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Rewire Your Brain Naturally: Neurofeedback, Anxiety & The Truth About SSRIs | Angie Noack
01:07:15
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- [00:00]
Bethany Cameron
On today's episode of the Real Foodology.
- [00:02]
Angie Nowak
Podcast, it is the most misdiagnosed thing that I see. I see tons of people, kids come in with a diagnosis of ADD ADHD who actually have very fast brains, overactive trauma anxiety patterns that now have been put on a stimulant.
- [00:17]
Bethany Cameron
Welcome back to the Real Foodology Podcast. On today's episode I'm joined by Angie Nowak, licensed professional Counselor at Brain Code Centers who blends behavioral science, counseling and neurofeedback to help people rewire their brains for lasting healing. After suffering traumatic brain injury from a fall, Angie experienced firsthand how functional medicine and neurofeedback can transform the brain. We dive into how brain mapping reveals patterns of trauma and fight ORF flight, why ADHD is often misdiagnosed, and how neurofeedback helps the brain build new neural pathways naturally. We also explore the dopamine epidemic, tech and social media hacks, and the powerful link between your gut environment and nervous system regulation. As always, if you guys want to take a moment to rate and review the podcast, it means so much to me. It really helps the show. True, truly. And it takes five seconds. Just go in, leave a five star review, leave a comment and hopefully you're loving the episode. Also, if you love this particular episode, if you want to post about it, tag me Ealthoodology. I try to see all of your messages, I try to repost them if I can. Thank you so much for your support and I hope you enjoy the episode. Did you know that all chips and fries used to be cooked in beef tallow up until the 1990s until big corporations actually switched to cheap processed seed oils? Today's seed oils make up 20% of the average American's daily calories and recent studies have linked seed oils to metabolic health issues and inflammation in the body. This is why Masa decided to do something about it. They created a tasty and delicious tortilla chip with just three ingredients and no seed oils. It's organic, nix demolicized corn, sea salt and 100% grass fed beef tallow. These chips don't only avoid all the bad stuff, but they taste incredible too. Masa is a crunchier, tastier and sturdier than other chips. These chips do not break in your guac and it is fabulous. They are the sturdiest chips I've ever had and they are also so good. Snacking on Masa chips is nothing like eating regular chips. With Masa you feel satisfied, light and energetic with no crash bloat or gross sluggish feeling afterwards. And an added bonus is that the beef tallow makes the chips so much more satiating, so you won't find yourself uncontrollably binging and still feeling hungry afterwards. Personally, my favorite flavors are the cobanero and the lime. I also really like the white chips, too. Are you ready to give Masa a try? Go to MAS MASACHIPS.com Real Foodology and use code Real Foodology for 25 off your first order. Again, that's MASACHIPS.com Real Foodiology and use code Real Foodology for twenty five off your first order. Don't feel like ordering online? Starting in October, Maso will be available nationwide at your local sprouts supermarket. Stop by and pick up a bag before they're gone. All right, Angie, I'm so excited to have you on the Real Foodology podcast today.
- [03:03]
Angie Nowak
Yes, thank you for having me.
- [03:04]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah. Okay, so I want to get into it. First of all, you have a really cool story, so I want to know how you got here. And then also, can you explain what brain mapping and neurofeedback are?
- [03:13]
Angie Nowak
Absolutely. So how I got here, honestly, growing up, I was a pretty classic underachiever that I did not care in high school, I was very here for the fun, doing whatever I wanted, caring very little about school, honestly, just a lot of apathy in general. And Christmas miracle that I got, got into college, like, I was talented in other ways, thank goodness, went to college, and kind of like any underachiever decided, you know, once I get to college, that's when I'm going, you know, buckle down and start caring. And I absolutely didn't. And whether you believe in, like, God or the universe, I believe that, like, I had to get kind of my own attention in other ways. And in between my sophomore and junior year, I went to visit my family, went and donated blood, and I passed out. On my way out. And the way in which I fell, I fractured my skull and suffered a traumatic brain injury. And I was in a walker for a while in intensive care. And, you know, you're kind of wheeling and dealing at that point. Like, if you heal me, like, I'm going to get back on it. Honestly, I experienced such miraculous healing through basically alternative forms of medicine and more functional forms of medicine. And so over the next, you know, six months, I healed in a lot of ways. Still had a long way to go, but, you know, I had neurosurgeons kind of saying, I don't know how this is going to turn out, and let Me tell you something, Carolyn Nowak. My mom was crunchy. Well before it was cool to be crunchy. And so she never, like, never once was there. This is as good as it's going to get. She was like, we will never accept that as an answer. And so she truly helped me find incredible ways of healing. And Even, you know, 10 years down the road, some things that were still lingering from brain injuries are interesting because they're invisible, right? That, you know, unless it's extremely severe where you're, you know, in a more vegetative state that people can't see it. So you're acting funny, you know, your brain's not, but you can't see it like a cast on an arm. And I had horrible insomnia for probably 10 years and some pretty crippling anxiety. And I was in the middle of my master's program because fortunately, brain injury did not make me smarter, but it didn't make me driven. And I deeply wanted to succeed after that and felt that because I'd been given a chance, second chance, I needed to. And I was in the middle of my masters going, I don't know if this is exactly what I want to do. And I was introduced to this woman doing this brain mapping and neurofeedback thing. And she said, I, I think you need to come work with me. And I was like, I don't know. And so I started doing a couple of hours there at night. So I work my full time job, go to school and then go there at night. And I remember the first person sitting across from me who was struggling with a brain injury. And I was like, this is, this is why I've gone through what I've gone through. This is why I've experienced what I have, because I need to and want to serve people and, you know, have empathy with them in a totally different way. So honestly, neurofeedback kind of found me. I did not find it, but it very much was, was meant for me. But neurofeedback, what is brain mapping and neurofeedback? A brain map is a quantitative electroencephalogram. So similar to an EEG or a SPECT image, if you're familiar with Dr. Amen. Except that it's an electrical neurological scan. So we're looking at electrical wave activity happening. And the way in which we see it is through the lens of brain waves, as all humans are capable of producing the same brain waves. Delta, deep, sleep, theta, drifting into sleep. Alpha is a receptor that kind of helps move us around like A bridge Beta should be clean energy. High beta is fight or flight and we need all of them. Right. If we are actually in danger, High beta is critical because it tells us like, get the heck out of here, you're not safe. If we're trying to go to sleep at night, if we're trying to work our job, if we're trying to be with our partners and our brain is lit with fast wave activity, that's never going to serve us well. If we're trying to be focused and motivated and our brain is producing excess slow wave activity, that's never going to serve us well. So we're looking at essentially what the brain is doing. Kind of like a fingerprint, right, that you know, we can look at it a bunch of different ways on different days. It's still your fingerprint, right? So start there. And then the actual neurofeedback is operant conditioning of the brain. It is reward training. We're teaching the brain to create new neurop pathways to serve that person better. A lot of people call it rewiring the brain. And we do it through reward based activity.
- [07:18]
Bethany Cameron
Activity. This is so fascinating. So I had never even heard about this before. We got connected through a mutual friend, Illy, and she's, she sent me a message and she was like, I just got this brain mapping done and it's so cool. You get to see what your brain waves look like and you know all this. And so we got connected and I was blown away. First of all, what really, really struck me is that I went through a super traumatic experience and you could see that on my brain waves. Can you explain more about kind of what that means and what that looks like?
- [07:45]
Angie Nowak
Definitely. So one I also loved coming and doing those brain maps. It's so cool. It's such like a visual form of grace just to understand kind of why we do what we do, why we experience what we experience. So different types of trauma show themselves differently in neurological patterns. Early developmental trauma looks a certain pattern. Later, more PTSD style trauma looks a certain pattern. And honestly I saw a little bit of both in your brain map that, you know, having, yeah, having more of that early, like childhood losing siblings, having to experience that, it changes your brain right now a little bit differently than let's say someone who has early developmental like inner utero trauma. Maybe a parent is, you know, doing drugs or giving that child up for adoption or something like that. That person experiences trauma in a different way. But your brain still at such an early age is kind of put into that State of fight or flight, Right. That it is not safe. I need to be hypervigilant. That is how I'm going to keep myself safe. So then, even as we grow up and change and, you know, maybe are in really healthy relationships now, our brain's like, don't worry. To keep you safe, I'm going to remain here. So I hear from people all time, you know, oh, my gosh. I just go from 0 to 100, and then I look at their brain map, and I'm like, oh, wait, you. Your brain has actually never seen zero, right? Your brain sits at a hot 80, 85, 90 all of the time. So, okay, something happens and you get triggered and you jump to 100. Well, 80 to 100 is not a far jump. Zero to a hundred actually would be.
