stuff to work
too. Bring some mini carrots, throw some sugar snap peas,
some broccoli, some cauliflower in a zip lock, bring that
along. You can put a little bit of sea salt on it or put a little bit
of apple cider vinegar mixed with stevia on it if you want to
sweeten it up a little bit, but ultimately there is a way that
you can get your vegetables in. Just don’t use it as an excuse
not to eat your vegetables. So I’ll put a link to that stuff in the
Shownotes. And remember, if you have a question, not only
am I giving away a free copy of my 100 Ways To Boost Your
Metabolism DVD to the best question this week but you
might also get your question on some of those new videos
that I’m making to answer questions. So email me
[email protected] or call the show toll free
8772099439. And we’re going to go ahead and move on to
this week’s research from the Journal of Strength and
Conditioning Research.
Ben: Ok so one of the deals is that as a certified personal trainer,
that means that I have to be a member of the organization
that certifies me and what I happen to be a member of is one
of the most respected certifying agencies on the planet. It’s
called the National Strength and Conditioning Association,
and they put out a peer review journal called the Journal of
Strength and Conditioning Research and every month I
receive this, I dig through it and I find the stuff that’s most
applicable to the clients that I work with. So while you may
not care about the swing velocity of a reverse jujitsu double
jump kick when somebody has taken in half a gallon of
caffeine and creatine pills, what you may care about are
some of the more down to earth practical tips that you can
glean from this journal. So what I’m going to try and do is
filter for you and give it to you in a format that’s easily
understandable. Because your ears would go buggy if you
read some of the descriptions in the research and you got to
be able to dig through it and find the actual applicable advice.
So the first study that I want to look at and I literally just
have the journal sitting in here on my desk that I’m looking
through. I know there’s a lot of triathletes that listen to the
show. This study is called The Influence of Different
Breathing Frequencies on the Severity of Inspiratory Muscle
Fatigue Used By High Intensity Front Crawl Swimming. And
what this study looked at was the difference in the amount of
fatigue during a 200 meter freestyle swim, when people
drink every second stroke – that’s stroke, stroke, breathe –
with people who breathe every fourth stroke. So they weren’t
looking at arm fatigue or leg fatigue or anything like that.
They were looking at the actual inspiratory muscle fatigue
and they were doing that by looking at the amount of tidal
volume or air volume that people move in and out of their
lungs – the lower tidal volume after this 200 meter indicated
a greater amount of inspiratory muscle fatigue. Well what
they found was there was a significantly greater amount of
inspiratory muscle fatigue after the breathing every four
strokes when compared to the breathing every two strokes
and so the takeaway message from this is your lungs can get
tired and you should think about training your lungs the
same way you would train your arms and your legs and the
whole idea is that when your lungs have to breathe off all this
Co2 that’s being generated from your muscle activity, they
will get tired. And so not only do we know now that the
inspiratory muscles are proven to be susceptible to fatigue –
somebody’s like “Duh, I can tell that I breathe hard or I have
a harder time getting oxygen when I don’t breathe as much
when I’m swimming.” But the second takeaway we can take
away from this is that if you train your lungs – one thing I’ve
been doing since I read this article is whenever I finish a
swim workout, I throw in ten 25 meter repeats of what’s
called hypoxic swimming where all I do is swim from one
end of the pool to the other end and my goal is to not take a
breath the whole time. I rest 20 seconds and then I do it
again and I do it again. And I do that 10 times back and forth.
My arms don’t get tired, my legs don’t get tired when I’m
swimming fast… but my lung muscles, they get tired. And
I’m noticing a difference in that type of training. So that’s
what we can take away from that research study – if you
don’t want to get as tired, breathe more often and think
about actually training your inspiratory muscles.
The next study that I looked at – there’s about five of them in
here – was the Effect of an Acute Bout of Plyometric Exercise
on Neuromuscular Fatigue and Recovery in Recreational
Athletes and this study looked at plyometric exercise which
is kind of an explosive, jumping, maximal twitch type of
exercise. It’d be like jumping on and off a box, doing lunge
jumps, doing clap pushups, that type of thing. And what they
found was that high volume plyometric training actually
resulted in a pretty significant impairment of force after the
workout. They noticed that the impairment remained for
about 2 days after that workout. But the whole idea is that if
jumping and bouncing and doing that type of motion causes
the type of what’s called eccentric loading of the muscle –
that causes that muscle damage – well you might want to
avoid that type of activity prior to any let’s say 5k, 10k,
triathlon competition, sporting event, that’s going to require
for your muscles to be at their peak amount of efficiency or
their peak performance. And so what I would recommend
that you do, and I mentioned this once before on the show –
I know there’s a lot of triathlons out there listening in. If you
are tapering for a triathlon and you’ve got that last week
leading up to your triathlon, prioritize the non-plyometric
type of activities. Meaning you’re going to do a lot more
swimming and you’re going to do a lot more cycling because
you put your run of training and you’re not going to lose your
fitness on the run if you’re not running much that week. But
being that plyometric exercise can leave your muscles unable
to produce their peak force and you’re going to want that
wattage, you’re going to want that force when you’re out
training. So avoid plyometric motions, especially in excess
during a week when you’re going to need your muscles.
