Realfoodology - How Nutrition Affects Brain Health with Dr. Patrick Porter

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

126: **REALFOODOLOGY PODCAST IS NOW ON YOUTUBE!** On this weeks episode, I have on Dr. Patrick Porter, the creator of the popular app, Brain Tap.  If you are not familiar with Brain Tap, it is an app to train your brain.  Think about it as guided mediation on steroids! Topics Discussed: Science behind meditation  How to wake up without an alarm  How to know if your brain is dis-regulated  Breath work and how it regulates brain function  Science behind addictive foods  How does nutrition affect our brain health  Leaky gut and leaky brain  Food marketing to children  How they make food addictive  Fasting and the brain  HRV - Heart Rate Variability  Check Out Dr. Patrick: Dr. Patricks Porter's Instagram Brain Tap's Instagram https://braintap.com/ Sponsored By: Higher Dose higherdose.com use code REALFOODOLOGY FOR 15% OFF SITEWIDE Organifi www.organifi.com/realfoodology Code REALFOODOLOGY gets you 20% Off My Immunity Supplement by 2x4 Order Now Check Out Courtney: **REALFOODOLOGY PODCAST IS NOW ON YOUTUBE!** Courtney's Instagram: @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database Further Listening: Oral and Gut Microbiome Connection with Dr. Staci

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. Food is one of the biggest reasons we have brain stress. Your brain gets 25% of all the energy in the system. So if you're not feeding the brain in this day and age, the brain again will have to take in whatever sugar you have and start using it and that can cause a lot of stress and inflammation. And that's really what you want to avoid in nowadays is get that inflammation down. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. I'm Courtney Swan, your host, and I'm so grateful that you're here. On today's episode, I sit down with Dr. Patrick Porter. He is the creator of BrainTap, which is an app that helps you train your brain, which helps with reducing or eliminating brain fog and negative mind chatter.

It also helps to increase energy, promote relaxation, which helps with healthier sleep habits, reducing unwanted habits and behaviors, enhanced productivity, memory, focus, and creativity, and also just an overall improved quality of life. Think of it as an app that has guided meditations, but it also has this headset that you buy separately. And the combination of the two is like meditation on steroids. I actually got to test out this device with the app recently when I was at the biohacking conference. And it was really cool because while I was there, they had a device that they set me up with that showed my brain patterns

before and then after going into the brain tap meditation. And they measured things like my stress levels, my HRV, and all these other components. And it was pretty incredible to see the difference in all of these measurements going into it versus coming out of it. It was pretty incredible, the impact that it had on my brain and just like my overall stress. So after having this overall experience, I really wanted to bring Dr. Patrick Porter, the creator on the podcast, just to dive more into it. And I really just wanted him to share all of the wealth of knowledge that he has with you, my audience. So on today's episode, we talk a lot about diet and how it affects your overall brain health. We talk about fasting a little bit and the effect that that has on your brain health.

We talk about neural pathways and how to change those, breath work. We talk so much about brain health. This was such a fascinating episode and I really enjoyed it. So I hope you guys love it. If you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, if you were loving the podcast,

it would mean so much to me. It really, really helps the show and it takes about two minutes to do it. So if you have time and you're loving the show, please take a moment to leave a rating and review. It would mean so much to me. Thanks for listening. With the holidays quickly approaching, I am starting to wonder what the heck am I going to get my parents for Christmas? Or if you're Jewish, what are you going to get your family for Hanukkah? If you have a friend, a family member, someone in your life that you care about who's very health-minded, let me recommend Organifi products. I am first and

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the holidays are officially upon us. I cannot believe that I'm even recording this ad right now because it feels like they are coming very quickly. So I wanted to share a couple gift ideas that I think would be awesome for anyone in your life that's either struggling with some sort of health issue or if they are on a path to get healthier. So I'm a huge fan of the higher dose infrared sauna blanket. I've had one for, man, it's been like four years now. And what it is, is it's essentially like a sauna blanket that you can lay on anywhere in your house, on your bed, just as long as your bed does not have flammable materials in it. You can lay it on your couch.

You can do it on your floor. And I always joke that it's like my sauna burrito because it just wraps you in and then you get a really good infrared sweat in. It promotes circulation, enhances deep relaxation. It helps with energy. It may also help with chronic fatigue. It helps you get a better sleep at night.

Not to mention, you guys know, I talk about toxins all the time on this podcast and sauna, infrared saunas are the best way to get out all of the toxins that we were being exposed to on a day-to-day basis. So experts recommend that we do a sauna sweat at least a couple of times a week. So that is a great option for a gift. They also have their infrared PMF mat. And this is something that I turn on at night when I'm in bed while I'm reading. I also love to do it during the day when I kind of need a little bit of a boost,

like when I'm podcasting or I'm sitting on my computer. There's different settings based on what you're trying to do, whether you're meditating and reading and trying to get ready for bed, or if you are working and you need a little bit of an energetic boost. What it does is it grounds you in the earth's magnetic field for

a full body reset. It is so freaking cool. They also have a travel mat. So if you have anyone in your life that travels and is interested in this, I would definitely check that out. And then last but not least, they also have a red light face mask, which helps to rejuvenate the skin and activates a natural glow. It boosts your mood And it's just overall really great for if you are looking to improve your skin. If you would like to try any of these products from Higher Dose, just go to higherdose.com. That's H-I-G-H-E-R-D-O-S-E.com and use code realfoodology and you are going to save 15%. I'm so happy to bring you on the podcast. We initially connected at the Biohacking Conference and I got to try BrainTap in its full capacity, I feel like, at the Biohacking Conference and I was

really, really impressed. That was great. We had a great event there, met a lot of great people like yourself. It was wonderful. Yeah, it was amazing. So for people that are not aware of BrainTap, can you give everyone a little bit of a background on you and then what BrainTap is? Yeah, my background is in electronics first, and then I went into psychology. So I kind of married those two things I love and made BrainTap. We made it first to help people with pain control, and then we found out that it could be used for lots of other things including accelerated learning or weight loss, stop smoking, addiction therapies, sports. We're really big in UFC fighters now and MMA because we help people bring their brain back after concussions. We have a dementia study that actually brought everyone in the pilot

back after six weeks. They are all taken off the dementia scale. So it uses light, sound, and vibration to do this. And there's also an app. So if people don't have the headset, they can actually use the app and get really good results. We've been proving that out. We just finished a study in Brazil, actually, on opioids because, remember, this was started for pain control and we did three different studies with the pharmaceutical college down there and we proved out that brain tap in

every study beat out opioids and we just used the audio. We didn't even use the headset. So if we use the headset, it's even going to be better. That's really incredible. So what is maybe a common misunderstanding people have when they're first learning about brain tap? The biggest misunderstanding is that they have to believe it. I tell people, leave belief for Sunday morning. This is science, that your brain is going to follow it every time. I don't care who you are, what you think, or how you discover it. The worst things that somebody can do is try to force it not to work.

