NL: Hi everyone! My name is Natalie Ledwell and this is the Inspiration Show. Today on the show my special guest is going to be talking about our brain, and actually he has a new book coming out called The Better Brain Solution, which we’re going to be talking about. But before I introduce my special guest, I just want to remind you that if you are watching this show live on Facebook or later on our YouTube channel, don’t forget that after the show is over if you click the link below this video you can take my 30-second quiz to figure out what is holding you back from success. So, please let me introduce my special guest Dr. Steven Masley. Hi Steven, how are you?

Dr. SM: Hi Nat. Great to see you.

NL: Yeah. Great to see you as well. Now Steven and I actually bumped into each other at a wedding recently and he was telling me about his new book, “The Better Brain Solution”, and I’m like, we have to share this information with our community. Such important information for us to know. So why don’t we start first, Steven, with your background and your story and what it is that you do.

Dr. SM: Well, I’m a Physician, Nutritionist, trained Chef, Author. I write books and I’ve done like,  number one, health and wellness show on public television, trying to reach out and help people transform their lives. So my story [glitch-Jumped video 00:01:16 – 00:01:18] where I thought people went to the hospital for surgery and all these procedures and I didn’t want any part of it. I dreamed about being a doctor, to prevent people from going to the hospital, and that’s been my life’s work and now I work in a clinic where we do optimal health assessments. We look at nutrition and fitness and stress management and really, how you can we use food and nutrients and exercise to get rid of most of your health issues. We published data and we can actually say wow, with this program your brain gets sharper, quicker. You can shrink artery plaque. You can transform your life, and that’s really inspirational and I’ve been really blessed and lucky to be part of that.

NL: Yeah. So tell me some of the things that you’re measuring at the clinic and some of the results hat you’ve been seeing.

Dr. SM: Well, we measure brain processing speed. We have people do a computerized test that looks at their memory and focus, attention, their ability to jump from task to task, and we’ve seen a 25 to 30 percent improvement in brain processing speed. That would be like someone improving your computer and how much more work you can get if your computer worked faster. Well that’s true with your brain, too. And if you’re improving your brain speed then you’re preventing memory loss which is the scariest disease in the Western world today. So I think that’s just incredibly important. We’ve shown that people can shrink artery plaque that we’ve had [glitch. Jumped video. 00:02:50 – 00:02:53] people who pursue this were literally 10 years younger. Their medications improve, their blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol - but I think the biggest thing is they feel better. They have more energy. They sleep better, even their sexual life gets better and what’s wrong with that?

NL: Yeah. Absolutely nothing. So I know in the book “The Better Brain Solution”, you actually do cover five steps that help us have a better, sharper, you know “Six Million Dollar Man”, you know brain function. Can you go over those five steps for us?

Dr. SM:  Well the keys are adding, right, the correct foods and what foods should you avoid. That’s step one. Step two are meet your key nutrient needs, what are the essential nutrients that your brain doesn’t do well without? And by avoiding those deficiencies, it helps prevent memory loss and improves your brain function. Three is about getting fit, because we know when you add aerobics, you know, you rev up your heart rate, you speed up your brain and we also know when you lift weights, that weight lifting actually you’re not just making your muscles bigger you also enlarge your brain at the same time. It’s pretty amazing that the same factors that cause muscles to grow makes your brain grow. Step 4 is stress management. That if you don’t manage your stress, there’s a lot of stress out there, your cortisol goes up and cortisol shrinks the brain. When people manage their stress proactively with key steps to reduce the stress, I want you to purpose and challenge, I’m not trying to get rid of your stress I just want you to proactively manage that. And last, not least, there’s some toxins out there and we should be avoiding those toxins. So it’s really about the right food, nutrients, activities that gives you a better brain and what are the easy steps to do to achieve that.

NL: Yeah. And this is what I love about the book because it’s not like we have to go through this really stressful regime of a whole bunch of different things. What you’re giving us is some simple solutions on how we can incorporate these things into our everyday life to really improve our brain function and our memory and which, let’s face it, we all want to do that. So let’s talk a little bit about the food. So what are the kind of foods that we want to avoid and what are those kind of things that we want to even be incorporating into our diet?

Dr. SM: Well, the number one thing increasing the rate of Alzheimer’s and memory loss today in general brain dysfunction, brain fog, is too much sugar in our diet. When we eat sugar or for that matter flour, anytime you grind a grain into flour it has the same response as just eating table sugar. So whether it’s whole wheat bread, breakfast cereal, table sugar, I mean they have the same reaction. That really disrupts brain cell function. Cells in your brain more likely to die. So cut out the sugar and flour but what are you going to add? Well we definitely, I mean the keys are clean protein, smart fats, carb or high carb diet but you’ve got to eat these plant pigments. Plant pigments are fantastic for your brain, things like vegetables, like green leafies, beets, we want cherries and we want berries because those pigments protect our brain and lower inflammation. People who eat those kind of foods, their brains are at least 11 years younger. It’s from cocoa and dark chocolate, the unsweetened form. So at least 70% dark chocolate or cocoa. I want you to have that every day. The pigments that are in tea and coffee are good too, but in moderation. We’re not talking a whole pot of coffee but like 2 cups of coffee and a cup or two of green tea, especially Macha tea. I mean, it’s really good for your brain. Those pigments have beneficial benefits to your brain. Even red wine. You can have a glass of red wine at dinner, you know one or two servings a day is good for your brain. More than, no I cannot say you know, drink more, not the whole bottle. And sadly beer and hard liquor didn’t have nearly as much benefit. They didn’t really have any benefits. So it’s really red wine that’s the big benefit. But all those pigments are things we want people to add for the brain. And smart fats. As I said fats we want like avocado, olive oil and nuts, both of those have been shown, when people eat more, their cognitive function improves and it slows memory loss. So definitely avocado, olive oil, nuts, dark chocolate, seafood, the omega 3 seafood like wild salmon. You know that’s awesome. Those foods are fantastic for our brain and for protein, clean protein like grass-fed or pasture raised animal protein, cage free organic poultry for your eggs, seafood. Those are clean sources so we want clean protein, more produce, you know in terms of with colorful pigments, dark chocolate you know…it could be. And then we want spices and herbs, those are the other keys because they’re anti-inflammatory, they make food taste fantastic. Yes, I’m a Physician and a Nutritionist, but I’m also a trained Chef. I worked at the Four Seasons Restaurant for a year in a chef internship. I want your food to taste fantastic. It should be easy to prepare, nourish your body, brain and soul and be delicious. I’m really into delicious, awesome food and I think that makes it easy to follow. If your family and friends love what you are eating, they’re gonna want to join you and it makes it so much easier.

