Keener Intelligence — Brain Energy

Cortisol and Brain Health

There are many ways to accelerate brain health, and one of them is essential for everyone: managing the hormone Cortisol, aka "The stress hormone."

Produced by the adrenal glands, Cortisol is essential for the "flight or fight" response and is critical to our survival. The physical effects of Cortisol are designed to give us that adrenaline rush, push the energy into our extremities, and prepare us literally for the fight of our life or the sprint away from the enemy as fast as we can.

However, modern science has discovered that there are some problems with Cortisol that gets too high, or that doesn't regulate back down after the danger is resolved. The most important distinction as it relates to brain health is that elevated Cortisol causes massive inflammation in the body and in the brain. In fact, high Cortisol causes dementia and even is part of Alzheimer's disease.

All the scientific experts on human evolution agree that the average hunting/gathering human had a very distinct lifestyle — the average man enjoyed only a 23–24 hour work week. The rest of that time was leisure! Furthermore, the size of the adrenal glands (the size of the last joint of our thumbs) has not gotten any bigger since those times. When you look at our cultural norm of a 40-hour work week and the existing culture of fear that dominates our populations, it is quite easy to see that we are all over-working and under-resting our adrenal glands.

Once a body has experienced enough "Cortisol Spikes," or adrenaline bursts without the proper high-level physical activity, the very mechanism for bringing down the high Cortisol breaks. Here is where real problems begin: chronic inflammation, digestion slowing down, fermentation of our foods in the gut tract which over-loads the liver with toxins. Stressing this powerhouse out is a big No-No for brain power.

Think of high Cortisol like the Darth Vader to all of our positive hormones including estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, thyroxin and insulin. It overrides your neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) Serotonin, Dopamine, Gaba and Norepinephrine and causes real changes in how you think and process memories. Hint: High Cortisol suppresses DMT, and keeps us in duality.

The common strategies that work are regular aerobic exercise every day — walking, rebounding, running — for 20 minutes per day, or more. Eating 3 meals per day, focusing on proteins, healthy fats and low-starch vegetables can make a huge difference as it stabilizes blood sugar. Cutting back on or reducing caffeine can make big changes to the body as well.

There are many excellent stress Adaptogens to help the adrenal glands learn to regulate Cortisol better. Professional Formulas makes a great combination in their Stress Adaptogen Complex, Phyto-Calm, and Stress Tonic supplements. I like taking them together and multiple times per day if I am highly challenged.

There may be other reasons such as yeast-fungus overgrowth, food sensitivities, and side effects from medications, etc. but those are for another article.

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The Art of Breathing and Why It Matters

Believe it or not, one of the most fundamental requirements for increasing our intelligence is restoring our natural breathing ability. Between modern birth practices and current high chronic stressors, most of us barely breathe enough to foster more aliveness, a marker of intelligence.

Let's start with our modern birth practice: Once the baby is out of the mother, they are held upside down and whacked on the butt to elicit that first breath. Given the harshness of this physical experience, the infant's first breath is one of terror and intense pain. This immediately registers in the brain as a terrible idea, and a visceral decision gets made: "I will NEVER breathe that fully again!" This begins a tragic series of belief systems about how life works. We call this birthing trauma in the field of conscious breath work.

Contrast that with an indigenous childbirth, or natural child birth. There are no bright lights, no harsh treatments; the infant is with the mother, the umbilical cord attached immediately after birth.

As the cord starts to wane, it sends signals to the infant and they gradually begin the breathing process. When my infant daughter, Karina, took her first breath, she was still in the warm water (we did a water birth) and it actually was an exhale, blowing a slight bubble out of her mouth. She was calm, and relaxed, and never developed that hatred for a full breath.

Now the child with birthing trauma (read: any kid in modern culture) is going off to kindergarten, first grade and starting to socialize and getting taught a ton of rules. By the time they are 8 or 9, all of their breathing has moved up into their chests, with little to no abdominal movement. In other words, they have LOST their belly breathing!

When I began to practice conscious breath work — essentially proper breathing on steroids — I was truly inspired by how much conscious connection came from that practice. We would breathe in and out of the mouth, filling our lungs and bellies, forming a circle with the inhale and exhale. It was called Rebirthing, and also Integrative Breathing. The idea was to lie down, and breathe on a particular limiting belief system. Notions like "My Body is Not Safe" are exactly what we wanted to undo, and neutralize.

I fell in love with my breath. I learned to regulate my moods and mind with my breath, which I am still learning about. My consciousness has increased dramatically. I am still in love with my breath, and will be sharing tons about how you, too, can practice the Art of Breathing.

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