- [09:07]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, I feel I. I do that very much, but I don't even know if it's the zero to a hundred thing. But I. I realized in my 20s that I was living in a state of fight or flight, basically, like, my whole life. And I did a lot of work in my. But honestly, recently. So I wanted to ask you about this recently. I think if I'm having a really stressful time in life, I kind of go back to that old patterning really easily. And I've noticed recently, for me, with my anxiety, I feel like I'm kind of living in this constant state of fight or flight, which means that my capacity for anything is literally on the ground. Like, anything that gets thrown at me, I immediately go into a tailspin. Is that something that someone can heal with their brain? How do you manage something like that?
- [09:50]
Angie Nowak
That is 100% something that someone can heal. So one amazing. And that you've done a ton of work, right? And that's it. That's what we should do, right? Go to counseling, see someone, talk about it. Emdr, like, let's process that trauma. There's a book called the Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Vander Kolk. And it talks about how we hold on to trauma on that deep cellular neurological level. So sometimes we can talk ourselves to death. We can process through it. We know our triggers. But. And it's like. But how do I handle the, like, visceral, somatic response that I have? Right, that's neurofeedback. That's kind of that deeper down level of going, okay, we prob. Probably know where it's coming from. We've processed it. Now we have to actually handle it on that. On that cellular level. And that's really what neurofeedback can do. Because you're right that you probably have a lot of behavioral things that you did to, like, okay, I'm gonna manage, manage, manage, manage. And then a wrench gets thrown in, and it's like, all my tools are out the fricking window. My game is over. Brakes are on, like. And it's like, well, wait, what the heck do I do then? Neurofeedback is less about what should I do when something happens? It's more, how do I keep it from happening in the first place?
- [10:56]
Bethany Cameron
And what does that look like when you say neurofeedback? What does that actually look like? Because I know what the brain mapping looks like, which actually, maybe we should explain that too, for people. But I want to know what this really. What it would look like. Somebody doing neurofeedback.
- [11:07]
Angie Nowak
Yes. So I do have offices in Denver, Colorado. We have multiple in Colorado. I have one in Tulsa, one in Dallas. But actually, one beautiful thing that came from COVID was we were able to create a remote program because people didn't want to come in office. And we're like, man, we need to be able to service people from anywhere, Right? Like, our world is struggling with mental health. So we do have a remote program. Now we're literally, someone can do a brain map and neurofeedback from anywhere. We ship them equipment, we get on a zoom with them, help them collect the data, and then they keep the other headset. So basically, if they were to come in office, I'll place a couple of little electrodes on their head. If they're at home, they have a headset and has a bunch of little electrodes already embedded into it. Very key component. There is never any electrical stimulus going into your brain, right? This is not shock anything. Nothing's going in. Sometimes, like, what are you shocking today? Still nothing. Nothing's going in. The electrodes are only picking up information, right? They're monitoring and reading what the brain is doing. And then the feedback loop of neurofeedback is the electrodes are going to pick it up. It's going to go into an amplifier, into software, then be fed back to them through visual and auditory reward. Watching, listening. Those things are very much working as a mirror for your brain that your brain gets to experience in real time what it's doing and training itself. Like, if you've ever taught a puppy to sit, right, tell it to sit, give it a treat. It repeats the behavior because it wants the reward. Eventually we can take away the treat and it still knows how to sit as. Now that's a new neurological highway in its brain, right? And we have neural pathways to everything. Unfortunately, when it comes to mental health, there's this stigma that like think better, be better, right? Like overcome it. Hey, fire it up. If you are strong enough that tomorrow morning you can wake up and forget how to walk, like you just have a stronger brain than I do. Probably you can't, right? But we have for some reason an idea that I'll just wake up tomorrow and I will stop being anxious. Like mind over matter it. Like I can talk myself out of it. There's no way day, right? That is a deeply ingrained from childhood neurological pattern. So rather than trying to erase it or like mind over matter it, how about we teach the brain like a new skill, how to do it differently.
- [13:10]
Bethany Cameron
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- [16:30]
Angie Nowak
Multiple aspects, right? Absolutely. You're right that there is, you know, that biological component, what our parents gave us. This is so cool. The other day I did a brain map review with a grandma, a mom and a daughter. And it's rare that I get to see multiple generations of brain like sitting next to each other. Were their brains completely unique and individual? Absolutely. Did they have certain components that were similar? Absolutely. Grandma, mom, daughter, all struggled with anxiety, all had overstimulation. Right. Now they're going to handle it differently because 65, 40 and 8 know how to handle things differently. Right. You know, because of our development, everything like that. But there were certain biological components that were the same. But you're also right that, you know, grandma at 65 has experienced far different things than 40, than 8. Other things also shape us. Right. That, you know, maybe you always had a fast pattern. Right. Probably. Right. You probably always had a fast engine. But then other things happen where now that fast engine has snowballed. So what maybe was gonna serve you well with just a fast processing speed and get up and go now has created some like, pretty awful anxiety. Right. That in another way isn't serving you well. So is that probably your genetic biological code anyways? Yeah. Has it been, you know, kind of perverted a little bit to not serve you as well because of all the things that you've experienced?
- [17:45]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, yeah. You mentioned earlier all the different brain waves that we have. Do you ever see people that just have this perfect. They go into theta and then they go into the hyper. Whatever, whatever the different ones are like. Do you ever see an example where they kind of go through the different brain waves in a way that we're supposed to.
- [18:05]
Angie Nowak
I. It's pretty rare, right? That so. And for a couple different reasons. Right. It's not that that's rare. There are absolutely people who have incredible neurological capacity and are just like walking around with the healthiest brains. It's more that people don't generally come to see me because they're just doing so spectacular. Right?
- [18:19]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, yeah. They're like, I don't need to see any.
- [18:22]
Angie Nowak
Like, actually, I feel fantastic. Thanks. You know, but absolutely, yeah. I train also people for kind of peak performance, right. Where, you know, it might be a CEO of a company and they're like, I'm the best thing ever. I just want to be that. That 1% more. And I do look at their brain and you're right that they have, you know, a lot of beta on the cingulate, which is more of that kind of driven get up and go pattern, but that doesn't have a lot of anxiety that comes along with it. Their sleep looks excellent. Right. They're dropping into rem, dropping into deep. So absolutely. I do see people where their brains are probably at a. A healthier level. Ever seen a perfect brain? No, because it. It doesn't exist. We would be such a boring culture if everybody's brains was supposed to look like this one thing. No, some people have more creativity, they have more theta. Some people do have more beta. Some people have a little bit more high beta. Our first responders have kind of a certain type of brain for a reason. Right. So that they kind of want to do what maybe we can't do. Exactly. But yeah, there's no. There's no perfect brain. It doesn't exist.
- [19:17]
Bethany Cameron
I would love to see you brain map Elon Musk's brain.
- [19:20]
Angie Nowak
I'd love to do it more than anything. I want to get my hands on that brain so deeply. Like just I. I would probably say tons and tons of fast alpha. He's also got beta on the Cingulate, but I bet he's swimming in a little bit of interesting theta. I have. I bet Rachel and I could sit and talk about what, what that man's brain looks like alone for hours.
- [19:40]
Bethany Cameron
That would be.
- [19:41]
Angie Nowak
Do a case study.
- [19:42]
Bethany Cameron
So fascinating. Let's explain to everybody what all the different brainwaves mean. Because you keep saying beta and theta. What are those mean? Mean.
- [19:48]
Angie Nowak
So delta are your deep, slow, restorative relaxation sleep waves. So if or when you are in the best part of sleep, your brain should be producing really slow moving delta brain waves look kind of like little heartbeats. Theta is a drifting into sleep wave where you're not fully asleep, but you're not fully awake. Kind of a daydreamy type place. A true pattern for ADD or ADHD in the brain is actually overproduction of theta, which is the second to slowest wave. That is why Aderall and Ritalin are stimulants because they speed the brain up so that that person can is versus. I mean, I don't think I have to tell you it is the most misdiagnosed thing that I see. I see tons of people, kids come in with a diagnosis of add, ADHD who actually have very fast brains. Overactive trauma, anxiety patterns that now have been put on a stimulant and then.