So the next study was really interesting. It was The Effect of
Sprint and Interval Training in Body Weight Reduction On
Power to Weight Ratio in Experienced Cyclists. Once again,
I’m catering to you endurance athletes, to you cyclists who
are out there listening in and the purpose of this study was to
see what had the greatest effect on the power to weight ratio:
doing interval training, which was some really high intensity
sprints separated by a good amount of rest and then basically
they were doing that kind of sprint training sessions two
times a week for about 10 weeks. And they compared that
group to a group that didn’t do any of the interval training
but they intentionally reduced their body weight. They went
on a diet. They didn’t fast but they went on a diet. And they
lost a bunch of body fat. And then they had a third group and
the third group performed both these interval training
sessions and they also purposefully reduced their caloric
intake and lost weight at the same time. Now the actual
workout – the actual interval based workout that these
people were doing was 5 minutes of warm-up and then they
did four to five 5 seconds super all-out maximum sprints
with about 30 to 45 seconds of rest after each and then they
did another 5 minutes of aerobic exercise and then they did
an all out effort as hard as possible for 30 seconds, at their
highest possible cadence. So this was just a bunch of real
short 5 second to 30 second intervals. So, what did they find
from this test? Well remember they’re looking at power to
weight ratio, which is a good thing. You’ve got a good power
to weight ratio, you’re going to climb a hill a lot faster, you’re
going to go a lot faster on your bike and you’re going to do a
lot better if you’re out there racing. What they found was that
the people who did the intervals for 10 weeks, they had a
really significant improvement in their power to weight ratio.
It got better. The people that were doing the dieting, that
were purposefully restricting their diet – guess what? Their
power to weight ratio also improved and got better. But
here’s the kicker. The people who did the intervals and
combined the intervals with weight loss, their power to
weight ratio actually decreased. They actually lost their
power as a cyclist when they tried to combine dieting with
intense aerobic exercise. So what this comes down to is that
what probably happened was during the prolonged 10 week
caloric restriction period, they actually didn’t retain enough
protein or their dieting didn’t retain enough protein to repair
their muscles and they broke their bodies down and lost
power by combining diet with intense exercise. The takeaway
message for you is that if you are a competitive endurance
athlete or you’re a competitive athlete in general, try not to
be losing weight and going after performance at the same
time. Try not to get to that point where your sprint triathlon
that you’re doing is 2 weeks away and you think oh gosh I got
to lose 5 lbs. You’d better have lost that 5 lbs a long time ago
when you don’t have to do the intense exercise. So what it
comes down to is you take care of your body when you’re in
the offseason or base season or during the times when you’re
not having to compete hard so when it comes time to
compete hard, you don’t have to go on a diet and do your
hard training at the same time. Because what this study
found is that that actually hurts you a lot more than it helps
you.
So the next study looked at The Effect of Sugar Free Red Bull
Energy Drink on High Intensity Runs Timed to Exhaustion
in Young Adults. Red Bull gives you wings right? And so I
guess what they were looking at was whether or not it really
does give you wings. So they had a bunch of young adults do
a run timed to exhaustion test at 80% of VO2 max. They did
one run timed to exhaustion test one week and then the next
week they did another one and they compared sugar free Red
Bull with a sugar free placebo, which was basically lemon
lime, tonic water and lime juice. And what they found was
that the sugar free Red Bull did not influence that run timed
to exhaustion. So both groups averaged about 12 minutes at
80% VO2 max before they hit the wall. And the group that
took that Red Bull didn’t go any farther than the other group.
Now I just have my own little twist on this study because I
suspect that caffeine is an ergogenic aid. There have been
multiple studies, multiple meta studies which were studies
of studies that have found that caffeine really helps with
exercise in almost any situation from explosive exercise to
endurance exercise. However, Red Bull has a lot more in it
than caffeine. It has a lot more bad stuff in it than caffeine.
Artificial sweeteners for example, we talked about this with
the FRS energy drinks earlier in the show. It’s possible that if
these kids had just taken caffeine and not taken a Red Bull,
they may have improved their run time to exhaustion. But
when you’re sucking down a lot of crap in addition to your
caffeine, I wouldn’t expect you to get any faster. So that’s just
my twist on the study – don’t use this as an excuse not to use
caffeine or not to use energy drinks, they have their place.
But make sure you use healthy ones that don’t have artificial
sweeteners and don’t have a lot of preservatives and
phosphoric acids and other crap in them. Go after the
healthy stuff that you can pronounce all the ingredients on.
You know what you’re getting.
