Barbell Shrugged - Physiology Friday: [Brain Health] Science and Strategies for Optimizing Brain Health w/ Dan Garner, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

In today’s episode of Barbell Shrugged, we'll be discussing the various factors that impact brain health and exploring strategies for optimizing brain function. First, we'll be discussing the impact of exercise on brain health. Research has shown that regular exercise can help to improve brain function, enhance cognitive performance, and even reduce the risk of certain neurological disorders. We'll also be discussing the types of exercise that are most beneficial for the brain. Next, we'll be exploring the role of nutrition and supplements in promoting brain health. Certain foods and supplements have been shown to improve brain function and reduce the risk of cognitive decline. We'll be discussing which foods and supplements are most effective and how to incorporate them into your diet. Stress is another important factor that can impact brain health. Chronic stress has been shown to have negative effects on the brain, including impairing cognitive function and increasing the risk of neurological disorders. We'll be exploring strategies for managing stress to optimize brain health. There are several lab markers that can provide insights into brain health, such as inflammatory markers, lipid levels, and neurotrophic factors. We'll be discussing the significance of these markers and how they can be used to assess brain health. Sleep is also essential for brain health, as it plays a critical role in memory consolidation and cognitive function. We'll be discussing the importance of getting adequate sleep and strategies for improving sleep quality. Finally, we'll be exploring the impact of alcohol on the brain. While moderate alcohol consumption has been shown to have some health benefits, excessive alcohol consumption can have negative effects on brain function and increase the risk of neurological disorders. To learn more, please go to https://rapidhealthoptimization.com Connect with our guests: Dan Garner on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Farbell Shrug Physiology Friday is back. Dan Garner is going to be talking about brain health. Yeah, you're going to get smarter listening to this podcast, and you're going to be having the actionable steps to continually get smarter and smarter and keep your brain forever, which is a good thing. As always, friends, make sure you get over to aretelab.com. A-R-E-T-E-L-A-B.com.

That is where you can learn about the signature program inside Rapid Health Optimization. All of the labs, the testing, the analysis, the coaching, and how we get you feeling and performing better than you ever have in your entire life. You can access all of that over at aretalab.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, Dan Garner. Today on Barbell Shrug, we're going to be talking brain health. And guess what?

At the end of the show, Dan Garner is going to tell you where to go get his brand new concussion protocol. I'm putting that at the top of the show, even though you want to talk about the end of the show. So we're going to make sure we get to the concussion protocol that you and O'Malley are working on. Yo, but today I want to dig in. Brain health is really at like the top of, I think I figured out how this body works for the most part. And all the questions that I have, Dan Garner knows the answers to, so we're good there. The brain thing though, I have like some serious family problems on the brain side of things. My family lives a long time and the brain disappears towards the

end. But I love to even start out just more than the long-term kind of dementia side of things and really talk about kind of like impact of basic exercise and how brain health and movement training, how those things are correlated as just kind of like a high level start to understanding brain health. So I mean, at the highest level going on walks is something that is something that is already beneficial for the brain. Like there are many complicated and nuanced conversations surrounding nootropics, and micronutrients and very complicated situations in inflammations and fatty acids. But going on a walk like the University of Illinois, they took it was 126 sedentary subjects and had them just walk three times per week. And at the beginning of the study, they measured the size of their hippocampus, which is the center of memory consolidation. And then after one year of

going on brisk walks three times per week, as you age, your hippocampus actually progressively shrinks. After one year, the hippocampus did not only not shrink, it actually grew a bit with three brisk walks per week. And then at the end of this, they actually came up with their own progressive system and cutoff point to our beginning at three 10 minute walks per week. And then you add five minutes. So on week one is three 10 minute walks, week two, three 15 minute walks, week three, three 20 minute walks, you actually ramp that up until it's three 40 minute walks per week. That was the conclusion that they came to for hippocampal health. So just kind of off the hop, like if you already want to do something beneficial for your brain, and I'm talking to a lot of people out there who just skip cardio because they think it's boring. This is not just about, you know, fighting catabolism, which you can actually walk with that anyways. But it's your brain health, man. It's your hippocampus.

It's something that's been demonstrated. I think that right out of the gates, I think that's something that absolutely everybody could do from an exercise perspective. But I also want to actually kind of kick this off with something else that veers away from the complicated and nuanced conversations and revolves purely around context.

