Podcast: E12 - Neuroinflammation

Listen to the episode here: E12: Neuroinflammation - https://apple.co/424dIX9

Hey friend, welcome to Integrative Mental Health Therapy with Dr. Tiffany. This is gonna be episode 12 of the public podcast and episode 31 of the private podcast, and it is neuroinflammation. I haven't checked in with you since last year, so this is really the first podcast release of the year and I'm glad to be back.

You know, I was working on my vision for the year, thinking about just what is it that I see. I talked a lot in the last podcast about reflection and then using that mindfulness and reflection to project your vision. And I have had a lot more time here over the last few weeks to really work on that. And I'm coming up on my birthday as well. And I think because my birthday is at the beginning of the year, it really peaks for me this. This thought process around, okay, what do I see? What do I see? What did I reflect on? So forth and so on. So I have spent some time in that and I promised a podcast on neuroinflammation and inflammation in general, but I will be following this one up with one on vision because I think it's super important to make sure you are ironing that out and having something to come back to.

So now, I'm in the middle of a registration for a detox program. And for me personally, and for many of the people that I have worked with in the practice, there have been inflammatory processes that have prompted the need to do detoxification. It's not something that I think that everyone just needs to do kind of willy nilly.

And as someone who has felt the impact of neuroinflammation and understood, like I tend to be one of those people who's insula, the part of the brain that's paying a lot of attention to what's going on inside of the body. Mine is like cranked up and very aware of what is happening inside my body at all times. And I could tease out the difference between a lack of focus versus brain fog versus feeling overwhelmed and then brain endurance.

Like I have a lot of language for the different states of my brain, but not everybody does. That's been very eye-opening for me in my career that not everyone can tell me exactly what this experience is that they're having. And so I've had to become a very good detective at determining what is it that they're experiencing and then trying to help them have language for it.

And so, you know, I have this three-leg stool approach to treatment of looking at psychological, physiological, neurological, or brain-body-mind, right? And then trying to help people get a sense of like, what's happening to their brain versus what is like a mind-based issue and body, right?

And so here's what I want to offer you when it comes to this idea of an inflamed brain. Because I could talk about inflammation in the body in general, but I think it all kind of ties in here for me at this intersection that I find myself at where people are coming to me because psychologically something is going on. Or in the word executive function why something is going on, right? So they're like I cannot get my brain to do what it's supposed to do or my thoughts are tumbling all over each other I cannot harness my brain at 3 o'clock in the afternoon to get its job done My brain I'm feeling not my brain, but I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm feeling really anxious.

At that intersection sits a number of different things. Okay, so from an inflammatory process, when we are talking about brain, body, mind, and I say body, I am always looking at leaky gut because that means food is getting out into the bloodstream and causing an inflammatory process because it shouldn't be there.

We have Toxins that are impacting the nervous system, the brain, and all that is part of the nervous system. That is chemicals in the environment. That is toxins that are being used that impact the brain. Heavy metals can impact the brain. Please pay attention to my emails and to my social media to learn more about toxic burden.

We have the food sensitivities from problem foods that cause a lot of inflammatory processes. And so these things literally cause inflammation in the brain, inflammation in the nervous system, just like stubbing your toe, just like pinching your finger in a door or something like that. Like these are inflammatory processes that are actually happening in your brain and these will lead to brain fog.

Specifically brain fog really tracks back to neuroinflammation, but a lot of people will say brain fog or they'll say focus issues rather, they can't focus and it's actually that neuroinflammation. Head injuries cause a lot of brain fog for people, right? Because there's an inflammatory process that has not been dampened Dale.

So what I'm doing with this detox program that we're in the middle of is just trying to take one of the many variables, right? We haven't talked about Candida, we haven't talked about bacteria in the gut, and viruses that cause inflammation, all these different things that can feed into inflammation in the system.

And I'm taking one piece and I'm working on detoxing and clearing out that burden that would feed into that inflammatory process in the brain. But when I'm looking at people coming to me saying, hey, my feelings are all over the place, I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling angry, I cannot focus, I feel foggy all the time.

There are so many things that feed into that inflammatory process. And this is just one piece. But what we're talking about is when you listen to people from a brain, body, mind perspective, you realize that just sitting and talking to someone who tells you that their feelings are all over the place could really miss something seriously going on in the brain and nervous system.

And here's what's really scary to me. I get a lot of young people who have these issues going on. They come to me and they have retrovirus, you know, like reactivation of old viruses, or they have foods they're sensitive to, or they have leaky gut. And I could spend without a proper assessment a year easily of their life talking to them when there's something going on with their body or their brain or both.

So when I talk to you about detox or neuroinflammation, I want you to think of the few things I've just mentioned in this podcast that feed into that and then start to pay attention to what happens after you eat this food or you do this thing or you miss some sleep or you're dehydrated, how that might be activating some of the inflammatory processes in your own system.

And then what do you wanna do about that when it comes to feeling better? Okay, think about that. All right, I will conclude there. Let me know what you think, give me some feedback here. Let me know if this opens some different thoughts for you.

And I'll pick back up on vision because I think being aware of neuroinflammation and how it plays out and then thinking about vision, they kind of tie in together. So I'll see you in that next episode and until then, be well.