The next study, and this is the last one was a study entitled
Carbohydrate Ingestion During Exercise Does Not Delay the
Onset of Fatigue During Sub-Maximal Cycle Exercise. In this
study, what they did was they compared people who ate
during exercise about every 15 minutes to people who didn’t
eat during exercise and what they found was there was no
change in the amount of time people were able to exercise –
it was about 90 minutes before they had that onset of fatigue
and they weren’t able to keep up their – in this case – their
cycling wattage any longer. So, what this shows and this is
something we already kind of knew as exercise professionals
was that the body does have enough storage carbohydrate on
it to where if you’re going to go out and exercise 90 minutes
and in this case they exercised 90 minutes at about 60 to 65%
intensity, your body can handle it just fine. You don’t have to
be taking Gatorade, Trail Mix or oranges and apples,
chocolate bars to the gym for a 90 minute workout. You
don’t have to do that. You’ll last through the workout. You’ll
be able to maintain intensity assuming it’s not a super
intense workout. However I don’t recommend working out
for longer than an hour without actually taking some type of
exercise fuel because it does affect your post-exercise
metabolic rate and it does have implications for your
recovery. So yeah you can last, but you may not be in quite as
good a shape and you might not actually recover the same
way than if you had taken in a carbohydrate. The other thing
I want you to think about this study is it was done at 65%
VO2 max. That’s not very hard. If you’re going to go out and
snack hard for 90 seconds, you’re definitely going to benefit
from carbohydrate ingestion and those higher blood sugar
levels. So, with every study that you see like this, take it with
a grain of salt. A lot of this stuff annoys the heck out of me. A
lot of this stuff ends up in the media and the media takes it
and runs all sorts of different ways with it and leaves us with
an inability to really interpret the information the way it
should be interpreted. So if you have things that you have
questions on – studies that you’ve seen that media has been
talking about that you have questions on – feel free to email
me and I’ll talk about them on this show. I’ll look into them
and I’ll dig through and find out how they actually did these
studies. So, that is this month’s research from the Journal of
Strength and Conditioning. I know this has been a pretty
long wait but we’re going to go ahead and move on to this
week’s featured topic with the world’s leading brain expert,
Dr. Arlene Taylor.
Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and on the other
line today I have one of the world’s leading speakers on brain
functions and I don’t like to throw this word around too
much but she’s sometimes referred to as the Brain Guru. Dr.
Arlene Taylor is with us today and she specializes in brain
function. In a sense really unleashing somebody’s potential
for their brain to thrive. So she does seminars, consulting,
coaching, she’s been on television and radio. She has
multiple books on brain function, CDs, DVDs, I’ve read a
couple of her books. I actually have one sitting in front of me
right now that I read on a plane that really impressed me. It
really changed the way that I approach a lot of the things that
I do in live. It was called Mind Waves and it was kind of an
exploration of the way that we operate in terms of being
auditory or visual or kinesthetic and I thought the book was
just fantastic. It was really practical information. One of the
things that I started thinking about after reading this book
was gosh, we talk so much on this show about your biology
and optimizing human performance and optimizing your
health and your immune system but very rarely do we talk
about your mental function, about your brain function – and
that is Dr. Taylor’s specialty and today we’re going to talk
about practical ways that you can actually optimize your
brain function and why you might want to think about doing
so. So Dr. Taylor, thank you for coming on the show today.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: It’s my pleasure. Good morning.
Ben: Tell me a little bit about your background in the brain. What
got you started on this?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: You know Ben, lots of people ask me that and it’s sometimes
difficult – since I was born in the late 1800s, you understand
– it’s sometimes a little difficult to go back and trigger
memory for one or two particular incidents. What I can tell
you is that for as long as I can remember I’ve always been
interested in the brain. It just seemed like such a mystery
back when I was a child and of course that was long before
we had any of the brain imaging modalities. But somewhere
along in my life, I began to realize that the way I was living
my life – there ought to be an easier more effective way to do
that. Everyday just seemed so difficult and I thought life does
have its ups and downs but there’s got to be a better way.
And at that point, I was working on a Master’s in
epidemiology and health education and I was looking for a
couple of elective classes to take, and as I was looking at the
board, there was one that said male, female brain differences
and I remember some of the people, some of my classmates
standing around laughing and going well duh? Who needs to
take a class on male, female brain differences? We know the
differences. And I thought hmm, I guess they’d wouldn’t be
offering a class if it was just about the obvious differences so
I enrolled.
Ben: Now was this before Men Are From Mars, Women Are From
Venus?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: That was before that, yes. Before John Grey came out with
that book. So, I enrolled in the class and I swear Ben, it was
the most exciting class I had ever taken because we were just
starting to get some of the male female differences brain
research and it so hand in glove went along with my interests
and I just never looked back from there. In fact, I continually
– I’m doing research myself on aspects of brain function at
one of the health centers where I lecture but if I get a new
piece of information I try to put it back up fairly quickly on
one of my blogs or brain tips or somewhere on the website to
stimulate other people’s interest in the brain because it is
anything interesting.
Ben: Now, this may seem like a stupid question but I would really
like to hear your take on why somebody should be taking
care of their brain. Now when I say taking care – the reason I
put it in that sense is kind of in the introduction, I mentioned
that we talk a lot about taking care of your body, we talk
about nutritional supplements on this show, we talk about
exercise, we talk about fitness, we talk about eating healthy.
But before we talk about how to make your brain healthy,
why should somebody even care? Are there issues with the
brain – is there a health or non-health of the brain?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Well first of all, there are no stupid questions. I know you
meant that tongue in cheek Ben, however all progress begins
with a question, and sometimes the question may not sound
terribly erudite but it’ll stimulate someone to think about
things in a new way. Now, this is my brain’s opinion and this
is all I have because every brain is unique and we only have
our own opinions. We can take the opinions of others and
make it ours but that’s all we have and once I understood
that – it’s been a long time since I had a foolish argument,
the kind that we hear all the time like “I told you that,” “No,
you didn’t,” and we waste time and energy on foolish
arguments. So having said that, all we are is our brain in
essence. And while I am absolutely committed to
maintaining the health of the body and supporting immune
system function, if you have a strong body and a good
immune system function but your brain has gone to pot, you
cannot meaningfully even use your level of health and
engage meaningfully in a life. And the last part to go is your
brain. So for me, everything pretty much starts and ends in
the brain and the reason that I want a healthy body is to help
support brain function. And the reason I want a healthy
brain is so that I can use my healthy body for as long as I
possibly can for the full extent I possibly can which for me is
aiming to be about 120.
