Ep. 073 – Near / Far Accommodation

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Jason Pyles

Good morning and welcome to Episode 73 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. Every Monday we produce a 30-minute episode. Tuesday through Sunday we produce episodes with five-minute tips. Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast features a tip, so you can receive pointers 365 days a year that will help enhance the performance of your brain!

This morning Dr. Trayford shares tip number 73. Vision is a precious thing. If you want to keep your vision sharp, Dr. Trayford has another eye-related brain training tip for you today. Hold your thumb up and practice focusing on it, and then try to focus on something about 10 feet away. As soon as you’re able to establish clear vision of the near object, focus on the far object and go back and forth 10 times. This will help you see better while driving and reading!

Jason: Singing theme music to the Movie Titanic

This relates to the eyes and the ability to look close and then far. This is important not just for visual acuity but for brain function. Our ability to see things in our environment, that our ability to look at targets and keep our eyes on that target, look close and far, feeds your brain information that can impact our lives.

These are built into our more instinctual ability to survive, but we’ve also found a relationship to cognitive function. Our ability to move our eyes from close to far has a lot to do with our higher capacity to pay attention and focus.

As an exercise you simply hold your arm out in front of you. Hold a thumb up with your thumbnail towards your eyes. You should look at a spot on your thumbnail; you can even draw a little spot on the thumbnail to help you get a better focus.

Get a good clear focus on it, then take your focus off of it and look at a spot in the distance. What you can do is have a spot on the wall, about 10 to 12 feet away. Then look at the further dot until you get it into focus. Then switch back to your thumb again.

If it doesn’t get into focus it means that spot is too far away. So you’ll want to choose another spot that is maybe 8 or even 6 feet away, so that you have something that is clear. Then you can start to bring it out farther and farther away as it gets bigger.

You can keep doing these for 10 repetitions, then you can do this two to three times each day. This will not only help your visual acuity, it will also improve your ability to read, brain function and so many other things.
This is just a key eye exercise, like stretching the eyes and gaze stabilization. This is the next level beyond these exercises.
If you have any challenges with your eyes, you might want to talk to your optometrist or a physician versed in functional neurology.

If you experiences any dizziness while doing this you should throttle back on the repetitions or shorten the distance of the object you’re focusing on.

If you have any concerns regarding the information and applications discussed in this podcast, please consult your physician and a doctor who is experienced in functional neurology. Michael Trayford DC, DACNB is available for consultation by calling (828) 708-5274. Thanks for listening. Continue reading →

Ep. 072 – Bag Breathing

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Jason Pyles

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Good morning and welcome to Episode 72 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. Every Monday we produce a 30-minute episode. Tuesday through Sunday we produce episodes with five-minute tips. Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast features a tip, so you can receive pointers 365 days a year that will help enhance the performance of your brain!

This morning Dr. Trayford shares tip number 72. This tip is specifically for those who experience anxiety. When you feel yourself begin to panic, you may begin shallow, rapid breathing. This flood of oxygen disrupts the PH balance in your body. By breathing into a brown paper bag you will actually restore the balance of carbon dioxide and be able to stabilize your own breathing in just five minutes. Listen to learn exactly how this self-treatment works and how to do it right.

Jason: I was just wondering what bag breathing is.

This is topic where you have to exercise a work with a certain amount of caution, because this tip is primarily aimed at people who suffer from anxiety. What happens is a pretty complex process of pH in the body. People using hear these terms with their pool or maybe the soil in their garden, but it’s also important in the body.

If your pH isn’t balanced you’re going to have problems. What happens with people suffering from anxiety is that they tend to breathe faster than the average person. They breathe very fast and shallow. What happens is that these people in these states are breathing off too much carbon dioxide and they develop a condition known as Hyperoxia. They end up with too much oxygen in the blood stream. They end up with respiratory alkalosis, which just simply means the body has developed a high pH.

