Boost Your Brain Energy

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Your Most Important Resource

When you think about the future you want to create for yourself over the next few decades, what resources do you need to be able to build the life you want?  Are any of them more vital to the creation of the future you want than a high functioning and energetic mind?  

Today we’re going to talk about what I think is probably the most important resource for you to maintain and hone and enhance, which is the functionality of your mind.  This is a vast topic that could go all kinds of directions, all of which I find fascinating, but today I’m steering us in the direction of what I think is one of the most important books of the decade.  We’ll get to it in a second.  First, let’s talk about nuns.

Nuns are kind of awesome.  Don’t you think?  They might break into song about their challenges solving a problem (like Maria) or come on a bicycle to deliver your baby in London’s East End. Not to mention all the awesome stuff they do in real life, helping people who can’t help themselves, etc.  They’re also ideal research participants, because you know where they’re going to be and they live pretty controlled lives that are similar to their sisters in the same convent.  As part of a larger study, researchers at the University of Kentucky decided to retrospectively review and analyze the entry statements of newly appointed nuns (mean age of 22 at time of entry).  By age 85, 97% of the nuns whose entries contained the most positive wording and emotional content were still alive (vs. 52% of the least positive).  And similarly, at age 93, 52% of the cheerful entrants were still alive versus 18% of the least cheerful. This research suggests that having a positive mental outlook could actually add up to 10 years to your life.

In his book “Flourish,” Martin Seligman says that his research estimates that being in the upper quartile of optimism seems to have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk roughly equivalent to not smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day.  In his book “Brain Energy,” Chris Palmer states that “All mental disorders, even mild or common ones, are associated with shortened lifespans.”  Men lose 10 years on average and women lose 7 years on average of lifespan if they have any mental disorder.  Not just serious ones, but even super common ones like anxiety and attention deficit disorder.

Structure and Function 

I think we all tend to think of our disposition, like that of the cheerful nuns, as pretty different from our structural cellular functionality, like in someone with alzheimer’s or schizophrenia.  And to a certain extent, they are.  But they might be more interrelated than we tend to think.  I don’t think we’re super surprised to learn that positive people tend to live longer.  Were you shocked about the nuns?  Probably not.  What about the healthspan and lifespan of people with mental diagnoses of any kind?

People with mental health challenges of any kind age prematurely, have shorter telomeres and typically die from heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes. But earlier than people without mental diagnoses.  Why?  Could it have something to do with the fact that obesity, diabetes, heart disease, smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and lack of exercise all increase the risk of developing mental disorders like Alzheimers and depression?  And depression doubles your risk for Alzheimers.  Those with schizophrenia are 20x more likely to get Alzheimhers.  But mental disorders are likewise correlated with heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, obesity and the like.  It all goes together and can definitely make it impossible to tell which one is the chicken and which one is the egg.

So, so much can be done with mind management and learning to change your paradigm and outlook so keep doing that all important work!  Meditate, practice your 5 levels of gratitude, get coached, do volunteer work, all the things.  I love them all.  I’m sure you’ve heard the Byron Katie lesson about having your experience of watching a movie ruined by a big blotch on the screen.  You go up and try to rub the giant blob off the screen.  It’s not working.  You put in all your effort till you’re tired and you’re rubbing a hole in the screen.  It’ll never work, because the problem isn’t with the screen or the movie.  Even though it seems like it is.  There’s a little bit of lint on the projector lens.  Make sure you have a clear projector and you can finally see the story for what it really is.  And stop wasting your efforts on problems that aren’t really the problem.

Your Brain Energy

We know this. It’s good stuff.  Is it enough to fill everyone with boundless bucketfuls of mental energy and clear direction?  Maybe.  But it’s a lot harder when your little subcellular energy factories are browning out (or worse).  I read the book “Brain Energy” by Chris Palmer as soon as it came out at the tail end of 2022 and have been wanting to do an episode about it for a whole year.  If you know anyone with a mental illness, I think it’s a must read.  This includes schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer’s, depression, PTSD, anxiety, bulimia, you name it.  I think it’s also important if you want to decrease your chance of developing one yourself.