Ben: You mentioned… you used the phrase “When the brain goes
to pot” or allowing the brain to go to pot. Let’s be a little bit
more specific and what I want to know is how does
someone’s brain go to pot? What happens when someone’s
brain is unhealthy? On a physical level?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: There are many factors that impact whether or not the brain
is healthfully functional. And some of those, we can do
something about and some of them, we can’t. The current
research suggests that more than half of the factors that
impact the health and functionality of a person’s brain are
within our partial if not complete control. So those are the
areas on which I want to concentrate. The kinds of factors,
the kinds of behaviors that will help to keep my brain healthy.
Now trauma sometimes, we cannot prevent trauma. That can
affect the brain. There are times when we have inherited or
familial tendencies that are not negative to the brain and
sometimes we can’t prevent those. Although there are studies
that indicate, if you know what those are, sometimes you can
do things to delay the onset. For example, if you know that
diabetes runs in your family, being really proactive about
taking care of your diabetes can in many cases help to reduce
the impact to the brain. Then there are things like viruses
and bacteria and other infections, and you may be able to
minimize those by living a high level wellness lifestyle. So
you can’t do everything. But you can do something and my
brain’s opinion is you figure out what you can partially or
completely control and that’s where you put your time,
money and energy.
Ben: And what type of factors can we control when it comes to our
brains?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Oh my goodness, there are so many of them. In fact one of
my latest books is 21 Factors that you can control that have
to do with age proofing your brain and that goes – if I want
to put it in a nutshell Ben, it’s living an absolutely high level
wellness lifestyle to the best of your ability, meaning that
you’re taking responsibility for what you eat, for what you
drink, for how much water you get on a daily basis, for
exercise, for learning how to manage stress, for taking time
to play, for getting enough sleep, for challenging your brain
everyday for a minimum of 30 minutes and so on and so
forth.
Ben: Now when I am not doing these types of things, what
happens to my brain? If I’m eating in an unhealthy manner,
if I’m not exercising, if I’m not engaging in things that
socially stimulate my brain, what actually happens?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: There can be any number of things that can happen. For
example, there are no muscles in the brain per se. And the
only way that we really clean out waste products from the
brain and bring it micronutrition and oxygen and glucose
and other things that the brain needs is through exercise.
When we do physical exercise, especially aerobic it helps to
increase the rate at which the blood flows through the brain
and that’s very good for it. Something as simple as brain
breathing several times a day, getting more air into your
lungs and more oxygen to your brain can be very, very
helpful. Not stimulating your brain can lead to what we often
refer to as a lazy brain. Meaning most people are aware that
your brain is filled with neurons – those specific cells that
have an increased ability to talk to each other, to share
information, how we think cognitively and by the way we
now know that your heart has a lot of neurons as well which
is fascinating in that that gives some basis for the emerging
body of knowledge on emotional intelligence. But if you don’t,
these neurons don’t touch each other. Most people got that
in high school or college biology, there’s a space in them
called the synapse or the synaptic gap and part of how well
we think is related to the size of that gap. So when you are
regularly, routinely stimulating your brain think of a neuron
as your hand. Your palm represents the cell body, your
thumb represents the axon – that large protection for most
neurons – and then your fingers represent what we call
dendrites that pull information into the cells. Well look at
your hand and sort of form a loose fist. Take your other hand,
form a loose fist and about a couple of inches apart from
each other. Now stretch each hand out, your fingers as far
out as you can go, both hands and now picture that this
space between your hands is about a quarter of an inch
across. That’s a rough model of what can happen in the brain
when you don’t keep stimulating those neurons and keep
them stretched out. You gradually, as the dendrites and
axons begin to contract from lack of use really, this canal,
this synaptic gap between them begins to widen. Now it takes
longer for the little neurotransmitter boats if you want to use
that metaphor to carry the information across the canal to
another dendrite. And it can actually come to the point
where it’s so far across that the boats just don’t make it. And
then the brain can begin to exhibit symptoms of what we call,
colloquially, senility. Meaning the person is just not thinking
quickly and clearly. And in the absence of other brain
damage or other chronic conditions, this can be reversed just
by starting on a program of really stimulating the brain every
day. And that’s pretty exciting to watch Ben.
Ben: And when you talk about stimulating your brain every day,
are there specific exercises that people can be doing to
ensure that this gap – this highway between neurons –
remains as free flowing as possible?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Absolutely. There are specific exercises. I will start broadly
and say that anything that’s challenging to the brain and
involves new information or material can help those neurons
stay stretched out. That’s why for example, travel is very
good for the brain because you’re seeing new things, eating
new foods, smelling new scents, seeing new people, doing
things the brain has never done before. Now, you can look at
going perhaps to the junior college, if you’re done with your
formal education and taking a class for fun that your brain
doesn’t know that subject or taking that subject further. And
as you consciously have the brain do that, it will be very
stimulating. There are any number of what I call brain
aerobic exercises that you can do that range anywhere from
Sudoku to crossword puzzles to brain perception, puzzles. I
just finished with a co-author another book called Age
Proofing Your Memory. And it’s filled with examples of those
types of exercises. So we believe that that will make a huge
difference in a person’s brain function barring some of the
factors that you can’t do anything about. However, even
those factors, Ben, if you understand what they are, you can
be proactive to minimize that. For example, we know for
example how traumatic trauma can be to the brain. So if
you’re riding a bicycle or a motorcycle, you do want to wear a
helmet. If you’re in a vehicle, you do want to wear your
seatbelt and you do want to avoid tailgating. You do want to
look around your house and get anything off the floor,
especially as people get older, that might be a trip hazard.