- [20:36]
Bethany Cameron
They'Re just like wired. Oh my God.
- [20:39]
Angie Nowak
Awful.
- [20:39]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, yeah, that was actually me. When I was in eighth grade, I got diagnosed with adhd. Looking back, I think I was just in a traumatized state after what happened with my sister and no one was taking note and figuring out what was going on, which I don't believe blame anyone by the way. It's just we, you know, like we were doing the best we could.
- [20:55]
Angie Nowak
Everybody's surviving. You do you work with the information that you have.
- [20:58]
Bethany Cameron
Exactly. And so no one, no one really knew what to do. So I got diagnosed with adhd and it was actually just my trauma brain that needed to be addressed. But it's so interesting because I've always thought, okay, I have really bad adhd. And then you did my brain mapping and you were like, no, I don't see it.
- [21:12]
Angie Nowak
Sure don't.
- [21:14]
Bethany Cameron
I was like, what?
- [21:15]
Angie Nowak
But. Right. But when you're told that, especially at an early age, it's like, oh, that's what it is now. It doesn't mean you don't have the same symptoms. Symptoms. Right. It doesn't mean you're probably not swimming around in all the symptoms of ADD adhd. That's why it's just a diagnosis. Right. Because it's a set of symptoms of which we're going, oh, okay, it's probably this.
- [21:30]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah.
- [21:30]
Angie Nowak
That's why we do a brain map, because I need to know exactly what it is. Right. Going off of guests, throwing darts against a wall and hoping something sticks. That does not feel like the answer. Right. We really need to know what's going on.
- [21:41]
Bethany Cameron
You gotta test, not guess. I always say this about everything.
- [21:45]
Angie Nowak
Yes.
- [21:45]
Bethany Cameron
Yes. Should parents do a brain mapping for their kids before turning to drugs for ADHD or depression?
- [21:52]
Angie Nowak
So I always toe the line, right, of like, can I tell a parent exactly what to do? No. If I were a parent, of which I am not, I would absolutely do a brain map on my child before putting them on any type of medication. One, just. If you are set on medication, you were like, this is the answer. Why would we want to not want to know what med is going to serve them best right off the bat, rather than going kind of through this medication roller coaster for a year, two years, upping this, downing this, this. Why would we not just kind of know, okay, this is what we're thinking. This is what will serve them best. So I, I would if it were me.
- [22:24]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah. I mean, I'm just. Like I said earlier a minute ago, I'm just of the mind that why are we not testing for all this beforehand? Why are we just so pill happy and throwing drugs at everything? If someone had done a brain map on me at that time, I could have avoided because my parents put me on Ritalin for like a year. And my mom, my mom was so crunchy back then that she. I actually don't even know if it was a year. She had such a. She just hated it and was like, I'm pulling you off this. I hate, I don't like you being on any of these drugs. But it would have saved me from that. Especially if they had actually been like, oh, she doesn't have adhd.
- [22:52]
Angie Nowak
Yeah. Oh, wait a second. This is a deeply overstimulated, traumatized brain. Let's not throw a stimulant into this fire.
- [22:59]
Bethany Cameron
Exactly. So let's say that at that time, I did get a brain mapping. What would be your protocol for me?
- [23:05]
Angie Nowak
I would have absolutely said neurofeedback. Right. That especially being so young, Right. Teaching your brain to grow up around some healthy patterns. And again, your brain is. Is amazing. It probably always had that fast engine. So it's not about taking a fast engine and making it slow. It's about giving you back control of the vehicle that you're driving. Right. Rather than allowing it to drive you. So, honestly, after looking at your brain, right, which it probably looked similar at the time, tons of high beta, a lot of excess wave activity. I would have inhibited that. I would have rewarded Alpha. Alpha's kind of the bridge that helps move your brain around and feel flexible, kind of like a gear shifter in a car. So that I know you talk about now, right, that if something goes wrong, you're like, I just fly off. It's because you're already sitting there. Right. Rather than, okay, I went up. Now I'm able to transition back down. Right. Okay. I can lull into sleep. I can go chill on the couch with Hector. Like, we're good. It's like, no, your brain wants to stay there because it doesn't have a lot of neurological flexibility to be able to dip back down.
- [24:02]
Bethany Cameron
Exactly. Well, and that's why I love the concept of psilocybin, because there's been so much conversation recently in the last couple years about changing those neural pathways. And people can do that with psilocybin. And that's something that I've really been interested in just because. Because of what I went through and because I do feel there is this part of me that feels like stuck in it, you know, where like you said earlier, I've done all this therapy, I've done all this work. I've done a lot of stuff. I don't think my journey will ever be over, and I don't think I'll ever fully get over that trauma. But there, I do really believe that there are certain things that I can do to make it better. And one of the things that I've really been wanting to do is change that reaction that I have. Right. And changing those neural pathways. Can people do. Do that changing of neural pathways without doing psilocybin?
- [24:47]
Angie Nowak
Literally, that is what neurofeedback is. It is creating new neural pathways in the brain. That is all it is. Right. So we're not putting something synthetic in. Not that most people, you know, would not consider psilocybin to be synthetic. Yeah. However, it's still putting.
- [24:59]
Bethany Cameron
It's still chemical.
- [25:00]
Angie Nowak
Yeah, it's still chemical. It's still putting something, you know, into the brain and just like a medication. Right. I can't tell. Xanax. Like, hey, go in and just do this one thing in this one area. You put it in, it goes. Right. So maybe it does some of what you want it to do. And also, that's why we talk about side effects. Right. Because a lot of times it. It can also do stuff that you don't want it to do. That is not neurofeedback. Right. That we're not. One, we're not having any guesswork. And two, we're telling it so specifically what to do. Just a little bit more of this. Just a little bit less of this. But just like, I mean, what is creating a new neural pathway? It's literally like a highway, right? And we run over it. And we run over it. Just like, if we're learning any new skill, the more we practice, the more deeply ingrained that neural pathway becomes. So neurofeedback is not a oneand done. It's a series of training sessions so that over time, we create those patterns and commit them to permanent.
- [25:46]
Bethany Cameron
That's so amazing. I really want to do this neurofeedback.
- [25:49]
Angie Nowak
We're gonna talk about this after this. Get you a headset. Let's go.
- [25:53]
Bethany Cameron
Let's go. I would love it. So I'm curious, because we've been talking about this a lot. What are. I know this is a sensitive subject, but what are your thoughts on SSRIs? Specifically? Because I know there's been a lot of research that's been coming out in the last couple years about how depression's not actually a chemical imbalance. Imbalance. And this was actually studies that were forged by the big pharma companies because they wanted to be able to sell SSRIs. What is thought behind that?
- [26:18]
Angie Nowak
I have a lot of thoughts behind that. And first off, there is no shame in the medication game. Right. I believe that people are doing the best that they can, and a lot of times they don't feel that there are other options. The amount of people who I talk to are like, I didn't even know that this existed right now. Why is that? I mean, if you've ever watched any show in your life, what do you see on tv? Do you see commercials about big lettuce or big, like big get you some counseling? No, you see Big Pharma commercials, right, where people are dancing around and they're happy. And I've never been happier since I started to taking whatever it is. So there's a reason why we push that, right? That your co Pay is $0 and your, you know, what they're charging on the back end is, you know, $300 for you to receive medication that you can stay on forever. So there's no shame in the medication game. I, I believe you. You do what you need to do. Are they healing in any way? No, absolutely not. Are they putting a band aid on what I believe in a lot of ways is a bullet wound. Yes. At some point that bullet wound is gonna, is gonna open up again. Right? So okay, now we need to add more now adding this on top of this. Also there are side effects, right, that we know what sleep medication, what benzos, like all these things do long term. So I believe that medication really should be a short term fix in order to find a long term solution. But a lot of times we stop at the fix, right? We go, okay, this is what it is. No, let's take this in the intermediate until we can find what is next. And is that neurofeedback for everyone? Probably not. But it is an option of which to create new neural pathways and change that symptomology.
