brain

And then cortisol is our sort of slower response hormone.

stress hormone um and it's made in our sort of deeper brain um and the amygdala and hypothalamus are sort of really deep old brain structures um help control this this cortisol function And so what I find really interesting about cortisol and how it's produced really in that deep old brain that we have is that the hypothalamus is actually very close anatomically to the back of our nose.

So if you look at a skull, the roof of our mouth and the base of our nose and then just behind our nose is, you know, brain-wise is really where that hypothalamus is.

And so if we are breathing in, you know, a more... extended pattern where we're breathing more through our mouth we're breathing more with ribs flared and we're kind of extending our back using our accessory muscles of respiration so our back muscles our neck muscles to help pull air in when we're just breathing at rest when when there's nothing extremely stressful or difficult that our body is doing we're going to sort of stimulate this cortisol production and then the cortisol production will feed more of this sort of sympathetic response as well and so that can again all play into some of that that pelvic floor muscle tension and and kind of disorganization and so this sort of constant upregulation of of cortisol and stress response um potentially with like lack of sleep which is big for postpartum clients yeah is that you know one night of of poor sleep can upregulate our cortisol for a few days and so um So the breath, breathing, sleep, and cortisol and stress hormones in the pelvic floor are all really, really tightly interconnected.

And so from a physical therapy perspective, why this is important to me is because two ways.

Sir Wim Gowers, the father, writes the Bible of modern neurology in 1884, and he tells us that less than 15% of people have a family history of the disease.

Research in 2024 published in Brain, two studies, both came to the same conclusion, less than 15% of people in the United States, in Latin America, in Europe, in the Middle East, basically in every part of the world that's been examined, carry a genetic cause or genetic risk factor disease.

Now that doesn't mean that genes aren't important and genes might help us explain why some people exposed to these chemicals are more likely to develop the disease than others.

So the most common genetic risk factor for Parkinson's disease is a mutation in a gene called GBA1 or GBA.

And I'll be looking out for yours, Chris, in the library very soon.

If you have any questions, you can email us at info at pdplan.org, info at pdplan.org. We'd love to hear your stories.

And my colleague, Dr. Michael Okun, and I are working on our next book, which will be loosely titled Preventable Brain Diseases, how these chemicals in our environment are not feeling just the rise of Parkinson's, but the rise of ALS, Alzheimer's, and what role that they play in autism and intellectual disabilities.

These things are all becoming increasingly common.

Hold on a second.

Brain, shut up and focus on the one song.

Killer Queen.

Yes.

And I know you're coming in from British Columbia, which is exciting.

And I think you're taking well-deserved rest before the launch of your new book, Brain Defenders, which I'm very excited about.

How to harness the power of your immune cells to protect your brain for life.

We're going to get all into that.

And that said, the most empowering part of our discussion today is that the shift from being supportive to being destructive is under our control.

And, you know, for me, That really represents a whole heck of a lot because it explains everything we've been talking about for so long.

It explains why, in Grain Brain, why a higher carb diet, and we'll unpack this today, is associated with activation of these microglial cells.

It explains why permeability of the gut, of all things, from having changes in our gut bacteria leads to increased inflammation that will activate these microglial cells and shift them to becoming, again, the evil twin We now see that we can, research-wise anyway, image the brain in living humans using what's called a TSPO scan.

And what's more, she's sharing a tool to help us find that middle for us.

I'm Paula Engelbretson, and on this bonus episode of the I'm Busy Being Awesome podcast, Kristen and I are talking all things healthy relationships with an ADHD brain.

Hey everybody, welcome to this special bonus episode of the I'm Busy Being Awesome podcast.

If you've listened before, you might remember that typically on this podcast, we talk about sustainable productivity and strategies to work with our brains to get things done so we don't burn out.

Today, however, I can't wait for you to hear this conversation that I just had with my incredible friend, Kristen Carder, where we talk all things relationships.

We just finished the recording and I had to hop on and do this intro right away.

So

you named the book, You're Not in Trouble.

So, yeah, it's a big honor for me.

If you will look at the Brain's website, look at the list of honorees for every year, it's quite a constellation of character.

It's a big honor and a privilege to be among those people.

No, that's amazing.

Neither of us can push ourselves to pure exhaustion.

Brain's role in all of this is...

Yeah, your brain's always going to tell you to stop before you actually, like, physically are going to die.

Highly controversial.

Anxiety rises, avoid, anxiety drops.

Brain says, do that again.

In behavior science, we call this negative reinforcement.

Now, a lot of times I hear parents confuse positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.