But if you just relax, the brain is going to follow it through the algorithm algorithm and you're going to get the physiological effect that's going to be wonderful. I mean, most people like the feeling of deep relaxation and the ability or the capacity to think, act and perform better. So they really fall in love with brain tap because it's their brain and body synchronizing and making their best self show up. Yeah. Wow. That's pretty incredible. I mean, as someone who, you know, I've been in the health and wellness world for a long time. And for a very long time, I was solely focused on just the food aspect, the food side of nutrition. And when I started diving into all these other modalities, such as like emotional wellbeing and our brain health, you realize that obviously they're all connected

and it's kind of like a duh moment, but we're not taught to make all these connections, right? To our mental wellbeing and our brain health and the connection to diet and food and all of that. And I'm so grateful for people like you that create these products that kind of bring it full circle because our health and wellness is all about all of it. It's all connected. Yeah. I have a new book coming out actually

very quickly. We're just shopping it right now, but it's three phases of wellness. And first is food or supplements. We can't get it all from the grocery store, but we want to eat as close to nature as possible to get our body going. So nutrition is key. If you don't have the right nutrition, you can't outthink a bad diet. And then number two, I say you got to move and breathe because like in neuroscience, they say sitting is the new smoking. So we need to get our body up and moving and breathing something like yoga, Tai Chi, or just dancing, just close the curtains and dance like no one's watching, you know, those kinds of things. And then we need to do something for brain fitness. And this has been proven out study after study, Virginia Hunt, who's out of UCLA, she passed away now, but she was a physiologist and a psychologist. And she did a study based on

people praying before they ate. And what she found out was even if she found out if you prayed, or if you just sat and did some contemplation before you ate, that your food digested better. And of course, this makes sense because the sympathetic is downregulated and then the parasympathetic is increasing. That's the rest, digest and recover state of the nervous system. And some people just rush into dinner and whatever they're eating, even if it's the healthiest thing on earth, if you're in a toxic mental state, it's going to cause the foods to not digest properly and you could get indigestion or other digestive issues coming on. Wow, that is absolutely fascinating.

And it's so cool that we have the research behind it to actually see that that is the case. Because again, like I said, I think so many people are just not making this connection and we're not even thinking about it from this standpoint. So how, in your eyes, I've heard you say this before, that meditation is kind of a waste of time. And how can we maximize the results of meditation without spending so much time? Yeah, I think people spend hours meditating and they don't get the result they think they're getting.

In fact, out of the thousands, we've actually scanned about 30,000 brains over the last 10 years've actually scanned about 30,000 brains over the last 10 years. And those that meditate, we have them do their meditation and we measure them on our neurocheck. And about 90% of the time, we see a stressed out brain after meditating. And they go, well, that's not, they feel better because they've excited the brainwaves, but they haven't done what they wanted, which was that deep reset, that deep recycle, because it takes a lot of practice. Even when we go to India and we work a lot with the

All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences over there, and we've worked with people that meditated for 30 years and some are very efficient at it, but most are not. And the reality is that it doesn't take as long as people think to get the recovery you need. Now, depending upon what you're doing with your meditation, if you're trying to meditate for health and healing and well-being, then 20 minutes is pretty much the maximum you need. 10 minutes in the morning is pretty good because you just slept all night long. If your brain's regulating, you shouldn't need to replenish or rejuvenate your body at that point.

It's just about tuning up your mind. And there's a brainwave that as we get better looking and more intelligent with age, it actually atrophies. It's called SMR, sensory motor rhythm. And that's the one when you exercise or you it's actually when you get stimulated in the morning because what wakes us up in the morning is not just the time, but our body, our nervous system instructs our body to start making cortisol and adrenaline and norepinephrine. And basically, when there's enough of that coursing through our body, we have to jump out of bed. Because now some people, of course, use alarm clocks, which I'm really against alarm clocks because it just puts your nervous system on edge for the whole day. I think people should learn how to wake up with the light of the sun or, you know, just with their own internal clock, which I've been doing since I was a kid. So, you know, it's easy for me because I was trained to do it. But some people have just such a

dysregulated brain. They don't know how to get up without, you know, blasting alarms and things of that nature. Actually, this is so fascinating because I was just having a conversation with a girlfriend about this on Sunday, and she was telling me the very same thing that you said, where she said, I don't believe in alarms and I don't use them. She said before she goes to bed at night, she tells herself what time she wants to wake up and she usually wakes up about 10 minutes before that time. And I was asking her, I was fascinated by this because alternatively, I am someone who since a very young age have had a really, really hard time waking up. In fact, I had a period of time in my life in my 20s where I had to buy a special alarm that would shake the bed because I was sleeping through my alarm because I was in such a state of deep sleep.

Now, I don't want to go into all of the things I've discovered over the years, which, you know, it's linked to my adrenals and et cetera. It's something I've been working on for a long time. But that all being said, how can you learn how to wake up with your own internal clock? Well, what we recommend at first is set your alarm on your phone or whatever you're using to something pleasant, you know, that's not going to shake your nervous system, but then wake up 10 minutes early, use the brain tap morning sessions, the AM sessions, your brain needs to be conditioned. To give you an idea, most people don't know how Pavlov and his dogs, they've heard about it, you know, they ring the bell and the dogs salivate, right? But what they don't know is that that study continued. And they started finding out the

dogs would salivate when the guards would come to ring the bell. And then they would salivate when the guards were supposed to come, but they changed the time. And then they would salivate when the guards were supposed to come, but they changed the time. And then they started noticing the dogs continue to salivate at six in the morning. And even though nothing was present, there was no stimulus. So what that means is that we can condition our biological system. Think about what happens every day at two o'clock. Now there's a physiological reason people get hungry or thirsty for caffeine at two o'clock our temperature drops two degrees so but if you automatically feed that that need with something sugary or coffee or something stimulating then your body is going to set up a craving for that and even though you don't even know what time it

is your body will start craving that you know those those like the tea and crumpets over in England, you know, it's around two o'clock, but it's really because our body, it self-regulates. So it drops two degrees at two, it increases two degrees at night. That's why a lot of people say they get really hot between two and three and they throw the covers off. When your brain's dysregulated, it will spiral out. It won't just do two degrees. It might do three or four, and then that's almost like a fever. So they're trying to get cool until the body re-regulates. But this is how our body cycles. And that's, everybody has a cycle. It's not just women. Every biological system has a, it basically tunes into the light of the sun, and then that changes our cycles internally in our biological system.

