 Think Tech Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Oh Hawaii, I'm Wendy Lowe and I'm your new friend as we journey to take your health back. We are coming to you live from downtown Honolulu from the studios of Think Tech Hawaii. If my voice sounds a little weird it's just because I got back from Kona where we happened to be doing the Relay for Life. At the Relay for Life what we do there is we celebrate the survivors as they take their health back. Today our topic of discussion will be on the top brain health tips for all ages. And what I would like to take, what I would like you to take away from today's discussion shall be to enjoy a smarter, healthier, happier brain. Today we are very honored to welcome Dr. William Sears who is a National Pediatrician of Choice. He is a father of eight and author of 45 books on family health and a dear, dear friend who just loves Hawaii. He comes often to visit us. Aloha Dr. Sears. Aloha Wendy and you know I associate Hawaii with fun so let's do the fun version of brain health tonight. Very good. So I'm excited just to talk to you about the top brain health tips for all ages Dr. Sears. That's so exciting because you're a pediatrician but yet you can cover all the different ages and that's what excites me the most and I just, I just am honored just to be here with you to just discuss all these things with you Dr. Sears. You know I know the brain is a very complicated piece in our body, so complicated but could you give me a brief overview of what you're going to be talking to us about today? Yes well we pediatricians are very used to making complicated and challenging things simple. So here's a simple book for the brain. Think of your brain as the greatest garden ever grown. Now what do you need to grow a garden? You need to feed and fertilize it. You need to irrigate it and you need to keep the pests out. So the three things that grow the garden are the more you move because movement makes blood vessels to the brain which we'll see later. You need to feed it smart foods and we're going to go through what the smart foods are and you need to keep toxic thoughts out and you'll notice from the diagram that that diagram is one simple plant. Now in the brain we have 90 billion of those little plants and you notice that little fiber going from one cell to the next is called myelin and the myelin is full of fat like insulation or electrical wire so as we're going to see later we are all fat heads and the more fat on that mountain and the more healthy fat to eat the better that transmission is. So we're going to talk about that brain garden how you feed it, how you water it and how you keep the pests out. Alrighty Dr. Sears, you know I know you're not a techie kind of a person or a fan of technology but can you just share with us a little bit about how technology helps you in your practice and what you're doing every day? Well one of those is our new book called the Dr. Sears T5 Wellness Plan where we show that you can keep the five, all the five parts of your brain in one hand. Now in technology in answer to your question what you see is what's called a PET scan. This is a windows into the brain. We can tell what's going on in there and you'll see where that diagram is. That was a person who had a lot of sad thoughts over D, OCD, BPD, just a sad thinker and his sad center was the size of a quarter, eight weeks after what we call think changing the brain that used to be called cognitive behavioral therapy. Thinking happy thoughts and not sad thoughts, the sad center shrank or decreased in size of a quarter to the size of a dime illustrating by technology that we can change our brain by the way we think. The whole field of technology has opened up windows into the brain. Wow that's exciting doctor I mean I know we need to use technology because it does help us dive into places that we can't see and it just helps us along and so I'm glad you're catching up on that and I know you have your son there by your side to help you with all the tech issues and the days so I'm excited that both of you are there actually. You know Dr. Sears I like your analogy of the brain as a garden. You know I love to garden. I'm like one of the league gardeners of Hawaii right now I grow vertically but you are growing old school way the traditional way so tell us about this highly intelligent garden the brain. Oh the garden now if you look at the diagram you'll see one of the fibers there that's just one of ninety billion and the first thing you do is you fertilize it and you feed it with smart foods so we're going to talk about smart foods then you irrigate it with more blood vessels the more you move the more blood vessels you make and you keep the pest out which is how you think so you notice from our diagram that we have three keys to the brain the more you move exercise the happier you think keep in the weeds out of the brain and the foods that you fertilize and feed your brain with and we call it L-E-A-N the more you learn the better you eat the better you move and the better you think so grow your brain garden that's what we're going to talk about tonight Wendy. Good and Dr. Sears I know you surround yourself with a lot of other professional professionals that are involved with different aspects of health but I've got to ask you who is your favorite brain specialist. Okay you'll be surprised when I give you so let's imagine you take a trip you have your a family full of a lot of we call it stuff a lot of brain problems so you go online and you