#99: Neuroplasticity: The Brain's Superpower - Philippe Douyon, MD

32:02I'm also very mindful about the people that I spend time with. I don't want to spend time with people who are negative. So I told you, you know, to start that I had kidney failure and underwent two kidney transplants. Well, part of that story, too, is that I did dialysis for a period of time. And while I was doing dialysis, I didn't spend time with other people doing dialysis. I didn't want to hear their woe is me sort of story. I wanted more positive and powerful messages. And so I think being mindful of who we're spending time with, the information that we're taking in also impacts how our brains start to develop.

32:44What is dialysis for those that don't know? So dialysis, so when the function of your kidney is to filter out the toxins within your bloodstream. when your kidneys aren't working well you get toxins that build up and so dialysis is they hook you up to a machine that then filters the blood for you so it cycles the blood out of your body filters it out and brings it back into your body i mean it's incredible how many how many influences you've had that seem to have moved you towards the path you're on and yeah you're an incredible speaker so thank you so much for for sharing if you were to say the top three because a lot of what people will be thinking is I I'm so busy you know it's difficult to change what do I do if I could just focus on one or two yeah if we went from a sort of general how you see the general population coming to you yeah exercise and exercise doesn't mean going to the gym if you don't like to do that exercise can mean if you're somebody who likes playing tennis find a way to play tennis two or three times a week, right?

33:50If you're somebody who loves dancing, find a way to dance three or four times a week. Exercise is doing the things that get your body moving, get your heart rate up, maybe gets you sweating a bit, okay? And exercise is probably the best antidepressant, anti-anxiety treatment that we have. And so it's not only important for your physical health, your brain health, but also your mental health. So find ways to exercise, and corporate exercise into your routine at least three to four times per week. Find healthy ways to eat. And it doesn't necessarily need to be a big overhaul. You don't have to, you know, if you're eating whatever standard diet is in your community, you don't all of a sudden have to switch to a ketogenic diet or a Mediterranean diet, right?

34:36But start making conscious decisions about the small things that you can do every single day. So you're somebody who drinks three cans of soda per day. Well, maybe take that down to two cans of soda per day. If you're somebody who doesn't ever eat fruits or vegetables, well, maybe start incorporating an apple and maybe a small salad as part of your dinner. So find just small changes that you can make, small, healthier changes that you can make in terms of the foods that we eat. Third thing I would say is just getting enough sleep. and we all have to prepare our bodies and our brains to sleep at night, right?

35:15So, and the way that we do that, we talk about it as improving your sleep hygiene. I tell people all the time, get all the electronics out of the bedroom. Only two things happen in the bedroom, sleep and sex. Get the TV out, the phones out, the laptops out, all the electronics out, because that's going to interfere with your ability to get into the deeper stages of sleep. You know, we talked a little bit about your last meal should be at least three hours before you're going to go to bed because you don't want the digestive process to interfere with your sleeping. I would tell people your last dose of caffeine should be at least eight hours before you're going to go to sleep.

35:55So the coffees and the teas, if you're going to go to sleep at 10, well, maybe your last dose should be at around 2 p.m. One of the things that we see is, as the sun starts to go down, your body starts to secrete melatonin to signal to your brain and body, it's time for bed, right? But what do we have? We have all the artificial lights on in our homes, which can interfere with our brain secreting melatonin. And so as the sun starts to go down, you should also start to decrease the lighting in your own home. And so those are just some of the things that you can do to prepare your brain and body to sleep at night.

36:36Yeah, it's so funny. The power went out. We had a big storm through last week and the power went out. So when it went dark, the whole house was fully dark. And we're usually quite strict about bringing the lights down anyway. But it's just funny how you just get tired immediately once it's actually dark. Yeah. You know, people, I think, underestimate the fact that we have our own internal clock in our brains that responds to the environment. And so now if you're going against your own nature, that's going to make it really difficult to get to get a good night's sleep. And I love the focus you put on exercise being.