So how do we know if our brain is dysregulated and what can we do about it? Well, the main thing is we can start to train it. Of course, brain tap, but I'll give you a few tips without brain tap so people, if they don't own it, they can do it. A lot of work is being done right now in breath work. It seems to be the latest craze, but we can go back in time over 10,000 years ago and see the pranayamas and everything they were doing in yoga. So we actually have done three studies that were published with PubMed with the All-Age Institute of Medical Science showing that certain breath exercises like the pranayama, where you breathe in one nostril and out the other, this, and you keep doing that, that actually balances the hemispheres of the brain.

So you're exercising the brain. Breathwork is probably one of the primary ways that we use to regulate brain function. Also doing things like yoga, Tai Chi. And if you, whatever you do, if you've been to a really good yoga studio, they always have you do a yoga nidra at the end. Because what the ancient traditions knew was that the time for brain recovery you build neuroplasticity so if you just jump up from your yoga practice and run off you got the physiological benefits but you didn't get the psychological benefits that

meditation is just as important as doing all those stretches and all those different exercises to move the body so that's really key now brain tap makes it easy because you could get up in the morning 10 minutes before your alarm or set it 10 minutes earlier than you need to wake up, press one of the AM programs, and it'll start to condition your brain to come out of the sleep state and into that state of just on the threshold of beta. Beta is our reactionary mind, and it also controls all those. It's a dopamine. It's the one that triggers dopamine. That's why most addictions are on the conscious level.

When we get in, when we're in sleep, what happens is we actually are, we're drugged, really. I mean, most people have woke up and maybe they fell asleep on the couch and somebody tries to get them into their bedroom and they're like, they go, man, you look like you're drugged. Well, you are. The world's greatest pharmacy is between your ears. So you triggered that pharmacy to create acetylcholine and gamma or GABA and all of those things. And what happens is the body starts to feel this almost timeless kind of

sensations and feelings like you would have when you were doing, you know, certain kind of drugs or medicine. You mentioned the concept of changing your neural pathways, like through breath work and meditation, all that. Is that something that brain tap also helps with as well? Yes. Yeah. That's what we, we showed like in our dementia study, I was mentioning earlier in six weeks, we improved the women who were 55 to 65 years old, 49% improvement in neuroplasticity. And then they were taken off the dementia scale. So it's all about exercising the brain, getting those neurons that have been unwiring. Because what happens from birth, our brain continues to do what they call neuropruning. Actually, it's designed to keep unplugging. And the reason for that is that when we're born,

we're totally wired. We're totally wired up. But as we learn a language or we learn to, we need to, we learn to be like mom and dad, brother, sister, preacher, teacher, whatever it is. Then through those mirror neurons, our brain starts eliminating all the options until we become almost like a robot. You know, that's why it's so important to always do new things or drive different ways to work or, you know, always go out there and do something different. The more you find yourself getting into that rut, as people typically say it, you want to break out of that rut because that rut is damaging to the brain. You want to have some, you want to have some of those wow moments and, you know, maybe even it's okay to be stressed out

too, but you want to have those deep recovery moments too. Yeah. Well, and also what I was thinking about as you were saying that is that, you know, a lot of what we know about our, our emotional world and the way that we operate is pretty much settled by the time we're eight years old. And most of that is conditioned, not most, well, pretty much all of it is conditioned by our caretakers, you know, so whether that be our parents or if your parents weren't around, whoever was taking care of you. And I have realized for myself, and I can speak for a lot of my friends who've been going through this as well,

is that you get to a certain age where you realize like, okay, but a lot of that that I was conditioned based on the way that my parents loved me and they reacted to things and whatever, I now need to change and recondition because it was maybe not fully correct or I didn't get all my needs met. And so I think this is also another really important aspect of everything that we're talking about here. And when we talk about changing that neuroplasticity is also going back in and rewiring the way that we respond to things and the way that

we love and the way that we respond to love, like how we take care of ourselves, basically. Like we learned all that from a very young age and some of it needs to be rewired in our adult life. Yes, exactly. I mean, the big thing about learning as an adult is learning that maybe we got some misguided information. Maybe mom and dad didn't know everything. Maybe our friends aren't right. And if we get that's why we have to we have to learn how to change and we have to become comfortable being uncomfortable, as they say. Because what I like to tell people, if they took their hands and clasped them together and just made one thumb on top, you know, when you have your hands clasped together, usually the right or left thumb is on top. If you roll that other thumb on top, that little feeling you get, that little uncomfortable feeling, I mean, that's just your thumb. But imagine making a lifestyle change,

like now you're going to go to the grocery store and buy some live food instead of, you know, shopping on where you have to read the labels, you let God label them, you know. And so when you're looking at your grocery cart, some people look at their grocery cart and they go into neuro shock because they they're used to seeing you know the candies and sodas and but as soon as they change it the whole nervous system starts to react so we have to rehearse that our subconscious doesn't know the difference between you or imagine and this is BrainTap really excels because if you get into a situation and you rehearse it, those mirror neurons go to work for you. So the next time you're in the real or the physical experience, your brain goes, this is the way we handled it in the lab in our brain. Let's see how we'll do it in real life. And if

you do it enough, the brain will think that's real. So you can learn to say no to those dead and devitalized foods, as I call them, and say yes to those life-giving and forgiving foods that are meant to heal and recharge our body. Oh my gosh, that is so cool. That is awesome. And you're really speaking to my audience right now because that is what Real Foodology is founded on, is learning how to make better food choices for your health and ultimately for your brain as well. And as I was saying earlier, these two are very much connected

because we now know 70% of our immune system is in our gut and there's the vagus nerve, that direct connection between the brain and the gut. And I think a lot of people don't even understand that a lot of our food choices are being driven by an unhealthy brain because our brains are unhealthy because we are not getting the nutrients that we're meant to get because we're eating overly processed, highly palatable food-like products. Plus our amygdala is being hijacked. And they know how to do that through things like excess fat and sugar.

And I mean, typically they're called hedonistic foods. And if you buy into the emotional state of like the news, for instance, that corresponding energy will create your appetite. So if you're thinking low energy thoughts and participating in low energy activities, and you know, the old saying that, you know, the negative people talk about people and resourceful people talk about things, but real genius talks about opportunities. So you want to have the, we want to talk about infinite possibilities and what does your body really need. And one of the things about the mind, if we start to have the mindset that your body is like a spacesuit, if you're out in space and your life dependent on it, you're not going to put something into that spacesuit that's going to cause it to blow up or poke a hole in it. You know, our body, we're meant to be the custodians of our body.

