David (00:00.63)
I recently got a question from a listener where she asked me, Dave, what can I take to improve my mental cognition? Now that's actually a really good question because we all want to age gracefully, And to that end, mental cognition is got to be near the top of the list of things we should be addressing. I can tell you from personal experience that watching your loved ones decline because their mental cognition is fading is no picnic.
This one really hits home for me. My dad died at 87 years old from Alzheimer's and my mom died at 90 with severe dementia. And I can tell you, it's absolutely heart wrenching to watch your loved ones slowly fade away. And far too many people are going through this. According to the Alzheimer's Association, 2026 facts and figures, one in three seniors dies with Alzheimer's or another form of cognitive decline.
and looking at current trends, that number is expected to double by 2060. Now doesn't have to be this way. Let's talk about it.
David (01:16.376)
Welcome to the Christian Healthy Lifestyle Podcast, where I want to help you stay out of the doctor's office, age gracefully, and live a more purpose-driven life. Before we get started today, I have an announcement to make. I've been publishing episodes every other week for the past couple of years, and after this episode moving forward, I'm going to be going to once a month. I don't know if I've mentioned this on the show before, but I've had the opportunity to go back to flying airliners full-time.
And my bandwidth is limited. Now, you may not know this, but I am a career airline pilot, and that's my full-time job. I do this as more or less a hobby. But I never want to compromise the quality of the content here. And I don't want to be pressured into just getting an episode out there because I have to meet the deadline. I hope you understand and appreciate that I don't just pull up my iPhone, hit record, and start talking to create these episodes.
A great deal of preparation and work goes into producing this show. I don't have a team, it's all me. Now, before you decide to unsubscribe and find another show, remember, you're not going to find another source of natural and holistic health information that's biblically based and science-backed. I literally wrote the book on natural and holistic health from a Christian perspective. It's a 325-page guide called The Christian's Guide to Holistic Health.
I've only got about a year and a half left to be able to fly airliners. Airline pilots have mandatory retirement at 65. So until then, these episodes are going to be once a month. Thanks for your understanding. So let's jump right into today's topic. How do we prevent mental decline or how do we enhance our mental cognition? I can't think of a more important topic when it comes to aging gracefully than maintaining our mental cognition.
It's not surprising that a listener would reach out and ask me, what can I take? It's a good question because it shows she was thinking about the right things. However, I would suggest reframing that question a little bit. Instead of what can I take to improve my mental cognition, I suggest asking, what can I do to improve it? Because lifestyle habits are far more effective than popping any pills. The question, what can I take?
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is rooted in the medical model. A medical doctor treats the illness that has the person, a natural practitioner treats the person that has the illness, and the approaches to health couldn't be more different, really. Pills, for the most part, relieve symptoms. You see, the pharmaceutical industry and the supplement industry, for that matter, they both want to sell us products that relieve our symptoms. It's an attractive message. It goes something like this.
Making lifestyle changes is difficult. Just pop these pills and we'll fix whatever's ailing you. These companies want to get us on their products and stay on them for the rest of our lives. It's more profitable for them, but it's not what's best for us. Now, I'm not totally against taking supplements or pharmaceuticals when appropriate. Allopathic medicine is excellent with emergencies and acute conditions. If you're having a heart attack or a stroke,
a blood thinner can save your life. And there are supplements that can provide nutrients for better cognition, but I'm not going to cover those right now. I'll circle back at the end of the episode. This show is called Christian Healthy Lifestyle. So I want to talk about some lifestyle habits that we can embrace to improve our mental cognition. You see, lifestyle habits that are in alignment with our God-given natural design
are far more effective than any pill, potion, or lotion. Our bodies know how to heal and to thrive. We've just got to get the obstacles out of the way. Suffering from mental decline for the last 10 or 15 years of our lives is not part of God's design. But if we're not proactive and we eat the standard American diet, live the standard American lifestyle, and participate in the standard American healthcare system,
we should expect to suffer and die from a standard American chronic disease. It's as simple as that. And dementia and Alzheimer's are right up there near the top of the list of chronic degenerative diseases. Mental decline is not inevitable as we age. I've said this before in the show, instead of thinking of our vitality as a flashlight that shines bright when the batteries are fresh and new, but slowly over time, the batteries get weaker.