Because falls are a big problem for people if they fall and hit
their heads. So, even the factors that you can’t totally control
– that’s why we call them accidents – they were unplanned,
you can minimize them. For example the 13th of July I’m
going to have my left hip replaced. I have a familial history
for several generations back of osteoarthritis and it has
affected that hip. I’m planning to have a spinal anesthetic,
not a general on purpose to minimize the anesthetic effects
to my brain. Now there might not – every surgery you might
not be able to do that. But I’m doing what I can to minimize
the negative impact to my brain.
Ben: Interesting, and these specific lifestyle habits that people can
incorporate such as the Sudoku, the crossword puzzles that
you talked about, stimulating the brain by visiting new places,
trying to travel, opposing those… are there lifestyle habits
that you think people engage in these days that would be
damaging to the brain? In addition to things that we know
about like drinking too much? Are there other things that
people do that you think are affecting the brain in a
deleterious way?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Probably lots of things, especially for diet. High fat, high salt
diets can contribute to atherosclerosis which is a narrowing
of the blood vessels in the brain and when you can’t get
enough oxygen through the brain that’s a problem. Things
like exercising on a bright sunny day right beside a busy
highway, because that means the breaths you take while
you’re exercising will theoretically contain a large number of
free radicals from vehicle exhaust. And free radicals are not
good for the brain. You want to avoid those. So I always
encourage people to exercise away from highways where
there’s a lot of traffic, simply to avoid taking those chemicals
into your brain.
Ben: Now what about exercising indoors? Do you think the type of
toxins, cleaners, things of that nature, for example used in a
commercial gym would also be something that someone
should consider when it comes to their brain health?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Boy, that’s a hard one. I think it would depend on the gym
and I think it would depend on what people’s alternatives
were. There’s nothing flawless in this world, Ben. Nothing.
You always give up something to get something. So let’s say
you’re in a gym and they put in a new carpet and there is
going to be some amount of (inaudible), if that is your
alternative to be safer and to be protected for half an hour or
an hour breathing in vehicle exhaust then I’d take the gym.
So it begins to be a matter of – weigh things. Cause and effect.
Which one do you think would be the least damaging? And I
don’t worry about it. I analyze things, take which I think is
my best option and then just go for it, knowing that nothing
is ever going to be flawless but there can be definitely
benefits to prevent what you can if you want to put it that
way.
Ben: Now one of the things that I was thinking about as you were
talking about continually keeping your brain, for lack of a
better word, entertained is the fact that people fall into day
to day lifestyle habits that put them into a rut or into a
routine and it sounds to me like what you’re saying is that it
may be beneficial to break out of that routine as you go
through your day to day activities.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: I think it’s so – it’s not beneficial, I think it’s mandatory Ben.
Ben: What are some practical ways that people can incorporate
things into their lifestyle that allow them to break out of that
routine? Obviously travel is a great example but that’s
something someone has to plan for and lay a schedule, but in
terms of just being able to get home or being at work and
having a quick chance to stimulate the brain, what are some
things that people can do other than Sudoku and the
crossword puzzles?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Well let’s just make a comment about travel. I’m not talking
about a 3 week trip to China, although if you can do that so
much the better. But you can travel a different way to work,
which will be different sights and make your brain function
in a different way. You can take yourself or the family across
town to see something you’ve never seen before. That is a
form of travel. So you don’t have to think only of the big stuff.
Ben: That’s a good point. I actually – a lot of times after a long day
at work where I’ve been stressed for several hours. I will
literally – I never thought about why I did it – but I’ll just
drive a different way home than I usually drive and maybe
subconsciously I’m just trying to keep myself entertained and
stimulate my brain. That’s a good point about travel.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Another thing that you can do is you can read aloud for a
minimum of 10 minutes every day because studies have
shown that something entirely different happens to the brain
when you’re reading aloud as compared to reading quietly or
silently to yourself. So you can read out loud to your kids, to
your partner, to your cat, to yourself but reading aloud
everyday is critically important. Many people in this country
sit for many hours a day watching television and that’s what
we call pastic picturing meaning that you’re processing in
your brains something that another brain has created and
while the research does show that a little television can be
very helpful – in other words, people who watch no
television often seem to exhibit in some studies the same
brain characteristics as people who watch a lot. So the
recommendation is watch about an hour a day, be careful
what kind of programs you want to watch. But one of the
biggest things you can do is just turn the tube off in favor of
for example reading a book, because when you are reading
silently or aloud, you are creating internal pictures in your
brain about the information that you’re reading instead of
looking at pictures created already by somebody else. You
can decide for example to turn all the pictures upside down
on your desk or piano or mantle for a day or two and your
brain when it looks at them will go oh my goodness, that’s
different.