A lot of people identify with their body and think they're their body, but you're the energy, you're the custodian of the body. You know, so we always tell people, you know, look at your food and the reason that you want to honor that food is it's soon going to be you, you know? And so when you look at that food, when you are checking out the grocery store, I used to tell my clients, look down at the grocery cart and say, wow, this is the body of a healthy person now this is what i'm going to build you know if you're if you're you look at other people's carts and maybe they have some of those foods you used to have and you look at them typically there's a real tall tale sign there you can look at the checkout counter and see what somebody's ways

or how their health is going they could be thin but they might not be healthy you know we've got to eat we've got to eat real food because we have to have those enzymes. A lot of people don't understand as we grow, it's our enzyme bank account that keeps us alive. If we don't have those enzymes, and even if you're eating healthy, you probably have to do some kind of digestive enzymes because that's the real problem with aging, right? Our bodies lose the capacity to digest and metabolize food, especially if you're used to eating out of a can bottle or a wrapper, you know, you've been robbing Peter to pay Paul for 30 years. And now you're going, I can't believe my body's giving out. Well, it gave out, it can only do so much for you.

You know, the body is gonna stay alive. And I think the most important thing we tell our clients is you can only have one tablespoon of circulating sugar in the bloodstream. So if you have any more than that, the body has to produce a fat cell. And then it stores it and says, you know, when that family, when the grocery stores are shut down or whatever, you know, it still thinks it's out in nature, right? There's going to be a time when there's the supply is washed up or whatever. And so you're going to have that supply to go to, but we don't have that anymore right now.

We have a grocery store in every corner. The other thing we like to tell people is that actually stress is more fattening than chocolate because one stressful event in your liver produces sugar. And that's why you probably run across people that say, I can't believe I'm overweight. I don't eat any sugar. But they're a nervous Nelly. You know, the nervousness actually is continuously producing sugar. So the pancreas is continuously dripping insulin to stop that sugar production. And then pretty soon the pump says, you know what? I'm done.

You know, and that's why they're like Mindy Pals and people like that are doing these fasting and showing that if we eat in a certain window, which is more like we would have eaten in the past in tradition. We don't, they didn't just get up and start eating all day long. I mean, they were afraid they wouldn't do that. They would, they would save some food for later. But we have people in, there is no evidence that I've ever seen that the six meals a day actually works for most people. It works in short term. But, I mean, I think three meals is always a lot. In India, they say three meals, you'll be sick.

Two meals, you'll be well. One meal, you'll have excellent health. And this is what happens as we age. So, I mean, the best thing someone can do for their health is eat more fresh foods and eat less of everything else. So I always tell people, eat as much fresh food as you want you could eat a you know a cupboard full of that and it's not going to cause you to gain weight because it has the enzymes packed into those foods that are going to break it down and work and that's going to that's going to help your brain because food is one of the biggest reasons we have brain stress your brain gets 25

of all the energy in the system. So if you're not feeding the brain in this day and age, the brain again will have to take in whatever sugar you have and start using it. And that can cause a lot of stress and inflammation. And that's really what you want to avoid nowadays is get that inflammation down. With cold and flu season around the corner, I just want to take a quick second to talk a little bit about a supplement that I created with 2x4 Nutrition. It's called Real Defense. And what it is, is a liposomal supplement. If you are unaware of what a liposomal supplement is, I would highly recommend going back and listening to the episode with the founder of 2x4 because we

go into extensive detail what it means and why liposomal supplements are up to 15 times more effective than supplements, traditional supplements like capsules and gummies. When you're taking a supplement, you're spending money on it. You obviously want it to be bioavailable for the body and for it to work. So this is probably one of the most highly effective supplements that you can find on the market. And I created it in conjunction with 2x4 after everything we went through the last couple years. I mean, we just became more aware than ever of the importance of our immunity and making sure that our immune system is in a place where we can defend from whatever it is that our bodies

are exposed to. I spent a lot of time helping them formulate this and everything in here is science-backed and specifically in this supplement because it has immune modulating properties. It has vitamin D, zinc, quercetin. Quercetin is a zinc ionifer, which means that it pushes through the cell wall and gets the zinc into the actual cell so that it can help fight off whatever it is that your body is going through at the time. It also has elderberry, which is really high in vitamin C, chaga mushroom, which is really great for the immune system, aluthero root, and astragalus root. And of course, because I created this supplement with them, it is non-GMO, it's sugar-free, there's no natural flavors, and it tastes so good. You can take it on a day-to-day basis. Also, children can take it.

You just want to consult with your doctor on how much to take if you're giving it to your kids. And I really love this supplement. I take it every day and I really double down on it when I feel like I'm getting sick or when I catch a cold or something like that. So if you guys are interested in checking it out, go to 2x4.com, that's 2x4.com and search for Real Defense. I hope you guys love it.

Do you suffer from IBS or other digestive issues? Are you looking for a new podcast to listen to? From the producer of the Real Foodology podcast comes the all new health and nutrition podcast Digest This, hosted by Bethany Ugarte. You may know Bethany as the face of the popular Instagram page Lil Sipper, or you may have even read her book. Now you can find her wherever you get your podcasts. On Digest This, Bethany examines topics such as gut health, Thank you. If it has to do with your health, Digest This is talking about it. Each episode features an interview with health experts, doctors, and wellness advocates, and delivers you information that is, well, easy to digest. Bethany also delivers a weekly segment every episode called Bite of Knowledge, where she highlights an ingredient commonly used in food, skin care, household cleaning, you name it,

and gives you the lowdown on the benefits or dangers that ingredient might have in your everyday life. From Botox, potassium, olive oil, and magnesium, all the way to those ingredients you can barely pronounce on the back of your cereal boxes, Bethany has you covered. There's a reason why it debuted at number two on Apple Podcast Nutrition Charts. Check out Digest This on your favorite podcast app. New episodes every Monday You just said so much there that I wanted to ask questions about. And I also wanted to make a comment about what you said earlier. I actually see this a lot on my Instagram videos that I do, is that someone will say,

well, I've been eating this food for 30 years and I'm fine and I don't see the effects of it. And to your point, what you said is that, yeah, they may not even see yet how their body is failing them that it's to come. Or what I see quite often is that people are so disconnected to their bodies and their health. They're not even connecting their, let's say, joint pain or their foggy brain or whatever it is to these foods or these food-like products, as I like to call them, that they've been eating for so long. And this is a really, really important part of this conversation, I think. And we've kind of touched on this,

but how does nutrition really affect our brain health? Well, it's key because that's the fuel. The brain is going to get the first of everything. The first thing it needs is first thing in the morning, we need some kind of mineralized water because our brain, if you slept through the night, your brain shrunk three quarters of an inch. This is normal, but we have to hydrate again because that's when the body's detoxing. So think about rinsing out a sponge. Your brain is pushing out those toxins during deep sleep. So we need that water. And then if we can give the body a little bit of time, because what it did through the night is it went to balance out the system.