37:19Yeah, just if you like dancing, dance. If you like tennis, play tennis. And that's kind of the approach that we take to the mental fitness and meditations that we do as well. I think if you enjoy it, you're much more likely to go back. So, yeah, the common thing to do, particularly with diet comes to mind is, you know, we'll go into something quite strict and then bounce back and then just completely fall off the wagon. And then there's just this constant, you know, version of yo-yo dieting. it's just the small changes can have such a powerful impact just like it did for my patient janet right i didn't overhaul her entire diet to help with her seizures i just made one small change now she couldn't stick with that small change even though it had this significant impact for her but most of us it's one small change even when it comes to preparing our bodies for sleep at night.

38:18So I listed maybe four or five things. But usually it takes one or two things, one or two changes that people make. And that will have a significant impact on their ability to get a good night's sleep. It's small changes that really change our overall health and well-being. You mentioned strokes and dementia. How does neuroplasticity play a role in preventing or managing those neurological disorders? Yeah. So that's a great question. So every neurological disorder, it occurs because of some kind of breakdown in connection between neurons, right? So our brains contain anywhere from 60 to 100 billion neurons.

39:04And what makes neurons so incredibly special and important is that they are specifically built for connection, to be able to connect and communicate with each other. And so I tell people often that we need to start acting more like neurons. Every neurological disorder occurs because of a breakdown in communication and connection. And we see that with people too, right? Like when couples split, it's usually because there's a breakdown in communication and connection. When families aren't getting along, there's a breakdown in communication and connection. When countries go to war, There's a breakdown in communication and connection.

39:42Every neurological disorder is a breakdown in communication and connection. When somebody has a stroke, it's because there's a clot that blocks the flow of blood to a particular part of the brain that now you're not getting enough blood flow and nutrients to that part and causes that particular area to die. So there's now a breakdown in communication and connection in that particular area. And as a result, people can have weakness, difficulty speaking, dizziness, numbness. Well, when somebody has something like dementia, it's because there's widespread loss all over, widespread loss of neurons.

40:18So you've got this widespread breakdown in communication and connection. Oftentimes what we see is when somebody's had a stroke, let's say if they're paralyzed on their left side. Well, after a while, they start not even trying to use that left side, basically communicating to their brain, oh, we don't need that part of the body anymore. So we don't even need to try to make new neurons and new connections in that area. And what you need to do is still try to exercise the part that is not working the way that you want it to be working. And it doesn't mean that you're going to get the function back 100%, but the brain can continue to heal itself months and years after an initial injury.

41:08And you can see the brain start to rewire and make new neurons around the injured area. And so even to people with dementia, like I mentioned before, that especially in the early stages, if they're just walking 45 minutes a day, that their symptoms will start to improve because now you're making new neurons and new connections. You have to give your brain what it needs. It needs to be stimulated. It needs for you to exercise. It needs for you to continue to learn. It needs for you to take away the things that are hurting the brain in order for it to heal. Yeah, it's so interesting. My nan, actually, she had dementia and she just by chance used to fast.

42:01Like she just, I think she did it for like aesthetic reasons and then it became habitual. And she did. She was in perfect mental health until she was probably mid-70s. But her diet when she did eat was quite poor, quite sugar-rich. And yeah, it just wasn't, not many vegetables in there and probably no fruit actually. So yeah, it's interesting. If you do see those, the early onset, what would you recommend at that point? I would certainly recommend exercise. I would recommend learning something new, like a new instrument, a new language. I would recommend that person finding a purpose every single day.

42:51We all need a reason to get up every morning. I had a patient once. Her family brought her to see me. And she was from Eastern Europe. And she had come six months before to the United States. And so they said to me, look, she was great. She was doing well, you know, up until six months ago. And in the last six months, things have been declining. And I said, well, tell me about her life, you know, a year ago before she came to the U.S. And they're like, well, you know, she had her friends. She had her garden. She had all these things that she used to do. She was doing great. And we brought her here so she can take care of the kids.

43:32and you know since then she's kind of been declining cognitively and i said well so you took it took her out of her environment where she had a purpose a reason for being where she had like this this community around her and you brought her here to take care of her kids your kids i'm sure she loves her grandchildren right but but she no longer is doing what she wants to be doing every single day. And they said, well, you know, we try to take her out a couple times a week. I was like, most people take their dogs out twice a day. You're only taking her out twice a week, right? And the reality is that even when we are depressed, lack purpose, that that can often mask itself as dementia and in fact we call that pseudo-dementia right so i think making sure that we have we all have a reason to get up every single day whatever that is for an individual is also incredibly important so for in terms of like mental exercises is there any practices that you might recommend there that might help?