David (06:01.682)
and the light slowly fades dimmer and dimmer until it finally goes out. Our vitality should be more like a candle that's burning just as bright near the very end until that flame flickers a couple of times and goes out. That's what we should be expecting from our mental cognition and our vitality. So, what are the obstacles to mental cognition? What causes mental decline? Well, there's a lot of reasons. As you may have guessed already,
One of the main reasons is nutrient deficiencies. Another one of the main reasons is toxin buildup. Toxins from mercury and fish or pesticides and herbicides sprayed on our food, airborne toxins like car exhaust and even mold in our homes and buildings all play a role. Another cause of mental decline is sedentary lifestyles. Our bodies are designed for movement. With our modern day sedentary lifestyles,
Our brains don't get the blood flow, the sunlight, or the fresh air they need to function at their peaks. Another one of the primary drivers of mental decline is mental atrophy. When it comes to mental health, our brains behave a lot like our muscles and bones. It's either use it or lose it. Here's a startling statistic. Most college graduates never read another book from cover to cover after they graduate. From my point of view, that's tragic.
I'm a lifelong learner and I really enjoy challenging myself with new ideas and I wish more people would. Another source of mental decline is lack of good quality sleep. As I often say in the show, our bodies prefer to do their cellular repair and replacement when we're sleeping. Chronic sleep deprivation can cause almost any degenerative disease under the sun, including mental decline.
Another significant source of mental decline is, and this is strongly supported in the medical literature, is loneliness and social isolation. In my opinion, those two factors are probably some of the primary drivers of mental decline in our later years, and they make up the majority of mental decline for seniors. The Bible says in Genesis 2, 18 that it's not good for the man to be alone.
David (08:27.79)
We're going to be unpacking that for us a little bit later. The mental deterioration in older people living alone is a glaring example of this truth. So what are we supposed to do? Throw our hands in the air and say, well, it's all part of getting older. Or should we learn all we can about this phenomena and make some lifestyle changes that can dramatically enhance the chances of us maintaining our mental clarity and acuity well into our later years?
I would suggest the latter is a much wiser approach and more productive. So let's talk about each one of these causes one at a time. Let's start with nutrient deficiencies. I don't have to tell you that our food supply has become compromised over the last hundred years. Factory farming practices have made it very, very difficult to even find quality food. Not only that, there's been a lot of bad science and
really poor recommendations from our government agencies. I talked about this in my book, The Christian's Guide to Holistic Health. The USDA, the United States Department of Agriculture, on their own website, in their mission statement, it reveals a massive conflict of interest. Their website says that the mission of the USDA is to promote food safety, find no problem there, and promote agriculture at the same time.
I would suggest that the USDA has gotten a little bit too friendly with large commercial farms that produce food in an unnatural way, but at a low cost. A lot of the food sitting on our grocery store shelves is engineered to taste good and make us feel good immediately after we consume it. But a couple of hours later, our energy tanks from the sugar crash or it tanks from the chemical coloring and the chemical preservatives and the other
and all the chemical soup that's inside those food products, what they call food. You know, there's really no such thing as junk food. There's junk and there is food. There's no such thing as junk food. When it comes to what we should eat, it's actually pretty simple. Would your great grandparents recognize what's in that box as food? If you look at the ingredients list, could you buy those ingredients yourself at a regular grocery store?
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Or do you need your smartphone to Google the definitions of some of the ingredients that you can't even pronounce? Those are all clues that what's on the grocery store shelf is not real food. It's junk. If a food is in a box or a package or it comes through a window, it's suspect. And I would add to that, if it's bought at a restaurant, it's suspect as well. If what's in that box has more than four or five ingredients,
It's suspect. So what do do? First and foremost, we get away from processed foods and eating out of restaurants. You know, there's a lot of different opinions up there, out there about what we should be eating. We have carnivores, we have vegetarians, we have paleo, we have Mediterranean, you know, we have FODMAP, we have OMAD, we have intermittent fasting. So who's right? Well, the answer to that is
We should look at what all of those different approaches have in common. And every one of those approaches to eating gets away from processed food and eats food closer to its God given natural design. Now I've done other episodes on seed oils, but seed oils are some of the most toxic things we could put in our mouths. If you haven't listened to them already, go back and listen to episodes numbers 141 and 142. I talk about seed oils.