So the moment you put food into it, the cleaning process, that autophagy stops. And that's what we really need to stay healthy, especially for the brain. So what I recommend people do, I get up around 5, 5.30 every morning, and I start my two hours of what I do for myself. But I mean, I'm kind of selfish that way. But other people don't do that. They get up right before they have to rush off to work. And it's really important that they sit down. If you do need to eat breakfast, it's super important if you have a brain job that you have some kind of, when they say something that sticks to your ribs, something that is healthy and has good fiber. Fiber is probably one of the missing nutrients that most people in their diet.

I mean, I've had people come into the clinic and they go, I only go to the bathroom once a week. Is that all right? And I'm like, yeah, we're supposed to go to the bathroom after every meal. I say, you ever seen a baby? You feed a baby, they go to the bathroom, you know, and that's the way we should be, you know, as individuals, but a lot of people don't get the right fat, fiber and protein, so their body's not functioning. So, but that also has to do, the main reason that food is so important is your second brain, as they call it, is your gut. So if your gut is not operating right, there's something called leaky gut. You probably hear about it all the time.

If you have leaky gut, they now know with certainty that you have a leaky brain. That means we have a brain biome. So these mirror each other. And that also affects the most important thing, which is your heart, because your heart is the number one brain, really, because it has 40,000 neutrino cells. It tells the other two what to do. That's why if you just look statistically, there's more heart attacks on Monday morning than any other day of the week is because people don't have their heart in their job.

So think of everything you do like beads on a string. Food is important. The first thing that's the you can't like I said, you can't out think this bad diet. Somebody thinks they're going to go exercise and be healthy by eating junk. It's never going to work because, you know, it's kind of like building. There's a story about a guy. One of my favorite stories I would tell my clients. It's about this this builder. He was a construction worker and he worked for this guy for 40 years and he says i got to retire my wife says i you know we want to have some time together and the guy says well can you build me just one more house he said no he says i've worked for you

for 40 years he's just built me one more house so the guy says okay so he brings in the cheapest labor uses the cheapest materials builds this house super fast fastest house he ever built goes back to the guy with the keys and says here here's your keys. I built your house. That's the last one I'm going to do. We're going to retire. And he goes, no, you keep the keys. That's your house. Oh, you guys said what? He said, that's your house for working for me for 40 years. Thanks for it. He says, well, if you had told me it was my house, I would have brought in the best workers out of use the best materials out of, and this is, this is kind of the way people are at 60 years old or 55 years old. And they're going, they start to blame their body. But you were the head of the construction

crew. You were the one that brought in all the tools that brought in the tools come in the form of water, vegetables, fruit, fiber, proteins, good proteins, all these and i and i do take a lot of supplements because i know i can't get it from the foods but you have to start with the base you know you have to start with and i tell you if people are confused i always tell them go watch some episodes of i love lucy you know i i love it when you watch that show and she's there with ethel and they're having lunch and they split a sandwich and they have a small tumbler of soda you know and and even though it's that soda is not good it's pure poison but they're not it's not probably going to have an effect on them because it's such a small amount where of course if they have to serve that today could

you imagine where's my big gulp where's my sandwich that could feed a family of nine you know the we seem to you know i still remember my dad was at one time 400 pounds and my mother was 350 and i remember asking them if a new restaurant in town was any good and they said yeah they give you big portions and i said dad i i want to know did it taste good because he was you know he was just measuring it by volume you know you don't want to be a walmart play when it comes to your food oh you can shop at walmart if you want but you don't want to be a Walmart play when it comes to your food. Oh, you can shop at Walmart if you want, but you don't want to be like, you don't want the bigger, better deal. You want, you want to feed your body like a Ferrari. You know, you want to put the best, the best

materials in there. And that starts with a mindset. You have to understand that you are an infinite being with infinite possibilities. And you're the only limits you have are consciousness. So when you put that food in, guess what? You take on the consciousness of whatever you're consuming. You can't have it any other way. You put it into the system. So you either have the stress of metabolizing and digesting that food, or you have the ease and grace of the food that works directly with our body and brings about health and vitality. Yes. Oh my God, yes. That whole tangent you just went off on was incredible.

And you brought up a really great point. We see this, especially in America, that it has become quantity over quality. Everyone is so concerned about getting the biggest, best thing that they're not even thinking about like, okay, so this is maybe the biggest thing, but is it like actually good for me? Is this high quality? And I actually prefer, you know, well, I think a lot of us in the health space would say this, but I want smaller portions and I just want it to be the healthiest possible, you know, the organic, pasture-raised, grass-fed beef. I don't need a huge, you know, a huge steak or whatever it is. It's all about the quality. It's not about the quantity. And I will actually pay more for that smaller portion if I know it's higher quality.

Because guess what? You're going to be fuller quicker too, because you're actually feeding yourselves the nutrients. Yeah. And this is another thing, the hedonistic behaviors, and they put this in the fat, the high fats and the sugars into the foods. This, this tricks the brain into thinking you're not hungry. These are cytotoxins. I still remember a woman I was working with and she said, Dr. Porter, your weight loss program isn't working. And I said, really, what's going on? And she said, well, I'm getting up in the middle of the night and I'm eating Oreo cookies. And I said, well, we don't have a program, you know, eat your cookies and lose weight too i said i'm just curious i said when you bought those oreo cookies did you think this is going to be really good for my weight loss

program she's and she said no no no she said these are for my grandkids you know they shouldn't have to suffer because i'm on a diet i said i said you know what you should actually feed them all those foods because in 20 years i I'm going to need more clients. So you can train them to be overweight just like you. And of course, she goes, I wouldn't do that. And I said, well, I said, those Oreos are made by elves. So you never eat anything made by magical beings, right?

And there's actually 19 different excitotoxins. Those are manufactured for addiction. The food industry bought from the tobacco industry all of their addiction technology. And it's all real foods. So, I mean, it's not real in the way they present it, but it's not like synthetic, you know, triggering them. And so I said, I tell you what. And the worst thing was I said, do you enjoy them when you eat them? Cause that, cause usually they don't, right? She goes, well, that's the weird part. I get up in the middle of the night and I eat them in bed.