Context, we know very little about the brain at this point in time. There are people way smarter than me who know a lot more about the brain. But there are also things that are extremely misunderstood. Like, for example, lactobacillus ruderi, that is a bacteria that has been demonstrated to lower kids with ASD, autism spectrum disorder, lower symptoms and even improve learning. So bacteria, lactobacillus ruderi, playing a big role in how the brain responds to stimuli and even learns. Or in mice, if you give mice the colonization of

toxoplasma gondii they actually have this weird thing where they stop becoming afraid of cats and they'll actually walk right up to them completely unafraid they've lost their ability to recognize that that is a predator like bacteria actually is programming our brain to do things and in ways that we do not understand yet. So like, as far as zooming out from a context perspective, I always find it very difficult to just say this is good for brain health. And that's good for brain health. And this is good for brain health. Because what's the context of the brain health? Like if somebody has anxiety, like let's just even if somebody has anxiety, I think you guys would

probably all agree that instead of taking something to just wildly suppress anxiety, we should probably address where that anxiety is even coming from. To begin with, like, that's, that's super common in the industry. What herbs can I take for anxiety? What can I take to lower anxiety? It's kind of like, well, where's your anxiety coming from? Because like, from a brain health perspective, the way in which I would coach you can go in so many different directions. Because did you get some lab work back, and your cholesterol values were really bad, and your lipoprotein A was bad, and that resulted in anxiety? Well, should I give you ashwagandha to lower your anxiety? Or should we actually get on a protocol to improve your cardiac markers and loosen weight?

Because that's what's actually going to result in the thing that needs to take place in order to reduce anxiety. Or maybe you're walking around the day with a lot of brain fog, and you're just you're lacking productivity because you have this brain fog. Well, in that case, a nootropic might actually be in order to stimulate productivity to stimulate focus and attention, stimulate memory consolidation, something like Nupept, which increases acetylcholine to help with all of those things, that could actually keep you the productivity you need so that you're not as behind on your schedule as you currently are, so that you can relieve yourself of the anxiety that you're giving yourself on a day-to-day basis because of productivity and not because you need to suppress a chemistry associated with anxiety.

But if it is truly chemistry-based, then yeah, ashwagandha when the sun goes down, that's something that can be really beneficial in lowering anxiety. So brain health, as it pertains to utilizing certain foods and certain nutrients to create an efficacious result is still context specific. It's something that you need to actually have an assessment for first, before you just start diving into things. And I think that one thing that I think is globally recommended could be the walks per day. But but after that, beyond just eating a healthy diet, I do think things are very, very context specific. Would you say that if you read the book? What is it? Oh, man. John Rady, Spark, the book Spark, where they talked about there was a school in Naperville, Naperville Central in Chicago.

It's like a Chicago suburb and where they introduced PE back to the students and then their grades shot through the roof, which sparked this guy. He's a psychiatrist at Harvard, teaches psychiatry at Harvard. And so they started doing more research and they realized that exercise would spark work in the hippocampus or would spark action activity in the hippocampus. And then they started doing, they've recently done more research that they're about to write about where they've added now,

not just resistance exercise, but things like either gymnastics or martial arts or Olympic weightlifting, something that's more complicated, which has sparked other areas of the brain that led to better balance, more creative thinking. But aren't there, though, some best practices is my point. Yeah. But aren't there, though, some best practices is my point. Yeah, it's funny because like something like the journey of martial arts is one that I think is so beneficial for so many reasons. I think that that's a great a great way in which someone could go about improving their overall health, but also their brain health. You know, obviously, contact aside, that's something that's of course um gonna negatively impact that but the pursuit of um accomplishment getting your next belt like i remember when i was

going through the ranks in taekwondo like man getting that next belt it was the best feeling in the world but then all i wanted to do was get the next one like you just you just kept freaking it's something that just yeah yeah yeah but that dopamine response is kind of what I'm getting at here because it's so rare where people do something for themselves these days. Like when, when I'm working with someone who is a, wants to drop body fat, like it's super, super common because they recently had a breakup and now they want to get lean again, or because they're doing something and they want to show someone, or they're doing, they're getting a great body because they're doing something and they want to show someone or they're doing they're getting a great body because they want it for social media like it's very rare before you get a breakup i'm just there's a little hand out there i won't get a breakup then yeah but like it's super rare that

people do things for themselves these days and you're talking about building dopamine pathways why don't you build a reward pathway for yourself? Like that's actually what I think is so beneficial about martial arts is you're actually building discipline, you're building confidence, you're doing this for you, you are the one who is now empowered by this new skill that you're learning, not to mention the skill acquisition is going to play towards brain health, being leaner and more mobile is going to play towards brain health, the kids having physical education in school, well, that activity is going to play towards brain health, being leaner and more mobile is going to play towards brain health, the kids having physical education in school, well, that activity is going to play towards brain health, but activity in and of itself improves sleep quality, which also improves brain health. So these things all

have great cycles. But one of the best cycle you could ever be caught in is the dopamine pathway that serves you and not serves others. Because if you keep staying on a pathway, which is you against the world, well, your body has a weird way of staying in these rhythms and staying in these pathways, you can actually like stay stuck in a pattern of depression, you can stay stuck in a pattern of anxiety, you can stay stuck in a pattern of doing everything for everyone else and not for yourself. These small things that have no complicated discussion behind and simply just doing something for you, losing weight for you,

it's some of the most brain healthy things you could ever do acutely and chronically for yourself. Dr. Andy Galpin here. As a listener of the show, you've probably heard us talking about the RTA program, which we're all incredibly proud of. It's a culmination of everything Dan Garn and I have learned over more than two decades of working with some of the world's most elite performers, award-winning athletes, billionaires, musicians,