and how our government got those recommendations so horribly wrong. Even if you did listen to them, it's probably worth a re-listening because those are some pretty crucial episodes for understanding what good nutrition is really all about. If you're eating at a restaurant, you have little to no control over what they put in that food. Restaurants are a lot like factory farmers. What they want to give you is a tasty meal that looks good at very low cost. Toxic processed seed oils
made from government-subsidized soybeans or corn oil are cheap and easy to cook with, so restaurants love them, but they're making us sick. commit to buying your own food. Buy as many single ingredient foods as you can and prepare them yourself at home. That way, you know what's on your plate. And buy your food at the farmer's market if you can. Talk to your farmer. Get to know your farmer. lot of farmers might not be certified organic,
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but they are enlightened and they're doing a very good job at producing quality food. search out a quality farmer. A lot of times you can find those at local farmers markets. So, okay, enough on nutrient deficiencies. Let's talk about toxin buildup. Many people are intoxicated with heavy metals like aluminum, mercury or cadmium, and they don't even know it. Mercury is released into the atmosphere by the burning of coal
and that mercury makes its way into the oceans. So large fish like tuna and swordfish are high in mercury content because they're further up the food chain and they consume the smaller fish that have accumulated mercury from other smaller fish that were closer to the front of the line in the food chain. The smaller the fish, the less the mercury. The larger the fish, the more mercury.
Low mercury fish would be sardines, maybe red snapper or salmon. High mercury content fish would be shark, swordfish, halibut, tuna. Those are all high mercury content fish because those fish are much larger. Another source of mercury that many people don't think about is their silver amalgam fillings. Those amalgam fillings are silver because they contain more than 50 % mercury.
Now mercury is the second most toxic substance known to man. The first most toxic substance is uranium. So mercury is highly toxic. And the idea of we can put it in our mouths and not suffer any health consequences as a result is really foolishness. Now today most dentists have converted to using composite fillings, but many of us over 40 have silver fillings in our mouths. If you do, you would do well to get them removed.
But listen up here because this is really important. You can't just go to a regular dentist and have your mercury amalgam fillings removed. You've got to go to a biological dentist who has training and has invested money and equipment to properly and safely remove those mercury fillings. The best way to find a biological dentist is to go to the IAOMT website and use their practitioner locator.
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IAOMT stands for the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. Those dentists have been trained on how to remove mercury fillings safely and how to replace them with a far less toxic composite filling. Do not go to a regular dentist to have your mercury fillings removed. You could, you very well may do more harm than good. Another source of heavy metals is aluminum. If you've got aluminum cooking pans in your house, get rid of them.
Restaurants love to cook with aluminum too. Also, if you've got Teflon pans, throw them in the garbage. Don't cook another meal with a Teflon pan. Teflon has PFAS or polyfluoroalkaline substances. PFASs are called forever chemicals because they're very difficult to break down. And in a landfill, they may take a hundred years or more to break down. You don't want to be cooking with those kinds of chemicals getting in your food.
If you care about your health and your mental cognition, you should be cooking with cast iron or quality stainless steel. A good brand for cast iron is Lodge, and a good brand for stainless steel pans is Allclad, both high quality. Cooking your food in non-toxic pans is another good reason to limit your eating out at restaurants. We've got no idea what kind of pans they're using back there in the kitchen. Now I don't want to scare anybody.
because our bodies are capable of detoxifying from these kinds of chemicals, but we have to encourage our natural processes. One of the most important things we can do when it comes to detoxification is to have regular elimination. If we're not having at least one large, bulky bowel movement per day, we need to address our gut health. Chronic constipation will cause our bodies to reabsorb toxins that otherwise should have been eliminated.
In order to eliminate toxins, we also need to make sure our lymph fluid is moving well. Lymph fluid carries toxins that will eventually make it to the liver where they're processed and eventually removed from the body through the large intestine. There's just as many lymph vessels in the body as there are blood vessels, but the lymph system doesn't have a pump like the heart. So how does lymph fluid move? It moves through muscle contraction.
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When we participate in physical activity, our muscles contract and push the lymph fluid through one-way check valves inside the veins. So our omnipotent creator is telling us to get outside and incorporate some movement into our days. So this leads us right into the next topic, which is physical activity. Physical activity is fantastic for mental health, especially when we're participating in something we enjoy outdoors. Now going to the gym is great. It's far better than being sedentary.
But exercising in one hour sessions three times a week is just not enough. We need to incorporate movement into our routines on a daily basis. One of the best ways to do this is by going on a brisk walk outdoors. We can park our cars in the worst spot in the parking lot. We can take the stairs instead of using the elevator. We can get outside and do some yard work or plant a garden. It's actually quite enjoyable to do yard work.
Sure, those types of activities are small, but they're cumulative. And add them all up and they'll make a big difference. Another thing we should concern ourselves with is mental atrophy. If we're not challenging ourselves mentally on a regular basis, our brains actually shrink. Our brains have what most people refer to as gray matter. It's mostly found in the cerebral cortex.
