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Episode 81: Nutrients and Supplements can Boost Executive Functions

Below you can view or listen to Episode 81 of The Personal Brain Trainer Podcast.    

In this episode of The Executive Function Brain Trainer Podcast,' hosts Dr. Erica Warren and Darius Namdaran delve into the controversial yet crucial topic of supplements and executive functioning. The discussion highlights key nutrients like iron, vitamin D, B vitamins, magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, choline, and zinc. They explore how these elements affect cognitive abilities, mood, and overall brain health, offering practical advice and metaphors to create a deeper understanding. The episode also covers supplements with cognitive benefits, including Ginkgo Biloba, turmeric, acetyl carnitine, caffeine, L-theanine, and CoQ10, aiming to help listeners make informed decisions about their dietary intake and supplement choices for optimal executive function.

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Erica: Welcome to the Executive Function Brain trainer podcast. I'm Dr. Erica Warren.

Darius: And I'm Darius Namdaran. And we're your hosts.

Erica: Sponsored by the Executive Functioning Remedial Assessment, an online tool that quickly identifies challenges and delivers targeted strategies for success.

Darius: Sponsored by Ivy. Imagine turning your meeting's audio into a live mind map instantly so you remember what matters. Well, try iVVi for free now at iVVi App. that's iVVi. App.

Erica: Hey, Darius, great to see you today.

Darius: Hey, Erica, how are you?

Erica: Good. I am looking forward to this podcast on supplements and executive functioning. And, you know, I think that that's one of those controversial topics, but I think it's worth discussing and talking about the different ones. Why a supplement could support. But you also have to be careful because if you take too much of a supplement or one that's not clean enough, it can actually hinder. So, I think it would be a. I think there's just some basic supplements and nutrients that are. Are definitely worth reviewing for our audience.

Darius: Yeah, I've been pestering about this one for a while. You know, I think it's funny because we often talk about sort of personal things we can do and strategy we can do, and we kind of tend to shy away from, you know, quick fixes and take this pill or do this and do that and I'll be sorted. And that's not what we're going to be doing here. There isn't sort of some magic pill that's going to do X, Y or Z for you. But what is fascinating is I'm looking forward to sort of thinking about these supplements like iron and vitamin D and all these other things that we hear about on a regular basis in our lives. But what I've noticed is that sometimes it all seems so very abstract that we think, oh, yeah, it's just another good thing that we should do. But my hope is by the end of this podcast, we'll kind of have created like a different metaphors, different understandings of how these different supplements might help us. Maybe something that. That's being triggered in our minds. Oh, yeah, I've been meaning to do that for ages. And we take it and we, we find some sort of internal reason and connection to why we're going to do it and actually do it, you know, and probably there'll be 1 or 2 in this list that you'll go, yes, gosh, I've been meaning to do that for the last two or three years. Let's just get on and do that. Add that to the list. So what are you, what we're going to start off with?

Erica: And if you don't want to take supplements, then just be mindful of ingesting more foods that contain that in it. So, for example, if you know that you tend to be deficient in iron, then eat a lot of spinach, you know, and if you don't know what foods have a lot of those nutrients, you can just do some research on Google. But I'm going to refute something that you said already, if you can believe it. So you said there may not be a magic pill here. I'm going to say in certain cases, it's going to feel like a magic pill because if you truly have a deficiency, if you have a vitamin D deficiency, you can go into a deep depression, right? If you have an iron deficiency, you can become extremely anemic. In fact, there are certain times where if you don't have enough of a supplement, it can really be debilitating and it can feel like a magic pill.

Darius: So I suppose we're talking about these things as supplements, but really, they're not supplements. They're key elements of a, diet, you know, of our brains, of our lives. And if you have too little of them. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at the ingredients. What would you call it? That element in our, in our diet, Our nutrients. The nutrients.

Erica: Are we getting the proper nutrients? Because so many people I know in the United States are living on a processed food diet that really doesn't offer a lot of nutrients.

Darius: It's a nutrient, deficient diet in many case. Yes.

Erica: Yeah, a lot of people have that nutrient deficient diet. But also, you know, there are these. Beyond the nutrients, there are certain supplements, and we'll talk about a few of those too.

Darius: So we've kind of organized this, haven't we? So basically, we've got a few nutrients. Okay. And for each nutrients, we're going to say, what's its role in our brain health? What happens if you're deficient in it and what happens if you take too much? And maybe we might discover a M metaphor that can help you connect with that in a new way. So let's just do a quick rundown

00:05:00

Darius: of what the ones we're going to cover to whet people's appetites, and then we'll go through them one by one.

Erica: Well, let's, yeah, we'll review just the nutrients.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: Okay. So we're going to be talking about iron, vitamin D, vitamin B. And there are a few vitamin Bs, magnesium, omega 3 fatty acids, choline and zinc.

Darius: Brilliant. Bring it on. Let's go.

