Why the Brain is the Key to High Performance

Back in 2016 I was a hot mess. Chronically stressed, suffering with anxiety attacks, I'd failed exams unexpectedly, I'd been told I had no emotional intelligence at work and I'd also lost a baby.

When I was finally able to look at my brain, the struggles I was having all made sense.  Find out what I discovered, what transformational journey I went on and how I now use my personal journey in brain health and associate knowledge to help my clients unchain, unlock and unleash their full potential.

You are not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better.

Introduction

Donna Lalwani works in the Amen Clinic New York office with many of their professionals here in the northeast parts of Canada and overseas. Dr Ruth Mary Allan is a valued clinical colleague and friend to the Amen Clinics.

She is a Certified Brain Health Coach through the Institute for Better Health and the Amen Clinics Certification coaching program. Dr Allan is also a Certified High Performance Coach through the High Performance Institute. She's a Certified Havening Techniques Practitioner, professional speaker and trainer and also a military reservist.

We are excited to hear about you and your interest in your journey. I know you certainly are so committed with a passion for growth personally and professionally that adds so much value in the community and many people you're reaching and serving right now at this time.

My journey

My journey for brain health itself started back in 2016. I was working in the corporate world in a really stressful environment. I was working really late nights - 1.30am-2am in the morning. Up really early. My sleep was chronically affected. I was tired all the time.

I was using alcohol in the evening to get through the evenings and calm myself down and drinking copious amounts of coffee just to get through the day. Chocolate cake was my afternoon go-to, which is obviously a really dreadful brain habit. 

During the course of that year I really wanted to join a new military unit so I went for selection. To my surprise I failed it. I failed the intelligence test, which I'd previously passed with flying colours. I also failed the math test and that's my favourite subject, so that was the first real warning sign that something wasn't right.

But I didn't really pay attention to it. During the course of that year I was trying to have a baby and I was really fortunate to fall pregnant. But unfortunately I had a miscarriage and immediately after that I was unexpectedly put on a performance review where I was told I had no emotional intelligence.

It really knocked me for six. I started having anxiety attacks. Was chronically stressed as a result of this, and of course the stress had already staked.  That final straw for me was I started having suicidal thoughts.

I thought goodness - I really need to take back control of what's going on here. That's not right. So I reached out to high performance coaching. I went on an amazing transformational journey and that's where I met Dr Daniel Amen at one of the events in the USA.

I was fascinated by the work he was doing in brain imaging and I thought - goodness, this is really what I need: combining my experience in medical imaging with my passion for helping other people. 

I first read his book 'Change your brain, Change your life' and that's really exactly what it did! I couldn't put it down - I had to read it cover to cover. I realised that something was really wrong with my brain because during that period I was also struggling with memory and word recall, forgetting where I had put things.

I just didn't feel right.

I thought wow - now is the opportunity to really learn how I can take back control of my brain health. Something's not right with my brain. I was really curious to find out what was wrong with it. What I could do to make it better. What I could do to really optimise it.

So I went on an amazing transformational journey with my brain and focused really on my health and wellbeing. I focused on my diet. In 2018 I'd lost 27pounds in weight. I became the fittest I've ever been and realised my dream of ski-touring across the alps.

By that time I had massively cut down on all alcohol. No puddings really to speak of. And we found as we were ski-touring across the alps it wasn't just me that was ski-touring with my husband. There was a passenger on board and eight months later our lovely daughter Lilly was born.

That really changed the status quo as to the importance of looking after my brain health because now it wasn't just about me. It was about future generations of me.

It was about making sure that I was role modelling the way and helping not just my daughter, but also helping the people that she'll grow up with so that they can learn how to look after their brains too. So that they don't have to go through the struggles that I've been through as a consequence of poor brain habits.

So that led me to really wanting to understand what's wrong with my brain. So I visited yourselves in Northern California when I was heavily pregnant to really learn about the clinics. I couldn't get my brain scanned at the time, but went back to the clinics in Costa Mesa in April the following year with my daughter and husband and got my brain scanned using qEEG because I was still breast-feeding.