Ben: Interesting.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: And then you can put them right side up and a week or two
later turn them on their side. Anything that gives the brain
something new to look at. If you are primarily right handed,
decide you’re going to learn to eat with your left hand and
believe me it’s going to be just a tad messy at first but it will
really be worth it. In my case I certainly was born with a
functional left hand but I was so strongly right handed Ben
that I could hardly do anything with my left hand except
have it be decorative and when I began to learn this
information, I decided ok, enough of that we’re going to
stimulate my brain in a new way. So I have two computers. I
have one at the hospital office and I have one at the
Realizations, Inc. office. So I made the decision that when I
was at the hospital office, I would only and always use the
mouse with my right hand. However when I was at the
Realizations, Inc. office, I would always and only use the
mouse with my left hand. Believe me, it was a steep learning
curve. It took me weeks to get me really facile with that hand.
But I would be hard-pressed now Ben to tell you that my left
hand is not almost as good if not as good as my right hand
when it comes to using the mouse.
Ben: Interesting, and people can do this with things as simple as
brushing their teeth and eating, right?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Absolutely.
Ben: It seems silly that that simple change of just picking up your
fork with your left hand rather than your right hand could
actually make a difference in securing the health of your
brain but it sounds like from what you’re saying is that
research has actually shown that simple things like that can
actually help?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Sometimes, the simpler activities are actually more beneficial
to the brain than what we would consider complex activities.
Take mathematics for example, studies indicate that simple
math problems done quickly are probably more challenging
to the brain overall in terms of the type of stimulation we’re
talking about than complex. So you take a page or you buy a
book that’s got a page of simple math problems – addition,
and you do one for subtraction, one for division, one for
multiplication and we’re talking simple here Ben. We’re
talking 12 – 10, 7 x 6, 20 divided by four, 3 + 2 and you do a
page of those, timing yourself with a stopwatch. Now your
goal is to do it again the next day and see if you can beat your
time and you keep doing that until you get the lowest
possible time. Now you take another page and you go
through that process again. And this appears to be much
more stimulating to your brain as a way to keep those
dendrites stretched out than the more complex, algebraic,
geometric problems.
Ben: That’s a great suggestion. That’s something that I guess
occasionally I’ll play mental exercises like that on the way to
work where I’ll take 2 + 2 and take the product of that and
add 4 + 4 and just see how far I can go and how quickly I can
go.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Good.
Ben: Those are the types of things I guess I sometimes do when
I’m bored but they actually can help make you stronger and
increase your brain health.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: If you feel bored and what we know now suggests that the
more extroverted a brain is, the more likely it is to become
bored unless there’s a lot of variety or stimulating stuff going
on around it. So if you anytime feel bored, that’s a marvelous
time to pull a book out of your pocket and do some simple
brain aerobic exercises and if you’re driving, you can’t pull
anything out of your pocket, but you could definitely do it
mentally, as you just explained. And that’s fabulous for your
brain Ben.
Ben: In your book Mind Waves, you talk about the difference
between the ways that people’s brains function from an
auditory, visual or kinesthetic perspective and while the book
goes into a great deal of detail about the differences between
all those, I think that one of the biggest things that I took out
of that book was the fact that if you are, for example.. which I
am, an auditory person, it helps your brain to grow, to
engage in activities that actually don’t cater to what your
strengths are. So for example, for me as an auditory person I
would want to engage in for example kinesthetic or visual
activities. Can you talk for just a second about how that
actually works and give me a couple of examples?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Well if you’re born with an unimpaired brain and I say that
sort of tongue in cheek Ben, because we all have impaired
brains, but in general if you’re born with a brain that’s
generally considered to be normal, average – we have the
ability to process sensory stimuli which is the only way really
we can relate to each other in the world and the world. When
we’re little kids, we talked about seeing and hearing and
smelling and tasting and so on, things. In general, you can
lump all of those types of sensory data into three groups. You
are visual and that means what you take in through your eyes
registers more quickly and intensely in your brain. Or your
auditory and what you hear registers more quickly and
intensely or you’re kinesthetic and what you smell and taste
and sense in terms of the clothes against your skin and the
temperature in your room and body position and muscle
action registers most quickly and intensely in your brain.
That doesn’t mean that you use all three. It means that if
you’re subjected to all three, one type usually gets your
attention most quickly. So your point that if you’re primarily
auditory and so am I Ben, which means we’re usually pretty
comfortable speaking and listening and reading because
reading is processed in the same part as the brain as
listening – you can read of course with your eyes and your
ears or your fingers – it will be more stimulating to our
brains to do things for which we don’t have this immediate,
quick, intense response to. So since visual is my least sensory
system – meaning I have eyes and I think things are out
there but I don’t see detail in the way that people do that
have the visual sensory preference – I get myself books for
example that have find the differences between two pictures
so that I can help my brain to take information in visually in
the way that ordinarily I wouldn’t gravitate toward to
because I’m so auditory. I can eat a bite of food and ask
myself am I able to identify some separate flavors in this
particular type of food which is very kinesthetic and
something I wouldn’t ordinarily do. I can burn a scented
candle while I am reading a book which is going to be
stimulating my sense of kinesthesia which will perhaps give a
different flavor to what I’m doing while I’m reading the
books. So, Ben, the ramifications – the potential – they’re
endless. They just depend on how creative you want your
brain to be.