Erica: All right, so let's jump in. Iron. So the role of iron is that it's crucial for oxygen transport and neurotransmitter synthesis, and it also supports myelin sheath formation, essential for the efficient nerve transmission. So people are probably like, what's myelin sheath? Well, myelin sheath is this kind of fatty layer that protects the nerves in the neural region in the brain. And if you don't have enough myelin sheath, you're not going to last long enough. So it's, you know, it's, that's always very concerning for me when people say, I'm going to go on a no fat diet. I'm thinking, well, that's not going to do much good for the brain because the brain really survives on fat. Our memories are protected by a fatty layer of mileage.

Darius: Okay, right. So it's like the insulation along a cable, isn't it? Like plastic insulation along a cable. And if you don't have that insulation, it touches another cable, it shorts and weird things. Yeah. So it doesn't function the way it was, but it's kind of like that. It's a sheath.

Erica: Yes, it's a protective sheath. And then if we have deficiencies in iron, it can lead to reduced cognitive abilities, slower processing, attention deficits, especially in children and pregnant women. And this is why ensuring sufficient iron levels is key, particularly for developing brains. So I know I was very iron deficient. And so my parents were always giving me, oh my goodness of all things, liver and lots of spinach and because I had ulcerative colitis. So if you have any kind of condition where you're losing blood, you're going to probably be iron deficient. So. Yeah, and then the dangers of excess. So, yeah, you can, you have to be, you have to be careful because you don't want to take too much, because too much iron can cause oxidative stress, which has been linked to neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's. So isn't that interesting?

Darius: Can you take too much iron? How easy is it to take too much, would you say?

Erica: Well, I, I suppose if you were eating something that was kind of polluted with iron, or if your water had too much iron in it, you were just, you know, there, there probably situations where you're just getting too much, then it's going to be dangerous. And if you're concerned about any of these things, you can also have blood work done, and they can look different nutrient levels, and they can. They can, if you're. If you want to know very specifically, they can show you whether you have too much or too little, and then you can do different things.

Darius: Okay, so metaphor time. It's kind of like, so iron transmits the oxygen around your neurotransmitters and so on. So the oxygen and iron are connected. So basically, the iron is like a truck, a metal truck, transporting around those little oxygen things around your body. Is that generally the idea?

Erica: I think that works, yeah.

Darius: Okay, so we've got these little metal trucks, and if we don't have enough of these little metal trucks, we're not getting enough oxygen to the right places.

Erica: Right? Yeah, we. And we want to make sure that the deliveries aren't too slow or too fast, just the rate that we need.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: All right, so let's move on to vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin. Yeah, we get a lot of it in the summertime when we're out and about and we're actually sunbathing. But in the wintertime, a lot of people struggle with vitamin D deficiencies. Do you take vitamin D in the wintertime?

Darius: I don't, actually. And what I've decided to do is to make sure I get out in the sun on a regular basis for about 20 minutes every day. So what I'm doing at the moment is I'm looking out the window in Scotland here. I live in a place called Sunny Dunny, which is Sunny Dunbar, just outside of Edinburgh, and it's one of the sunniest places in the UK, which is not hard to achieve, let's be honest. But when it does get Sunny, I just open the door and I say, look, I got 20 minutes. I'm going to walk out, I'm going to be in the sun, roll up my sleeves and get some sun and vitamin C, vitamin D on my skin. I was actually. Do you know one of the things that's interesting to do. Erica, have you ever done this? I speak to ChatGPT about my diet.

Erica: Really?

Darius: So what I'd say to ChatGPT, okay, I say, right, I

00:10:00

Darius: want you to tell me how much magnesium and zinc I ate today, how much magnesium and potassium I probably ate today. Okay. And so I'll say I had three eggs, I had some 50 grams of smoked salmon, and I just speak out some of what I've had in the day, and it will say, right, you've probably had this much and that much. And it adds up, all the Nutrients because it knows what it, what they are, does the maths and says you're this much short.

Erica: That's pretty cool. Although I don't know if I would fully trust it. I might want to double check it a few times before I trusted it because sometimes it will give you information that's not wholly tr.

Darius: But yeah, but, but the interesting thing about these diet stuff is that it's because it's so prolific, so standard. There's standard true amounts and you can pretty much trust it on it because it's a very much a standard issue.

Erica: Standard numbers and, and of course you know, you can always drop into its information or a table.

Darius: Yeah.

Erica: Or yeah. Are certain documents if you want to make sure that it's following something very specific that you're interested in.

Darius: It is really fun to just have a conversation with voice mode on ChatGPT and say, you know, you might say, oh, how much iron do you think I'm getting out my diet? And you just say I've done this, I've done that, and you don't need to go and do it. And it will do the calculations for you. This is the average. And you can review them and then you can say, how much short do you think I am? And then you go, well, what else do you think I should eat to increase the diet? The iron. And it'll say, you know, things like spinach and liver and so on. And then you go, but I don't really like them very much. What, what else? And then you go, it'll list a few things and then it'll say, I don't know, cucumber, okay. And you go, oh, I like cucumber. How much cucumber do I need to eat to get that achieved? And it'll say right, this much. You go, that's a lot of cucumber, you know.