figure out I'm going to go see the top specialist in the whole world on my brain problems and you go into her office and the top brain specialist in the world writes out a prescription Dr. Mom says eat more fruit veggies and seafood and go outside and play there's no better medicine in the whole wide world Wendy than what Dr. Mom said eat more veggies eat more fruit eat more seafood and go outside and play that's my favorite brain specialist with Dr. Mom. Dr. Sears in regards to that you know we have nine months of pregnancy we go in with a bachelor's degree and then we go through the first nine months we have a baby and that's going for pre-med school and after the first three months we've got our masters and then we're going for our PhD as they get older and older and so yes that allows mothers not just to have an LE degree which is a life experience degree but then it also gives us a MD right so actually like mother you know mother of diseases or just a medical degree because we come we become professionals and very knowledge especially with great professionals like you by our side guiding us each step of the way so Dr. Sears the brain is so smart right it's a brain and it can it make its own medicines really so how does the brain do that Dr. Sears? Wendy I'm going to take you inside the brain and the blood vessels and what you're about to hear actually won the Nobel Prize so what you see there is inside the blood vessel now the bottom blood vessel you see a whole row of medicine bottles so we have our pharmacy is right inside them the the the blood vessels so notice the lining of the blood vessels there are trillions of little microscopic medicine bottles lining the blood vessel and when you eat the right foods like Dr. Mom said more seafood more fruits more veggies take the right supplements you keep the sticky stuff off the tops of the medicine bottles so they can open and you can flood your your blood vessels with all the right medicines now notice the person on top that person is not from Hawaii that person say from the mainland okay we'll call them Sam the sitter so Sam sits all day and put sticky stuff in his mouth you know the junk foods sticky stuff we call them for the kids and you notice Sam's medicine bottles are closed the sticky stuff is on top of the medicine bottles now even worse Sam sits too much and that's what won the Nobel Prize when you move you notice the bottom slide the one from Hawaii when you move the blood flows faster over the tops of the medicine bottles and the medicine bottles open and flood your blood your blood vessels and flood your brain garden with a lot of smart medicines so that's why Dr. Mom said go outside and play so the more we move the more brain medicines we make that's something I want you all to remember the more you move the more you open your internal pharmacy your medicine bottles and flood your brain with all these smart medicines wow Dr. Sears I think that has to be my favorite slide you know it makes it so easy for me to understand it just shares with me that if I exercise and I do the right things I don't eat the sticky stuff then that means my insides are happy and flowing to the point where the natural pharmacy within my body opens up and starts to do what it's supposed to do heal my body is that correct Dr. Sears? That's correct Wendy you got it well if you want to have some fun tomorrow say you're walking with a bunch of friends real fast down on YTT beat and you say real loud oh it feels so good to be making my own brain medicines I'm making my own medicines they'll kind of look at you you know too many my ties last night but not particularly when you move fast you actually open your internal brain pharmacy wow that's very important to understand and to know and I think if more people understood that you know a lot of people will walk and do these things because they want to lose weight but actually they're opening up their pharmacies of their bodies and that would help them heal versus not just thinking to lose weight I need to run I need to exercise I need to lose weight so Dr. Sears why is exercise particularly important for brain health you know I thought exercise exercise was important for cardiovascular health for my heart so I walk I swim as much as I can because I'm worried about my heart but now you're seeing it's actually even great for my brain oh it's even better for your brain and the reason is the brain uses more blood than any other organ per per gram of weight than any other organ in the body so the more you irrigate your brain with more blood vessels the smarter your brain becomes the happier your brain becomes so that's why movement makes more blood flow to your brain garden that's an easy way to remember I'm going to move more to make more blood flow to my growing brain garden and the the medicines that the brain garden actually makes when you move you make happy medicines medicines that bring your moods up mood elevators medicines that lower the highs like antidepressants high blood pressure medicines that elevate the loads antidepressants medicines that that keep you from hurting so much anti-inflammatories so all those anti's that you pop a pill for you can actually make them but the medicines you make Wendy the medicines you make are safer than the medicines you take because they're custom made just for your brain they come out at the right time in the right dose no side no side effects at all and your insurance company will love you because they're free wow Dr. Sears that's a lot of great