The UltraMind Solution (54 page)

It may take weeks or months, but using these tools in a coordinated way will eventually reset your biological rhythms.

But you have to prioritize sleep!

When I first started practicing, I thought M.D. stood for “medical deity” and meant I didn’t have to follow the same sleep rules as every other human being. Was I wrong! Working one hundred hours a week, sometimes sixty hours straight, being up at night delivering babies, then working all day in the office, had a catastrophic effect on my health, and ultimately contributed to my chronic fatigue syndrome.

Our lives are infiltrated with stimuli and we stay stimulated until the moment we get into bed. This is not the way to get restful sleep.

Is it any wonder we can’t sleep well when we eat a late dinner, answer e-mails, surf the Web or work, and then get right into bed and watch the evening news about all the disaster, pain, and suffering in the world?

We must take a little “holiday” in the two hours before bed. Creating a sleep ritual, a special set of little things you do before bed to help ready your system physically and psychologically for sleep, can guide your body into a deep healing sleep. In Part III, I will teach you how to achieve a sound and restful sleep every night.

So remember—
don’t skimp on sleep.
It is one of the most powerful healing treatments for your body that is available to you every day. In Part III you will learn how to restore healthy sleep.

Balance Your Hormones

Balance is the key to staying healthy. Nowhere is this truer than in the world of hormones.

Do not think of your hormones separately but as interconnected parts of the whole that affect one another.

Hormones are also influenced by imbalances in the seven keys. Our body is one whole system where everything is linked to everything else. So improving your nutrition, reducing inflammation, fixing your gut, and getting rid of toxins all support normalization of hormone function, which translates into better mood, more focus, and enhanced brain function.

Everyone has a different balance point and needs a little more tweaking here or there to get in balance, but following the basic six-week UltraMind Solution in Part III will provide a strong foundation. Then you can customize your approach based on where you find you are most out of balance using the steps in Part IV.

Balancing your hormones is a process, and sometimes it has little twists and turns, but by sticking with it, you can figure out how to restore yourself to the vital, happy, alert, brilliant, and thriving being you are.

In the next chapter you will learn how brain inflammation has been linked to everything from autism to Alzheimer’s, from depression to ADHD. Our brains are on fire. Find out why and what to do about it.

——————

Can your brain become inflamed? Can you have a “swollen brain” like a swollen, arthritic knee? Can you have a “sore brain” like a sore throat? Until recently, except in cases of brain infections (such as meningitis or encephalitis), brain inflammation was considered rare.

However, new evidence links hidden brain inflammation to almost every known “brain disease,” from depression to dementia, from autism to anxiety, from schizophrenia to sociopathic behavior.

The brain is on fire in the twenty-first century. If one in three Americans suffers from a mental illness, and 14 million Americans will soon have Alzheimer’s, and nearly all mood disorders and age-related brain diseases are symptoms of an inflamed or “sore” brain, then this problem touches nearly everyone.

Of course, inflammation doesn’t affect only the brain. We are seeing the flames in every disease, including autoimmunity (24 million), allergy (50 million), and asthma (30 million), as well as cardiovascular disease (60 million), cancer (10 million), and diabetes (14 million). These, it has been recently discovered, are primarily inflammatory conditions.

You might say we are all on fire.

The problem is that it’s sometimes hard to locate the source of this fire. Because systemic inflammation, which contributes to all of these conditions,
is
systemic, it can be difficult to figure out what is fueling this unseen, internal inflammation in the first place. Why do our bodies become inflamed?

Finding an answer to this question is the key to healing all chronic illness, especially mental and brain disorders.

Then, once we find the fire, we have to learn how to cool it
way
down.

But the fire often comes from many unexpected places—foods we eat, toxins in the environment, hidden infections, unknown allergens, and stress. If you want to address your swollen, inflamed brain, you have to find the source of the fire and stomp it out.

Let’s start by understanding what systemic inflammation is, what problems are caused by brain inflammation, and, finally, the causes of this unseen fire in the body.

But first, find out if your brain is on fire.

Take the following quiz to find out how inflamed you are and how this affects your brain.

In the box on the right, place a check for each positive answer. Then find out how severe your problem is using the scoring key below.

INFLAMMATION QUIZ *
I have seasonal or environmental allergies.
I have food allergies or sensitivities or I don’t feel well after eating
(sluggishness, headaches, confusion, etc.).
I work in an environment with poor lighting, chemicals, and/or
poor ventilation.
I am exposed to pesticides, toxic chemicals, loud noise, heavy metals,
and/or toxic bosses and coworkers.
I get frequent colds and infections.
I have a history of chronic infections such as hepatitis, skin infections,
canker sores, cold sores.
I have sinusitis and allergies.
I have bronchitis or asthma.
I have dermatitis (eczema, acne, rashes).
I suffer from arthritis (osteoarthritis/degenerative—wear and tear).
I have an autoimmune disease (rheumatoid arthritis, lupus,
hypothyroidism, etc.).
I have colitis or inflammatory bowel disease.