And my husband's mad as hell. Cause there's Oreo cookie crumbs in bed. I don't even remember eating them. So she's what we call a sub-nambulistic, a sleepwalker. Very few people are, but there are some out there. And so I said, well, go to the health food store, buy fruit sweetened cookies, take them out of the container. Because if you look at commercials today, they are designed to teach the kids to nag the parents to get the junk. Right. Every commercial almost is showing a kid nagging the parents. So they're educating the kids to bug the parents. And then, of course, the parents will melt away. And they go, OK, here you go. Yeah, they cave. And I said, put them into a tin or put

them into a Tupperware or something. And then when they come over, give them a cookie or two. And then tell me what happens. She came back a week later. She goes, you're not going to believe it. I haven't had any Oreo cookies in a week. I said, you mean, if you don't buy them, you don't eat them? You know, a lot of people, it's kind of like the thing with cigarette smokers. You know, they buy cigarettes and they say, just in case I need them. Well, I'm, that's like an alcoholic let me get a six-pack just in case i need it i'm sure i'm gonna need it you know that because you bought it you know so we that's where the mindset comes in is we have to plan for success or we can count on failure so you know when i traveled i have to plan my food i have to bring a healthy protein and a healthy whatever, because if I'm flying and

maybe I don't get the meal I want, I want to make sure I'm getting something healthy. Or I have the excuse I have to go into whatever restaurants available and get whatever junk that they're going to deliver to me. I mean, I don't need a junk food restaurant, but there doesn't have to be a junk food restaurant to feed you junk anymore. There's very few really good restaurants out there. Yeah. I mean, this is a huge concern is that it's pretty hard to eat out healthy now, period. I mean, most restaurants aren't serving high quality meats. They're usually cooking with canola oil or some sort of seed oil. Most of the vegetables and fruit are not organic, so you're getting exposed to pesticides. And it's a huge concern. And I think a lot of people aren't even thinking about this and they're post-mating every night instead of cooking at home. And these are all real concerns. And you also brought up another great concern. And this,

again, talks about that connection with the brain and the gut is that we are now eating manufactured foods that were manufactured to be incredibly addictive. And then that's having an effect on our brains. And I think so many people are not thinking about the fact that they are quite literally addicted to these foods. Like it's as if someone is addicted to heroin, but they're addicted to these foods. And I will say, you said that it's all real foods

and that they're not synthetic, but I would say that there is a synthetic component in there with like the natural flavors, the MSG. So there are components in their preservatives that are making them highly addictive that are not meant to be in our food. Exactly. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt because the food industry has destroyed our health and it's destroyed our food system. And we know that there's 11 companies that own the entirety of our food system. That is insane. And it's crazy that we allow all of this to happen. And then people will fight me and say, well, this is what the FDA is for. They're regulating this, but people don't know this, that the FDA has admitted themselves that they don't have the manpower to control the

ingredients that are coming into our food system. So now they're putting it on the companies themselves to regulate themselves. And then all they have to do is give a little paperwork to the FDA to prove that the ingredients they want to use are safe or quote unquote safe. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the illusion. If people really looked at the FDA, they that's the that's the illusion you know when if people really looked at the fda they wouldn't trust that agency as far as you could throw it because yeah it's a swinging door to the big food industry or big pharma they're basically the people are supposed to be regulating control everyone everything in pretty much in that whole agency so it's it's crazy i mean sugar should be banned from yeah you know it should be be, I mean, it's a neurotoxin.

You want to, and don't believe me, just take a group of kids at a party and give them all cake and see what happens. It's so true. They're bouncing off the walls. You know, when I was a kid, I was very, very addicted to sugar. I mean, I have a propensity to still be pretty addicted to it, but now I just don't really eat it a lot. And so I just, I don't feel it. But I was diagnosed with hyperactivity as a kid. And looking back, both me and my mom were like, it was the sugar. You were just, I was addicted to sugar

and I was bouncing off the walls. Yeah, I write about in my first book, Awaken the Genius, they didn't start school till my brother ran laps around the classroom. And my mother went to an iridologist who's a nutritionalist and told us to get off all the sugar, the dyes and all these things. This was, and we were lucky, we grew up in Battle Creek, Michigan, the first health food store in the world was there.

So Dr. Kellogg put it in. And so we could go down there and get fruit sweetened things that you don't have the same response with. And we learned and we went from being these spastic kids that nobody wanted. Could you imagine bringing nine kids to church? I mean, it was crazy. I can't believe they did it. But all these things happened. All hopped up on sugar. Yeah, all hopped up. My dad worked at the cereal company, so you know what happens there. Oh, yeah. In your opinion, what are the biggest offenders when it comes to toxins in our food as the way that it affects the brain? Well, the seed oils are terrible for the brain because the brain is looking for fat.

So you eat a seed oil, the brain goes, well, we've got fats, great. And then it gets in there and goes, oh no, these aren't the fats we wanted. They want more avocados and natural fats as much as possible. Olive oil. Olive oil. Butter. Yeah. Anything that's omega-3 and things like that are really good. And then sugar of all kinds. The problem most people have is now sugar gets renamed in about, what is it, 12 to 15 different ways. And what does it say? If it

says dextrose or what is it? Yeah, there's dextrose, maltodextrin. I mean, there's so many names for it now. Another one that tricks people up a lot is cane juice crystals because it sounds like, oh, juice, but it's not healthy either. Yeah. So I think those are the two that are the biggest culprits because they can use those to, they know, they actually inject foods at restaurants. Like, there's a really good book talking about the food industry that talks about hedonistic foods. I wish I could remember the name of that book. It was written by one of our ex-government officials that came clean on what was going on, and they raided restaurants.

Like, one of the worst offenders is the cheesecake factory. They literally pump fat and sugar into their products before they, and they blow them up before they get cooked. So it adds more to it. So that's why you look at the thing. It says, what do you mean this hamburger is 2,300 calories? You know, it should be maybe 600 or something, you know, but the problem is that they've got it all pumped full of crap that um and i think that they the fillers are really bad because they could be using uh real fiber but what they use a lot is actually wood you know there people are getting a pulp but it's not pulp from a fruit it's actually from a tree yeah cell listening, if you see cellulose on a green... So those are all things because the brain wants those three things. And the fiber, real fiber is really good because it's going to slow down sugar in the system. Sugar is the

biggest culprit, especially everything that happened the last three years. Look at what happened to all the diabetics. And the diabetic um you know kind of pandemic is not stopping it's getting worse and that's because people don't understand that you can control it with diet and they they think you have to control it with uh metforum or something you know the and that just gives them you know i tell people when you use medicine you can use that short term but you want to you know start looking at a natural alternative because that's like putting black tape over your, your lights in your car that say, Hey, your engine needs to be serviced. Oh, let me just put a little black tape on that. I'll just avoid it. You know, the body can only go so long. And then the body's going

to say, you know what, that those adrenals that you keep pushing, they're gone. Your kidneys, they're gone. Your pancreas, it's gone. You know, wherever your weakest link is, the body's going to say, okay, we did as much as we could. And what people don't understand, like osteoporosis, that's really a sign of not eating mineralized foods. Because the body is, if you're not taking a good mineral and eating foods that are full of minerals, your body's going to go to your bones. It's going to say, oh, we got all this stored mineral in your bones, so let's pull it out. And that's what sugar does. I mean, sugar, the worst thing, in order to buffer and move sugar through the system, you've got to have a lot of minerals. You know, there's a, you're a little chemist inside there and it's doing all the work.