44:46Yeah. So certainly reading. I'm a big reader. I think reading is incredibly important for brain health. You know, when you think about a book, right, the knowledge in a book, somebody took years to accumulate, and you get to now digest that knowledge within a matter of hours. It allows your brain to make new neurons and new connections. I'm a big fan of the game of chess. I'm not that good at it, but I'm a big fan of the game of chess, right? Playing chess, having to try to anticipate what it is that your opponent wants to do, trying to plan out what you want to do for your next maybe two, three, four, five moves, I think is also incredibly powerful for the brain.

45:36Learning new things like a new language is incredibly powerful. Going to new, traveling to new lands is also incredibly powerful. Having conversations with people who are different from you is really powerful. You don't have to adopt their ideas, but listening to their ideas and their reasoning allows your brain to make new neurons and new connections. So those are the mental things that people can do every day. read, learn something new, have a conversation with somebody who is not like you, didn't grow up like you, doesn't have the same beliefs you have, right? But instead in this world, it's like, people don't want to listen to each other's ideas, you know?

46:23But that is so good for the brain. Yeah, it's interesting. I read recently that reading outside, I think it was from Stephen Kotler who does a lot of research on flow states and he recommends reading at least a portion of your daily reading outside of what you what you would normally be interested in and the reason he recommends that is that basically you create new say your connections or just the five over here and now you have say five more over here and then being able to connect those ideas then increases the likelihood of flow states. I wonder if flow has any correlation with neuroplasticity.

47:12Yeah, I might just be thinking out loud here, but yeah, I imagine it probably does put you in a state where you potentially are ready to change. Yeah, I would say that. So when you're in a state of flow, things are just kind of coming so easy, so naturally, you're not even thinking about it, right? It is your brain working as efficiently as possible. Your brain is lazy by nature, right? Your brain wants, it takes a lot of energy to learn something new. But when you learn something and you constantly practice it, practice it, practice it, then you don't really have to think about it, right? Like, so, you know, I was sharing with you that I grew up playing and competing in tennis.

47:56I'm sure the first time I tried to hit a forehand. It's like I have to think about how to hold the racket. I have to think about the ball coming to me. I have to think about where my feet are supposed to be. I have to think about where I want to try to hit it. That's a lot for the brain to coordinate. But the more that I practice it, I don't have to think about any of that. The ball comes to my right side, I hit a forehand. That's like flow state. It's so efficient, I don't even have to think about it. It's been so hardwired in. It's what people refer to as muscle memory. It's not that your muscle remembers it.

48:28It's that your brain has gotten so good at it that it takes no work. It takes no conscious effort. And that's what flow state is. It's taking no conscious effort. It's just happening easily and naturally. Your brain is expending very, very little energy. A few years ago, I was like, I want to learn how to play the piano. Never did a musical instrument in my entire life. So I'm sitting there with the instructor and she's like, okay, here's where your left hand goes. Here's where your right hand goes. Here's the sheet music. This is what this symbol means. That symbol means, right? So I'm trying to coordinate my left hand and my right hand, and I'm trying to read the sheet music, which I've never done.

49:12And I'm like, oh my God, my brain hurts. But as a neurologist, I'm like, but the brain has no pain receptors. This is why we can operate on somebody's brain while they're awake. There's no pain receptors to the brain. So what is it that I'm feeling? And then it dawned on me. What I'm feeling is neuroplasticity. This is the first thing that I've done in a very long time, so different from everything that I've ever done. So different, right? It's not related to neurology. It's not related to sports or to tennis or basketball or anything like that. It's not, you know, related to the readings that I do.

49:49This is completely new. And this was my brain making new neurons and new connections. And it's important for us to do things completely different from things that we've done in the past and things that we're good at. I had a patient once. He was a memory expert and had attended one of his memory lectures. And he was so deep in the weeds of his jargon that I was like, I have no idea what this guy's talking about. And he's talking about memory and I'm a neurologist. I was like, this guy cannot explain this to a neurologist, let alone like a fifth grader. A couple of years later, he comes to see me in the office and he comes to see me for memory problems.