Erica: Well, the other thing is keeping threads open, and you can continue to use them over time, I find to be really helpful. So that even if you have, say these are the seven nutrients I want to make sure that I have enough of in my diet, then you can always say, okay, it's a new day, let's evaluate. Do the same thing as you did yesterday. And this is what I ate. So you don't have to start over every day, you can just use a thread day to day, which is kind of fun.

Darius: But yes. And one of the things I learned about vitamin D, okay from Chat GPT, is the body's ability to store vitamin D over winter. And I hadn't really thought about how the body stores vitamin D. And so, you know, like we are evolutionarily wired to store up vitamin D in the summer and then deplete some of it with some stores over winter. And. But you need to make sure you've got enough stores and we're not quite sure how much your stores get depleted, how it relates to fat in your body and things like that that can influence it, et cetera. Anyway, vitamin D. Fascinating. What's the role in cognitive health really?

Erica: Brain functioning and its receptors are spread throughout the brain, and it helps regulate neurotransmitter synthesis and neural protection. So you can see if you're deficient, why some people might fall into depressions. That's very, very brain related.

Darius: It's a bit like that, what's that, called S.A.D. seasonal Affective Disorder.

Erica: That's exactly what we're talking about, right. Probably most of the time it's a vitamin D deficiency.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: So I usually recommend taking 5,000 milligrams a day in the wintertime just to make sure you're getting enough. Some people will say a lot less, but I, that's what I take.

Darius: I watched a lot of, during the COVID pandemic. How much vitamin D is really helpful for your Covid and for viruses and your immune health and the research done on it, you know, it can be like, improve your immunological response by like 5% improvement or 10%, which is a very statistically significant number. So vitamin D it is.

Erica: It definitely helps with any kind of cognitive impairment. So if you're feeling a little bit like things aren't functioning the way you want them to or even slower information processing. But yeah, and if you want to reduce your risk of dementia, if you have it, if it runs in your family, make sure that you're taking enough vitamin D. Okay. If you take too much vitamin D, it can lead to hypercalcemia,

00:15:00

Erica: which might cause confusion and even cardiac issues. So you know, we're getting all to, we're getting back to the idea of balance. We want to keep our bodies in a place of homeostasis. We don't want to overdo it.

Darius: So metaphor time.

Darius: So we could. We've got iron. That is the truck transporting the oxygen. This is like the sunlight for your mind. So vitamin D is made from sunlight on your skin, but it kind of brightens up your mind, makes your mood brighter, you know, keeps your mood lighter and stops your, your mood darkening, as it were. So I quite like that metaphor of sunlight for Your mind?

Erica: Yeah, for sure. Next, we've got vitamin B.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: And actually, there's more than 1. There's B6, B12, and folate are all crucial for brain functioning. They regulate neurotransmitter synthesis, support myelin, or back to the myelin again, production, and reduce homocysteine levels, a risk factor of cognitive decline. So it's not just one. So many times when I take a B supplement, I will take a multi-B. So that. So I'm definitely hitting. The key ones for cognition are B6, B12, and folate. And deficiencies in these vitamins are linked to memory loss, cognitive decline, depression, and dementia. And so maintaining a proper balance is really important to prevent cognitive decline. And then excess. While B2 is generally safe, excess in B6 can lead to nerve damage. So that's a little scary. So, yeah, we have to be a little careful. You know, one of the things that I'm noticing when I get older, because I tend to be multitasking so much or just kind of doing things on the way to doing something else, that if I don't write down that I've taken something or even that I've given my dog, dogs their supplements, or one of my dogs has, a degenerative eye disease, and I have to give her drops three times a day. If I don't write it down, I'm like, oh, my gosh, did I give it to her today? Was that today or was it yesterday? And it kind of feels like I'm losing it, but it's probably because I'm just doing too much at once. So I've gotten the habit of having a little dry erase board, and I put the date and then I check it off as I'm doing it. So you can make sure that you're not taking too much of a supplement. Or you can get these beautiful little boxes I found on Etsy, this company that has these beautifully carved wooden boxes, and they do these, these beautiful etchings of nature in the top. And they're nice and big, so you can fit a lot of supplements in there. And that's a nice way to prevent from taking too much.

Darius: Yes. And, by the way, this is a. We're an executive function podcast, and one of the best ways to remember to take something is to set an alarm on your phone. Yeah, you know, just pick up your phone, press the power button to activate Siri, your assistant, and just say, set an alarm for 7pm every day called take pills.

Erica: But, what if you're in the middle of something, that's what happens to me. I have to give JoJo her eye drops at 3pm and I'm always in an appointment, so usually I. It goes on and I'm like, I'll say, turn it off. But that's the problem is if we are doing something, and then I've tried this strategy of, okay, if I'm doing something, I'll cross my fingers, and I won't uncross my fingers until I get to that reminder. But every now and then, something happens, and you get distracted, and you uncross your fingers, and you don't do it. So what's your strategy, Darius? If you get a reminder when you do not want to be distracted?

Darius: Okay, I just went through this with a client just this week where we went through habits, and there's two levels of reminders. Okay. Level one alarms and level two is reminders in the Reminders app. that just reminds you at a moment, doesn't intrude too much, but it sticks there as a reminder on your to do list, as it were. So you could, if you set it on the alarm, you're saying, I am definitely going to do it at that time. You don't put too many alarms. It's like you prioritize that for, I'm going to have to do it, and I'm going to set the alarm for a time that I'm setting myself up for success. So it could be 10 past three. Three, 10.