executives, and frankly, anyone who just wanted to be at their absolute best. RTA is not a normal coaching program. It's not just macros and a workout plan. It's not physique transformation and pre and post pictures. RTA is something completely different. RTA is incredibly comprehensive and designed to uncover your unique molecular signature, find your performance anchors and solve them permanently. You'll be working with not one person, but rather a full team of elite professionals, each with their own special expertise to maximize precision, accuracy, and effectiveness of your analysis and optimization plan. Arate isn't about treating symptoms or quick fixes. It's about unlocking your full potential

and looking, feeling, and performing at your absolute best physically and mentally when the stakes are the highest. To learn more, visit aretelab.com. That's A-R-E-T-E lab.com. Now, back to the show. You just mentioned sleep a second ago. I really kind of assumed unconsciously that that was going to be the first thing that you mentioned. You mentioned the walks as the first thing on this episode. I really felt like sleep was going to be the first thing. How does sleep play into this compared to something like going for a walk? I feel like it's got to be like, as far as like the hierarchy goes, it's got to be toward the top of the list, right? Sure. Yeah. And honestly, I think a lot of things could have been the first thing, depending on, you know, where we have the context. And man, when it comes to the brain,

if there is like a top 10 things to do i feel like it would be like number one and then number one and then number one and then number one like the list would all be ones and not one to ten because it's revolving around your freaking brain right like it's i think that if we were all asked like what's the last thing you want to give up it'd be your mind i would give up my biceps before my mind and that's saying something hey just so you know dan you're not giving up that much but i understand the point i walked right into that he's gonna start back on the 405 bench program he's going down right now he's deflating he's deflating right now he said that

and now i'm gonna build the wrong pathway because i'm gonna show anna's what the fuck is up you'll get some dopamine response now baby right right but to go back to sleep sleep is it is a big one because uh most all systems are anabolic when you sleep. The bones are anabolic when you sleep through osteoclast and osteoblast. The muscles are anabolic when you sleep, rebuilding and creating protein synthesis. The hormones, you have many pulsatile activities of hormone activity happening while you sleep. Neurotransmitter pools are being restocked while you sleep. Like this is the entire body is systemically anabolic the purpose of sleep is to restore repair regenerate a part of that process

is a to restore neurotransmitter pools which play a huge role in brain health and how we interact and react with the world but then b cerebrospinal fluid actually crosses our blood brain barrier and can clean up waste product within our brain, which is a super, super fascinating discovery. So just like your muscles, if you went and trained really hard and you build up a lot of fatigue metabolites, and then our cardiovascular system's got to get all that stuff out of there. Well, when you've been thinking all day or stressing all day or working all day, you're building up, quote, fatigue metabolites just like your muscle would. But instead of the cardiovascular system pulling it out like it does with our metabolite waste system with hydrogen

ions and lactate and all of that, it's our cerebrospinal fluid that actually goes into our brain and removes waste products from our brain. So our brain truly detoxifies while we sleep. And that's one of the most important brain health components that anybody could ever have. Wow. What about where Andy talked about lactate being like the brain food, which caused me to think, you think about what I said about Dr. Rady, where exercise caused people to be smarter, and the hippocampus especially. But what are your thoughts there with lactate being a more efficient fuel for the brain than even glucose? Sorry.

Right. So lactate is definitely a fuel source for the brain. It's also a fuel source for the heart. And you'll actually see this in diabetics that diabetics they'll actually have, if you have a real problem with glucose control, your body will have an increase in lactate dehydrogenase, which is an enzyme that helps you produce more lactate to supply more readily available fuel to important organs. So lactate has absolutely been demonstrated as a excellent fuel source for organs. But beyond its true like mechanistic pathways, I wouldn't really be able to explain at a granular level.

Right. Back to referencing the walks again, like there's many things happening during a walk. There's like the actual movement itself and the circulation and whatever else. And then there's many things happening during a walk there's like the actual movement itself and the circulation and whatever else and then there's like the being outside component there's i'm assuming they're outside going for the walk right yeah there's the kind of the peace of mind component where you're you're not you know entertaining yourself or distracted by anything it's it's quiet you have time you know just time with your own thoughts so to speak um you know there's no pressure on you get anything done in that time it's like there's the relaxation component to it like um certainly it's it there's many factors here and one it might not be one single thing versus the combination of factors but what do

you think are um what's like the main thing there like if there's as an example like the peace of mind component um if you go for a 40 minute walk and you're just like relaxed for 40 minutes versus like sitting and meditating outside for 40 minutes, like, is that roughly the same as far as brain health goes? Or is like the walking component, really the movement side of it really that critical versus maybe going for a 40 minute jog is a 40 minute jog even that much better. Cause there's more movement compared to walking. Like what are all the, the distinctions there? Do you think, I think that that would come largely down to the health and fitness of that existent person. I think that if somebody was already lean and fit, then meditation would likely have a very