50:36This memory expert, right? He had spent 40 years of his life solely focused on his research and memory. So much so in detail that he couldn't even explain the bigger picture to other specialists in the room so that they could understand it. He had never learned to anything new. And so now he was having memory problems. And we see this happen with people all the time who spend 30, 40, 50 years in the same industry, doing the same thing every day. They're superstars in their jobs. But the moment that they retire, you start to see, oh, wait, this person has some cognitive issues. They're starting to develop dementia because they never learned anything new and so it's important that we learn new things outside of our specialties it's interesting i i can feel with the learning new things as i get older because i also started learning piano as an adult and it's interesting to notice those i don't know if you have it but there's like a higher level of resistance to being bad and then i think i actually think it might not necessarily be that it's more difficult to learn as an adult it's just like you think it's more difficult and it's partly just your mind is so full and you assume that you shouldn't be bad more quickly at least this is how it's perceived by me yeah so it's more difficult like as a kid you're just so like you said you're so empty and i'm sure there is actual like physiology that makes you more neuroplastic.

52:23But partly, I think it's just your brain is so there's just these assumptions about how you should be at something. And the fear of failure, at least for me, is just so much higher. Yeah. And look, I think, you know, and that's what kids don't have. They don't make these assumptions of whether they should be good or not. They don't have the fear of failure that us adults have, right? Like, you get to a certain point in life, you're like, okay, you know, I graduated college. I went to university. I did this. I did that. I'm successful here. Like, I should not be bad at anything. But being bad at something is actually really great for us.

52:59That's what gives us the most opportunity to blossom, right? So we should search out things and try to do things that we're not good at, that we're going to be bad at. And we should go into it with an open mind and with this idea that we're just going to have a great time. We're going to have fun. One of the things I tell people all the time is emotions are the secret ingredient to learning anything new. If you tie an emotion to something, you're going to remember it. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be some complicated math equation. It could be, you know, How to stand when you're going to hit that tennis ball, you apply emotion to it, you will learn it.

53:43Most people, instead of using their emotions to get what they want, they let their emotions use them and they end up miserable. But if you use your emotions properly, that's the secret ingredient. That's an amazing perspective. And actually, I'm obsessed with this study. There's a study on meditation where they took a bunch of beginners and then they taught them different types of meditation. And they found the one that changed the default mode network. It was a study by Richard Davies. And they found that the study that changed the default mode network the quickest was meta or loving kindness.

54:20And his conclusion was as though the brain is built for love. And I think we all know that love is the most powerful emotion. So it's really interesting if you do tie love to or some form of enjoyment or fun. And that also lowers that resistance I was talking about and the assumption that I should be good. You become humbled and then more open to learning or failing. I mean, it's not really failure, is it? That's just another perspective shift. It's just how it is. But you could also look at it as an opportunity to learn or you could reframe it in many different ways. Yeah. Well, you've mentioned resistance now two or three times.

55:04And, you know, the saying is that what you resist, persist. And so if you're resisting this, like, you know, thing where you feel like, no, I need to be better than this. Well, you're just going to continue to get that thing, and you're not going to now take the risk that you want to take because you're always going to have this fear. And instead, we need to be very welcoming. We need to be welcoming and open to new opportunities, new challenges, strategic risk. And I think you're spot on when you talk about the impact that love has. Love lights up different aspects of the brain. Can you imagine if our approach to the problems that we see in this world was love?

55:55Government approaches were love. Individual approaches were love. Society's approach was love. How much better things would be? How much healthier our brains would be? How much happier we would be? All of our cortisol levels would just drop. We'd be so less stressed. Love is powerful. It really is. And that's actually a great, great point and something that I did want to bring up. Chronic stress is obviously an extremely common issue among almost everybody, at least I know, in my close vicinity. So what impact does that have on the brain? And how could neuroplasticity start to maybe mitigate those effects?