And so that chemist is doing all this work and you got them working overtime. And all you have to do is either skip a meal a day or really what I always tell people to start one day, just eating raw food, just one day. I'm not saying be a raw foodist forever because I think everybody needs a little, you know, meat, especially women because they need iron unless they're finding it in other ways. But I was vegetarian for 18 years. It didn't seem to bother me, but my wife couldn't handle it. She got anemic. So we eat a steak one day a week and we get it from Austin where they have a really good farm that has no, there's no negative stuff

in there and it's a really good place. Is it a force of nature? Yes. Yeah. I love that place. Yes. Yeah. They're amazing. I talk about them a lot. When I was getting my master's in nutrition, a lot of my professors told us that for whatever reason, they couldn't explain why, but a lot of their clients they had seen that were females that had a history of being vegetarian were incredibly hormonally imbalanced. And it is something about the B6, I believe, that's in red meat and the minerals that we need. And there's creatine and a lot of other things that we really do need. So you've mentioned this a couple of times. I want to talk a little bit more about this fasting in the brain. So I witnessed a chat a couple of years ago with a brain,

I believe he was a brain surgeon. I wish I could remember his name. I don't remember his name, but he was the first person that really put this on the map for me that if you fast a couple of hours before you go to sleep, it's a lot better for your brain because then instead of your body focusing on digesting, it's focusing on autophagy, recategorizing your memories from the day, et cetera. Can you speak a little bit more about that? Yeah. If you were to hook yourself up to even your smart watches or things for HRV, do one before you eat and after you eat. And you're going to notice your HRV gets compromised. Some people really bad because all the energy is being sent to your, that your biggest,

you know, production organs really are the digestive system. You know, we're running around. So that means that it can't give the body that is supposed to be recharged and revitalized. I always tell people getting sent to your room without your dinner meal is probably the best thing mom and dad could have done for you, you know, to heal the brain because you don't get sleep until that body, until it moves into that phase two digestion. As long as, you know, like some people go, I'm starving, I'm going to eat something, go to bed. Well, it's better if they just maybe drank a little bit of water and then went to bed. So they can, because if you can tap into stored fat, now you've got really healthy fat, the body knows what to do with it. And the brain is the biggest

consumer of fat. I tell people you can burn more fat at night while you sleep. If you go to sleep three to four hours before bed without eating, then you can by doing a workout. So if you don't want to work out, just stop eating. If you're going to go to bed at 10, stop eating at six. You know, there are a lot of people I know that they found if they only ate while the sun was out, they did better. So you create these little tricks you do, but really I find a six to eight hour eating window seems to be the best for most people. And you really want that autophagy because that's when the brain needs that too. If the brain can open up the glial lymphomic system, which happens during sleep, you'll detox the brain. But if you're still doing all that digestion,

it doesn't make that switch to level four sleep because you have to digest the brain. But if you're still doing all that digestion, it doesn't make that switch to level four sleep because you have to digest the food. That's the biggest reason that you're not sleeping well. That's really interesting. And then you talk about this feeding window and I like to explain this and break it down for people to make it easier and more digestible, if you will. But if you think about it like this, if you don't eat until let's say between like 10 to 12 PM, and then you stop eating at 6 PM, that would be, you know, like a six to eight hour window. And it's pretty easy to stay in that window. You know, like I wake up in the morning, I have coffee and then I eat when I'm hungry, but I'm generally not hungry until around like one or so. And then I try to eat dinner on the earlier side because I know all this and then it's good for my brain. And then also I want to say too, it's more about consistency, guys. It's

not about being a perfectionist about this. It's not to say that I don't sometimes go to a late dinner with my friends. I also want to live my life and socialize. So you don't have to live in such a strict window all the time. But if you can do this on a pretty consistent basis, it's really great for your brain. Yes, it is. And it's just a discipline. I mean, a lot of people know when we go to shows and things like that, I might go out with them late at night and I'll go, I'll just drink my water with them. And they'll go, what are you doing? I'm like, I already ate for the day. I mean, I know I'm going to pay for it the next day at the trade show. If I'm, if I'm, if my body's sluggish, if I don't get that night's sleep, especially when you're away from home, you know, a lot of people that's there.

And for years I did that, you know, it was like, and, and it was like pretty soon the body said, you know, this isn't working for me. You know, the old saying with my daughter, when she was younger, I used to say, you know, you didn't finish all your food. You don't get dessert. Right. She goes, well, we have a separate stomach for dessert. And I'd say, Cherie, look around, you can see it on people. Look around. You know, so it's like, you know, because of that craving,

really, and appetites of the mind, that's what people need to understand, hungers of the body. Most people don't realize, you really don't get hungry until about a day and a half of not eating. But psychologically, some people can't even go four hours. They're like, oh, I'm starving. And you're like, you're not starving. You're just mentally hungry. It is about retraining your brain and learning to listen to those real hunger cues. And also a lot of it is about fueling your body with foods that will sustain you for longer periods of time. For example, prioritizing protein and healthy fats. And like you said, fiber that's going to keep you fuller for longer so that you're not just chasing meals while snacking in between. So you mentioned too something about HRV. Can you explain what HRV is for people that don't know?

Yeah. Think of HRV as your heart rate variability. That's what that means, HRV. So you want to have a varied heart rate. For instance, we all know somebody who died of a heart attack and they go, hey, Tim never got angry. He never got upset. Well, Tim should have got angry. Tim should have got upset because being mild all the time is bad for the heart being hyper all the time is bad for the heart what's good for the heart is those in moments of stress that's why working out is so important to the body you know building muscle that's and then times of relaxation so we need to be able to move in as quickly as your brain can do that now the one thing most people don't know is your heart is a signal.