Ben: What I really appreciated was the fact that you can even
incorporate this into your relationships, for example being
an auditory person I am not as strong – and that’s actually
where I ranked the lowest in the book – was the kinesthetic
awareness. Just doing something as simple as not
appreciating the fact that sometimes like in your family to be
hugged or touched more. Just after reading the book I
realized oh gosh, I maybe give my wife a big hug once a day
and I could be doing that five or six times a day because if
she’s a kinesthetic person she’s going to appreciate that even
for myself as an auditory person, I find having a conversation
with her to be something that I appreciate quite a bit. She
might appreciate a hug just as much.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: It’s so key Ben. In fact the reason that I put the sensory
preferences on my website and anyone can go download it
free of charge and you did to figure out what their preference
is. Most people, we believe, have one. Because the bottom
line is that if we’re not aware, we tend to relate to others in
our preference because we believe that takes less energy in
our brain. Now if you happen to be partnered with someone
who has the same sensory preference and your kids all have
the same sensory preference, it’s a non issue. But that
doesn’t always happen. If you’re auditory and your wife is
kinesthetic and let’s say you have a visual and kinesthetic
child. Neither one of whom is auditory – then figuring out
what they are allows you to affirm them, to nurture them in
the use of sensory stimuli that will register most quickly in
their brains. And that’s how they feel loved and valued and
comfortable. It’s so easy to do once you have that awareness.
Your example is absolutely magnificent. As an auditory, you
tend as I do to relate to others through sound. Whether that’s
a word or a “hmmm” or something like that, that registers
quickly in our brain. But if you’re dealing with a kinesthetic
who is into odors and taste and touch, that won’t register
very quickly in their brain and the first thing I want to
remind people is that yes kinesthetics relate to touch but
they are very discriminating about who touches them. So I
don’t ever run up and hug a kinesthetic unless I know they’re
open to that, but if they are they’re going to feel affirmed by a
hug in a very different way than they would feel affirmed if I
just said, well hi Jane I’m really glad to see you today. It’s
critically important for children. When I have a parent bring
a child to me and say “This year my child is not doing well in
school and I don’t know what the problem is.” The first thing
I’ll look at is can we figure out what the teacher’s sensory
preference is and can we figure out the child’s preference.
Because if they’re very different, that child may be struggling
to learn simply because it’s so difficult to learn in a sense that
it takes more energy in the brain and so on.
Ben: Interesting. Now I know that one of the things that the
audience is quite into is exercise and I just want to touch on
this before I move on to the last issue I wanted to ask you
about and that is that I’ve been thinking as we talk about the
fact that people tend to also get into a rut with their exercise
routines and I personally just wanted to throw a word of
encouragement out to you and that is at the end of every gym
type of routine that I do, and typically I’ll go to the gym for
about 30 to 40 minutes, I always save 5 to 10 minutes to
throw something new at myself. Whether it be a new exercise
machine or a new balance device or something that keeps my
body and of course my brain guessing during the exercise
routine, so as you’re out there in the audience listening in,
realize that these types of techniques can also be used to
enhance your brain fitness so to speak. Is that right?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: That’s such a good way to put it. In fact, the brain gets
quickly. For example, about 18 to 24 months after you begin
a romantic relationship, the brain goes “Ok, been there, done
that. Now what else can we do?” And that’s the critical
importance – to make a commitment to have a primary
person your whole life, you need to continually do things
differently with each other to keep the brain excited. Well
exercise is exactly the same and many people get bored with
the same type of exercise and the brain doesn’t like to
continue something for which it does not get a reward. So
one of the key important things that you can do is always
change up your exercise routine. Let’s just say for example,
and you’re the exercise guru, so you can refine this more
than I can – but let’s say you go to the gym and you do 15
minutes on a treadmill and you do 10 minutes swimming
and you do 10 minutes on a weight machine. You do that that
in that order a few times and your brain starts yawning
metaphorically. So change it up if you possibly can all the
time. Swim 10 minutes then do your treadmill then do your
weight. The next day do your weights, treadmill and swim.
Next time do treadmill, swimming, weight. Do you see what I
mean?
Ben: Yep, and that both from a brain perspective and a fitness
perspective is important because whenever you’re putting
the muscle into new angles it basically isn’t allowed to adapt
or become efficient at that movement and that actually has
quiet a good crossover into getting fitter.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: I think there’s so much crossover Ben, if people just
understood that they can be exercising and we do need the
aerobic exercise. We also need some stretching and some
balance and some flexibility. But if they do those exercises in
a novel way – we’re not talking unsafe – we’re just talking
novel in the way they’re doing them or the order in which
they’re doing them. They will also be stimulating the brain
which of course has the potential for allowing the brain to
stay healthier longer and therefore help them to be able to
exercise longer. Because you know as well as I do that
athletes at every age seem to be healthier in general than
non-athletes. So we don’t have to be Olympic competitors
but we can do something every day, every week to do both at
the same time. Another thing you can do is if you are
auditory and enjoy books on tape, which I do, which also
other people can learn to do even if they’re not auditory –
instead of just listening to the same music over and over on
your iPod while you’re on the treadmill, try listening to
something on tape that’s cognitive – a story that you have to
follow a storyline that you’re making pictures in your brain
while you’re exercising. If you do this on a topic that you’re
already interested in, it can be amazing how you can hardly
realize the exercise time has gone by because your brain was
also engaged cognitively.