similar value to walking. I also know a lot of people who don't like to meditate, who instead would rather walk and would rather just keep moving. I am one of those people as well. I find like meditation. Yeah. So all of us then, yeah, I find movement meditation to be a lot more relaxing for me. If I, I am absolutely in a meditative state when I'm walking my dog, Lucy, I think that that's a very, very huge component to it. A big part of this simply just comes down to doing what you need to do in order to reduce stress. There's something known as the cortisol to DHEA ratio, which plays a huge role in brain health. Basically, on one end of the spectrum, you have DHEA, and DHEA is a precursor to many

things, androstenedione, androstenediol, testosterone, estrone, estradiol, estriol. It's a precursor to all of these things. But on the other end of the spectrum here, we do have cortisol. And in states of higher stress, we can produce excess cortisol in relation to how much DHEA we produce. That's really important to care about because Reacher's has demonstrated that excess cortisol creates oxidative damage to the hippocampus. So we can actually quite literally in a mechanistic way impact our memory consolidation and memory storage through excess cortisol damaging through oxidative stress the hippocampus. DHEA is protective against that.

So when we're making less cortisol, then we're allowing more DHEA to be present in order to protect our hippocampus from the damaging effects of stress. So that's absolutely huge. So comparing meditation versus walking, I think first and foremost, what you need to do to reduce stress is more important than the exact vehicle in which you choose to do it. But I would suspect that you would probably get a greater health response from walking if you're currently over 20% body fat as a male, or over 30% body fat as a female, the further you are away from optimal leanness would likely infer a greater benefit towards active meditation rather than seated meditation. But once you are lean, I think that it would really just be a vehicle towards what is going to allow you to reduce stress and improve the cortisol to DHEA ratio in your body.

Yeah. You're just mentioning being lean. Like, how does being lean versus being overweight play into this as a single factor? Sorry, Anders. Sorry. No, he said, sorry, Anders, because you're overweight. That's why he said that. Yeah.

If Anders is overweight, we're all in trouble. For those who don't know, we have an internal fitness challenge, so to speak, within the company right now. So Anders and Dan have been talking endless shit to each other. So just more of that. The amount of crap being spoken back and forth between Dan and I makes me think nobody else is even doing it. I'm just speaking the truth. I'm not trying to talk crap. We have a 20-pound difference come cut time starting like right now.

Dan, 207. Anders, 187. I don't think I would talk shit to Anders about fitness. I think he might get you, Dan, on this one. Anders? Yeah. That dude is Mr. CrossFit. Once I saw him whip into Jamaica, I saw him whip

some ass in fitness. I'm not talking shit to Anders about anything fitness related. Talking a little bit more about the performance. Then we'll do that. Individual event. We just got to play the game long enough

until everybody else falls off. Okay. I'm so curious. I don't even know the question anymore isn't that you want to talk about brain health this is how you mess a dance tell him i'm gonna beat him hey chavis this is a leanness contest it's not a fitness contest yes oh it's the most ripped. You got, how are you going to measure before and afters? That's it. Are we doing decks there? What are you doing?

It's going to be clear. Oh, God. All right. There's a part in like pumping iron two or three. One of the, one of them that I've watched and they interviewed the judge at the end of Mr.

Olympia. And he goes, everybody's world-class until you put them side side by side and then the winner is just so obvious so there isn't even a competition yeah that's what i'm gonna look like all right back to the show completely derailed how do we unwind dan's brain fog at this point yeah lean versus not so lean. How does that play into brain health? Oh, right, right, right.

Well, a huge part of it is people. So insulin resistance has actually been associated in literature to brain shrinkage. So that all by itself is something huge. And insulin resistance, number one correlate is body fat percentage and body fat percentage. When you have elevated body fat percentage that creates inflammation, inflammation creates oxidative damage to the brain, not just to other, uh, your joints. It doesn't just make your elbow hurt. It's that creates system-wide oxidative damage.

Things like, um, um, IL-6 things like, uh, that are downstream. Like for example, cortisol, like serum, serum cortisol is higher in those who are overweight, serum, cortisol, not even free cortisol via salivary measures, serum, cortisol, just morning in the blood is associated with Alzheimer's. So the fact that you can drive all of these correlates towards blood flow to the brain, brain trinkets, inflammation, stress hormones. These are all things that in combination absolutely result in a less effective approach towards brain health. If true brain health is something that you want to have long term. Weight loss alone is going to correct many, many, many things metabolically, which in turn improve health systemically, mind and body. Yeah. Go ahead, Doug.

No. Yeah. Sorry about that question. Go. I was going to cut you off twice in a row here. Yeah. Go ahead. Yo, regarding stress in general, like I mentioned with the walks, like there's the relaxation, meditation, blah, blah, blah what what does stress reduction have to do with this like you mentioned the cortisol to dhea ratio you know just simply taking time off and going on vacation or intentionally getting a massage or just you know for some people like working out as stress reduction even though it's a stressor in many ways, like, how does just eliminating stressors from your life play into long term brain health?