56:43Yeah. So we're all built for short term stress. Right. And it used to be early humans. Short term stress was, oh, there's this predator chasing us. We need to get away. But once we got away, our stress levels would come down. Right. Right. And even in the animal kingdom, you see this. Like if you watch any of the nature shows, I remember watching one where a cheetah and her cubs saw, maybe it was like a lion or something in the distance. And the cheetah got down really low, got its muscles got very, very tight. Right. And then once it saw that the lion went off, it stood up and it shook itself off and it was now relaxed again.

57:25It literally shook the stress off, right? Short-term stress. Now, for human beings, our stress is bills, where our next meal is coming from, whatever's going on in the world. These are everyday things. We never have time to shake it off. And so what we see that happens with stress in the brain, let's say a lion walks into the room. That's a very stressful event for anybody, right? Your brain wants to focus on that threat. It's going to be hyper-focused on where the lion is, the posture of the lion, what can you grab to maybe defend yourself, your quickest exit to be safe. Let's say you make it out of there and you're completely fine.

58:11And two weeks from now, you're telling the story and somebody says to you, Josh, what were you doing in that room to begin with? You might be like, you know what? I don't even remember. Because why you were in that room was not important. You were not making new memories during that period of time because that was not important to the brain. So people who are chronically under stress have memory problems because it's killing neurons in the part of the brain that's responsible for making memory. People who are chronically under stress, their amygdala, the part of the brain that's really responsible for our emotions, but also especially responsible for our negative emotions like fear, The amygdala is in hyperdrive.

58:51So we get cortisol and adrenaline that's just being pumped out in high levels. Well, you know what that does? That weakens our immune system, cortisol, over a long period of time. It predisposes us to gaining weight, especially putting on belly fat. It increases our risk of diabetes. It increases our risk of cancer. It is horrible for us. the adrenaline that's causing our hearts to beat well that's having a negative impact on our heart so chronic stress is killing every aspect of our our bodies including our brains yeah and i feel like you can anybody that's been through for any form of chronic stress you can really feel it and i think it's probably again maybe obvious in hindsight but a lot of these um as we get older we get more stressed so a lot of the things we associate with aging are actually probably partially or even maybe even more than we think related to just an increase in in general stress levels is there any like practices that you would encourage to manage stress or any daily habits or or anything like that first i think the most important thing is how we think about what is going on in our lives because stuff happens to all of us right i mentioned that i'm type of kidney transplant recipient.

1:00:12During those times, I had a decision to make. Was I going to focus on the negativity or was I going to focus on what I wanted my life to look like and the good things happening in my life? And so when we're under stress, which we all go through, do we focus on the stressor or do we focus on the good things that are happening? Because the reality is there are good things happening every single day. You woke up this morning, Josh. That's a great thing. There are people that went to bed last night that didn't wake up, right? Maybe the good thing is that, hey, I get to do a podcast today. Whatever that is, there's something good happening.

1:00:52And so I think our mindset around what is going on in our lives is incredibly important. Then I think that we do need to adopt healthy habits to minimize our level of stress. So whether exercise is a big one, right? I told you about the cheetah that just shook everything off, right? Getting our muscles moving, getting our bodies moving, whether it's running, swimming, playing tennis, playing basketball, going to the gym, pumping weights, whatever that is for you, do it because that's going to be a big, big stress relief. So I think that mindset, getting our bodies moving, incredibly important to help mitigate stress.

1:01:36Getting a good night's sleep helps to mitigate stress. Laughing is incredibly good for our health and to mitigate the stress response. There's tons of anecdotal stories about people who were diagnosed with cancer or some other medical illness. And instead of treatment, they went and they watched comedy for like the next three, four weeks. And whatever condition that they were dealing with got better, right? Because now you're combating the negative impact that stress has. You know, you're decreasing your cortisol levels. And so even in tough moments, if you just put a smile on your face, that's going to have a significant impact on the stress that you're feeling.

1:02:29Do you know what neuroscience tells us is the difference between the number one tennis player in the world and the number 25 tennis player in the world? It's not their strokes. They all can hit forehands, backhands. They all serve really well. Well, in fact, somebody who's ranked 100 might have a bigger serve than somebody that's ranked number one. But it's their response in the moment after a point, especially a point that they've lost. Are they going to be like, oh, my God, I suck. Like, this sucks. I hate this. Or are they going to be like, you know what? I love this sport. I love this sport.