- [27:54]
Bethany Cameron
I, like many of you, live a very busy lifestyle, but I don't want to compromise on my health. So I'm always looking for hacks to make my healthy routine a little bit easier. And I know many of you are moms and don't have a lot of extra time in the morning. So I want to introduce you to something that I love that I've been drinking for a while now. Something called Everyday Dose. It's coffee plus benefits. It tastes just like coffee and it is coffee. But it's also enhanced with collagen protein, nootropics and functional mushrooms. Let me tell you, my gut and brain have never been happier. It also takes 30 seconds to make. Either you boil hot water or you can just do cold water. If you like to do an ice latte, I add a little bit of organic coconut milk and some vanilla monk fruit to it and it takes 30 seconds to make. I never run out of the ingredients that I need. They combine high quality coffee with powerful ingredients like lion's mane and chaga, collagen protein and nootropics to fuel your brain, boost focus and give you clean, sustained energy all day long. No crash, no jitters, just clean, sustained energy and exciting news. You can now find Everyday Dose in Target stores across the country. Celebrate with a buy one, get one deal. Just buy any two Everyday Dose products at Target near you and they'll pay you back for one. Visit everydaydose.com real foodology both go. That's Real Foodology B O G O For more details. I'm currently on my trying to conceive journey and it's actually coinciding with my longevity journey at the moment. We know that a lot of the things that we do for longevity and things to protect our our mitochondria and our cells really has a lot to do with conceiving as well because we are eggs and our fertility will only be enhanced by taking care of our cells and our mitochondria. And one of the ways that I'm doing that is taking a supplement called Timeline Mitopure. What's really cool about Mitopure is it has this ingredient in there called Urolithin A and this is a precise dose of the rare postbiotic, which works by promoting an essential cellular cleanup process that clears out dysfunctional mitochondria, AKA your cell's battery packs. And not only is this addressing longevity, but my hope is it will also help me with having a really healthy outcome with trying to conceive. And a cool thing too is I've been really going hard in the gym. I've been doing a lot of strength training and a lot of booty workouts and lifting weights. And one of the amazing benefits of taking Mito Pure is actually it helps you feel stronger in your workouts and it helps to recover quickly from working out. I don't get as sore as I used to since I started taking this and I'm feeling more energy and I just, I'm feeling like more energized and healthy from the inside out. And this is exactly what I wanted to do in order to support my cellular health. We know that cellular health is the foundation of well being and longevity. And Mito Pure really just helps to recharge your cells, support your goals and help with all of your systems to work better. So if you want to try Timeline Mitopure to today they're offering 10% off your order of Mito Pure. So make sure you go to timeline.com realfoodology that's T I M E L I N E dot com real foodology make sure you check out their sugar free gummies. They're my favorite. I look forward to them every Day. I love that they don't have any sugar. And they're also helping with my longevity and trying to conceive journey. Yeah, I mean, it's really sad. I. The way I view it is that as a society, we have been trained to just think that there's a pill for every ill and that we just have to live with whatever it is that we were diagnosed with. And I don't believe in that. Which comes to my other question is, do you think that depression and anxiety can be cured? I know that cured is kind of a finite word, but do you believe that they can?
- [31:47]
Angie Nowak
I also veer away from the word cured because, like, what does that mean? Right? Does that mean, you know, that someone can go from having panic attacks every day to being panic attack free? Absolutely. Might they have, you know, a current of underlying small anxiety when things happen? Like neurofeedback does not make us bulletproof to life. Right. Like that. You know, that's the reality that life is going to happen. Stressors are going to happen. But I believe that healing happens when you feel that you have control over your brain and your brain is not controlling you. And I do believe that that can happen. I believe that we have the ability and capability to have control of our brains and not feel like we're just kind of at the mercy of depression, of anxiety, of trauma. And when that hits, we're just, you know, down for the count.
- [32:30]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, exactly. I feel the same way. And I've always. I'm so grateful that my mom instilled this in me because I've always had the opposite thinking. Like, I've never thought, oh, I just get this diagnosis and it's just, you know me for life. What your mom did for you when you were a kid, I'm. I've always been the exact same way where, like, for example, with my anxiety diagnosis that I got, I was like, okay, well this is definitely not the end all be all. I also knew that I didn't want to go on medication. And again, this is not to shame anybody else. It's just always been my ethos, those that if whenever I got a diagnosis like that, I just thought, okay, what can I do to avoid medication? What can I do to get to the very root cause of this? Because I knew that this was all stemming from my trauma. And I knew if I just threw medication over it, I was not actually addressing what really happened and I really wasn't getting to the root of it.
- [33:15]
Angie Nowak
That's right, Absolutely. Again, a band aid on something that. And Maybe you need that. I believe. I mean, gosh, when, you know, medication came out, you know, or certain medications in like the 70s, like life. Life saving. Right. Like anti depression medication. I believe that. But now it's become so commonplace where it's like, for anything, right, you go to the doctor and give, you know, two symptoms and it's like, here's your prescription. Right. That. And honestly, I believe that we also push that, that when people go to the doctor, if they don't leave with a prescription, they feel gypped.
- [33:44]
Bethany Cameron
Oh, yeah.
- [33:44]
Angie Nowak
Like, where's my prize for having come here? Get out of here with that. Like, get out of here. No, that. That should, should be the last resort. Once we have done other things. Yes, versus it is the first resort and the end result now.
- [33:58]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, exactly. And people are not being communicated with the dire side effects that some of these things are having. The SSRIs in particular, I'm really concerned about. It's why I've been bringing them up in so many podcast episodes recently, because they literally have a black box warning on them. I'm incredibly concerned about them. And I'm of the mind, you know, like, we've been talking about that there's other ways that you can support your depression, your anxiety, whatever it is that you're dealing with. And if you can actually get to the root cause. I believe maybe cured is not the right word for. But I believe that you can find healing and that you really can find relief from it. And maybe you won't get, you know, 100% relief and cured. But I mean, I'm a testament of this. In my 20s, I was having debilitating panic attacks. Like so much so that, like, I couldn't go to work because I was just having these debilitating panic. Panic attacks. And I was able to overcome them not with medication, but because I started getting to the root cause of my trauma and we started working on stuff and I started doing emdr, and there was huge. So many other things that I found that I could do, other tools that I could utilize that weren't just suppressing it and numbing it out. They were actually bringing it to the surface and letting me get it out.
- [35:02]
Angie Nowak
That's right. Absolutely. And that's huge. And I love that you said your mom, you know, kind of was never like, this is the answer.
- [35:08]
Bethany Cameron
It.
- [35:08]
Angie Nowak
But if. What if you had a mom who said, this is the answer, you know that. I also believe it's our responsibility at some time, at some point to educate ourselves and go, okay, if this doesn't feel good. If this is not working for me, what else is out there?
- [35:19]
Bethany Cameron
Exactly? I want to ask you about dopamine and serotonin.
- [35:25]
Angie Nowak
Yeah.
- [35:26]
Bethany Cameron
Because I'm really concerned. I actually see this a little bit in my life and. And with, you know, my husband and everyone. Everyone's chronically online, and they're 24 7, obsessed, and addicted with social media, myself included. I'm not even, like, pointing fingers here.
- [35:40]
Angie Nowak
Oh, man. Like, we're all addicted for sure.
- [35:43]
Bethany Cameron
What is happening there? Because I've been seeing a lot about this, like, dopamine roller coaster that people are on where you get all these dopamine hits from social media, and then you have a crash, and then you go back online to get more of those dopamine hits. What's actually happening, and are you concerned about that from a brain level?
- [35:56]
Angie Nowak
We are in a dopamine epidemic as a culture. Okay. So one, there's a book called Dopamine Nation. If you haven't read it, read it. It's incredible. It talks a lot more about addiction, and in a lot of ways, like drug addiction, social media is no different. And for some reason, right? When things like food, sugar, social media, because they're not necessarily, like, ruining our lives, maybe, like, heroin would. We're like, well, that's. That's okay. I mean, yeah, it's rough, but, like, I'm just gonna. Don't do it as much, you know, whatever that is.
- [36:23]
Bethany Cameron
So.