I want you to be a powerhouse for the next 40 years of your life, and it’ll be much harder to do if your mental energy is flagging.  The book “Brain Energy” is basically a 320 page defense of Dr. Palmer’s theory that all mental diseases (no matter how mild or how severe) are metabolic disorders of the brain.  The Merriem Webster definition of a disease is “a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that has  a known cause and a distinctive group of symptoms, signs or anatomical changes.” 

The definition of a syndrome is “a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality or condition.”   The cause of syndromes are not yet known, but the signs and symptoms typically occur together.  Chris Palmer says "Most people think of  common diagnoses like anxiety or depression as completely separate from serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia.”  And: “In psychiatry, every diagnosis is a syndrome.”  And: “Mental disorders are not distinct entities.  Including depression, anxiety, ptsd, ocd, adhd, alcoholism, opioid addiction, eating disorders, autism, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.  They are all metabolic disorders of the brain.  Mitochondria can explain all the symptoms of mental illness.  Treating them this way leads to long term healing as opposed to just symptom reduction.”

Pretty bold statement, right?  Every single mental disorder is a syndrome, not a distinct disease, can be cured via fixing mitochondria, and all we’re doing right now is reducing some symptoms with some medications that sometimes work on a short term basis.  

Brain Energy Disorders are on the rise

Dr. Palmer says that serious mental illnesses are up by 21% from 2008-2017, except among those aged 18-25.  Among young adults, their rate doubled.  In 2000, not that long ago, autism affected 1 in 150 children in the US, by 2014 it was 1 in 59.  Bipolar disorder has increased by about 4 times since 1970s.  50% of all Americans will meet the criteria for a mental disorder at some point in their life.  Rates of adhd are up 41% in kids ages 4-17 from 2003 to 2012.  Kids ages 12-17 had a 68% increase in depression from 2006-2017. Suicide rates are rising among most age groups.

There are lots of theories as to why: pharmaceutical companies, laziness, helicopter parents, technology addiction, toxins, and fake food.  They can all be true to the extent that they can all poison mitochondria.  Except for maybe helicopter parents, but I’ll bet there’s probably some kind of correlation to that, too.

Dr. Tom Insel, the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) said in 2017 (after leaving the NIMH):  “I spent 13 years at NIMH really pushing on the neuroscience and genetics of mental disorders, and when I look back on that I realize that while I think I succeeded at getting lots of really cool papers published by cool scientists at fairly large costs - I think $20 billion- I don’t think we moved the needle in reducing suicide, reducing hospitalizations, or improving recovery for the tens of millinos of people who have mental illness.” 

90% of people treated traditionally for depression are not cured of their depression.  Two thirds never get to remission. Most patients with any kind of mental disorder are told it’s a lifelong disorder and they will need to lower their expectations about what they will be able to achieve in life.  There aren’t treatments that really work.  That’s so disheartening.  Half of people with any mental disorder have more than one.  Could it be because these awesome people aren’t unlucky recipients of more than one disease, but just someone exhibiting different symptoms of the same condition?  The disease of mitochondrial dysfunction in the brain?  

Body and Brain are Not Separate

It raises questions about our diagnostic labels and whether they help empower patients or not.  It can also help explain how there can be a spectrum of symptom types and degree of severity from mild to debilitating.  While we usually think of mental illnesses as very different from cardiovascular or endocrine diseases, they are very highly correlated.  Chicken and egg.  

People with serious mental illness are 3x more likely to be obese.  People with ADHD who are treated with appetite suppressants called stimulants (like Adderall and Ritalin) are still more likely to be obese than those without ADHD.  People who are obese are 25% more likely to get depression, anxiety and 50% more likely to get bipolar disorder.  Weight gain around the time of puberty is associated with a 4 fold increase in the risk of depression by age 24.

Likewise, traditional metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes increase the risk of mental disorders, but also other illnesses not viewed as metabolic, like liver problems, kidney problems, nerve problems, hormonal problems, joint problems, tendon strength problems, gastrointestinal problems, autoimmune problems and cancer.