Erica: Well, you know, my problem is I. If I have an appointment from two to three and one from three to four, there. What I've discovered is I, what I have to do is just say, excuse me, I. I'm very sorry to interrupt our appointment, but I have this. This situation and it'll take me one minute. Hold on. Jojo, get over here. Drop the eye drops in. But yeah, because otherwise you have to, particularly with this condition, you have to do it at the time that you're supposed to do it. So you can't.

Darius: Oh, well, then you

00:20:00

Darius: set the alarm for 3 o'clock and it audibly goes off. And you say to the person, oh, I'm really sorry, this important alarm's gone off. Or you maybe even tell them in advance, look, an alarm's going to go off at 3:00. I have to do this, that, and the next thing, it'll take 60 seconds. Is that okay? And they're like, yeah, sure. And a prime for it. That's what I would do in that circumstance.

Erica: Yep, yep.

Darius: Plus set a Reminder in your calendar, in your Reminders app, saying, remind me at 3pm every day to do this. And then what happens is when you go through your reminders, if you didn't, the problem with the alarm is you switch the alarm off, you go off and do something else and it doesn't remind you again. It's not persistent. So in your reminders, you've got it there and you go, oh, God, I didn't do it at 3. It's 4:00. Well, it's better done now than never. I'm just going to do it. So that would be my strategy.

Erica: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've missed it enough times now that I realize that I just have to say to the person I'm with, excuse me for, yeah, 30 seconds. It's just something I have to do. And people are very compassionate. So let's get back to vitamin B. And just to remind everybody, this is. It regulates a neurotransmitter synthesis. It supports the myelin production, and it reduces homocysteine levels. So it really helps with depression, cognitive decline, or lack of cognitive decline, memory loss and dementia. So what kind of metaphor would you give that one?

Darius: Well, we're talking really memory. Okay. So let's just say. Okay, we're simplifying it because it's a complex thing, but vitamin B, I would probably want to connect it with memory.

Erica: So it's a little more than memory.

Darius: All right.

Erica: Well, depression is not really memory. But you know what it is? It's we. And it's because we're cutting across B6, B12, and folate. So it's really more of a support team.

Darius: Okay, right. So we're talking like a maintenance team. Yeah. Okay. So a maintenance team with one of them that helps with memory maintains what. What we say. What is it maintaining? Let's simplify it for me.

Erica: So if you think about memories, it all happens in the neural pathways. So you could think of it as like wiring. And then we're just keeping everything wired and connected, and we're making sure that all the wiring has enough sheathing on it.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: Some of them overlap a little bit. So it's that kind of maintenance crew that's supporting screw.

Darius: Okay. So vitamin B is very much a maintenance thing. Okay.

Erica: Yeah.

Darius: Let's go to the next one.

Erica: Magnesium.

Darius: So we've had iron trucks, we've had vitamin D, sunlight for the brain, and then we've got the maintenance crew, the bees. The bees are the main. The beach.

Erica: That's kind of nice. I like that. I think of bumblebees, right?

Darius: The be. Oh, yeah. They're like busy bees, you know, build. Building up the hive mind, as it were. The bees.

Erica: Yeah, that's good.

Darius: Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Okay.

Erica: And then we've got magnesium, which is. They often call it the relaxation mineral. And magnesium is involved in nerve transmission and neuromuscular conduction, and it's essential for reducing anxiety and improving focus. Isn't that interesting?

Darius: Yeah. And, you know, lack of it, we've got down here. Irritability, confusion, decreased attention span, and also.

Erica: You know what that is? 

Darius: Cramps in your legs and in your muscles and so on. If you don't have enough magnesium, like, my wife often wakes up in the middle of the night, she's got cramps in her legs, and she rubs it with magnesium oil and. And the cramps can go away within, like, 30 seconds. And I've been getting some of them since I've been on the ketogenic diet and the carnivore and then the ketogenic diet. You've got to supplement magnesium and potassium and sodium on that because you don't get as much, and I've not for about a month. And you really get a dry mouth. You really start getting some cramps in your legs and things like that. And those are just the really physical side, let alone the more subtle effects it has on your brain.

Erica: Well, I'll tell you something, because I used to use a lot of those because I get terrible cramps. It's genetic. I can get whole body cramps. And I used to put the magnesium on my body as well. But it's funny, it creates, like, a prickly feeling. And then I actually got magnesium drops. And if I get any cramps, I will just give myself what. However many it is, however, many drops I need to take, it says on the bottle. And if I take that in a glass of water, they're gone within 10 minutes.

Darius: Wow.

Erica: And then I won't get them for the next few days.

Darius: You put me onto that

00:25:00

Darius: liquid, magnesium.

Erica: Body bio. Yeah.