Nerve cells do not like high pH and bad things start to happen. One of the initial problems for a person having a panic attack is numbness and tingling in the lips, face and nose. Sometimes they can even get a little bit of a purple color in their limbs.

Thoughts become distorted; they’re not having the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

The benefits of bag breathing are two-fold. First off it resets the breathing pattern. Then it gets more carbon dioxide back into the body to start to rebalance the pH so the nerve cells are no longer distressed.

I’ve always said that the brown paper lunch bag is the best and cheapest neurological treatment tool ever invented.

I don’t use it for lunch I always use it for getting people to breath better.
The lunch bag is the perfect size. With a single full breath you should be able to fill up that lunch bag. When someone is breathing shallow, they can’t fill the bag.

It starts to fill up the bag with carbon dioxide, which sets up a reaction in the brain stem that results in a yawning response. Which essentially forces the body to take a deep breath.

Often times within two to three minutes, people experiencing anxiety can reset their pH and hopefully not go into a hyperventilation episode that makes them pass out. So this is a really interesting topic that we’ve used very successfully in clinical practice.

If you have these types of problems you should talk to your physician and who is well versed in functional neurology.

As an exercise you breathe into the bag for a full minute, then you remove the bag from your face and attempt to breathe normally. You continue doing this for up to five minutes. What that does is give the brain time to reset your breathing patterns.

You should find through the course of the exercise that your breathing is getting a little deeper and more relaxed. If it normalizes faster than five minutes, you can stop. You should not do this longer than five minutes.
You should discuss this treatment with a physician before starting this practice as a means to manage anxiety or panic attacks.

Ep. 071 – Exercise and Your Brain

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Jason Pyles

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Good morning and welcome to Episode 071 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. It’s Monday again, so this is our weekly, 30-minute episode. (Tuesday through Sunday we produce five-minute episodes with daily tips.) Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast provides advice for helping you to improve the function of your brain.

In Episode 071, Dr. Trayford gives you every reason you ever needed to begin exercising. There are more benefits to your body and mind than you ever dreamed! You can improve your mood, your blood pressure, your physique, your strength, etc. Most people, however, exercise simply because it makes them feel great. How could you not feel great when you truly understand how much good you’re doing for yourself? Continue reading →

Ep. 070 – Eliminate Refined and Processed Sugars

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Jason Pyles

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Good morning and welcome to Episode 70 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. Every Monday we produce a 30-minute episode. Tuesday through Sunday we produce episodes with five-minute tips. Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast features a tip, so you can receive pointers 365 days a year that will help enhance the performance of your brain!

You undoubtedly know by now that refined and processed sugars are bad for your body, but Dr. Trayford would also like us to know that they are bad for the brain. Brain training tip number 70 is a real buzz kill for your sweet tooth. Setting obesity and diabetes aside, refined sugars are very harmful to the blood sugar levels in the brain. Think twice before your next treat. It’s not worth the damage it will do. We apologize for being the bearers of bad news, but your brain will thank you by staying sharp!

Ep. 069 – Do Not Try to Change Others

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Jason Pyles

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Good morning and welcome to Episode 69 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. Every Monday we produce a 30-minute episode. Tuesday through Sunday we produce episodes with five-minute tips. Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast features a tip, so you can receive pointers 365 days a year that will help enhance the performance of your brain!

Today Dr. Trayford has a tip for you that is a profound truth relating to mental health. Do not try to change others. That’s tip 69 and it is golden. Just imagine how much mental exertion is spent (in vain) and how much contention is caused by trying to change others! Make an effort to catch yourself in the act and redirect your energies elsewhere. You’ll be healthier and happier if you stop trying to change others (and if others stop trying to change you)!

Ep. 068 – Gaze Stabilization

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Jason Pyles

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Good morning and welcome to Episode 68 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. Every Monday we produce a 30-minute episode. Tuesday through Sunday we produce episodes with five-minute tips. Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast features a tip, so you can receive pointers 365 days a year that will help enhance the performance of your brain!