1:03:05I love the challenge. You know, that is the difference. The mindset in the first few seconds after a point. yes i love the perspective of how could i have done this better because yeah again just referring to the learning piano as an adult i think the initial reaction might be i'm not good at this or something like this but as you said as a child there you just they just continue they just keep continuing there's no reference for being bad at anything because like they know it's just things happening. It's just as it is. And you know what? Moments they have fun with it, right? Like they'll start banging on the piano, even though the teacher's like, don't do that, right?

1:03:51They're just doing all types of things and they're just having fun with it. And that is key. I feel like as adults, we lose a couple of things that are really powerful. We lose our imagination, which is one of the most powerful cognitive faculties that we have. And then we lose our ability to have fun without any external substances or anything external, right? That's contributing to that. In terms of like advancements in neuroscience or the future of brain health, neurology, is there anything that you're most excited about? Yeah, I think, you know, what I'm most excited about is the fact that we are recognizing that the most powerful computer that we have at our disposal lies within our skull.

1:04:44And that we need to start treating it as this magnificent organ that we have. Now, there's a lot of talk like Elon Musk and his Neuralink and implanting devices into your head. I'm like, don't ever let anybody implant a device in your head unless you are having some kind of neurological disorder that requires it for your life to get better. Otherwise, don't let people do that. But certainly this idea that with our thoughts are incredibly powerful, our mindsets are incredibly powerful, and we get to create the lives that we truly want for ourselves. We get to live the life that we want once we realize how to become the leaders that our brains need to be, once we realize that it's important to take charge of our brain every single day.

1:05:34It just feels like a lot of these habits, all of them seem to lead to happiness. So you have the neuroplastic changes. And then on top of that, probably like lower inflammation, you're laughing more, you're enjoying life more, you're learning, you know, you're being more social. It's like, yeah, it's just, it's amazing that they're all in other ways are just pro-hab, that there's like good habits across the board really. And it seems like there is really little downside to a lot of what you're encouraging here. You have no side effects. And you know what? Happiness is a skill. Happiness is a skill that we need to practice every single day.

1:06:18Just like beforehand is a skill, right? Reading is a skill. We have to practice being happy every day. even in the tough moments in life, finding that little nugget that brings us joy during those challenges. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And as we start to wrap up, we'll do like a quick rapid fire Q &A. So coffee or tea for brain health? Tea. And what's your favorite brain healthy snack? Oh, blueberries. Europlasticity in one word. Oh, healing. Amazing. So a lot of people are probably now wondering how do they find out more about you and what the work that you're doing? Yeah. Where do they go to find you?

1:07:04So they can go to my website, www.inlebrainfitinstitute.com. They can find me on social media. My Instagram handle is philippe.md. They can find me on LinkedIn at DrPhilippeDion. I'm on Facebook, also on TikTok, while it still stands here in the United States, which I don't know how much longer it'll be here. But yeah, they can find me on all the social media platforms. And they can also email me at philippeduion at gmail.com. And what about your book? Where would we find that? So I've got my book, Neuroplasticity, Your Brain's Superpower, which they can find either on my website or they can go to amazon.com.

1:07:47I've got a children's illustrated series called Nury the Neuron to teach children about their brain and I have a couple of ebooks change your brain change your life as well as seven things you should be doing to minimize your risk of dementia and we'll put all the links in the description below thank you so much like I think it's it would be such a privilege for anyone to have you as a doctor and I think what you're doing is honestly legitimately incredible and it was an amazing conversation so yeah thank you thank you so much from me and the fit mind team and the audience as well well thank you so much for having me i listened to some of your other episodes and they were so good i was like oh man i can't wait to come on this thank you so much yeah i really appreciate it dr philippe yeah it's good to see you too again thank you so much for listening to the episode we really hope you enjoyed it i just wanted to take a quick moment to say that we recently released a 30 days of meditation science and bliss course you can find that here on youtube or over at the app we do find that the app offers a much better experience and then you get daily reminders and you can really track your mental fitness So highly recommend checking that out.