The the correction of cortisol to DHA ratio, I think that that has an absolutely enormous way to it. I think that it's probably twofold. Like I think the the chemical answer to this would be the correction of the cortisol to DHA ratio, so that the reduction of stress reduces cortisol, which reduces oxidative damage that's unique to the hippocampus. That's absolutely huge. But I also think that your pursuit of the things that reducing the things that stress you out is also going to be the pursuit of you living a much happier and fulfilling life, which is going to play towards many correct decisions towards brain health, much like the martial arts, rewarding pathway of continuing to climb and climb and climb doing something truly for you. I think that the pursuit

of reducing stressors means that you've gained a lot of self respect for yourself and that you deserve to live the life that you want to live. And that's just ultimately going to result in far better brain health over the long term, when you're always doing something when you're always striving for something new. There's even in the world of martial arts to stay in that analogy. There's many, many, many old grandmasters who are like in the 80s and their 90s. And they're still involved in martial arts to some degree like that this is this is something that has been around for a very long time. When you're always learning something new, and you're always doing something for you, you're correcting the cortisol DHEA pathway as kind of a byproduct of being the person

that you're supposed to be. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about kind of like chronic alcohol use and its impact on the brain? And I'm kind of thinking not even so much along the lines of like binge drinking, which obviously is like just bashing yourself over the head with pouring gasoline down your throat and it just crushes your body. But like the very low level, like tapping the nail every night or just having like one to three drinks casually, you know, multiple nights a week. What is what does that impact over time to your brain from alcohol?

Sure. So again, fatty liver has been linked to brain shrinkage as well. So fatty liver is something that can over time tapping the nail one, one, one over the course of 1020 years, people do that as just one to three drinks, what's the big deal? That is something that actually ends up tapping the nail slowly, slowly, slowly until it's fully in. And it ends up creating a major stressor to physiology. So fatty liver is already associated to brain shrinkage as well. That I believe we've talked about on a previous episode, the UK, the UK biobank, they came out with a study associating just alcohol, not even fatty liver, to brain shrinkage, even at one drink, even just that one drink, there was no like, low threshold, it was just that one drink was resulting or creating

a type of brain shrinkage in people. And alcohol is also something that creates intestinal permeability. So it's been demonstrated in the past that just three shots of vodka can create intestinal permeability, which allows lipopolysaccharides, which is an inflammatory bacteria to reach into blood circulation. Lipopolysaccharides actually suppress something known as BDNF, which is brain derived neurotropic factor that is supportive of neuronal growth in the brain, neuronal growth and neuronal repair. It's something to be aware of, for example, in post-concussion. But when somebody has alcohol, which creates the intestinal permeability, which allows lipopolysaccharides to seek into circulation, and those lipopolysaccharides suppress BDNF, well, then that's

going to contribute to brain issues as well. So on top of the liver issue, on top of the brain direct issue via shrinkage, on top of the suppression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, you're also doing a lot of other things that are just, um, not optimal for brain health, such as likely dehydration, likely terrible sleep, terrible sleep, right? Terrible sleep, likely depletion of micronutrients among many, many other things like alcohol. Alcohol is one of those things that's, um, it's certainly a social lubricant and allows you to, um, have fun with your bros or whatever it's going to be. But it's one of those things that is, has like no positive to it.

So it's certainly a decision that you make like, yeah, you know, I'm going to have some fun tonight. And, and that's, that's the decision I'm going to own. But like the lie that people tell themselves about how it helps them sleep is a complete opposite. It reduces REM sleep and makes your sleep quality worse. Or that you're using it like here's the thing with alcohol too. And to tie into Doug's question revolving around stress, like alcohol, when you talk about or when people talk to you about alcohol and they're in it, right, they're having it every single day. One of the reasons you have alcohol every single day is because you're stressed out,

right? You're stressed as a parent or you're stressed in a relationship or you're stressed out from work is super common. So the way in which to take the edge off or to reduce stress is to have a drink each and every single night, right? Alcohol is a stressor. It's not a de-stress. So you're actually adding a stressor on top of your stressed out lifestyle. It's something that is, it's going to take more from you than give back because now if you have alcohol tonight, it's probably going to take away your ability to do a morning walk tomorrow morning or take away your ability to work out before work. It's probably certainly going to reduce your sleep quality, which is going to give you a shorter temper with your loved ones around you. It's going to reduce your testosterone over time through alcohol itself, but then also through

reduced sleep. A lot of people forget testosterone was actually originally prescribed as an antidepressant. And so you're going to lower something that is very good mood altering mood altering capabilities. So alcohol, it seems so often as this de-stressor, but it's absolutely just adding another stressor, which is delaying you facing the things that you really need to face in order to actually reduce your total stress load in your life. Yeah, I always kind of the thing with alcohol is so interesting to me is once I decided to start taking my life seriously, that was like the first thing that I realized needed to go. Yeah. Like it was number one. It was without a doubt. The most important first step was to wake up feeling good every day. And if you have like just two drinks and you're just like a person that goes

