Top Brain Supplement to Combat Stress and Boost Your Stress Resiliency

SUMMARY

• Dr. Chiu's top brain supplement to combat stress and boost your stress resiliency

• The difference between "stress" and the "stress response"

• Adaptogenic herbs help boost your resiliency against stress

To Your Total Health,

Dr. Titus Chiu

p.s. know anyone who could benefit from this stress-busting solution? Share this article with them! It may just transform their life.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this video blog. Please note that this video, like all of Dr. Chiu's blog videos, features Dr. Chiu speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!]

Hi and welcome to the Modern Brain!

Today I wanted to talk to you about stress and specifically brain stress. I know many of you watching out there had been following my work recently. As you probably know, I am very passionate when it comes to brain health having suffered multiple head injuries and being able to recover from them and heal my own brain.

My mission is to teach and educate you on how you can take control of your own brand health and so the topic of today is stress and if any of you are watching out there. Go ahead. Let me know where you're from, where you’re at– I'd love to hear from you.

And if you have any questions, feel free to pop them in and I'll either get to them during the live video today or I'll get to them afterwards,

So stress. Stress is such a big, big topic and it's such, you know, honestly, for me it's both a really interesting topic by not only just stress, but more importantly how to deal with stress and handle stress.

Being a physician and author and running a busy practice I've learned that if I don't get my stress levels under control I'm not going to be able to be as effective in life, nor am I going to be able to enjoy life in general.

So one of the things when we talk about stress thats really important to understand is, it's not stress that kills us but rather the stress response. And what I mean by that is this– there's a specific region of your nervous system we call the hypothalamus it's actually part of what we call the neuroendocrine system and the hypothalamus talks to this other area we call the pituitary and then the pituitary gland communicates with what we call your adrenal glands.

So what I'm going to talk to you about today is not how you can get rid of stress from from your life. But more importantly, what are some things that you can do to boost your stress resilience and combat brain stress. For me, one simple thing that I do for my brain health is to take supplements. So the top supplement I take for brain stress is the topic of today.

But before we dive into the top supplement that I take for brain stress, I want to break it down a little bit more. So again, if you're watching out there, please comment, we'd love to hear from you hear where you're from, as well as any questions or comments  you have and we’ll get to them. I'll check them out. Now, or after the live here, me and my team will make sure that we get those answered for you.

So as I was saying before, it's not so much stress that kills us. It's our bodies and our brains stress response. And so we have a built-in stress system– the technical term for that is the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. When we experience stress, whether it's physical, chemical or emotional our brains trigger a chemical and neurochemical reaction as well as a communication pathway gets turned on, like our internal alarm system goes from green to red alert.

What ends up happening is the hypothalamus talks to the pituitary and the pituitary talks to our adrenal glands which then release cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone. It's really important for us because it helps us deal with stress and one thing it does, it helps you know gives us more energy and mobilizes glucose. So that we can deal with the stressors in our life.

Now, in order for us to be effective in for me. Like I said, I'm super busy writing a book and working on other projects, running a practice and just also trying to find that work life balance so I can enjoy my life. I'm not trying to get rid of stresses per se, right, but there is a certain point where you should definitely get rid of the things that really don't serve you anymore.

But what I'm also trying to do this just as important as shifting my mindset about stress and also figure out what are the things that I can do to boost my stress resiliency and as I mentioned before, one of the top things that I do for my daily practices is take brain supplements.

So the number one supplement that I recommend for brain stress is what we call Eleuthero and you might not have heard of this fancy term before another word for it or another name is what we call Siberian Ginseng. So Siberian Ginseng or eleuthero is the number one supplement that I take to help boost my resilience against stress.

The reason why eleuthero is such a great way to combat stress is because its what we call an adaptogenic herb. Let's break that down and unpack that for you. When we say adaptogenic, the “adapt” part is what helps our brains and bodies adapt to and handle stress and so specifically, it works at the level of the hypothalamus. It helps our hypothalamus and the neuroendocrine system handle the stresses of every day life. Eleuthero helps balance what I talked about earlier, the green to the Red Alert of our alarm system.

Normally we want things in the green. It's like if life happens to us or if life is happening and stuff comes up, we don’t want to be at the mercy of everything that happens. More importantly is for us to be able to take charge of the situation and be able to handle everyday stressors in a way thats safe and that's healthy and that's productive.

And so what ends up happening a lot of time if we're just overburdened by stressors and we don't have a good way of handling it either physically through the HPA axis or emotionally just by breathing and being present, then over time it can really cause a lot of damage to our nervous system. Cortisol can cause degeneration of a region of our brain called the hippocampus, which is really important for short-memory. Cortisol can also physically wreak havoc by causing excess belly fat and belly fat increases the risk for cognitive decline. So it's becomes this vicious vicious cycle.

So more importantly, rather than just trying to avoid stress, I think what’s more empowering is to be able to shift our minds as well as our HPA axis and our ability to handle stress better. And so again, that's where eleuthero comes into play or Siberian Ginseng.

What this herb does it actually helps to balance out the overactivity of your alarm system– of the HPA axis. So if you're exposed to a stressor, if something comes up in your life out of nowhere that you’re not planning for or anticipating you can handle it better without going from green to red alert. Rather perhaps you can go from green to yellow and then be able to manage that and bring your wits about you being mindful and present to be able to handle the situation in a healthy way.

So that's one of the benefits of taking adaptogenic herbs. Specifically, my favorite is eleuthero because it helps calm down your overreactive stress response and in doing so, you increase your buffer against stress and you boost your stress resiliency.

Eleuthero is the top supplement that I take for brain stress.

If you enjoyed this talk, feel free to like and share with people that you love and care about– share this information with them. In addition to learn more about me and my practice, check out my website, DrTitusChiu.com. You can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram.

Bye for now.