- [36:23]
Angie Nowak
So why do we love it? Right? Because our brains are constantly craving stimulus and reward, right? That is all social media is. That is what video games are, right? That. Why do we like them? If you win a video game, does somebody run in the room and give you a cookie or cash? Like, no. It's lights and sounds and action, right? When somebody likes your pic or whatever on Instagram, you don't actually receive anything. It's a little hit of dopamine in the brain. So basically, our brain is opening up our dopamine receptors because it makes feels good, right? Similar. Like, we eat something that we like. Like, okay, our brain opens it up. Now, just like any drug, as we do it more and more, our brain produces more and more dopamine. At some point, it goes, oh, I am overproducing dopamine, and starts pulling back. So we need more and more and more and more to get the same hit, right? Just like any medication, just like any drug. So now, at some point, we have to have so much to even get this little bit of dopamine. And honestly, dopamine is the way in which our brain produces dopamine. You get exponentially more dopam, mean in the journey to creating something, to discovering something, to earning something, versus when you receive it. Now, with AI right, chat GPT, it is at your fingertips every second. We honestly don't have to work for a lot, so we're not even getting nearly as much dopamine as we used to because we don't really have to work for anything.
- [37:42]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, yeah. And that's so scary because I feel like we're is there. I think that it's connected to burnout, right? Like, I feel like because you're constantly getting these little dopamine hits and then you need more, and you need more, and you need more, and then you hit a point where, like, you're like chasing this high that you can't fully get enough of anymore. And I feel like at some point people get super burnt out because I feel like everyone I know right now is burnt out. And I'm like, what's going on here? Is it our lifestyle? Is it social media? Is it food? Are we being poisoned? Like, well, we are, but, you know.
- [38:10]
Angie Nowak
That also is happening. Yes, also that.
- [38:12]
Bethany Cameron
Like, what. What's happening there? And also what can we do about it?
- [38:15]
Angie Nowak
Like you said, right? It's so tough because we work off our phones, right? We have impact from social media. So that's a beautiful platform in which to use. So where's the balance, right? I talk to a lot of people, you know, kind of little ways in which we can change our lives for the better. Put your phone down two hours before you go to bed. Put it freaking down. Because one sleep should be your number one life hack. I know we were talking that you're like, angie, if I don't get a certain amount of sleep, I'm dead. I'm similar and I'm a. I'm a crazy person. I go to bed at 8pm like an actual psychopath. Like, it is still light outside and I'm like, just in my bed. Lights out. See you later.
- [38:49]
Bethany Cameron
Love it.
- [38:50]
Angie Nowak
I wake up really early, but I have to be protective of that, right? Because if I don't get that, you're right, I don't feel good. And I know that my brain needs that. So sleep should be your number one hack. If you are staring at a blue screen on your phone, stimulating your brain with lights as well as dopamine right before you go to bed, and people are like, I don't know why I don't sleep well. I don't know it's hard for me. Are you sure?
- [39:13]
Bethany Cameron
Do you.
- [39:14]
Angie Nowak
Are you sure you don't know why? Like, absolutely. Right. So there's a lot of things that we can do to help kind of hack our sleep and improve that. Get off your phone at least before you go to bed. Right now I would also say starting your morning with, with a spike, like a cortisol spike from staring at your Instagram first thing in the morning, that's going to be rough to come down from. So if you can even like an hour, you know, after you wake up, just don't look at your phone for an hour. Maybe you need to check a work text like you do. You don't be. Don't get on social media for an hour. Right. You don't need, you don't need that comparison. You don't need that literal spike in your brain. Give it a minute.
- [39:49]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, And I actually have a hack for this, so I've been teaching all my friends this. I, I have an app on my phone called Opal and you can set it to lock you out of Instagram for certain hours every day. It locks me out at 8pm every night. It is, it has been an absolute game changer. It locks me out of Instagram X and TikTok 8pm to 9am that way, like I get up at 7am, I go for my walk, I do other things and I don't get on social media until that time. And then I'm also not doom scrolling at night.
- [40:17]
Angie Nowak
Absolutely. I'm having a hard time falling asleep while will I do stimulate my brain and give myself anxiety. Okay, I listen, Opal, I will download it today. That's. That's the hack.
- [40:29]
Bethany Cameron
There's also a new thing. I just bought this too, and I haven't even, I haven't even set it up yet. But there's also a thing called Brick and I don't know exactly how it works, but it's this little like physical thing that you have that I guess you place away from your phone and I think you have to be near it to unlock it or something like that. I also just have to name this. This is just how. This is so sad. This is how addicted we. We all are.
- [40:49]
Angie Nowak
Literally. We have to put apps on our phone. It's like, it's like putting like a lock on the fridge. Like Angie, like you, you don't get like, no, like the kitchen closes at 7. It, it is sad. It's also very real. Right? And so the idea, a lot of people are like, you know, Kind of the I can quit whenever I want. I'm not even addicted. Like I'll stop anytime. Let's like address what it is. That's not the case. And you know, also I truly believe this. This is for the people, parents, your kids should not have phones and they should not have social media.
- [41:20]
Bethany Cameron
I agree.
- [41:21]
Angie Nowak
Protect them as long as you can. My sister is also the freaking coolest. And her daughter just turned 18 and her daughter just got an iPhone cuz she paid for it and she now has, she has two Instagram accounts. Because PS1 is not enough when you're 18. Everybody needs to. I'm like, they have a fin st get out of. I can't even with that. I was like, I can't with that. Like who, who's going to look at both your accounts? Like what are you talking about? But yeah, Christine was like, I protected her as long as I can. Now that, now that's on her. She read a book Glow Kids when Caroline was growing up. Read it immediately. It talks about the technology addiction in America. And a brain map of an adult addicted to cocaine looks extremely similar to a child addicted to technology.
- [42:01]
Bethany Cameron
Wow. This is something Hector and I are really concerned about. We've actually talked about. There's special phones that you can get. I mean it's, it's basically just like a flip phone from the 80s but.
- [42:10]
Angie Nowak
Where it has them or 911 exactly.
- [42:12]
Bethany Cameron
And you can like text and call because we're like, you know, there's just. The world is crazy. So I feel like that's we're going to do something like that where they'll have access to a phone where they can call and they emergencies but they don't have all the social media and stuff.
- [42:23]
Angie Nowak
Caroline had like the Gizmo Watch where she could call her grandma and my sister and her dad like but it wasn't unlimited texting, it wasn't unlimited Internet. Like the Internet is a dark place. And your child's brain like you and I can look at a filtered photo and go that's a filtered photo. That's not for real. Okay. Versus a child. Even if you tell a 13 year old little girl like hey that's not real, they actually do not have the cognitive. Their brain's not fully developed. They literally cannot tell the difference. So even though they're like yeah, that's fake, it's telling it them that it's reality. Which is also why we have generations of young people with horrible body dysmorphia because they've been seeing very Unreal pictures and images, their whole lives. So this is not just protecting them in one way, this is protecting them across their lives.
- [43:09]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean it's, it's really dark. But then there, there are a lot of people talking about how concerned they are with like suicidal rates and you know, bullying and all this stuff. Cuz kids online are just, well one, they're like chronically online. Like the adults are too and they're seeing, you know, horrible images or they're getting bullied or, you know, they're comparing themselves to their classmates and it's really concerning. I'm, I'm genuinely curious to know what's going to happen in the next 10 years because I'm hoping that the adults are going to start intervening and doing something about it.
- [43:36]
Angie Nowak
Yeah, the pendulum has swung so far one way. It would take a lot to swing it all the way back. But we got to meet in the mid where Absolutely. It really is like parents protecting their kids because at school they're going to be on iPads, they're going to be on computers. So really what do you have control over time at home?
- [43:52]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, exactly. From your expertise and your perspective, is there anything else that someone can do if they're concerned about their kids? Like how can they protect their brains outside of, you know, limiting them on social media? But of course they're going to find other ways. They're going to get a burner phone or you know, so there are other things like conversations you can have or hacks you can do with them to protect their little brains. Developing brains.