to the bar to meet your friends, you do not wake up feeling good. You might, it might be how you wake up every day. So it feels normal, but it's not good. And it kills your energy. It kills your ability to function. Like, you know, the number of people that I talk to on a daily basis that have like brain fog and they also have a bottle of wine each night. It's like, I wonder where all that's coming from. I wonder how that all fits together. And it starts with dinner each night. And dude, in terms of like reducing anxiety, like alcohol in a big way, a lot of people

take it to reduce stress or reduce anxiety, right? Alcohol in the short term, does reduce anxiety. It does increase serotonin. It does help you reduce anxiety dramatically. But alcohol actually, through the back door, depletes your own body's ability to make serotonin. So what happens is alcohol in and of itself, early in your relationship with alcohol, reduces anxiety because it's increasing serotonin. So what happens is alcohol in and of itself early in your relationship with alcohol reduces anxiety because it's increasing serotonin. But as you consistently drink alcohol, it actually depletes your own endogenous production of serotonin because the body is the ultimate

efficiency machine. Why is it going to make something if it knows it's going to come in from an exogenous source? It simply won won't so alcohol actually depletes your brain's own ability to make serotonin which makes you even more susceptible to feelings of anxiety in the absence of alcohol which creates a dependence on alcohol so alcohol in the beginning reduces anxiety but then it reduced your own endogenous production of the chemicals that help you uh deal with anxiety naturally on your own, that creates a dependency with alcohol, but then alcohol is also dose dependent. So over time, we end up increasing the dose that we require in order to still get the anti-anxiety

feelings. And that's when you run into things like fatty liver, reduced testosterone, reduced sleep. It's all one cycle of things that ends up impacting your entire life. Yeah. Beautiful. I actually, I was going to, I was just going to say, what about like, you know, as we get older, continuing to read, or sometimes you'll see these like, you know, brain games or whatever. Is there any, do those, you know, like, does have anything to do with keeping the brain, you know, and the, you know, the nerves continuing to, you know, grow, continue to be strong. I know they absolutely do, but I wouldn't be able to explain the mechanism behind them. Much of my research has been involved in athletic performance, general health, and post-concussion.

But I am aware, actually, that actually one of the greatest things that you can do to keep your brain healthy as you age is learn an instrument. I saw an absolutely fascinating study, and that's what actually was a conclusion of it is that learning an instrument is one of the absolute best things that you can do to maintain skill acquisition and brain health because you are doing something new physically and neurologically. You're also learning something at the same time. And it's also activating creative pathways in your brain.

So between logical skill acquisition, creative structure and pathways towards goal setting and creating something on your own and doing something new, it was extremely, extremely beneficial. It checks so many boxes all at the same time, just starting the instrument that you wanted to learn, that you told yourself you were going to learn over the past 20 years that you just never did. I wonder with Dr. Rainey talking about, you know, doing the martial arts or something, you know, something that wasn't just, you know, like if you go to the gym and you do machines, you don't have to do a lot of thinking, but like when you do martial arts, jujitsu, for example, you know, there's a lot of thinking but like when you do martial arts jiu-jitsu for example you know there's a lot of thinking involved i wonder if it's the same pathways you know as

learning like an instrument both are brand new both you know is using multiple you know parts of of like you know touch taste all the different feelings so thoughts yeah probably better because you're i understand i was gonna say it's probably better because there's a life and death scenario that your your body's kind of adapting to it needs to adapt quicker when you're getting choked out uh it's my understanding that it's it's the newness that it's not the challenging aspect of it it's the newness aspect of it that seems to be the most beneficial for brain health like like if you're if you have a like we have our active day-to-day jobs like it might be very challenging the work you do but if

it's not actually learning something that's truly new ground for you then then it's not quite as beneficial as if you're learning say like like dan mentioned a new instrument or a new uh i was here a new language is one of the things that's like it's tough to learn a new language like there's a lot that goes into learning a new language and it's hard to do. Uh, it takes a lot of work to actually become proficient. It's the newness of it that really helps, uh, with the maintenance of brain health long-term. Yeah. Who did we interview recently that was really talking about this? Tommy Wood. It was Tommy. That's right. It was really fantastic. We took a deep dive into it. I think there was like six, six main things they found. One was language training, um,

social interactions, um, obviously fitness. Uh, there was, there was like six, six pieces of it, um, that him Galpin was on that show as well. So you can, you can scroll back. I want to say it's probably two months ago that we, that had him on or late late uh 2022 nutrition on that list uh nutrition was on there but it was the skill acquisition piece i remember that was like um the most important piece so i shouldn't say most important but it was what they specifically studied in that the acquisition of skills and what skills lend itself to keeping your brain as up to date and constantly learning so that there isn't that slow, just basically atrophy of brain and