Metabolic disorders of the body are not completely separate from metabolic disorders of the brain.  They’re not separate at all.  When your cells struggle to produce the energy you need to thrive, any of your body systems can be affected.  I don’t think anyone knows yet why some people develop plaque in their arteries, some have chronic fatigue, some tear their bicep, some have incessant hunger and some get anxiety or depression.  But they’re all a symptom of the same thing- suboptimal mitochondrial function (aka metabolic dysfunction).  Same thing.

A Whole New Perspective

Why do I want you to care about this?  Because it’s SO COOL!  We’ve been bumbling along doing the best we can with medications that alter neurotransmitter reuptake (or whatever) hoping to lessen these truly troubling symptoms without a lot of success.  And now we have a whole new perspective.  Maybe we’ve been scrubbing the screen and we finally found the dust on the projector.  It’s a little mitochondria.  Haha.

I also think it’s cool because optimizing metabolism and mitochondrial function can help with both major mental illnesses and our general disposition and perspective.  We can be more effective in the work we are here on earth to do if we have a positive outlook, can think quickly, can get into deep concentration, and can see things for what they really are.  It takes mind management techniques AND physiological cellular energy production.  

The side effects of optimizing your mitochondrial function for mental health (which is the same thing as being metabolically healthy) are decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, chronic pain, etc, etc.  Which means more years lived in good health.  Physical AND mental.  

Regulators of Your Metabolism

Your metabolism affects the structure and function of all of the cells in your body.  Regulators of metabolism include several things like epigenetics, hormones, neurotransmitters and inflammation.  Mitochondria are the master regulators of metabolism.  Each human cell has an average of 3-400 mitochondria. Except red blood cells. There are about 10 million billion mitochondria in your body. It was recently discovered that mitochondria move around and if they aren’t there when something needs to happen in a cell, stuff gets backed up.  Energy and mitochondria are required both to turn cells on and to turn them off.  Both require energy.  This is huge in mental illness.

Mitochondria also communicate with one another.  Possibly via peptides.  Mitochondria help produce, secrete and regulate neurotransmitters.  The signal to release neurotransmitters depends on the resting membrane potential and calcium levels of the cell.  If mitochondria aren’t at full power, neurotransmitters get imbalanced.  This is also huge in mental illness.

Mitochondria regulate immune responses and stress responses.  The enzymes required for the production of cortisol, estrogen and testosterone are found only in mitochondria.  They are the primary regulators of epigenetics, fat storage, eating behavior and obesity.  

Underactivity of brain regions can be caused by dysfunctional mitochondria and result in memory problems, ADHD, depression, and trouble regulating emotions.  Overactivity of brain activity can also be caused by dysfunctional mitochondria, because, remember, it takes energy to turn things off, too.  Overactivity can result in anxiety, obsessions, pain, fear, compulsions and delusions.

What are some ways to improve your metabolic health?  

We talked about some of them in episode 15 “Love Your Mitochondria!” and 90 “What Does Metabolic Health Mean?”  So those are good ones to go back and listen to to get some ideas.  It’s so so important to your longevity to focus on your metabolic health.

Sugar

In “The Happiness Diet” by Tyler Graham and Drew Ramsey, it says  “A large study recently published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that eating processed foods, such as refined carbohydrates, sweets, and processed meats, increase the risk of depression by about 60%.  Eating a whole food diet, on the other hand, decreased the risk of the disease by about 26%.”  Doing the work to figure out a way to love reducing your consumption of highly processed foods consistently does wonders for your mitochondria.

In “Positive Psychology and The Body,” Dr. Kate Heffron says “Overall our sugar consumption per year has risen from 5lb per person per year in 1700 to 152 lb per person per year in 2000.  Recent research has found evidence that sugar can have deleterious effects on our brain.  Sugar has been found to shrink brain areas responsible for important functions such as memory and mood regulation.  Westover and Marangell conducted a cross-national study (Korea, USA, France, Germany, Canada, and New Zealand) on the relationship between sugar consumption and incidence of major depression. They found that “there was a highly significant correlation between sugar consumption and the annual rate of depression”  While this study has some major limitations, it highlights the importance of re-assessing the manufacturing of processed food and the role of sugar within our diets.”  Doing the work to figure out a way to love reducing your consumption of sugar consistently does wonders for your mitochondria.