If you are looking for something simple that you can do that isn’t too strenuous, then tip number 68 is the ticket! Today Dr. Trayford teaches about gaze stabilization. Gaze stabilization is an eye exercise where you train your eyes to hold steady while looking at a target. Listen in as he explains exactly how to conduct this exercise. Have someone check your eyes to see how often your eyes stray and then practice this technique several times a day. This will help you develop the ability to track a moving target as well has hold your gaze on a still target. And of course, all of this will help your brain function more efficiently.

This tip is an entry -level tool for helping to build better function of the eye movement system. Gaze stabilization is really important. It relates to our ability to hold our eyes on a target. Now there are elementary speaking, there is so much to get into here.

To hold your eyes on a target deals with more primitive brain function. In the tri-brain theory this relates to the reptilian brain, which helps us to identify if something is a friend or foe.

While holding your eyes on a target relates in many ways to primitive brain stem function it also relates to aspects of our frontal cortex, which is central to defining your humanity and advanced cognitive ability.
Most people don’t necessarily equate eye movements or the ability to hold your eyes on a target with overall brain function. This is something that we’ll elaborate on in the longer podcasts.

The most basic activity is holding your eyes on a target. If you’re looking at a spot on the wall, it might be hard to tell if you’re truly holding your eyes on a target. People often experience square-wave jerks, which are an involuntary movement that pulls the eyes off the target instantaneously. People might not be able to tell that they’re actually doing it.

In the past we’ve discussed the VNG or Videonystagmography testing. But really it can be as simple as holding your finger in front of your eyes and watching to see if the eyes stay on the target will tell you a lot about gaze stabilization.

If your eyes can’t hold a target, they can’t follow a target or catch up to a target. This leads to additional dysfunction in cognitive function and ability to focus. Children with ADHD or has suffered brain injury often struggle to hold their eyes on a target.

This is something you should discuss with your physician or a physician versed in functional neurology. What you want to do is simply look at a target that’s about arm’s length away, at eye level. Then turn your head from side to side, fairly slowing. With about two seconds per turn of the head. Do 10 repetitions, two or three times per day to start training these systems.

If there are challenges that you’re experiencing, you need to get with a physician that can help you with treatment intervention.

Ep. 067 – Read Voraciously

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Jason Pyles

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Good morning and welcome to Episode 67 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. Every Monday we produce a 30-minute episode. Tuesday through Sunday we produce episodes with five-minute tips. Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast features a tip, so you can receive pointers 365 days a year that will help enhance the performance of your brain!

Today Dr. Trayford shares brain training tip number 67. This tip will help stimulate your brain to be more analytical, imaginative and relaxed. You’ll exercise your brain’s ability to comprehend and predict, and you can do it all in the comfort of your favorite chair. The tip is to read! Reading is crucial for language development and maintenance. It will make you a better speaker and a better writer, but most importantly, it will keep your brain sharp!

Do you read a lot Jason?

Jason: I can read. I do read. I know how to read. But my wife is the more of the reader in our family.

I know you love the films, but do you read the books for the movie.
Jason: all of the books I read are related to film.

I recommend to anybody and everybody that they read. This is kind of like drinking water. There are some people who say I don’t like drinking water. Which is something I’ve never understood. There are some people that say I don’t like reading. There might be some long-standing reasons, like developmental issues or dyslexia that might be related to it.

In general most people have an innate desire to learn and language is the primary tool for learning. It’s such an important part of the makeup of our brain and our society as the primary way to transmit information from one person, place, and community. Reading is the primary means of communicating all of these various forms of information.

We need to understand for our own personal, cultural development that reading is critical to so many factors in our lives. It’s integral to a certain degree.

There are so many brain benefits to reading: mental stimulation and getting the brain working and the synapses firing and hormones circulating. You might read an article that evokes and emotion and it stimulated the brain and hormone production.

