Podcast: E1- It's never too late

Listen to the episode here: E1:22 - It's never too late - https://apple.co/3wShqbw

Hello, friend. I want to welcome you to episode 22 of the Integrative Mental Health Therapy podcast with Dr. Tiffany. And today's topic is the question of, is it too late? Is it too late? Is it too late to change? Is it too late to improve? Is it too late to heal? Am I too old? Is it too far gone? Is it too late? And I'm going to take the perspective of my three legs stool, physiological, psychological, neurological, I'm gonna take that perspective to answer this question of is it too late? And you can fill in the blank, you know, is it too late for you from what, you know, issue you're looking at this from. And I just, first of all, before you get too far into the topic, wanna thank you as always for your time, for your attention. And I want you to really think.

As I talk you through this process, think through how this applies to your situation. All of us have this area where we feel like it's just too far gone, or you're too stuck, or you've tried everything, you've tried all these different programs or you've worked with different practitioners or you've got all the books, and maybe it's just something that you need to accept, right?

I think everyone has an area like that. And this question showed up a lot for me recently and as we're going into the summer months and I've got kids out of school in my practice and in my personal life, summer break means lots of summertime with my nieces. Parents are kind of just in a different place I find. And it doesn't matter how young, how not young, how old the children are. Often parents are the ones that ask me that question the most, like, is it too late? The only other segment of my practice that will oftentimes ask me, is it too late? Is it too far gone? Are those clients with pretty dramatic brain injuries, brain issues. So if someone's hit their head, pretty aggressively and left it untreated for a while. Told that they didn't really have a concussion, nothing to worry about. Or if I have an Alzheimer's client that I'm working with, the family will sometimes ask, is it too late, is it too far gone? So, you know, it's my parents and it's those brain injured clients and families that will ask me that question. And my answer is always the same, absolutely not.

So take a moment and let that settle. Absolutely not. It is not too late. It is not too far gone. It is not too bad.

This is a mindset question. So that's the psychology piece of my three-leg stool. And so when someone asks me that, I know that I'm working with a belief system that needs work, that just needs work, right? That has been operating in kind of a black or white approach. And...

Has lost hope, you know, but really needs some flexibility. It's a mindset, it's the psychological piece that needs some flexibility. It doesn't really have much to do with the physiology and the neurology, okay? Because if you ask that question from a neurological perspective, no, absolutely not. The brain has a capacity to heal as long as you're willing to be consistent.

If you put in the time, if you put in the reps, the brain will heal. Period. Four days a week of exposure to whatever it is and neuroplasticity kicks in. Put in the time of about 20, 30 minutes each time. 30 minutes is ideal. So if you put in 30 minutes, four days a week, five days a week, wow, that's neuroplasticity. That will change the brain. That will change the nervous system.

If I'm working with someone on their neurological fitness, I ask them for 10 to 15 minutes a day, as many days as possible, you know, every day, but it is ideal, but as many days as possible, that gets me neuroplasticity. There's change in the nervous system. So to my parents, when you bring me your 13 to 16 year old and you ask me if it's too little too late, if it's just, you know.

There's no change. I almost find it laughable based off of when myelination occurs, which is in the mid 20s. The mid 20s. So a psychiatrist or a psychologist that tells you your kid has a done deal needs to be fired. They really do. That is my very strong opinion because it is flying in the face of the science. That child's brain.

Still has so much plasticity, just so much healing potential that it feels like a crime to me to give up and to not keep trying and to not dig deeper. Now, if your nervous system is tired and it feels too painful to hope, that's a different conversation. But when you bring me your 13 to 16 year old and you say, did I wait too long? Is it too late? No.

Absolutely not. There's too many things that we can still do that I won't get into in this podcast to help that brain shift gears. And many of you know that I'm quite fond of sending people in the practice to the Amon Clinic. And every time I do, I just praise Jesus, to be quite honest, I'm so thankful that.

That they exist because they always send my clients and patients back to my practice armed with so much information about their particular brain. So then we know exactly what to do for that brain to help it heal. And so I just because I've looked at these spec scans, because I've worked with a neurologist pretty closely in the practice for the last two years, and because I've had access to the Amen Clinic since 2015.

I just know it is a joke. And so someone who's prescribing and tells you that you just need to accept that your child has whatever it is and just figure out how to make them comfortable with their diagnosis just is not operating from the same frame of reference. Okay. And so then when you ask me as a parent about your 20 something year old, if it's possible for you to parent differently, is it possible for...

The relationship to be mended or is it just too late? Same thing. It just depends on you as the parent. Are you motivated to be different? Because you have from an attachment theory perspective so much influence on that nervous system. And when you change and when you're convicted about changing and you regulate your nervous system and you do that work.

Because there's so many nerves, 80% of the afferent nerves are coming up from the body to the brain, whereas 20% are going from the brain into the body, right? So if you do the work to regulate your system, to express the trauma that's in your tissue, when you do the work to name the emotions that you're experiencing and validate them, and then you practice.