Ben: That’s a great point. Now there was one other thing that I
wanted to ask you. I have a supplement that I talked about
before on the show that I take for energy called Delta-E and
one of the things claimed on the literature is that it has a
component in it that actually helps with your mood. It helps
with your brain function and I got a magazine in one of my
orders that actually had an article by you about that
compound called Theanine. And what I was curious was
number one, is that something that you supplement with or
that you take? And number two, is it something that really
can help with the brain function or the mood?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: That’s a very complex question. First of all, yes. I take Delta-
E everyday of my life and absolutely believe in what it does
for my brain. Not only the B complex that it contains but
especially the L-Theanine which is really quite a player. And
there are some research articles out that indicate that for
many people it is able… having adequate levels of L-
Theanine helps to improve memory, learning ability and so
on and so forth. Now, here’s the kicker. Not every brain
needs the same thing. So when I take a nutritional product
and I take two of them every day. Delta –E is one of them,
the other one is EnerPrime which has as its base green
superfood, I picture that I am giving my brain this exposure
to a marvelous buffet. Many other brains can go to that same
buffet but I might need certain things on that buffet for my
brain that another brain won’t need but they’ll need
something else on that buffet. And that’s why it’s so difficult
to say, you take this micronutrient and it will do blah blah
blah for your brain. If your brain doesn’t need that particular
piece you’re not going to notice a lot of difference but if it
does you can notice a huge difference and since L-Theanine
for example does a lot of different things, most brains that I
have interacted with that take the product definitely see
some benefit and I’m taking it because I believe that long-
term, it can help to strengthen both my brain and my
immune system.
Ben: Interesting, so is that something that you think people are
deficient in or something that people aren’t getting enough of?
Or is it something that there still needs to be research done
on?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Well I think there is ongoing research right now that
indicates, unfortunately, just like many adults in this country
especially as they get up to the age of 50, 55 are dehydrated,
are not drinking enough water everyday which is lethal for
the brain because dehydration tends to increase the
production of free radicals. It appears that as the brain gets
older, it begins to drop its levels of L-Theanine. And one of
the things that L-Theanine reportedly does for the brain is
stimulate the release of nerve growth factor or NGF as it’s
called. And that particular factor contributes to the growth of
dendrites – those little fingers on your neuron hand. And it’s
definitely needed by the brain cells that use acetyl koline for
signaling, meaning that it’s important for the cells to help
you be alert, think quickly and calmly. And so I believe that
at almost any age people can start perhaps preventing the
decline of amounts of L-Theanine in the brain by going
ahead and taking it. It also reportedly activates something
called the 5th taste sense on your tongue. There’s a Japanese
word for that which I can’t pronounce which has to do with
your taste buds being able to process how delicious
something else.
Ben: Interesting.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: Now one of the problems in our culture is monosodium
glutamate. My brain’s opinion is that it is really lethal. It is a
brain toxic. And I try to avoid anything that’s got MSG in it
or…
Ben: I heard the fuzzy feeling that you get after you eat Chinese
food is the feeling of a million brain neurons. I don’t know if
that’s true.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: I don’t know but I ask in every Chinese restaurant if they use
MSG and if they do, I don’t want to eat there. But here’s the
problem. Anything that’s MSG or chemicals that end in –ate
are called neurotoxic substances. Well L-Theanine activates
that 5th taste sense which theoretically can do for your taste
buds what MSG would do without the neurotoxic effects.
And I love the taste of food even though kinesthesia is my
second sensory preference, so I believe that I am enjoying my
food more now that I’m taking Delta-E.
Ben: Interesting. I thought it was interesting to find out what the
world’s leading brain authority actually supplements with for
their brain, so that was good to know. Now do you have any
final resources to which you would point the audience to
learn more about brain function? I know that you mentioned
the survey – the brain sensory survey that you have on your
website – anything else that you think would be helpful for
the audience in terms of growing their brain?
Dr. Arlene Taylor: What I’m trying to do, Ben, is make my website the most
complete and user-friendly resources for what I’m able to
discover about brain function. So individuals can go to my
website which is basically my name, it’s really easy.
www.arlenetaylor.org and they can click on “Brain Bits” and
every week there’s a little new brain bit about what we’re
learning about brain function. They can go to something
called “Brain Facts” and there are dozens of links that will
take them to the little piece of brain function research and
where I found that. So they can do a tremendous amount of
brain stimulation by looking at those types of resources and
then if they find something, for example, that they’re really
interested in then they can get books or look on the Internet
for additional information and all of that is going to
stimulate brain function and hopefully help them retain
cognition for a very long time.
Ben: That’s fantastic. You have several books out. I’m going to put
a link to at least the book that I have sitting here in front of
me, just because it’s the one that I most recently read. I’ll put
a link to that one in the Shownotes as well as a link to your
website where I’m sure that people can find out about the
other books that you’ve written. Just very easy to read,
simple to understand books. It’s not like they’re textbooks on
neurofunction – but I’ve actually enjoyed your books because
they’ve got stuff that I can just practically implement right
away. So that’s very useful. But I wanted to thank you for
coming on the show today, Dr. Taylor.
Dr. Arlene Taylor: It’s always my pleasure to talk to you Ben. It’s fun to talk to
somebody who has similar interests in health, immune
system, exercise, the brain. Of course when we talk to people
about similar interests, we always feel a little bit smarter and
we can exchange information with each other so I appreciate
being your guest. Have a wonderful day.
Ben: Alright, you too, Arlene. Thanks.
For personal nutrition, fitness or triathlon consulting, supplements, books or DVD’s
from Ben Greenfield, please visit Pacific Elite Fitness at http://www.pacificfit.net