language was language was a big one. And then kind of the music one that you talked about was also something that they that they discussed, which was very cool. Basically, what we need to be doing is lifting weights and in-between sets, learning how to play the drums while we talk to people in different languages. Now, that's the recipe for success. Beautiful. We actually got to the end of that show, and we realized that we talk about so much stuff, and it was fantastic, but we hadn't even gone into the nutrition uh piece of it and so we really need to do a part two with tommy to talk over nutrition what about asking the genius here like damn what is the best for nutrition yeah i actually um i wrote uh or edited an email that you wrote where there was a that i think you wrote an article for XPT about specific foods that are very beneficial for

health. And if I remember correctly, blueberries were one of them. So that's why I take as many as I can into my hand and then slam them all into my face at once. Yes. Yeah. Blueberries. And basically, like things that are blue or purple. So when you're a grape or you're a blueberry, you're in the sun with a very thin, thin skin. And the way in which you can protect yourself from the sun is to produce your own antioxidants to protect against that. So not like a banana. Banana doesn't have the actual banana itself is not dark at all because it didn't need to produce the same type of antioxidants because it has such a thin, I mean, such a thick peel around it. Whereas grapes and blueberries,

these are things very high in anthocyanins, which are produced in response to direct sunlight nonstop and having a thin skin. Anthocyanins have been demonstrated to reduce oxidative damage within the brain, but also even improve things like memory and even brain performance. It's something that I use with my athletes actually quite frequently. But also kind of through the back door, blueberries contain vitamin E. And vitamin E is a lot more beneficial in nature than it is in supplementation form, because nature actually has eight different vitamin E's. There's eight.

Vitamin E is actually a family. There's eight different vitamin E's. There's eight, vitamin E is actually a family, there's eight different vitamin E's. Whereas in supplement form, you're typically only getting the alpha or gamma versions. Now those have been demonstrated to create the most effects in physiology, but nature tends to always find a way to know better than us about what should be in certain things and what shouldn't. And vitamin E in nature's form, it's actually very, very good for the brain because there's two actually heavy metals, copper and iron. When they are in excess in our diet, they actually create oxidative damage within the brain. They're one of those things where a small amount is absolutely fantastic, like a U-shaped curve.

A small amount, a too small amount is not good, but a U-shaped curve. A small amount, a too small amount is not good, but the perfect amount is excellent. But then as you get too much copper and iron, it actually becomes a pro-oxidant and creates inflammation that is connected to Alzheimer's. Vitamin E is a fire extinguisher that helps us neutralize that inflammation and oxidative damage. So on top of the blueberries being a vehicle for anthocyanins, it's also a vehicle for vitamin E, which aids in the health of the brain as well. In terms of other nutritional therapies towards aiding in brain health, the Chicago, there was a Chicago health and aging Project, and they basically took thousands of people, followed them, tracked their diet and identified when they were or when or if that was going to take place with dementia or which populations develop dementia.

And what they found was diets higher, kind of unsurprisingly, diets higher in saturated fat and trans fats actually increased your risk for Alzheimer's way, way more than diets lower in trans fats, in saturated fats. And then that by itself kind of kicked off a lot of people just purely trying to isolate saturated fats and trans fats to Alzheimer's. So then researchers in Finland, they actually repeated the study and found the exact same thing. And then they repeated the study again, utilizing an actual gene. So they said there's something known as an ApoE gene that's becoming pretty popular in conversations these days. ApoE gene, it's a gene that increases your risk for the development of Alzheimer's over time. If you get the ApoE gene

from one parent, it triples your risk for Alzheimer's. If you get the ApoE gene from both parents, it creates a 15x risk of your development of Alzheimer's in your life. Now, why I'm bringing that into this equation here is the researchers in Finland, they not only repeated the Chicago study, but they demonstrated that even if you have the ApoE gene, a diet lower in saturated fats and trans fats was still dramatically reducing your risk compared to the diet higher in saturated fat and trans fats. So even when they adjusted for and corrected for the gene that is directly associated with increasing your risk for Alzheimer's diets, higher and saturated fats and trans fats still

increase your risk, um, regardless of gene status. So basically what was found in that study is that basically genes aren't destiny. They are your current gene set, and there's nothing you can do about it because you can't change your parents, but the actions you take today determine whether or not those genes actually get turned on or not so cleaning up the diet and doing the right things with your nutrition and supplementation even if you have those genes it's it's not a destiny you can do a lot to prevent um issues from taking place and improve your overall brain health. What about healthy fats? Aren't they supposedly good for the brain? And why is that?

No, our brain is made of 60%. 60% of our brain is fat. So much like when you are breaking down a muscle in the gym in order to create a stress response to build up. You want protein to support that muscle tissue. If you have a lot of energy expenditure happening within the brain, and by the way, it's one of the most energy expensive organs in our entire body, it determines a lot of our metabolic rate, you're going to create waste products that yes, get removed from the cerebrospinal fluid while we sleep. But we also need to supply the things that actually support what the brain is to begin with, which is an array of healthy fats, which is why eating from the sea has been demonstrated to be good for brain health so many times. That's

actually in the XPT article that I wrote, Anders, was wild salmon. Wild salmon is one of the brain health, one of the healthiest brain foods that you could ever have with respect to healthy fats, but also omega three content and what that does for the neuronal connections and communication efficiency in the brain. Gotcha. Hey, man, I want to let you talk about this concussion protocol you just put together with O'Malley and where people can find it because I think, hey, Rogan's giving you the shout out of doing something. Just I feel like I get used to you being Dan Garner and things like this

happening in our lives. But this is really special stuff and kind of the first of its kind. So I'd love to kind of turn it over of just where did it come from? What can people expect? And then where can people find it? I appreciate that, man.