It's the part of our brains and nervous systems that do a great deal of our mental processing. When it comes to gray matter, we either use it or lose it. Well, actually we don't lose it. It just atrophies and shrinks. Our brains will prune away synaptic connections they deem as not useful. Our brains also have a characteristic that's called neuroplasticity. It's the opposite of neuropruning.
Years ago, when someone had a traumatic brain injury or suffered from a stroke, it was believed that you could never recover what you lost. So treatment was focused on adaptation and not restoration. We now know that that's not true. Through brain neuroplasticity, our brains can actually grow and reestablish those neural connections. As I often say in the show,
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We maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind, and body. When we encourage our body's natural processes, we accelerate our growth and maximize our health potential. So how do we encourage natural processes like brain neuroplasticity and enhancing our neural connections? We need to produce more BDNF or brain derived neurotropic factors.
BDNF is like fertilizer for our brains. Our bodies produce BDNF during sleep, intermittent fasting, sunlight exposure, and learning new skills. But by far, the most effective way to experience a BDNF dump into our bloodstream is to participate in vigorous exercise. So here's the best way to approach this. Vigorous exercise will cause a great deal of BDNF
to be released into our bloodstream. And learning a new skill will help to target the area of the brain that is being used in that skill. So one of the best ways to enhance brain neuroplasticity is to get our heart rate up through vigorous exercise and then immediately after the exercise, practice a new challenging skill, like learning to play an instrument or learning a new language, something like that. That way,
We're cooperating with our natural design instead of working against it with drugs and pharmaceuticals. So I just mentioned sleep. Getting good quality sleep on a regular basis is foundational to the Christian healthy lifestyle. I recommend getting between seven and nine hours of sleep a night, not just time in bed, but actual sleep. I mentioned earlier,
that our bodies prefer to do most of their rebuilding and repairing as well as detoxification while we're sleeping. Another benefit to good sleep is that our brains consolidate memory. During sleep, our brains take short-term memory and move it into long-term memory. We consolidate those memories. It's kind of like a computer that has RAM or random access memory. RAM is the computer's short-term memory and the computer uses that to perform simple
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of repetitive tasks. And from time to time, the computer takes some of that data in the RAM and moves it onto the hard drive where it can be accessed at a later date. The hard drive is like our long-term memory. So sleep is very important for memory and cognitive function. Sleep is also super important for brain detoxification. During sleep, our bodies use what's called our glymphatic system to flush toxins out of the brain.
The glymphatic system, not lymphatic, but glymphatic system, consists of cerebral spinal fluid and during sleep, our brain cells actually shrink and that allows for more flow of the spinal fluid through our brains that serves to flush out toxins. It's just an amazing system that God has created. I often say in the show, we should think of sleep as a nutrient because it is.
good quality sleep is one of the most important things we can do for our mental cognition. Sometimes getting good sleep is easier said than done. We could easily do a whole episode on this topic alone, but what I want to simply say here is one of the most important things we can do to prepare our bodies for sleep is to give ourselves permission to relax. The more we try to sleep, the less likely it is that we will. Remember,
Our bodies know what to do. We've just got to get the obstacles out of the way. And one of the obstacles to falling asleep and staying asleep is worrying about what we have going on tomorrow. So what do we do? I suggest practicing journaling. Write down your concerns. There's something very powerful about getting your thoughts down on paper. And then remember, there's probably nothing we can do about those concerns right now.
So write them down with a pencil and paper, not on your phone, but actually use a pencil and paper, and address those things tomorrow or when the time is appropriate. When we're climbing in a bed, we should use the acronym WIN, W-I-N. That stands for what's important now. What's important at that moment is falling asleep and allowing our bodies to perform all the essential functions they need to for our restoration.
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Do you hear the word rest in the word restoration? Quality rest is the only thing that should be on our minds when we climb into bed and close our eyes. Another thing I want to talk about is loneliness and social isolation. I said earlier, Genesis 2, 18 says, it's not good for the man to be alone. Man, there is so much wisdom packed into that statement. We could do a whole episode just on that one verse. But anyway,
One of the biggest risk factors for cognitive decline in elderly people is loneliness and social isolation. In my nine pills of health, pillar number two is love for others. God wired us to be in relationships. Having friendships and engaging in conversation with other people is very good for mental health. In fact, I would go so far to say is it's absolutely essential. Engaging in conversation, being a good listener,
and responding appropriately requires a great deal of mental processing or mental exercise, that mental processing keeps us young. The last thing I want to mention is alcohol consumption. In the past, we were told that one or two glasses of wine every day is beneficial to our health. All the data that those recommendations were based on has been debunked. Modern research has confirmed that when it comes to mental cognition,
There is no safe level of alcohol. Any amount of alcohol is toxic and if we drink enough of it, it will kill us. Any alcohol consumption is harmful to brain cells and it impairs mental cognition. Even one drink. I did a whole episode on alcohol consumption in episode 187. So if this is a topic that interests you, I suggest going back and listening to that episode, episode 187. Am I saying you have to stop drinking alcohol in order to be healthy?