- [44:13]
Angie Nowak
Honestly, I do believe talking to your kids, having open communication and conversation. Right. That if your home is a safe place for them to bring issues or if they are being bullied or if they are struggling with anything. Right. Depression, anxiety, like body dysmorphia, whatever it is, if you're a safe space for them to come to, generally they're going to come to you. If you're not a safe space, if it's a place of, you know, judgment or, you know, whatever that looks like, then they're going to bring it somewhere else. And that might be online, that might to friends whose brains are also underdeveloped. Right. That is the blind leading the blind. Like we need, they need to have a safe place to come to with someone who can actually speak wisdom into them. I was on a call the other day with a mom, I was doing a brain map for her daughter and her daughter has horrible panic attacks where she just like goes off the handle very inconsolable And I said, will she allow you to touch her? And she said, yes. And I said, why don't you try bilateral stimulation tapping? And that's literally tapping on one side of the hemisphere of the brain and then the other you can tap on, you know, shoulders, on leg, legs, and just one after another. The more kind of worked up someone. Is this actually a good hack for you when you're kind of in that place is just tap on one side or the other. It's actually going to physiologically disrupt the stress signal in your brain. And without doing anything right, you're not thinking, you know, any necessarily different thoughts. Tap for a couple of minutes and it will literally bring you down and hopefully back to a place of. Of homeostasis. So if you have a kid struggling with anxiety and they will obviously allow you to touch them in that time, that's a good way to kind of. Of bring him back.
- [45:42]
Bethany Cameron
That's so great. I actually was taught this by my EMDR therapist that you do this and you do a little like, butterfly back and forth. And can you explain what he said? I don't remember all of it, but basically what I understand is that he said when you're doing that, you're getting both sides of your brain on the same page and it somehow helps to bring down. Bring you down.
- [46:02]
Angie Nowak
That's right. So it's utilizing both hemispheres of the brain and actually kind of trying to connect them back together as. As babies. One of the biggest reasons why we learn to crawl one to then learn to walk is it actually melds both hemispheres of our brain together. So there's exercises that you can do as an adult to kind of do that. Bilateral tapping is great. Kind of when you're in like a. A panicked state. Actually, burpees is a really good way to, to melt. I know. Which is like, I hate burpees for sure. Yeah. I'm not saying, like, go do more burpees. There's also cross crawling, and I'm in a dress, but you literally bring like one elbow to knee, one elbow to knee, like one after another. And actually, when I give keynotes, that's something. Have the entire audience stand up and before I say a word and like, introduce myself, we do cross crawling. Because I know that they're going to listen to me better, I know that they're going to retain more information and that their prefrontal cortex is going to be better online to listen to my talk. So I do that every time. And I'm like, okay, now you're ready to hear this.
- [46:57]
Bethany Cameron
That is awesome. Do you have any hacks before. Like, do you get nervous before you speak? I get really nervous. And do you have any hacks before you speak of doing things like this tapping or the. What did you call that again?
- [47:07]
Angie Nowak
Cross crawling.
- [47:08]
Bethany Cameron
Cross crawling. That can help kind of bring down the energy a little bit.
- [47:12]
Angie Nowak
So I do get a little bit nervous while talking. But here, this is like fun facts with Angie. I. I have a degree in music and sang classical opera, like, all childhood. And then in college. If you have ever sang in public, it. I will never have anxiety like I did before singing. Like, what's the worst that can happen? I don't know. You're off pitch or you just die versus so speaking, I'm like, what's the worst that can happen? They don't know what I'm gonna say. So I do feel like speaking for me is probably the reason why I love it is because I'm like, it's not freaking having to sing in front of people, but I will do box breathing before I speak. And I. I love it. And if you haven't heard of box breathing, it's breathing in for four, holding for four, breathing out for four, and holding it for four. I'll do that for a few minutes. Very similar. It's a way to kind of get your central nervous system to a more regulated state. If you're in sympathetic. Taking you out of sympathetic. It just helps me kind of ground myself right back before I go on.
- [48:08]
Bethany Cameron
That's awesome. I'm going to start trying to do that. I need some more hacks to kind of bring me. I just. Yeah, I get so nervous before I speak that I have to. I need to have something to, like, bring me back down to earth.
- [48:18]
Angie Nowak
Those are some great ones because it's not like you're having. Because probably your brain is just going 100 miles an hour. So you can literally tap. There's also a device, they're called touch points, where you literally hold them and they buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. So you wouldn't even have to tap. Right. You just kind of like either put them in your pockets or hold them and it's going to kind of just do it for you.
- [48:36]
Bethany Cameron
That's so. That's so cool. Going back to what you said a couple minutes ago about the girl whose brain mapping you were doing has horrible panic attacks. So obviously I only know what my experience was as far as, like, trauma goes. But what are some things, like, let's say somebody's listening and they're like, oh, I'm dealing with horrible depression or anxiety or, you know, I'm dealing with horrible panic attacks. What are some. Do you have explanations for what could be causing that if it wasn't, like a traumatic experience?
- [49:01]
Angie Nowak
Absolutely. I mean, and you're right that people come in and they're like, I have horrible crippling anxiety. And we talk about, you know, know, is this what, you know, went on in your life? And it's like, I don't know, pretty normal family and all these things. Again, there's, you know, what happened to us and our biology. So if someone, let's say, like you, has a faster processing speed, right? They just drive a faster car. There's nothing wrong with driving a Kia, right? A Kia is going to get you from A to B. A lot of times. A Kia is not that hard to drive. Right? Like, you can manage a Kia if you're driving a Ferrari. And let's say you're, you know, a young person. That's a hard vehicle to. To maintain and to drive well. Right? That can easily get out of. So let's say we just add some. Some life stress on top of that, and that can be anything, right? Holidays are stressful. Holidays are the freaking best. I love them. They're also stressful. There's pressure and there's family and there's all these things happening, okay? So now we add some stress. Now we had like six months of stress. We've kind of snowballed, right? So what at one point was probably manageable and also was your baseline, right? So sometimes again, when people are like, it came out of nowhere, I'm like, well, but maybe you were driving at 70, you know, and anyways. But when it's your 70, 70 is your zero, right?
- [50:09]
Bethany Cameron
Exactly. So you're like, no, any different.
- [50:10]
Angie Nowak
You don't know any different, right? Versus if I maybe put somebody who's driving a Kia into your brain, you'd be. They'd be go, oh, my gosh, this is so overwhelming. Like, what are you doing every day? Versus you're like, this is very regular, this. I'm never been more chill in my life. So you know that. Honestly, there's a lot of different things, but just life, stress, easily people, pregnancy, right? That our hormones start getting out of whack. Not even just pregnancy. Let's say we just have, you know, some hormone imbalances, right. That we're eating a ton of food with, let's say, hypothetically, antibiotics in it. It's thrown off our hormones, you know, endocrine disruptors. Now you have some hormone issues that also affects your neurological brain waves. Right. You have a lot of inflammation. So there's a ton of different things. The brain map doesn't necessarily say, hey, this is exactly where this came from, but I can make some educated guesses.
- [50:57]
Bethany Cameron
That's so interesting. Well, this is another thing route that I've been going down recently and I don't know if you know any, about anything about this at all but I'm, I'm curious to know if you know anything about the like genetic mutations and stuff and how they affect your brain waves. Because I know for me I have mthfr and one of the things that I've been kind of going down this rabbit hole is if you have that gene and you have a hard time properly methylating things, it can sometimes manifest into things like anxiety or ruminating thoughts or depression. There's a lot of links to those. Do you know anything about that?
- [51:25]
Angie Nowak
Does I know some. I wouldn't ne. I haven't done a study where it's like, okay, people's brains with MTHFR who don't methylate well compared to people who don't. Right. There could be a correlation there. I haven't seen or done a study study yet. But you're absolutely right. Health is holistic, right, That I, I love to focus neck down and neck up. Obviously my expertise is neck up but everything is holistic, you know, so if it's somebody's just focusing on the brain but they're not, you know, their body is in disarray, their hormones are in disarray. One, their brain map is going to tell me that. I did a brain map with a gentleman the other day and he's, you know, this is a 29 year old, healthy looking guy and I saw this, this pattern. I'm going, what is going on? I was like, hey, have you had blood work done recently? And he was like, yeah, everything looks good. I'm like, are you sure? Yeah.
- [52:11]
Bethany Cameron
Are we sure?