NL: Absolutely. So we know about the foods that we should be eating, we know about the couple that we should be avoiding, exercise I think is pretty self-explanatory, something where we’re getting the blood flow, obviously doing some kind of weight training. I love how that builds our brain as well. Stress management I think that it’s very difficult for us to avoid stress these days. I mean it’s coming at us from all angles, so what are some great stress relieving activities we can do?

Dr. SM:  Well, a workout really helps. When you start sweating you’re really burning off stress. A good night’s sleep is just essential. Enough sleep so you feel rested and the quality is as important as the quantity. Most people need 7 to 8 hours sleep so you’re restored and rested. I think there’s tips, and like avoiding white and blue light before you go to bed. You definitely want to avoid those. Red light would be okay. Turn your bedroom into a red light district isn’t such a bad idea and then, you know, some meditation calm time every day. It doesn’t take long but adding ten minutes, twenty minutes of peace and calm and it makes a huge difference in our ability to proactively [glitch jumped video 00:09:45 – 00:09:45]

NL: Yeah. Absolutely. And so what are some of these toxins that we should be avoiding as well and where do they show up in your life?

Dr. SM:  Well some of them come, like, in our foods, like in the processed meats like hotdogs, baloney, deli meats, bacon. They sprinkle nitrosamines on them to extend the shelf life so they can [glitch: jumped video 00:10:06 – 00:10:09] so the problem is, nitrosamines cause blood sugar abnormalities and diabetes but they’re neurotoxic to brain cells. [Inaudible word] when they’re eating bacon in a regular place, they may be eating a neurotoxin at the same time. So you want to buy pasture raised organically fed, nitrosamine free bacon, that’s critical, or don’t eat it. I’m not saying you can’t have it but at least it’s got to be clean is really the theme. Another source of toxin is comes from seafood as in mercury and that’s mostly bigmouth fish, tuna, grouper, snapper, swordfish, shark, bigmouth fish, they’re very high in mercury and mercury is toxic to our brain. So if I, and pesticides, we know people have high pesticide levels, 50% more in Alzheimer’s, and if your levels are low, so you know, and the biggest source of pesticides comes from dirty animal protein that was raised in these feed lots, where they used pesticides on the grain they’ve been feeding. Clean is really essential in a variety fighting brain toxin. So I mean, those are just a few of the examples from “The Better Brain Solution” and it’s not that hard to avoid them if you know what to look for and what to ask for and just buying the right foods isn’t difficult when you know what to do.

NL: Absolutely. And you’ve spelled it out so well in the book, then, it makes it really easy to follow. Now I know that you’ve also put together a little a quiz or an assessment for people to take to assess where they are right now with their brain health, so tell us a little bit about that.

Dr. SM: Well, a lot of people are wondering how am I doing? I wanted to give them a simple tool, maybe two minutes where they could go through and ask ten questions and get some score and about well how is my brain doing? Do I have to worry? Do I need work up? And if you do, then I give you the two things -  what test should your doctor order? What things should you be doing if your scores are dropping? We don’t want that. But I think the key is figure out how you are. Two minutes and you can get a brain symptom score and along with your score, I wanted to make it so usefu,l you know, not just “Okay, here’s your score” but I threw in one of my favorite tools, a brain shopping guide. So it gives you what twelve foods to add to boost your brain and twelve foods to avoid because they’ll poison your brain. So what to add, what to avoid each time you go shopping. It just makes it so easy to make the right choices so that all of your audience can have a better brain.

NL: Yeah. I agree and congratulations on the book and thank you for writing the book because, like I said, the information you have in there is very easy to understand and having a…

Dr. SM: I love the colors of this book, here it is. I just thought you mentioned that. So here’s “The Better Brain Solution” I think it’s a…I love the way the publisher put this together.

NL: Yeah. And what I also love is that, and not only these simple and easy things to start to embody and start to apply, but it’s never too early and it’s never too late to start. You know, looking after our brain health. So Steven, thank you for joining me today. Now guys, there will be a link underneath the video or the banner to the side where you can actually click on that link to go through and do that assessment so you can actually see where your brain health is and really get that, um, that little guide of what kind of foods we should be eating and incorporating. So thank you for your time Steven. So great chatting to you today.

Dr. SM: Thank you Natalie. It was a pleasure to be with you today.

NL: Yeah, awesome. So guys, I encourage you to share this video. Let’s get the word out there about how important this message is and you can do that by clicking the Facebook and the Twitter share buttons on this page. And don’t forget after the show is over and after you’ve clicked on Dr. Steven’s link, take my 30-second quiz so we can really figure out what’s holding you back from success. So until next time, remember to live large, choose courageously and love without limits. We’ll see you soon everyone.