Darius: Because I think basically what we're talking about here, with magnesium, I would add in potassium and sodium. Magnesium, potassium and sodium. So if we looked at potassium as well. But these three salts, mineral, these metals. Isn't it interesting? Three metals? Magnesium, potassium. You don't really think of them as metals, are they? Well, magnesium's a metal, and I think potassium is a metal as well.

Erica: Isn't potassium considered a salt?

Darius: It is a salt, but it's a salt from a metal because potassium. I remember at school you'd got the potassium metal, and you put it in the water and a big. Did the hissing and so on. I might be wrong. Sorry.

Erica: But yes, potassium is a metal.

Darius: Oh, right.

Erica: Soft, silvery white metal that is highly.

Darius: Darius.

Erica: Air and water belonging to the alkali metal group on the periodic table.

Darius: Okay, so we've got. Magnesium's a metal. Potassium is sodium a metal.

Erica: I will look that up because we.

Darius: Think of that as salt. But is it, at its core, a metal like magnesium and potassium are?

Erica: Yes, sodium is a metal.

Darius: Wow.

Erica: Specifically, is classified as a soft, silvery white alkali metal.

Darius: Right.

Erica: So isn't that fascinating?

Darius: These three metals we need in our body and. And basically, they're electrolytes, essentially. Electrolytes.

Erica: That's exactly what they are.

Darius: And so a lot of people are using. It's so crucial to use electrolytes to maintain your va-voom.

Erica: Yeah. Your attention span, it wears off. Mental confusion or irritability, you're going to just feel. So it helps your brain, but it.

Darius: Helps your body, too, your physical energy, your muscular energy. It's interesting, and we looked this up, so that magnesium is. Has this interesting. I've never really thought of magnesium as reducing anxiety and putting a brake on this kind of nervousness and anxiety. I hadn't really thought of it like that.

Erica: Yeah.

Darius: Isn't that interesting to think about these things as. As a brake pedal to slow certain things down or to subdue or. Or blanket. It's like a comforting. Well, if I was to think about it as a metaphor, magnesium feels like a comforting blanket. Like, you've got that physical cramp, you put that on at night, and then it calms everything down. It's really great for muscular pain. You put magnesium on it, it relaxes pain, and you take it. It slows.

Erica: It slows us down. It could be like a brake pedal of some kind that just eases, you know. The other thing just worth mentioning is that if you get too much magnesium, it can cause gastrointestinal distress. But interestingly enough, not something that we want to talk about all the time. But if you get constipated, magnesium can actually help you. Or in many cases, if you have to have a colonoscopy, you can take large doses of magnesium and it kind of clears you out. But, yeah, you don't want to be doing that very often. But I think compared to some of the other ones, it's not. The potential side effects aren't as dire.

Darius: My. Okay, so we've Got the, the, the truck for the iron. We've got the sunlight of the mind. We've got the, the busy bees, the B team. The bees and the maintenance crew. And I'm going to go for a blanket. I think I'm going to go for a blanket. This comforting bedtime muscle cramp thing, you know, nice and comfort snuggled up.

Erica: Let's move on to the omega 3 fatty acids. and that's, that's really the brain's building blocks, I think. But Omega 3 is particularly DHA and EPA support neural health communication, and they reduce inflammation. We live in a society where so many of us are plagued with inflammation. So making sure taking enough omega, three fatty acids is really m. But the low levels are linked to memory issues, slower cognitive processing, mood disorders. Interesting. And they're often lacking in our diet. Particularly now that people are a little bit nervous about eating fish. People are. Because of all the pollution. A lot of people are really backing down on the fish. But so many fish have important omega 3s for us. I've taken them in the past. But if I take Omega 3 fish oil, I usually make sure that the company purifies it.

Darius: Right.

Erica: There is a purification process.

Darius: The smaller the fish, the better.

Erica: Right, right. The bigger fish are consuming. Exactly. They're, they're not consuming each other's heavy metals that they can.

Darius: Which is why swordfish

00:30:00

Darius: is the worst. Because swordfish is at the top of the food pyramid. And then underneath you've got tuna, and then underneath the tuna you've got. So the smaller, like the sprats and the sardines and all of those smaller fish have got a lot fewer heavy metals accumulated in them.

Erica: But they're very high in the omega 3s, so that is great in omega 3. Salmon's also fairly safe if. As long as you're not. As long as you're getting it, in from ocean, a clean ocean.

Darius: So you think about these oil as building blocks and they're also a bit like the, if you think about the brain, like gears, the oil is, stops the gears crunching together, stops that inflammation of the gears, as it were. So it's got this dual aspect where it's smoothing things out, causing less inflammation, but also a building block.

Erica: Yeah, that's good. Should we move on to choline?

Darius: I haven't quiet, I haven't quite got this. I, I like building block. But what else builds things up like in nature, you know, like what substances build things up? it's not just like little blocks, but like SAP or I'M going to ponder on that for a bit longer, but let's keep moving.

Erica: If we, if we go with it, if we go with the gears, we could go with a bicycle.

Darius: Oh, okay.

Erica: You know, you just have all the pieces of the bicycle and they're well.

Darius: Oiled, but they're more than just oiled. It's also the building blocks of the bicycle as well. So.

Erica: Right. That it's been. It's been put together properly. And.