Exercise

Studies also show that exercise promotes positive mood and decreases risks of mental illness, obesity, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, sleep disorders, high blood pressure, colon cancer, breast cancer, rectal cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer and endometrial cancer.  Exercise puts more years lived in good health into your life while producing positive emotions, self esteem, positive body image, improved cognitive functioning, psychological wellbeing, posttraumatic growth, flow, purpose in life and so much more.  Doing the work to figure out a way to love moving your body consistently does wonders for your mitochondria.

Sleep

There is one thing that is highly highly correlated with weight gain, cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, attention deficit, poor productivity, poor decision making, depression, and even hallucinations.  Do you know what it is?  Yes.  Sleep deprivation.  We talked all about this in episode 49 “Sleep is not a pillar of Health.”  In that episode we learned that the majority of the population are sleep deprived and needlessly struggling through their daily lives.  Matthew Walker says it’s like we’re all trying to boil water with the burner on medium heat.  If we just slept enough, it’s like turning the burner to high- we get so much more done in so much less time and it feels easier and more fun.  Sleep is not a pillar of health, it’s the foundation on which all of the other pillars of health rest.  Doing the work to figure out a way to love prioritizing sleep over entertainment consistently does wonders for your mitochondria.

What Metabolism Is

In “Brain Energy” Chris Palmer says “Cells need energy to work.  Metabolic problems are not simple or avoidable through sheer willpower.  Metabolism influences every aspect of the way our bodies function.  Our metabolism determines our cellular health, how our bodies and brains develop and function, and how we allocate resources to different cells at different times to optimize our survival.  Some cells grow and thrive and others shrivel up and die.  

It's a resource management system.  Thus, our metabolism is constantly changing to keep up with the shift around us. These adaptations in metabolism allow us to thrive in optimal environments or to simply survive in situations athar e stressful to the body.  Food scarcity, psychological stress, light exposure, temperature, how much sleep we get, hormone levels and the amount of oxygen available to the cells all affect metabolism.  Metabolism is the body’s battle to stay alive.  It is how we create and use energy.  Problems with metabolism lead to problems in the way cells function.  This is true for all cells in our entire body.” 

The treatments he suggests are to: 1- remove or reduce things that are dysregulating mitochondria (poor diet, poor sleep, alcohol, drugs, medications, and psychological stressors) 2- Correct metabolic imbalances, such as hormonal or neurotransmitter imbalances, and 3- Employ treatments that improve metabolism like those that promote mitochondrial biogenesis, mitophagy and autophagy.

If you’re interested in learning more and trying to reconcile the “chemical imbalance” theory and some of the other postulated causes of mental illness with his new theory of metabolic dysfunction, I would highly recommend the book “Brain Energy.”  If you need some help and accountability getting 100% consistent loving living an intelligent plan that optimizes your metabolic health, send me a message at healthcouragecollective@gmail.com or go to my website and click “work with me” or “contact me.”  I’d love to get you excited about putting more life into your next 40 years.  It’s possible.

In the book, Dr. Palmer makes the point that mental illness is a global health emergency and that people often suffer alone in silence.  They're ashamed, feel weak or inferior, and don’t know what to do about their symptoms.  They think their suffering is a permanent part of their existence.  He envisions a world where instead of a patient visiting their cardiologist for their heart medicine, an endocrinologist for their diabetes medicine, and a psychiatrist for their bipolar medicine, they are able to treat or prevent all of these conditions with one integrated plan.

I think it’s beautiful.  I’m 1,001% on board.  It’ll probably be a while until mainstream medicine gets set up that way, so for now you’ll need to take the reins yourself.  That’s ok.  With a little help, you can do it.  I’d love to be on your advisory board, but mostly I just want to see you thrive however you can.  In her book, Kate Heffron said “One of the greatest findings of the past 20 years is that, through effort and experience, the brain can change.”  That’s exciting.

Thank you so much for being here today.  I hope you’ve seen how your mental health is more than just the presence or absence of a diagnosis label and how tightly it’s correlated to your metabolic (or mitochondrial) health.  When all of your cells, including your brain cells, can make enough energy, it’s way easier to be successful with your high performance mind management techniques and way less of a struggle to create the future you want.