Podcast 10 Brain Fog is Real. Drain Your Brain!

Today's talk is on brain fog. Brain fog is real and there's science to prove it, and there's yogic science to prove it. This goes back over 5,000 years old, and it's also been proven recently in our scientific model as well.

Brain fog, right? I guess the questions would be, have you ever actually thought about the toxic sludge or buildup in your brain and whether or not you are successfully bringing blood and nutrition into your brain and the waste out? If you aren't, what does that look like in your daily life? Lubricating your channels around the brain is super important to the intelligence.

You know, I'd invite us all to really be revolutionary and to clean out our brains the way we do the rest of our body. We spend so much time on our body, and what would it be like to give 10 minutes a day to your brain? Meditation and pranayama, of course, but I offer some other things as well in the talk. This talk is really about increasing your own vitality, your sense of self-worth, and clarity in your daily life. Here's to draining your brain. Enjoy.

Okay, so I'm going to talk about something as brief as I can before we go into this. There's this teaching ... It's interesting. There's an Ayurvedic teaching. So those of you that don't know Ayurveda, it's like, 5,000-plus year old science that's really about connecting ... It's considered, like, how you take care of your body, how you take care of your mind. It's very related to yoga, and it's to keep you healthy and full of vitality and life and energy, the way that we're made to be.

They kind of say that every cell has an intelligence, and when you're working the way that, without all the toxic sludge, right, your cells do what they're made to do. Okay? You don't have to worry about all the things that we worry about right now. If it's working properly, you can just live your life. That's a very simplistic definition. It's related to yoga in the sense that it's just as old. They go side by side, and they're no different. There's something that's very interesting that they talk about, and they call it something different. They call it, you don't have to know this, they call it Tarpaka Kapha. You don't have to know any of this, but Tarpaka Kapha is what they call it. This is thousands of years old.

Two years ago, science discovered something that they never knew existed, which they called glymphatics. Science two years ago is proving something that's 5,000-plus year old. Most of us, that's no surprise, but I just want to say there's actual science to this. There's something that's called glymphatics, and you have these 13 holes in the top of your head. Right, we were talking about this last week. These 13 holes in the top of your head, that kind of like go where if you were to have a mohawk, and those holes drain lymph out of your brain and they drain toxins out of your brain. They also bring nutrition into your brain.

Something that's interesting, I'm going to tie this into the yoga in a moment, but something that's very interesting is that when we have emotional trauma, whether it's actual trauma of like, an accident or a trauma of childhood or you lose someone that you love, what happens for us is that we pull ourselves together and get through what we have to do. What's happening in the brain is that the brain takes that emotional toxin and keeps it there. It blocks off the holes so that you can do what you have to do to get through the thing, because you can't process it in those moments.

Then, a lot of times for us those holes get stuck and blocked. You're literally holding emotional toxin in your brain that you've never processed, so unprocessed emotion. It's the same as digestion. The whole thing of yoga is to digest, assimilate, process, get rid of the excess and keep the pieces that make sense to keep, the nutritional pieces. When these holes get blocked, at night when we sleep literally over a year ... The reason why this fascinates me is because we come here and we think we're taking care of our mind, but we're really, like, taking care of our body. You know? I want us to put as much effort into the brain as it's so important.

When we sleep at night, if you're sleeping well, over one year you drain three pounds of toxic sludge out of your brain. That's a lot. Now, if you don't sleep well or you don't have a system where nutrition can get in and the waste can get out, think about what happens. What do you think that could form into? Anxiety, depression, irritability. What else do I have? Immune-relating nervous system disorders. Oh, and my favorite, this is how this started for me: brain fog. It's a real thing. It's literally a real thing.

What I wanted to say is that there's more that I could keep going on this but I'm not going to. What I want to say about this is that, it's important when we think about yoga it's not just coming to the mat, but it's a lifestyle. To make sure you're doing things before you go to sleep so that you can sleep well. Do breath work, do meditation, watch what you're eating. Then, specifically if you want to move the holes and figure out if they're open, it's very simple. You just scalp massage. Right? We go and get body massages, but this is really important and it feels good. I have my nine year old do it for me and then I get him like, I don't know, a snack or something. You know?

Face massage, right, like these are real things. If you want to convince yourselves to go get a facial, go get a facial. It's the moving up and draining through the lymphatic system through the sinuses and stuff. Meditation and pranayama is how we'll kind of play with it today and really play with the breath, but I want you to know a couple of those other things. Then there's something which, if you want to know more about it you can just talk to me after class, but there's also something called Nasya, which is an Ayurvedic oil. They take oil and put certain herbs into it, and you put the oil up your nose and it helps to drain and open up those holes as well. That's just to throw it out there, because I think, you know, I get really excited about this. I'm like, "I'm going to clean my brain."

I do too.

You do? Yeah. I mean, it's really exciting. It's not just to clear your nostrils so you can take a deep breath. I'm like, "Sludge, come out." You know? Just important to note, to take care of your brain. It really is like, I mean, we've all this experience and we think, "What's going on? What's going on?" If you've got blocked holes, then you can't get the sludge out. It's resulting in an experience that's lower. It's not as fun. It feels sludgy. It makes you sit smaller. It makes you feel sad. You know? Nasya, your friend.


Yeah, I mean, I think it probably, also the cerebral spinal fluid is the washer fluid. That drains your brain toxins. It's coming out into the fluid as well, it's coming out probably through your organs of elimination and things like that. I don't know specifically, but that would be my guess.

That would be interesting to ...

Yeah, I mean, it's not like, on your pillow. That would be even grosser. Let's just close your eyes and when you close your eyes, let's just take a moment and do this. If you have your hair up maybe just pull it down. Just to get that feeling, especially where you would have a mohawk, if you were like, the cool kid with a mohawk. Just get in there and actually be willing to get in there. You could do this with oil and stuff at home as well, but you don't have to overcomplicate it. You know, you don't have to get it done professionally. Just massage and move stuff around. How often do we actually do this? This is a big part of the, you know, brushing your hair at night and things like that, it's actually really stimulating.

Just breathe while you're doing that. Just simple things like this can help to shift your mood, your memory. Then bring your hands down to your thighs and take an inhale through the nose and open the mouth, exhale. Good. Again, inhale through the nose. Open the mouth, empty. Good. Now, keep the mouth closed. You'll inhale through the nose and exhale slow and long on the exhale. We're going to really work on lengthening exhales today to help to begin to drain and empty more efficiently. You can have your internal gaze up towards the third eye. Just, those inhales, let the inhales happen and fill up and as you exhale slow, long, and conscious. Really allow the emptying. You can pull the naval way back towards the spine.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you that found that even a little bit as fascinating as I did. I am completely fascinated by this topic. It just, it makes so much sense to me. What I love about Ayurveda, what I love about yoga, what I love about Ayurveda and yoga is that it allows us to really have the power to really take charge of our own health, our own vitality, our own internal happiness. You know, there's things that we can do that really increase our quality of life. ​