Darius: Yeah, when you say it's building blocks, what are you building with the oil? What is the substance? What is it building? Do you know? Is it just acting like this sort of lubricant connector stuff, or is it actually a building block? Do you actually build brain cells from it and so on, or.

Erica: Well, it definitely helps with neural health.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: And the communication across neurons.

Darius: Right.

Erica: So maybe the building blocks of communication, of being able to execute.

Darius: I'm going to go and research that a little bit more, but. Okay. Omega 3s are good. They. They keep the inflammation down; they smooth everything out. They're good. So I've got it. I'm going. What's next?

Erica: Choline. Choline is great for supporting memory and focus. It's a precursor to acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter involved in memory and executive functions.

Darius: What is choline? I've never heard of it. What is it, what's it in? What do you get it from? Or do you just, you know, like. Fascinating. I've not really heard of choline. Get it in eggs, fish and some legumes. Okay.

Erica: Yeah. So it's a component of cell membranes which are made of phospholipids, and it's a source of the methyl groups that are used in many metabolic processes.

Darius: Right. Choline.

Erica: Yeah. We don't hear about choline very often, do we?

Darius: No, no. So you get eggs and fish, I suppose, and.

Erica: And low levels can impair memory and cognitive processing. And it's particularly important for pregnant women to support fetal brain development. And as you already said, you can find it in eggs, fish and legumes. But you could see if somebody didn't eat eggs or fish, they'd have to eat a lot of legumes.

Darius: We've got something here which says choline is like the spark plug of the brain, igniting the processes that help you remember and stay focused. I love that spark plug. So you don't need a lot of it, but you need a little spark.

Erica: To get you going.

Darius: Yeah, that is a good one. I want to. I eat Quite a lot of eggs. So I probably got a lot of choline on the go. But it would be interesting to know how much choline you need in a day and how much you get in your average diet. It would be fast. That's a ChatGPT question.

Erica: There you go.

Darius: Waiting to happen, isn't it? How much choline is in my diet if I eat this in a day?

Erica: You know, it's interesting because I don't eat legumes and I don't eat fish or eggs very much, and I think I probably need to m. Eat more eggs.

Darius: Right. You need to find out how much choline you're eating on a regular basis.

Erica: And see if I would say that I'm probably choline deficient based on this data. So that's interesting. I've been wondering what I need to do because I've been noticing for myself that I feel like lately I've been aging more my skin, particularly in my face, which is a sign that I'm probably deficient in something. And maybe I'll to take more. Eat more eggs. That's a good idea. M. There's interesting things throughout all processes here because, even though I wrote this up, I didn't

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Erica: make that connection. So that's. Thank you for that connection. And our final nutrient that we're talking about is zinc, which is another metal that again, is essential for brain health, and it supports neurotransmitter function, synaptic plasticity, and overall brain health. So if you have a deficiency, you could quite likely have a mood disturbance or cognitive decline. But if we have an excess amount of zinc, it can interfere with copper absorption and lead to immune dysfunction. Isn't that interesting because when you're sick, you often take zinc, right? But I guess you have to be careful not to take too much.

Darius: Do you? I don't.

Erica: I always take zinc when I'm sick.

Darius: Really? I take vitamin C when I'm sick.

Erica: I take both.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: I take both. So that's really interesting. So a metaphor. Oh, what we have down here is that it's like the electrician of the brain keeping the electrical signals flowing properly ensuring that all the circuits are well connected.

Darius: All right, so we've got sparky, zinc keeping the.

Erica: Well, no, the spark. Well, the spark plug was choline.

Darius: It was. And then the electrician. It's about the flow. The flow of elect of circuits, keeping the. The circuits flowing. Right.

Erica: They kind of. Choline and zinc kind of work together.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: It sounds like to keep your electrical system zap.

Darius: Zap your brain with some zinc.

Erica: With some zinc and choline. Okay. So we have now made it through just the basic nutrients, and many of these. Again, if you have a really, really good diet, you're probably going to hit most of these. But based on what we've been talking about, you can. You might be like, wow, I'm really not getting enough sunlight, or perhaps I'm not. I'm not. Or I'm feeling very anxious, and I'm not really relaxed. That might point you towards something that you can eat a little bit more of and naturally accommodate any symptoms that you may be having just by changing your diet if you choose to. So, Darius, let's go over a few supplements with potential cognitive benefits.

Darius: Great.

Erica: Let's start with ginkgo, biloba. It's an. This is. They often say its ancient wisdom meets modern research, and it's often used in traditional medicine. It's thought to improve blood flow to the brain and act as an antioxidant. And some studies suggest benefit for attention and memory. But evidence is kind of mixed, and I guess you've got to explore for.

Darius: Do you use it?

Erica: I have, but I haven't in a while. That's an interesting. I love how it improves blood flow to the brain. Okay. And antioxidants are very good, so it's something you can always try if that's something you're interested in. But some people definitely find it to be good. Did you want to go supplement?

Darius: Is turmeric or curcumin? I really love the turmeric. I use turmeric a lot.

Erica: Yeah. Curcumin or from turmeric is a great way to fight inflammation.