This extends to improving memory as well. When you read a book you have to remember different things that are happening in the plot. This is particularly true with fiction. When you have to remember characters, plot and the sequence of events, your memory is lifting a lot of weights. That’s why some people are good at following things through. Whether it be a book or a movie and other’s not so much.

Analytical skills. Remembering characters, the ones you like and don’t like. Looking back on it and reflecting with my kids, they have to read their books and explain the central theme and character development.
Improved focus and concentration is an obvious benefit, as you need to follow the action through the course of the story.

Improved writing ability. People write better when they read more. I know this for a fact. I do quite a bit of writing and I see my writing abilities improve when I’m reading morning.

Stress management, reading is escapism, as are movies and exercise. A good book can provide an outlet that exercise would have in other cases.
Entertainment. The good thing about reading is that it’s inexpensive.
Generally speaking if you’re learning something from what you’re reading, it’s better for you than a book that offers you a little escapism. Still even a book that only provides entertainment is still offering you mental stimulation.

Ep. 066 – Know Your Number – Heavy Metals

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Jason Pyles

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Good morning and welcome to Episode 66 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. Every Monday we produce a 30-minute episode. Tuesday through Sunday we produce episodes with five-minute tips. Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast features a tip, so you can receive pointers 365 days a year that will help enhance the performance of your brain!

Today Dr. Trayford shares brain training tip number 66. Dr. Trayford loves sushi and eats it often. If you also eat a good amount of fish, you might want to have your heavy metal levels tested. There are a few different ways to test these levels, so talk to your doctor about what is the best way for you to determine these numbers. There are ways of flushing them out. They are toxic to the body, so we definitely want to be aware of our heavy metal numbers.

This tip is about heavy metals. It’s important to know and understand a little bit about heavy metals in your body. This really hits home for me right now. I recently had my heavy metals checked out and found out that my mercury level is sky high. Also my antimony levels were also very high.
There are two factors related to heavy metals in the human body. How you’re getting them in and how you’re getting them out. Your body does a good job of detoxifying and pulling out what we put into it. But there are certain things that the body has a hard time eliminating. Some of these things can be very detrimental for the brain and body.

In my case I attribute my situation to be related to high sushi intake. I love sushi and I’ve eaten it most of my adult life.

There are charts you can find on line that show you the average mercury content of a fish. In general a large fish that takes it’s primary diet from eating other fish, especially in cold water, will tend to have higher levels of mercury.

There are some challenges with this. Things like tuna have been associated with heavy metal concentrations.

We’re also seeing increased levels of arsenic, which is found in many rice sources. It comes from the ground. People have been looking for additional sources of protein intake and they turn to soy and rice based products. A lot of medical foods now have some type of rice or protein component. There’s a move away from that now because there are sources of arsenic showing up in rice.

Heavy metals also extend to things like cadmium, antimony, and lead. There are these other things we’ve talked about. The bottom line is to get your heavy metals checked.

There are several different ways you can do this. There might be a little confusion between the clinical and consumer world.

The test used to involve testing samples of your hair and nails. Samples were sent to a lab.

If you’re seeing heavy metals in your hair and nails, your body is already doing a decent job of eliminating these metals from your system. What you really need to be looking at is the level of heavy metals being stored in the body in fats and other tissues. Because those are the heavy metals that the body is struggling to eliminate.
Have you heard of chelation?

Jason: Yes I have actually. No I’ve heard of Keloid scarring.
Chelation involves introducing a substance to the body that binds to another substance and pulls it out of the body. There are several different kinds of substances. They are all designed to free up heavy metals and then you can look at the urine and see how much heavy metal is showing up in your urine sample over time.

There is a little bit of controversy. Certain states won’t allow this type of testing. But there are certain types of chemicals. One is called EDTA and another is DMSA, or DMPS.

These are basically abbreviation for long chemical names.