No, the decision as to whether or not to drink is an individual one, but just keep a couple things in mind. Number one, although alcohol is detrimental to our bodies, it can be good for the soul or the mind. It promotes social connections. And as I mentioned earlier, friendships and social connectedness are very important health enhancing factors. The second thing I want to mention is there's a wide genetic variation
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as to how well a person can handle their alcohol. And an otherwise healthy person can tolerate alcohol more easily than someone whose health is compromised. If you're already dealing with mental decline, it would probably be best to abstain. So the decision as to how much alcohol to consume or to consume it at all is an individual one, but I just wanted to share this with you before we conclude the episode.
So what about those supplements that can enhance mental cognition? The first thing I would say is don't fall victim to expensive, sophisticated marketing campaigns. There's a product out there that's heavily promoted on television. I'm not going to mention the name, but it starts with Prev. That product has never been shown to do anything for mental health. Many practitioners will recommend supplements that contain phospholipids. Our brains are about 60 % fat.
and phospholipid molecules are the primary building blocks of cell membranes in our gray matter or the cerebral cortex. So to many, supplementing with phospholipids seems to make sense, but here's the problem. Phospholipids contain polyunsaturated fatty acids. Supplemental phospholipids used to be derived from bovine or cow's brain, but because of mad cow disease, that bovine source fell out of favor. Now,
Supplemental phospholipids are produced from soy and sunflower lecithin. Soy and sunflower lecithin contain polyunsaturated fatty acids or PUFAs. Again, if you've listened to episodes 141 and 142 on this show, you'll know that I don't recommend consuming large amounts of PUFAs or supplementing with polyunsaturated fatty acids. There's a product that doesn't contain phospholipids that I can recommend. It's called Brain Cell Support
by a company called Metabolic Maintenance. Brain cell support has ingredients that have all been shown to support mental cognition in clinical trials. They have a product in there called Cognizin. That's their trademark name that's been shown to support attention and memory performance in clinical trials. Now, Cognizin supports phospholipid turnover, but it does not contain phospholipids or PUFAs. That's a very important distinction.
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It also has Ginkgo Biloba. Ginkgo Biloba has been shown in the medical literature to support cerebral blood flow or capillary flow to our brains. And that provides a neuroprotection and it promotes processing speed and cognitive function. You can't buy brain cell support at the retail level. It's only sold through practitioners. And since I am a practitioner, I have a relationship with a company called Fullscript.
If you create an account with Fullscript using my website link, you can buy metabolic maintenance brain cell support. Now, I'll make sure to put a link in the show notes. Another product that I recommend for focus and mental clarity is made by Beekeepers Natural. It's called B-LXR Brain Fuel. B-LXR is made from royal jelly, which is the queen bee's exclusive fuel. I often take B-LXR before I hit record in these episodes.
It's caffeine free and it really does give you a brain boost. It has Bacopa manari. That's an adaptogenic herb used in traditional medicine to improve signal processing in the brain and help the body manage stress.
and stress management prevents that cortisol shrinkage we talked about earlier in the brain. Bacopo-mineri has also been studied for its potential to support BDNF levels, which helps the brain maintain its neuroplasticity. Now here's a pro tip. When you first start taking BLXLR, don't take the whole vial. Start off with a quarter or maybe half a vial. You want to see how you react to it because it's really quite powerful.
You'll feel a real surge in blood flow to your brain when you take it. You don't want that to be uncomfortable. Well, I hope this hasn't been overwhelming. Remember, you don't have to implement all these things at once. Do one at a time. Pick the thing that resonates most with you, where you believe you'll get the most bang for your buck, and start there. And once that becomes a regular part of your routine, and then add something else in. Now, I also want to remind you once again,
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that because of my new work schedule of flying airplanes, I don't have the bandwidth to continue every other week episode creation. So moving forward from here, the next episode, the frequency of these episodes is gonna be once a month. So that's it for now. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening. Go out there and live abundantly. I'll talk with you next time. Be blessed.