information and I'm gonna have to take a break right now it's a 60 second break that we will be taking and we'll come back with you live for more exciting information about a happier healthy brain so Dr. Sears hold on for 60 seconds and we'll be right back Aloha I'm Jay Fidel one of the hosts of Asia in Review which is broadcast Monday afternoons on thinktecawaii.com we cover we study news and politics in and affecting Asia we work hard to bring you the most interesting subjects and guests who will raise your awareness please join us Mondays every week on Asia in Review on thinktecawaii.com and also on YouTube and iTunes thanks for watching we'll see you then Aloha Xie Xie and Sajian when it comes to managing your pain you have a choice don't mask your pain with opioids choose to treat it with the help of a physical therapist physical therapists treat pain through movement and exercise no warning labels required and you get to actively participate in your care choose to improve your health without the risks of opioids choose physical therapy welcome back to thinktecawaii with Wendy Lowe and take your healthy back and we're here with Dr. William Sears pediatrician father of eight and author of 45 books so Dr. Sears we went through a lot of great information though my favorite bit of info was that the more I exercise the better my health would be internally because exercise promotes a pharmacy within my body to open up and start healing internally is that correct that's correct Wendy that's correct very good and you know let me just direct our topic now to what you are trained for your pediatrician and so I want to know about babies and about babies brains and their health so what about feeding babies brains yes well imagine Wendy you're bringing your baby into my office for the six month checkup and we have what I call growing a little fat head talk remember our brain is mostly fat so the ways I get moms to remember is you are growing a little fat head so what do little fat heads need they need more fat so gone are the days of using rice cereal as the first food because there's no fat in it so the first food is avocados avocados are healthy fat and the second food is wild salmon so avocados and salmon are the starter foods we use for the brain because the brain needs smart fat now also what is different about that you ever left a piece of fresh fish out overnight and smelled it in the morning it turns rancid that's called oxidation turning rancid so the brain especially the brain of growing little fat heads it needs more antioxidants and what are those antioxidants more veggies and fruits so we have what we call the sprinkle talk at seven months in my office where I say now I know your your child probably has trouble with veggies so I'm going I open what I call my little veggie which is a capsule full of veggies and I open it I sprinkle the veggies we call sprinkles I sprinkle the veggies on mom's hand and then I have the baby lick the veggies and develop a taste for veggies and I have her do that every day and so the baby develop a taste for veggies so you got seafood avocados veggies you're starting that baby off with what we call a smart food start wow so doctors here is that again is another great tip because we know the brain is predominantly made it's fat and so you need to feed it fats which are avocados coconuts and then as you get a little bit older omegas or fats from fish which is like salmon and you know we had no idea about that I mean locally growing up here in Hawaii I've eaten a lot of coconuts I was I was growing up but we didn't I didn't eat a lot of avocado and salmon so now that I know that when I start having grandchildren that's exactly what I'm going to be feeding them avocados mashed up coconut oil is a wonderful healthy coconut oil is a great food for the brain great excellent excellent all right so doctors here is every time you're in Hawaii I look for you everywhere in the mall I look for you in the at the offices but I can't find you you're always on the beach walking walking walking on the beach what are you doing out there and why is exercise and being outdoors so important for you oh I wonder from head to toe as you see here exercise is something good good for us it's good for the brain it builds happy hormones it up lifts us it dials down negative thoughts it's good for the heart it's good for the joint that's good for the gut it's good every organ the body so just as dr mom said go outside and play in fact there's a whole new science is called the neuro science of nature another word for forest bathing which simply means go outside the healing effects of nature I look up and I see eye EYE I feel good because the eye is part of the brain and we see that beautiful beach in Hawaii the beautiful stand the palm trees waving in the air all of those send messages to the happy center of the brain I feel good when I'm outside wow and there is a slide that goes along with that to show us exactly what you're talking about for the outdoors and just the healing effects of being outdoors so we really wanted to share that with everyone so there we go the healing effects of nature and so that's exactly what dr sears just went over it just gives all the different elements of your body just all the different sensations and it's just shown to you all right there so dr sears now that we're going to move forward on to diet and what are your favorite s or your favorite smart foods smart foods you have it in the palm of your hand right first of all we have