They call it the gold standard now for health. So they can predict your future health based on your heart rate variability. So in other words, if you don't have that variability, then you need to start practicing that, maybe going to lifting weights and then going to do deep relaxation exercises back and forth. So your body learns to do deep relaxation exercises back and forth so your body learns to do that once it learns to do that you'll you'll fall in love with that sensation because now instead of having mood swings too uh your body wants to have that variability it it wants it but it's like any

other exercise if you condition it to just sit on the couch and watch television and eat potato chips. It'll like that too, because it loves patterns. Okay. And the deal with HRV, so I'm still learning about this because I have an Oura ring and it has been telling me my HRV. And my friend looks at mine often and says, whoa, yours is really, really low. So the thing is you want it to be higher, like as high as possible, correct? Right. Some standards, some HRVs do it by that. Some do it by lower number. I have aura too. So I know it works with the higher number and you can really offset that by doing brain tap and doing, I mean, we've had people, especially your age, you should be able to get your heart

rate variability over the nineties just consistently. We've seen that like when Ben Greenfield started using BrainTap, he used his HRV to show and prove that it worked. And that's why he's still out there using BrainTap and recorded some sessions for us actually. Oh my gosh. Okay. I need to be more consistent on the BrainTap because I will say I was blown away by the effects that I saw when I was at the biohacking conference because I was actually, we were able to measure it because I don't remember what the machine was that we used, but you guys did something in the beginning where you measured where I was at. And then I went into

the brain tap and then we measured at the end and the difference in the way that my brain was functioning, my stress levels, there were all these different things that you can speak to more because I don't remember what all of it was it was measuring. But I mean, it was remarkable. Yeah, that's called the neurocheck. And it's designed based on something called data pulse analysis. And one of the features of it is HRV. So how is your heart communicating with the rest of your body? Because this gut brain connection is so important if it's if it's not in harmony you're not communicating then you know that throws everything off and your moods will change your your hormonal state will change your neurotransmitter bank account will get used up all these things are all part of a dysregulated brain so once we bring the in the

brain we're also measuring the sympathetic parasyasympathetic, and neurohormonal system. And these three need to work together. If they work together, then we have health. If they, if one is out of proportion, for instance, if you have too much parasympathetic, you become more of a California surfer and you don't really care, you don't, to get off the couch. If you're too sympathetic, you might become a driver and you do really well, but you might be one of those people that, you know, that retire and expire. And then the neurohormonal people, they're the ones that find later in life, they get adrenal fatigue and they get burnout. Yeah. I need to start using the brain tap more consistently. Well, I want to be mindful of your

time. I have one more question for you. With how overwhelming the environment of the world has become, how can someone take control of their internal system to allow them more calm in all this chaos that we're dealing with, the stress, the fight or flight? Right. Besides just getting the brain tap and doing it, I would say breath work. You can go on YouTube and just put in breath masters or something like that, and you'll get some free breath exercises. The one that I recommend right before sleep, because that's the biggest time for everything. If you can improve your sleep, you can improve everything, is do a 4-8 breath. And that's a connected breath where you breathe into the melancholy 4. That's going to trigger

your sympathetic system. So you might get a little anxious at first because your body's not used to that, but then breathe out slowly to the count of eight. That turns on the parasympathetic and connect the breath. So there's never a pain. There's never a time you're not breathing in or out. And what will happen if you do that for three or four minutes before sleep, you're going to start to experience some really deep sleep and you'll wake up so recharged. It's going to, it's going to amaze you because what happens that first hour of sleep for some people their body needs to process all the energy of the day and some people don't do that at all and then they wake up two or three hours later and they wonder why they're not sleeping because they didn't offload that stress yeah so that's one of the big things they can do

and then in the morning i like doing something you can find this on youtube too it's called breath of fire it's really hyper it's like a hyper breath activity that over oxygenates the system but what it does is it causes that cortisol and adrenaline that we need in the morning to be up and focused so it's a good time to start triggering that those are the two times and then throughout the day in the middle of the day give yourself permission to take some timeouts do some you know just some mindful exercises relax mindful exercises, relax. And of course, if you have brain tap, you're going to use it during those three times. Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. So I have a personal question for you that I ask all of my guests of the podcast. What are your health non-negotiables? You mentioned earlier that you have like two hours in the morning for you.

These are, so these are things that you do to prioritize your health. Right. I, whether I'm traveling or whatever, wherever I'm at, I have to do my morning meditation. And I always do a 10-minute brain tap at the end of that because I was trained in another meditation process before I invented brain tap. So I'm still using that. And then I would also say that one non-negotiable is drinking my half my body's weight in ounces of water every day that's a big one for me and just recently over the last seven to ten years has been to sleep because before that I was one of those people that thought you wore lack of sleep as a badge and it was really important and then I then I started doing research as I got a little

older, I thought, started saying, well, I don't like to feel that way in the morning. I'd rather, you know, and it's all about shifting the timing. Cause I was, I was still getting the same amount of sleep, but I don't have to stay up till, you know, one o'clock every hour before 12, I read is worth two hours after 12 for a melatonin production. So that's every cell needs that. It doesn't just need it during sleep. So that switched it to me. And then working out, I physically work out at least three or more times a day,

whether it's on my mini tramp or using my resistant bands while I'm traveling, those kinds of things. I think keeping muscle growth is really important. And diet is really important to us. So, I mean, there's a lot of things. I think keeping muscle growth is really important and, you know, diet is really important to us. So, I mean, there's a lot of things that we're probably pretty boring for most people, you know, because that's the way, that's the way we do it. No, I think it's, it's so important. And it's, it's always, I love to ask all my guests this because I like to hear what everyone's different protocols are. It's really, it's really

awesome. So before we go, we're wrapping this up, but is there anything else about brain tap or really anything that we talked about that you just didn't get a chance to discuss? Well, I think it's just important to understand that the brain is really the most underutilized organ that people just don't realize that you can control your thoughts. You have to rehearse, practice and pretend. And then the brain will act as if those things are right. So if you're, if you need to make a change in your diet, then start acting as if you've already made it. How would you think? How would you act? How would you respond? And then just start every morning, just start thinking about those possibilities. Cause I like to tell people that they are far more capable. Your past does not have to dictate your future. You can make it all

up differently and have a better future than you ever thought possible. Wow. It's a great, great way to end this. Please tell everyone where they can find you and where they can find Braintap. Yeah. Well, they can go to Braintap.info and they can download the app for free and my book, Thrive and Overdrive, and they get 15 days free on the app. And then they're going to learn all about us. And they can follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Dr. Patrick Porter and or at Braintap Tech. There are different content on those, but it's my company. So you'll see there's a lot of crossover there.

And the one shows a lot of our, we have over, we have 110,000 people who often are part of our app experience. So we have a lot of people posting about Braintap. They'll learn about it there. Awesome. Thank you so much. This was a really great conversation. I learned a lot.

Well, great. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you so much for listening to this week great conversation. I learned a lot. Well, great. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. If you liked the episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a Resonant Media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie. Georgie is spelled with a J.

For more amazing podcasts produced by my team, go to resonantmediagroup.com. I love you guys so much. See you next week. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice

and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.