Yeah. So like I kind of said to Travis, much of my research in this world has revolved around the concussion area of things and the athletic performance area, because that's really where I built a name for myself. And UFC has been my favorite sport or MMA has been my favorite sport. UFC, the best vehicle to watch it has been the it's been 20 plus years where that's been like my absolute favorite thing to watch. And then through like manifestation, a lot of attraction, I ended up working with tons of UFC

fighters. So I've worked with a lot of UFC fighters, easily over 20, probably over 30 at this point in time. And on a one on one basis, and I'm so I always want to find a way to help my people the most. And I one thing I found in nutrition was a lot of nutritionists, they get they're very, very wrapped up in purely the muscle cell. How can I provide electrolytes for the muscle? How can I hydrate the muscle? How can I provide amino acids and glucose to the muscle? What can I do to perform and it was always very muscle specific. But these fighters were so conscious of their brain health as well. And then also at the end of the day, you know, what tells the muscles what to do? It's your brain performance. Brain performance is as important as muscular performance,

because it's your brain that's telling your muscles what to do. Like you take two fighters and of equal ability, but one's in the zone that day and the other is not. Well, I can tell you who's going to be the hammer and who's going to be the nail that your mind state and your brain performance is absolutely huge. So a way in which I was able to differentiate myself from other nutrition coaches was to emphasize brain performance. And then now emphasizing brain recovery is just the next level of that. There's enough research now on the world of post-concussion, what we can do. And I basically break it up into three phases, immediately post-fight, within the 14 days post-fight, and then within 30 days post-fight. So it's basically on fight day, and then two weeks

after the fight, and then up to day 30. That's phase one, two and three. Phase one's damage control, we're immediately going to reverse things that happened in the fight. Phase two is the overall repair process. And then phase three is actually brain resilience. You can do certain things in order to create a more resilient brain towards trauma in the future. So I've included all of this into that manual. It's the exact protocol that I give my professional athletes who pay a lot to work with me. It's the exact same formula and it's accessible for people on Amazon and Kindle. One of the number one questions I get is, I don't have a Kindle. How can I get this? You don't have to have a

physical Kindle. A Kindle is a free app. So you can download the free app on your desktop. You can download it on your phone. It's a free app. You don't have to have the physical thing. So you just go to Amazon Kindle. You download it there and then have it on your app. And you're going to have the exact protocol for brain repair, brain recovery, and brain resilience moving forward. I'm getting that today.

Awesome. brain recovery and brain resilience moving forward for i'm getting that today awesome is that something um is that something that uh for call it the high school soccer player that goes up for a header and bangs head with the with the opponent and goes down um is that is that the same as coming out of a fight can that can this be used by them dude i recommend it for basically everybody and i know that sounds very self-serving, but I mean it. Probably all four of us on this podcast have suffered a concussion in the past or many of them. But a concussion is a concussion. If you're in soccer, if you're in football, if you're in hockey, if you're in MMA, it

doesn't matter who you are or where you're at. I think that it's very beneficial to have this. And don't wait for a concussion to get it because then you're still going to have to order supplements. You're still going to have to go to the grocery store and get the foods. And I include the foods, the exercise, the supplements. It's a full protocol design. So don't wait to get it. You want to be prepared if anything like that ever happens because it's your brain.

It's awesome, man. And where can people find it again? to amazon it's available worldwide so whatever your um country's amazon is and then type in the brain synergy protocol in amazon and you will find it it's written by myself and my fighter sean o'malley there it is sugar sean yes soon to be number one in the world current Number one in the world. Current number one in the world, but doesn't have the belt yet. Yeah.

Soon to be the new. We're actually currently kicking off a bit of a camp here in case someone pulls out of the Henry Aljo fight in nine weeks. There's a good chance to see. I feel like someone pulls out every single match. It's like we're gonna be never what it's planned yeah i'm gonna be ready where can people find you dan you can find me at dan garner nutrition on instagram you can also find the brain synergy protocol

through the link in my bio on instagram there you go beautiful travis bash bashley.com but i'm gonna go to dan's bio right now and buy that. Yeah, there it is. You got to click. You got to click. I like that. Doug Larson. On Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. I am Anders Varner at Anders Varner,

and we are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. And make sure you get over to ArateLab.com. That is the signature program inside rapid health optimization where you can go and experience all the lab lifestyle performance testing analysis and coaching to help you optimize your health and performance. And you can access all of that over at RTA lab.com friends. We'll see you guys next week.