What I discovered

I really wanted to know what was going on because I was training to become a brain health coach at the the time, so I wanted to know how my brain was working.

That was really fascinating because I realised that actually all these minor knocks that I'd had throughout my childhood - riding bicycles and skiing, had stacked up and actually cumulatively I was diagnosed with moderate brain injury, based on my assessment scores and what they saw in my brain scan.

I had damage to my temporal lobes and that was probably what was most likely affecting my memory.  That really made me wake up and realise the need to take Omega-3 supplementation to help my brain repair as well as looking after my diet so I went on an elimination diet.

I found out that my brain was working to hard in the basal ganglia region. I had quite a lot of anxiety, so now I take Everyday Stress Relief to really calm my active thoughts down.

I have a very active cerebellum. My brain is always going very fast, so I have lots of thoughts whizzing around in my head. Everyday Stress Relief helps calm those unhelpful thoughts down and that's been really helpful.

I also now also take Vitamin D to help boost my immune system and manage my mood. When I went on an elimination diet I found that my sickness for most of my life with sinusitis is probably due to diary. So now I keep diary at a bare minimum. Similarly with gluten - I hardly have gluten anymore. 

So really focusing on making sure I look after my brain, making sure I do exercise regularly to stimulate my brain to keep my dopamine levels and serotonin levels boosted, doing the right exercise for me.

It was really transformational journey. And of course learning about the brain through the brain health certification program has just been phenomenal. To think about how imaging can be applied to better understand new types of approaches to helping people, particularly with those with trauma.

Havening Techniques is a really new approach and I was really interested to understand how that works from a brain imaging perspective.

It has just been a fascinating and really inspirational journey for me personally, being connected with yourselves and learning all of the fantastic work that the clinics do. All of the insights that you can get from just looking at the brain.

Donna's insight - thoughts for the future generations

I appreciate you sharing about your passion, your enthusiasm, your commitment to taking self-care first for optimising your health and your wellness. We certainly think about that too.

How do we create a circle of influence around other people to lift them up and generate healthy lifestyle habits. You know in optimising your health and wellness it certainly pays off for the passenger on board and the trajectory for your family's brain health and wellbeing.

We feel more kids and youth and students, families and parents need to be thinking about that now more than ever because of the epigenetics component. So there's a lot that we can do to optimise our brain health and wellness.

So just hearing from your perspective on how imaging has helped, and taking all these different interventions from your dietary nutrition, physical fitness and wellness, and knowing some important risk factors that my be affecting others right from Dr Amen's BRIGHT MINDS approach.

Thinking that anything from a concussion or an injury, or physical and emotional traumas - anything that's going to affect blood flow to the brain.

Ruth's insights - the brain health revolution

Learning from your experience at the Amen Clinics I now know how I can translate that to the people that I serve and the wider community to help people really take note of learning about their brain health.

Brain health is not talked about very much. There's a very big focus on mental health, but less of a focus on brain health. As you know as Daniel Amen's written his book 'The End of Mental Illness' it's really important we do start this brain health revolution.

That we start having these open conversations about brain health and getting rid of the stigma associated with mental health. That we start focusing on what we need to do - how to address the risk factors and making sure that we look after ourselves for the future.

If anybody feels that something is wrong with your brain - you kind of intuitively know something isn't right, then don't wait until you become symptomatic. Because we know from research that Alzheimer's disease can develop 20 to 30years before any symptoms even appear.

So it's really important that when you notice something is wrong, that you take the time to learn how you can help your brain get better. You are not stuck with the brain you have.

Through brain imaging you can seek to understand what parts of your brain are working too hard and what parts aren't working hard enough. You can really get that sense check and baseline so you know what you need to do to improve your brain health. It's so important.

To find out more...

If you'd like to find out more about I can help you, including exclusive discounts to the Amen Clinics as a client, register for your FREE unleashed strategy call, or visit www.ruthmaryallan.com for more information.