Naming and validating them in another person, especially your child, yes, that relationship can be healed. Yes, it can change. It starts with you as the parent, as the person with the most influence over the nervous systems in the family, right? As long as you feel like you are up for doing the work, yes, you can repattern a relationship with your children no matter how old they are, right? Especially the families that I'm talking to and are asking me these questions are typically families who are still quite intimate with their children, with their adult children. They see them a lot, they're in high contact with them. Sometimes there's financial entanglements with the children that are quite dramatic still. It's not like these are unattached children who've moved across the country and have stopped talking to them or something like that. These are very, very present family members where there's a lot of ability to repattern. And oftentimes I'm doing brain health coaching and nervous system healing work with the whole family, therapy with some of them. And I'm absolutely positive that healing is possible. It is absolutely not too late.

And from a physical perspective, from a physiological perspective, in both these situations with these children, keep in mind that given the right healing agents, amino acid therapy, omega-3 support, dealing with inflammation in the system and infections in the system and healing leaky guts and leaky brains, there's a lot that can be done when you start to really look at healing. Right? It just is laughable to me. So I hate that individuals struggle with that question and tell themselves that lie, that it's too late and nothing can be done. And this is just a situation we're stuck with because it's not true. And I'm not just an optimist. I'm looking at the science. And then I get the same question from families, understandably with an Alzheimer's diagnosis, the ones that are participating in the recode program, which is the reversal of cognitive decline and pre-code, which is the prevention of cognitive decline. And there's an official diagnosis of Alzheimer's dementia. And, you know, they're having to make massive shifts with their family member. They're having to move them out of their homes and take away their ability to drive and set them up in some sort of community and make a lot of life decisions for them. And it can feel very hopeless. It can feel like you're gonna be on this path, this trajectory until the end. And those of you who don't know, a small portion of my practice is dedicated to reversal and prevention of Alzheimer's. And so I work through the recode program, which is Dr. Bredesen's Alzheimer's reversal program. He has different types of Alzheimer's that he has identified and it's a fascinating approach and he has research and resources to support it and it's a massive community and I'm one of the trained clinicians and I have seen it. I have seen it and I know that the brain makes some mistakes and has the ability to heal if we can work hard and if we can make those tough decisions.

The Bredesen program I could probably just do a podcast just on the seven steps, the Bredesen seven and a lot of it is what I've already covered in the previous podcasts, previous episodes. It's not easy work, but it's how I live already, you know, it's a lifestyle that I already live because of wanting to prevent cognitive decline. I have Alzheimer's in my own family. I have markers genetically that indicate I am very vulnerable. And I've experienced head injuries due to car accidents and have had infections in my immune system, has dealt with infections rather, and autoimmunity. And so I, because of my predisposition, I take brain health and being a brain warrior very seriously. I'm not a person of balance. And you know, I think when I was younger, I wanted to apologize. And now it's just like, there are plenty of people who are balanced. I'm not one of them. It's just like, don't come to me if you want somebody who's gonna be balanced. You come to me when you wanna save your brain and you wanna save your child's brain. You want someone who's gonna push you to excellence in this particular arena because you're trying to push hard from neuroplasticity.

And the Bredesen seven is about that. It's about by any means necessary. So, you know, for a long time, I would tell people 90-10. And really when it comes to brain health, we're like at 95-5 or 97-3 or something like that. There's very little room for mistakes when you're trying to recover the brain. Later on down the line, perhaps maybe when you have more resilience in the brain, but yeah, the Bredesen seven are a hard set of standards for many, but not all. And in that realm of my practice, I have seen healing when people are willing to do the work, when they're willing to take seriously the ketosis, when they take seriously the fasting, when they take the supplements, when they live a detox lifestyle, when they prioritize joy, when they play brain games, when they do all the different things.

Oh my gosh, you access your God given right to healing. It's right there for you. Everything we need to recover is there. If we can tap into it. And so I tell families, Bredesen has the research. There are so many testimonials within our recode community of people who have recovered their brains. But it's not easy work and it does require a lot of the caretaker of the advocate. But it's never too late. I need you to feel my nervous system say to your nervous system, you must keep hope alive. Healing is within reach. And having hope is healing. Having hope is healing. If you tell yourself it's pointless, then it just puts you in sympathetic or. It puts you in dorsal vagal, which just means you're flat lined and you're in freeze and you're you've given up, right? So, so we don't need that. That's not healing. We need to be in ventral vagal. We need to be open and seeing the positive and compassionate, our highest, our highest self. And in that space, healing is possible. So trust me when I say yes.

If you will be a brain warrior, if you will do the work, if you are willing to change, healing is yours. It is never too late. So I hope this spoke to you today. Please feel free to share this with someone you care about who needs this uplifting word. And this is from a science perspective, not just because I think it's possible and I've been praying on it. That's good too. But I mean this from a brain recovery perspective and from a physiological perspective, healing is yours. Until next time, be well.