- [52:11]
Angie Nowak
Testosterone was going on and then literally right at the end, I'm just going, I don't, you know, I go get it again. He goes, oh, I just found out there's black mold in my house. I was like, oh, there it is. And all of his symptoms, right are brain fog and lethargy and memory and all these things. I'm going, there's something going on. And, and I was like, get that out of your, get out of your house. 1. Because like, like at, at some point, yes, you need neurofeedback we have to address this first. Right. Like, we. We have to. So the brain will wave a red flag and give me indicators. It won't necessarily, hey, this is limes. But it tells me there's something going on.
- [52:48]
Bethany Cameron
That's right. I actually remember this now because Hector's been dealing with a lot of gut stuff. And you saw that on his. You didn't know exactly what it was, but you were like, I feel like you're dealing with some sort of, like. I can't remember exactly how you said it, like, inflammation or something. And we were like.
- [53:00]
Angie Nowak
Like, whoa.
- [53:01]
Bethany Cameron
You can see that.
- [53:02]
Angie Nowak
Yeah.
- [53:02]
Bethany Cameron
Because he had some sort of gut stuff going on. And so that's really fascinating.
- [53:05]
Angie Nowak
Absolutely. And just like anything else, you know, we can't. You're not gonna go to a gym trainer and be like, just train my arms. That's it. Like, you're. We got. We have to work on everything. So if your brain, you know, needs things, great. If you're having, like, horrible gut issues and we need to address that, those things are gonna work in tandem.
- [53:21]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah. Can you tell by looking at someone's brain if they're eating a super. A diet full of ultra processed foods and they're really inflamed? Can you tell by that? Not on the brain.
- [53:31]
Angie Nowak
I could absolutely tell that something is going on. Right. I wouldn't necessarily look at it and say ultr. Processed foods, but I would look at it and go, there's something. There's something happening. Right. Again, internal inflammation that if you are eating, if you're not serving your body well, if you're eating highly inflammatory foods all the time, you know that's going to inflame your brain. So if you're walking around in brain fog with horrible anxiety, feeling like crap, sleeping bad, and you have never looked at your diet and everything that you eat has no explanation. Expiration date.
- [54:01]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah.
- [54:01]
Angie Nowak
We need to talk about it.
- [54:02]
Bethany Cameron
That's fascinating. Will it show you that it. There's inflammation there?
- [54:06]
Angie Nowak
Absolutely. Yep.
- [54:07]
Bethany Cameron
That's so.
- [54:08]
Angie Nowak
So someone like Hector. Right. That infl. It's an inflammation pattern. And again, it doesn't tell me exactly what it is, but it tells me that it's something. And a lot of times I'll do MAP and somebody will know, like, hey, yep, I have pcos. Okay. You know, let's talk about that. Yeah. Hey, I've been. I'm going through menopause. Right. Like, okay, yep, let's talk about that. Sometimes people don't. And I meet more women in their 30s. Right. I'm like, hey, when was the last hormone panel you did? I've never done one. I'm like, oh, go. I know. All right, well, I'm like, let's go do that today. You know, let's get some blood. Like, let's just know what's going on, right, so that we can address it. Because what I don't want is you to start neurofeedback and us bump up against a wall. Right? That again, that would be irresponsible of me to say, okay, this is going to be the end all. Be all silver bullet. No, there's probably other pieces to that puzzle. Some people, they have already solved the pieces of that puzzle, and this is the last one. For a lot of people, there might be other ones that need to be set in as well.
- [54:59]
Bethany Cameron
Well, yeah, yeah. It's fascinating you say that because I feel like for me, that's kind of the. The missing piece for me where I'm like, I've done all the blood work, I've done all of the cleaning up of my gut. I've done so much other stuff. And I feel like the neurofeedback is kind of the missing link for me.
- [55:13]
Angie Nowak
We're gonna start it. I got that piece for you.
- [55:16]
Bethany Cameron
Well, it's such a great reminder, right, that the body works in. In sync, you know, and if you're, if you're eating a diet that's causing your body to be inflamed, of course it's going to have an effect on your brain because it's gonna have an effect on your hormone hormones. If your brain is inflamed, it's not going to be working well. So it all works together in tandem. And it's just a great reminder that we need to not only be focused on the food, but we need to be focused on the other aspects of it as well. We get all of that.
- [55:38]
Angie Nowak
Oh, absolutely.
- [55:39]
Bethany Cameron
What is the biggest lie about the brain that we've been programmed to believe.
- [55:43]
Angie Nowak
That what you are born with is what you get. Right. That this is just as good as it's going to get. What you have is what it's going to be forever. Our brains are incredibly neuroplastic. They are willing to change. We just have to know the way in which to elicit that change. But I truly believe that people have been fed some kind of lie that, like, this just is what it is. Right? I. I'm. I'm anxious. That's it. Absolutely not. We do not accept that.
- [56:08]
Bethany Cameron
And this is so empowering.
- [56:10]
Angie Nowak
Right?
- [56:10]
Bethany Cameron
It's. To me, I find this stuff so empowering because it, it gives me hope. Like, oh, you mean I don't just have to resort to medication and be numb for the rest of my life. You're telling me I can actually be proactive and there's things that I can do that can bring real healing. Healing and relief.
- [56:24]
Angie Nowak
Yes.
- [56:24]
Bethany Cameron
It's incredible.
- [56:25]
Angie Nowak
Oh, my gosh. My business partner and best friend, Rachel. Our mission in life is to offer hope in that way. Right. That right now, the conversation, especially around mental health, brain health is like counseling, medication. Now, I believe in the power of both. Right. Like, you do what you got to do. It should be brain training, changing your neural pathways, medication and. And counseling. It needs to be in the conversation.
- [56:49]
Bethany Cameron
Do you find that there are any supplements that really help people with their brains?
- [56:53]
Angie Nowak
I mean, supplements? I don't think there's like a blanket supplement. You know what I mean? That. That's where like blood work and, you know, kind of more of that natural medicine is going to come in. Because honestly, half the time, right, you see a supplement online, you're like, I need that.
- [57:06]
Bethany Cameron
Do you.
- [57:06]
Angie Nowak
Are you peeing out a whole lot of money every month right now? I think there's some great ones. Fish oil, like a really high quality fish oil. Magnesium, like, those are very. Calcium. Right. Are very good supplements. But again, if you don't need them, then you're probably just peeing them out.
- [57:22]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah. And if you're not, again, if you're not addressing the root cause, then they're probably not going to do much for you until you figure out what's really driving underneath.
- [57:28]
Angie Nowak
That's exactly right. I'm also kind of a big. I believe that most supplements and vitamins we can get from our food. So if you eat a very, like, limited diet, you don't eat a lot of, like, variation of vegetables, things like that. Yeah. You might need to supplement with other things because you're not getting it from your food. I believe that in general, if we're eating a more varied diet, we can get a lot of that from our food.
- [57:49]
Bethany Cameron
So we. I feel like we've kind of already addressed this, but I want to ask a more direct question about this. I have heard that we can't truly heal ourselves if we don't have a calm nervous system. And I attribute that also to the brain as well. What are your thoughts about that?
- [58:03]
Angie Nowak
I totally agree. If you have a dysregulated NERV nervous system, you're. Even if you have processed through your trauma Even if you have addressed it all those things, how are you ever going to feel healed? Right? You're not. You're going to feel extremely disregulated all the time. And I absolutely believe that you need a regulated ner, a system now. Things will dysregulate us, right?
- [58:23]
Bethany Cameron
There's.
- [58:23]
Angie Nowak
There will be things that happen that kind of throw us off. There's a difference between, ooh, I felt a little weird today, and anything happens and I am just off the freaking beam, you know? So I. I believe that we can take back control. And will life happen? Absolutely. But we are still in control when it does.
- [58:41]
Bethany Cameron
Absolutely. Yeah. This is something that I personally have been working on for a long time, and I will say that for I. I'm really excited to try this neurofeedback. And I'm assuming that's probably your answer as far as, like, how do we address calming the nervous system? But I've felt like the last couple years, you know, you see all these posts online that are like, you just need to heal your nervous system and calm down your nerves and, you know, all this stuff. And I'm like, but how?
- [59:02]
Angie Nowak
Like, how do we do that?