Darius: Oh, is that how you say it? Curcumin? Yeah, curcumin.

Erica: Well, you know, I've heard people say it both ways. I call it curcumin, but some people call it curcumin. I've always called it curcumin. I might be wrong, but. But it's. The idea is it's from turmeric, and I use turmeric all the time. I've had enormous success with turmeric for me, for my animals. My mother had great success with. She had pretty severe arthritis, and it's huge. I. I really need to be using it just like salt on. On my food. And I've been trying to come up with a strategy. I guess I just need to have, like, a saltshaker filled with turmeric that I can just use on my food all the time. Because it has quite a nice flavor. or sometimes I'll just, I'll put a spoonful, a small spoonful and a glass of water and just drink it down. But it's really powerful. Anti. Inflammatory. Again, antioxidant. It helps with cognitive; it helps to wear off cognitive decline. So yeah, it's powerful. I really like curcumin.

Darius: So if we're thinking about it dealing with inflammation, our metaphor is a fire extinguisher because it's putting out the fire.

Erica: Sounds good to me.

Darius: So it's like that one. What else have we got?

Erica: Acetyl carnitine, which is, considered a brain energizer. It's an amino acid that helps generate energy in the mitochondria, potentially improving memory and cognitive function, especially in older adults.

Darius: Have you used it?

Erica: I think I have, but I have. I kind of got off the supplement train and I'm trying to get back on it again.

Darius: Right.

Erica: But from the

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Erica: fact that it generates energy in the mitochondria, I always think of the, the mighty mitochondria. And so we could think of it as like a fuel injector.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: Providing the energy that boosts the brain function and so it runs efficiently.

Darius: Okay. So fuel injection for the brain. Okay.

Erica: Caffeine, it's, it's a booster. I, I miss caffeine. I haven't had it for 25 years because I, I can't with. With it's because it's made from a bean. I don't consume or eat any starches for other reasons, but I miss it. And I love the smell of coffee. when I just think of caffeine, I just think of coffee.

Darius: Wow. Yes.

Erica: I miss it. I miss it for sure. I don't miss the side effects because I don't drink caffeine. I don't crash during the day. I'm always on an even keel of energy. And when I did consume caffeine, it just seemed like it was a high and then a crash. And then I'd have another cup of coffee and a high and a crash. So I miss the taste, and I miss the smell, but I don't miss the feel. But it is a well-known stimulant that enhances alertness and focus for short periods of time. Which is why a lot of the medications that people take for ADHD are also stimulants like caffeine, but they're just longer, longer lasting.

Darius: Right.

Erica: Like Ritalin.

Darius: Right?

Erica: Yeah, I bet you do. I bet it helps too.

Darius: Turbo boost your mind. Yeah.

Erica: Oh, that's a good one. Hits the turbo button. I like that. Okay. L. Theanine is for calming and focusing the benefits. Well, first of all, let me say that it's an amino acid found in tea leaves and it's known for its calming effects. And when paired with caffeine, it can enhance focus and reduce jitteriness, providing a smoother cognitive boost. Interesting. So kind of taking that with caffeine, huh?

Darius: Does L. Theanine happen in all tea leaves or some tea leaves? What do you think?

Erica: I would. I would imagine that's in just some, it’s not going to be in all tea leaves.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: And so interesting how it can improve attention and reduce stress. So it kind of counteracts the negative effects of caffeine. It'd be interesting to do some research on what teas have L. Theanine in them.

Darius: I'll go; I'll go. I'll go look. Let's have a quick look. L. Theanine is primarily found in the leaves of Camellia sinensis green, black, white and oolong teas. Generally, green tea has higher concentrations of L. Theanine compared to black tea.

Erica: That's so interesting, because from time to time we'll have green tea, and I don't get the jitteriness that I used to get with caffeine. With caffeine from coffee.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: And I bet that's because of the L. Theanine. That's fascinating. Hm. So why don't we call it like a copilot where it smooths out the ride and reduces the turbulence of the caffeine.

Darius: Well, if it's. If it's smoothing out the ride.

Erica: Shock.

Darius: It's more like a shock absorber, isn't it?

Erica: Shark absorber. Yeah, that's actually kind of a nice idea.

Darius: It's more like a. So shock absorber is the L. Theanine from your green tea. So you, you, you bruise those, get more. More of a spring or foam.

Erica: Yeah, it just. It's soft. Ride.

Darius: Cushion the ride. Yeah, like foam in your seat to cushion the. The bumps along your daily life. Okay, so. Right. I've got it. I'm sold on green tea.

Erica: Yeah, I'm going to start drinking more of it now. That's really gotten me thinking about it.

Darius: I. I, really like having some sort of metaphor or imagination visualization that is more. Is accurate. It's not just, you know, oh, a nice thing to remember it, but it's an accurate representation of the actual function. I like that foam in your seat or suspension. I'll, I'll drink green tea.

Erica: We'll call it the memory foam.

Darius: Memory foam. I like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to have some memory foam tea, and my daughter will go.