salads with spices antioxidants again my favorite spices turmeric and then we have snacking like meals of the brain like the studies apply all day long then we have supplements based on science science based supplements seafood my favorite is wild salmon and then we have smoothies a shake a day helps keep the brain doctor away so in a nutshell wendy those are my five favorite foods i'm not throwing another one too eggs eggs are excellent for the brain right you know so dr sears i go all over the place at my apple because this says if i keep eating this that means i'm going to keep you away but i want to you to stay as close to me as possible as i eat my apple because i'm learning so much from you dr sears and i just think this is so valuable because we all know this this contains over 10 000 nutrients by the nutrients that our body needs and so this is part of your for your five smart foods right dr sears absolutely when it because of the five smart foods have two nutrients in common smart fat because we have old fat head and antioxidants to keep the brain from wearing and tearing so antioxidants fruits veggies and smart fats which are seafood that that was simple and so now we go we grow up a little bit from the keiki we go to the school children so why is it so important that the school children eat smart foods well there's a there's a little picture right there of a seven-year-old called oliver oliver had one of these d you know add and adhd he was so fidgety he couldn't write there is oliver his handwriting before and after the smart food diet which is mainly the omegas so oliver was put on high doses of omegas and look at his his handwriting one month later he was like a new child so that that was just one simple study wendy there are two 20 000 studies on this but one simple study showed that you can change a child's brain by simply eating them smarter foods oh that's like magic right and you know that's that's where we come down to the apple again you know just eating the the right choice which is the apple versus the sticky food and so that's why we want to encourage more moms to take it out of the icebox cut it up and eat it because you got it in your icebox but you got to cut it and then you got to eat it so this is actually truly fast food if you think about it and to summarize the foods i make it very simple yes you know go fish go green go blue blueberries and go nuts you got stinky greens nuts from blueberries and we have a slide also to show everyone those simple steps there we go uh all righty so now we come to a little bit more seriousness most of us don't realize that we have two brains one is here in our brain in in our head i should say and the second brain that we have is in our gut can you share with us a little bit about our gut brain yes the gut is called the second brain and here's what happened the head brain sends biochemical text messages through the highway of the body called the vegas nerve down to the gut brain and so the head brain and the gut brain are constantly sending these biochemical messages messages texting each other hey how are you doing down there so the gut brain says hey head brain don't eat dumb foods eat smart foods and then the gut brain says if you eat smart foods then i will feel good in my gut so that's why the head brain and the gut brain are so important to eat the smart foods we talked about because when your head brain feels good your gut brain feels good and that's called the microbiome which is the gut bugs that line your intestines and the better you feed them the better they work for you and those foods that we mentioned eat more fruit veggies and seafood that's what the gut bugs like well so dr. shears you know our time is going by so quickly we have about a minute left but before we stop i want to know on a personal note what do you do for a stress buster relief what do you do dr. shears and you know why what do you have so much of water so i'm going to demonstrate it that every morning i do my flotation therapy i get in the swimming pool or the ocean and we're going to demonstrate it now you develop a mantra attitude of gratitude thank you god for my life 78 years thank you for my wife 52 years thank you for my health cancer survivor thank you for my wealth eight kids thank you for my md please make it my ministry and it's called flotation therapy do use a mantra get in the pool and synchronize your mantra with a swimming stroke it is i think wendy the best stress buster and a wonderful way to start the day well dr. shears you know um i've learned a lot from you today and i i feel so good because i practice a lot of what you're already sharing with us i too surf a lot as soon as i get off of an airplane coming back to honolulu the first thing is i go home unpack grab my board and i'm in the beach and i am doing exactly that i'm dipping my body into the water and just cleansing and refreshing and sharing all my gratifications out and receiving them back in so dr. shears hearing it from the doctor it makes much more sense and because people are going to follow you and listen to you so i'm so just i'm so grateful that we had this time with you and we would like to welcome you back at any time when you have some time to share your heart and your your knowledge and life with us so coming live to everyone from think tech Hawaii in the plaza building here in honolulu we just want to say mahalo dr. shears for another great 30 minutes of knowledge and life experience mahalo mahalo dr. shears aloha and aloha to everyone