- [59:05]
Bethany Cameron
So it's like, okay, take magnesium. And I'm like, okay, that sort of helps, but not really. It's like, it, you know, everything you've been saying this whole episode, hopefully other people find it relatable too, but I'm finding it very relatable. And when you talk about how, like, you know, I'm at this certain level and it's like, I can never get fully down to this level. Like, I have a hard time going to sleep at night. I usually have to take melatonin or something to bring me down to that level, force me down, because I can't bring myself down to this certain level of calm. And I'm hoping that neurofeedback would be a way that I can bring that nervous system back down to a more regulated state.
- [59:36]
Angie Nowak
That's exactly right. And it's not about, like we said I said earlier, taking a fast engine and making it slow. It's about giving your brain flexibility and plasticity. Right. That when you're about to give a talk, when you're about to, you know, take on freaking big everything, like, you need to be on and you need to be in beta and you need to be getting after it. And then when you're at home with your dogs on your couch, you don't need to be in beta getting after it. You need to be in theta you need to be able to feel chill and safe and calm and relaxed. When you're on a beach in Mexico, you need to feel safe and chill and calm and relaxed. And what a lot of people find is they operate here all the time and it's like, I just need a vacation. They go on vacation. Wait, I'm still here. This sucks, right? So, yes, neurofeedback is a way to do that. Now for some people, right? They might go, hey, you know, I've. I've kind of done all the things. Maybe I need this one tweak. Maybe that's grounding in the morning. Maybe for them that's adding in two minutes of meditation a day, right? That I believe that there are other ways that we can do that. What I find is a lot of people come to me and have done all the things and they're going, I've done all the, you know, kind of behavioral things. Right? It's software versus hardware. Right. That a lot of the things we learn and are taught are software updates on a computer. Now if we need a software update, we will software update all day long. If we have a hard hardware issue, a software update's not going to touch that. We have to at some point address the hardware.
- [60:54]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah. And, and when you talk about that. So when you do something like neurofeedback, is this something that people have to do for the rest of their lives or is it like you do it for a period of time and then you find that relief?
- [61:03]
Angie Nowak
You do it for a period of time. So this is not like medication. It does not have a shelf life in the brain or in the body. It's teaching the brain a new skill. Right. This is, this is learning to ride a bike once you do it and once your brain knows how to do it, I mean, think about, you know, know, anxiety that your brain learned how to do it and it's doing it really well. It is, it is loving it. It's running on that pattern. It's not going to forget it. Right? Now if I can teach your brain to do something else, ingrain that new pattern to permanency, it's going to now take that as the automatic pattern.
- [61:31]
Bethany Cameron
If someone is feeling completely stuck and let's say maybe they, they aren't able to do something like neurofeedback right away. What are some just easy hacks or tips for them today that they could utilize in their. Just in the comfort of their own home.
- [61:43]
Angie Nowak
Absolutely. So the bilateral stimulation tapping is probably one of my favorite ha ever. Especially Especially for. And some people don't associate with the term anxiety, right? I say anxiety and they're like, I've never had a day of anxiety in my life. I'm like, got it. I've met him. He honestly, he probably hasn't like that.
- [62:01]
Bethany Cameron
So chill also.
- [62:02]
Angie Nowak
That's why he's, you know, your other half. Because he, like, he is the calm to your. Oh, for sure you're anxious. But also then some people, I'm like, well, do you, do you deal with ruminating? Well, yeah, I'm like overthinking, catastrophizing. Do you sleep well? No. I'm like, no. Anxiety. You know that you're like, yeah. So even if you don't associate with that term, if you deal with any of those things, tapping is going to be a great way to regulate your body and regulate your brain box. Breathing is another absolutely fantastic hack, right? That's a beautiful way to, to just kind of get yourself back to that place of calm or at least closer and homeostasis. Hack your freaking sleep. If you are not consciously working on having better sleep, sleep is compounding interest. It is not one large deposit. So I'll just catch up on the weekends. You won't. It. You will suffer. It will. It will cost you in a lot of ways, especially long term, right? That our brain heals when we sleep, our brain, when we're dreaming. Our brain is getting rid of plaque. So if you're not getting that, I mean, you're going to have health issues, period. So you pay for it now or you, you know, you pay for it later. Rachel and I talk a lot about goal setting, right? That you are 42% more likely to achieve a goal just by writing it down. So when I peop. Meet people who feel stuck or feel undermotivated, I'm like, let's do some goal setting. As well. As we talk about earlier, the working towards achievement of something is actually how you create dopamine, right? Not just getting something automatically. So if you are not setting goals and having things that you're working towards, do so as it will change your dopamine.
- [63:30]
Bethany Cameron
Okay, that's fascinating. I've never heard that before. And that's a great tip. So I've gotten through all my questions. Is there anything else you feel like the people need to know?
- [63:40]
Angie Nowak
Honestly, I just want to leave them with kind of that, you know, saying of hope that you are not beholden to what you're born with. Your brain is absolutely capable of change. Change. And there's so many ways that you can do that. I always want people to know that they can, you know, kind of come to brain code. We do a hundred percent free consultations and Rachel and I do 100 of those consultations. So if you want to learn about neurofeedback, if you want to ask questions, if you just want to understand your brain a little bit better, it's going to be 30 minutes, it's 100 free. And I honestly, like, do we have all the time in the world to do all those consultations? No, it's like a passion project that I will give it up, like with my cold, dead hands because I love meeting people, I love hearing their stories and offering them the chance to honestly be freed of what's burdening them.
- [64:24]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah. I mean, this gives me so, so much hope. You know, as someone who's been through a lot and feel like I've tried so many different modalities and, you know, like I've shared this whole episode. I'm just so one, I'm so grateful that we got connected. I love the work that you're doing and I'm feeling hopeful because I'm like, oh man, maybe this is actually something that will really help me kind of get out of that anxiety ridden brain that I live in that I just would love to figure out how to fix.
- [64:47]
Angie Nowak
I cannot wait for you to start changing your brain and, you know, sharing your story. Honestly, that's what it takes is people saying, hey, I've done it. It's like it changed my life. That, I mean, honestly, that's me. That when people, when I do consults and they're like, well, have you done it? I'm like, absolutely, yes.
- [65:02]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah.
- [65:03]
Angie Nowak
That going from, you know, dealing with anxiety every day to honestly not remembering what a panic attack feels like is pretty freeing.
- [65:09]
Bethany Cameron
Oh, that's so amazing and it's so cool. I just want to encourage everyone listening to reach out to them. I've loved working with you. I've personally done the brain mapping with you. So is my husband. We had such a great time with you. You, it was super fun and it's really cool. It's amazing to get a look into your brain. And actually it was, it was so reaffirming to go, oh yeah, that makes sense. This is exactly how I operate. And it was a cool little thing to do with my husband also because we got to compare and you were like, oh yeah, like he's like this and you're like that. And it was cool to kind of see, you know, so if you're like.
- [65:41]
Angie Nowak
A weird special date.
- [65:42]
Bethany Cameron
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then we were, like, comparing and you were of like, oh, well, it makes sense you guys are together because he does this and you do that, and it's like a perfect little match. And I was like, oh, that's. It was really cool to see. Yeah.
- [65:53]
Angie Nowak
I think it's so special. And a lot of times parents will do it with kids, you know, just to like. I don't want them to think there's something wrong with them. There are no bad brains or good brains. All brains are good, right? It's a matter of if we want to make our body stronger, what do we do? We work out, we eat healthy. If we want to make our brain stronger, what do we do? We do neurofeedback. So at Braincode Centers, our Instagram is a great place. Our website, braincodecenters.com is a great place space. We would just love to connect with people.
- [66:17]
Bethany Cameron
Awesome. Thank you so much, Angie. This was awesome.
- [66:19]
Angie Nowak
Yes, thank you.
- [66:19]
Bethany Cameron
Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. If you struggle with bloating, gas, constipation, digestive issues, yeast overgrowth, well, you. You may already know about Digest this. It's the podcast hosted by me, Bethany Cameron, also known as Little Sipper. On Instagram, I dive into gut, health, nutrition, the food industry, and drawing from my own experience, I break down what's.
- [67:21]
Angie Nowak
Good, what's bad, and what's the best for your gut, your skin, and so much more.
- [67:26]
Bethany Cameron
I even offer gut friendly recipes. New episodes every Monday and Wednesday, produced by Wellness Loud.