Erica: What are you taking down, referring to? All right, Last 1. Coenzyme Q10.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: A lot of people call it CO CoQ10, and it boosts cellular energy. It's involved in energy production in the cells and acts as an antioxidant. It may help improve cognitive performance by supporting mitochondrial function. So we're getting down into the cellular mitochondrial function again

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Erica: and it's shown promise in improving mental energy and combating age related cognitive decline. Yeah, I need to be taking that. So what are we going to call that?

Darius: Well, it's useful to know where you get it from. So I've got here Coq 10, Organ Meats, like liver. Back to your liver, Erica.

Erica: back to the liver.

Darius: A beef heart, fatty fish, trout, salmon, mackerel, muscle meats, beef, pork, chicken. Have CO Q10. Nuts and seeds, spinach, broccoli.

Erica: Or you just get supplements. Yeah, broccoli and spinach. I eat quite a bit of those, but yeah, I, that, that is worth taking a, ah, clean supplement of perhaps just to make sure you get enough of it.

Darius: Energy production in cells. Okay, so it's like a piston, like an explosion inside of the.

Erica: Oh, I like that. Yeah. We seem to be sticking with the car metaphor.

Darius: Quite a bit later we could integrate the car metaphor. Yeah.

Erica: If we thought about that in the beginning, we could have had everything fit into the car metaphor. But that's okay.

Darius: Oh, you're tempting me now. You're tempting me now. Okay, so, yeah, so it's like the piston. We've got spark plug; we've got a piston. For the CO Q10. Is the piston for, for the explosion. You've got the spark plug; you've got a turbo booster. You've got.

Erica: For the caffeine, Right?

Darius: Yeah. you've got the shock absorber, L theanine. What else? We've got fire extinguisher in there, which.

Erica: Which that could be in a car, theoretically, if it was a race car. Yeah, we got the fuel injector of, the acetyl carnitine.

Darius: What would be the equivalent of inflammation in a car? How would a car be inflamed? Oh, oh, oh, I know. So the inflammation is, you know, the oil you put in the engine. We talked about the oil, the omega 3 oil, as a way of reducing inflammation. Turmeric's also Another way of reducing inflammation.

Erica: It does. That's right.

Darius: That's kind of like, you know, how you put oil in your car. Right. But then it comes with certain sort of elements and so on inside of it to make the oil even better. The turmeric's a bit like that, the curcumin. Yeah. We've got quite a lot of good car analogies here.

Erica: Yeah. For the, for the supplements. Not bad. Anyway, I, I hope this was helpful to people. Perhaps it will make you mindful of some supplements that you might want to take or look into, perhaps the different foods that you may want to increase that could have those benefits so that we can all have a balance of nutrients and supplements so that we can function our best. Because all of these help with executive functioning, really our brains and improving the speed, the synthesis, the longevity, all of that of our brain so that it can function the best that it can. And we also want to make sure, because executive functioning is the last thing to fully develop and the first thing to go. I think the more we can be mindful of and as I'm older than you, Darius, but you know, I'm now 59, so I have to be really mindful of making sure that I'm giving myself the, the nutrients and supplements that I need so that I can maintain my brain and my body.

Darius: Okay, I'm going to do a quick summary then. Make sure. So I need to make sure I'm taking some iron, some vitamin D, some, the vitamin Bs, the B team, some magnesium and potassium, omega 3 fatty acids, the choline, the zinc, the ginkgo, not sure about that. The turmeric, the acyl carnitine, the caffeine, maybe L theanine, the green teen stuff and then the CoQ10 for that ignition and that, that power generation inside, that's.

Erica: What we had to present today. And so just think about, don't forget that what feeds your body, feeds your brain.

Darius: It does. And it's like, you know how you can just get by, and you just go, I'll just do it. And then you've just got so much friction. And that's the thing that I'm taking away from this the most. You know, like if you're not putting enough oil in the tank, you've got lots of friction. If you're pedaling that bike and you've not got a nicely oil chain, it makes the work so much harder. So you're still working really hard but you're not getting that result. And that's really what we're talking about here. We could be pedaling really hard, but we're resisting against, a chain that isn't oiled properly. And all these ingredients are things that help make a well-oiled mind.

Erica: It's strange

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Erica: thing, but we often forget that our bodies are our vehicles.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: There are vehicles through life, and we've got one of them. And if we don't take care of it, it's going to severely impact our ride.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: So the more we can be mindful of really taking care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally. Tune up your body like you tune up your car.

Darius: Yeah, yeah. And if anyone's listening and wants to sort of develop the, the car analogy and metaphor for this, please message us and say hi and connect, with us.

Erica: So I hope that was helpful and until next time.

Darius: Until next time, Erica. Bye.

Erica: Bye.

Darius: Sponsored by iVVi. Imagine turning your meeting's audio into a live mind map instantly so you remember what matters. It's ideal for students and managers with dyslexia or adhd. Try iVVi for free now at iVVi app. that's IVVI app.

Erica: sponsored by learningspecialistcourses.com courses and resources that support educators and coaches.

Darius: Thank you for joining us at, the Executive Function Brain Trainer podcast.

Erica: check out our show notes for links and resources and follow us on social media.

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