DMPS is considered to be one of the most aggressive and controversial. There is some states that don’t allow this type of testing. It does a very good job of binding and releasing mercury and other heavy metals, so they can be eliminated from the body and measured in the urine.

The process of chelating is something we will get into in future tips. Understanding your heavy metals should be towards the top of the list. Because these metals will interfere with nerve transmission, they can cause inflammation and over time they can give you a brain that does not work very well at all.

Get your heavy metals tested.

Ep. 065 – Measure Your Oxygen Levels

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Jason Pyles

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Good morning and welcome to Episode 65 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. Every Monday we produce a 30-minute episode. Tuesday through Sunday we produce episodes with five-minute tips. Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast features a tip, so you can receive pointers 365 days a year that will help enhance the performance of your brain!

Today Dr. Trayford shares brain training tip number 65. For anyone concerned with health we have good news: It is actually affordable for people to have their own pulse oximeters in their homes now. You can easily measure the oxygen saturation levels for yourself or your family with a pulse oximeter. This is the device with the red light that nurses will sometimes put on your finger tip. Oxygen and sugar are the two main sources of fuel for the brain, so it is quite important to make sure that you are getting enough oxygen.

A lot of people are unaware of the fact that they can measure their oxygen levels. Consumer level medical technology has advanced to the point that you can measure oxygen saturation, or pulse oximetry at home. You might have noticed a little red thing on someone’s finger when you visited them in the hospital. What it’s actually doing is measuring the oxygen saturation of their blood in real time.

Years ago these units were priced $400 each. Now they are selling for anywhere between $18 to $50. You can get a really good solid unit for about $25.

You clip it onto your finger and it reads heart rate and oxygen levels. Pulse oximetry is a good way of looking at how much oxygen is being carried in your blood. This is a great way to see how your brain is getting fed on an hourly or daily basis.

Oxygen and sugar are the two main fuels for your brain. 100% is optimal. Most people will float around 98 to 99%. If you attach this little device on your finger and you see an oxygen percentage of 90 or 92% it’s not good. Even if your body has gotten used to operating at a lower oxygen saturation level, you should still investigate the cause.

In some people like chronic smokers, that aren’t getting the best amount of oxygen circulating in their blood stream, we tend to see oxygen saturation levels around 95%. A bedridden person might be around 90 to 94% oxygen saturation.

Every percentage point can elevate brain function significantly. So we can have people track this on their own and do breathing exercises to help improve and track their own oxygen levels. If you notice that your oxygen levels are dipping low, you can start doing one of the various breathing exercise tips we’ve discussed earlier.

You can track an important biomarker while demonstrating to yourself that you have absolute control over making your brain work better.

Ep. 064 – Brain Training for Peak Performance

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Jason Pyles

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Good morning and welcome to Episode 064 of the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr. Michael Trayford. It’s Monday again, so this is our weekly, 30-minute episode. (Tuesday through Sunday we produce five-minute episodes with daily tips.) Every episode of the Train Your Brain Podcast provides advice for helping you to improve the function of your brain.

In Episode 064, Dr. Trayford explains some of the most effective techniques that he uses to train peak performers. Whether an athlete, business person, or musician, these individuals push themselves to execute every motion with exact precision. Biofeedback, balance-testing and eye-testing are just the beginning. If you want to up your game, in any arena, Dr. Trayford knows how to train your brain to help you achieve peak performance! Continue reading →

How to train your brain 365 days a year for a sharper mind.

Tag Archives: balance

Ep. 073 – Near / Far Accommodation

Ep. 072 – Bag Breathing

Ep. 071 – Exercise and Your Brain

Ep. 070 – Eliminate Refined and Processed Sugars

Ep. 069 – Do Not Try to Change Others

Ep. 068 – Gaze Stabilization

Ep. 067 – Read Voraciously

Ep. 066 – Know Your Number – Heavy Metals

Ep. 065 – Measure Your Oxygen Levels

Ep. 064 – Brain Training for Peak Performance