Vitamin D3 is your friend

Vitamin D3 is your friend - learn more at Found My Fitness - http://foundmyfitness.com
Vitamin D3 is your friend – learn more at Found My Fitness – http://foundmyfitness.com

#1 Takeaway: Vitamin D3 is essential for brain health, healing, and a healthy system. If you read nothing else, please make sure you get enough Vitamin D3. You can get it at any drug store or supermarket. It’s possibly one of the cheapest ways to heal up and stay healthy.

Including brain-healing and brain-healthy.

And it’s made a huge difference for me.

Now, for years my Vitamin D3 was low. My doctor (rest their soul) measured it each year and told me to just take 3,000 IUs a day, I’d get better. But they never explained to me exactly *why* I needed to take my Vitamin D3, other than it having to do with my bone density.  So, I never actually took as much as I needed, and sure enough, year after year, my numbers went down… and down… and down… dangerously low. And I stayed that way in the interim, which can’t be good.

This is the doctor who just passed away last month after an 8-month battle with sarcoma. I really liked them, yet in some respects, I felt I wasn’t getting proper care. And if they hadn’t passed away, I would be working with another doctor. The Vitamin D3 thing is a big reason for that.

All the while I could have been checking intermittently to see how I was doing. But it wasn’t until I’d been low-low-low for something like 3-4 years that they actually scheduled follow-up tests. And then my levels bounced back. Because my neuropsych explained to me some of the importance of Vitamin D3 to cognition and feeling like a normal human being… and I also did some research on it.

But did my doctor (rest their soul) tell me any of this?

No.

And that is a huge problem.

I’m going for my annual physical today. I’m 4 months overdue, because I was waiting for my doctor to return, which they never did. I’m going back to the same practice they were at before, because they have all my records, and I don’t feel like starting from scratch right now. After I have this physical and get my blood drawn and get my numbers, I’ll move on. I’ve found some doctors who look like possible candidates, and I’ll be interviewing them over the coming months. I take my health very seriously, and I am on a preventive care mission, to keep things from spiraling out of control like they have before… and also to make sure I am healthy for a long, long time.

I’ve just now come out of the woods with my TBI issues, and I don’t want to squander any more time on needless suffering and drama.

Vitamin D3 is a big part of it. I take 3,000 IUs religiously each morning – with my calcium-magnesium, B-Complex, Glutathione, Taurine, and a probiotic with 45 billion little bacteria to keep my gut healthy. I started with the Glutathione and Taurine a couple of weeks ago while I was on vacation, and I can’t sense any detrimental effects, so I’m going to keep taking them.

The king of them all, however, is Vitamin D3. I’ve been listening to Rhonda Patrick talk about it on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Here’s a video of it — it’s long — 3 hours. But the first hour has a lot of good stuff in it about Vitamin D3.

Apparently, D3 controls a whole bunch of things, and according to a theoretical paper by Dr. Rhonda Patrick, low Vitamin D3 could be implicated in things like autism. It’s all very complicated, but seratonin is involved, which is also related to gut inflammation, and it also has to do with other conditions where the gut is inflamed.

And I wonder if low Vitamin D3 hasn’t played a role in my brain not functioning properly — as well as often having been taken for autistic by people who just met me. I know I have a lot of abdominal inflammation — that’s another thing that my past doctor (rest their soul) said, every time I went in for an annual checkup. They noted it, but they didn’t actually take steps to do something about it. It’s like they expected me to tell them what to do.

I dunno. So much of the research is new and emerging, it’s hard to keep current, but if there are persistent issues that show up every single year and don’t change over time — and those issues can be connected with other health issues — then it seems like a prudent thing to actually do something about it.

Right?

I think so. And after today, I’m looking for another doctor who will take a preventive approach — not treat the human body like an overly complex system that cannot possibly be understood by any one person. That’s like saying, because I don’t understand the minutiae of electricity, I  shouldn’t change the lightbulbs in my house, turn off the lights when I leave a room, or use energy-saving appliances. It’s like saying, because I don’t understand precisely how your car functions, you shouldn’t clean it or put gas in it, or do preventive maintenance. You should only take it to the mechanic when you hear a sound you cannot explain, or you break down by the side of the road.

People take better care of their vehicles than their bodies, by and large. If we know how to take care of our cars, why not apply those same principles to taking care of our bodies?

And why not take Vitamin D3? Seriously, the cost is so low, and the benefits are so immense, it only makes sense. It might even help clear up cognitive/behavioral issues for you — like it did for me.

I cannot say enough about this. And the more I listen to Dr. Rhonda Patrick talk about it, the more convinced I become.

Take your Vitamin D3 people. It is the one thing that will look out for you, when no one else will.

Going to get my taurine… and probiotics… and exercise

Gotta get some new stuff to work with
Gotta get some new stuff to work with

So, I’ve been listening to the Joe Rogan Experience podcast with Dr. Rhonda Patrick, and it’s pretty amazing stuff. Google it or search on YouTube. I’m not going to give you the direct link, because you should find it yourself – and beautiful things can happen when you start searching.

You’ll probably find more info out there, than I can point you to, anyway. It’s all about initiative, focus, and follow-through. And if you’re like me, you’ll go off and start searching, find a bunch of stuff that is both more relevant and a total distraction… and then 30 minutes later, you’ll realize that you were really looking for that podcast, and you have to regroup and refocus.

Which is all good practice, anyway.

I’ve been listening to the Joe Rogan Experience podcast (Powerful JRE), and in between the talk about MMA and smoking pot (which I don’t, for personal reasons, as well as what I’ve seen long-term smoking do to friends), there are podcasts featuring really smart people who know a lot about how the human system gets damaged — and how to fix that damage.

Dr. Mark Gordon is one of those people. Dr. Rhonda Patrick is another one. And they’re all talking about head trauma, what it does to you, and how you can mitigate the effects.

And in the process of learning more, I’m finding other information. Like how the amino acid taurine helps you grow new brain cells. Apparently, it does a lot of helpful things – and if you don’t have enough of it, it’s not great for you. That’s bad, in fact.

I’m also getting confirmation from scientists on the JRE podcast who really know how to explain things to the rest of us, that’s confirming what I’ve read and believe – in ways that really stoke my determination. Exercise has become even more important to me, thanks to their on-camera talks, and more specifically, interval training is taking center stage. I’ve been more active in the past six weeks than I have been in quite some time, thanks to the fitness centers and the pool at work, and I’d backed off on my morning workouts. But now I’m back to them, especially on weekends, pushing myself harder than I have in quite some time. Just really making myself work does wonders for my mood and alertness, over the course of each day.

I’m a little out of it this morning (workout notwithstanding). I had a long and busy week, and then I was up late last night, getting some must-do items out of the way. I also woke up early, and I’m groggy and foggy. I’m not a big fan of feeling this way, but by this afternoon, I will be on a beach, probably lying down under the umbrella, just chillin’. I’ve got a week ahead of me to balance out a little bit of work with some major chill-time, so that’s something to look forward to.

The main thing is, I stay aware of my surroundings, I take care of myself, I don’t rush, and I just be deliberate about every.little.thing.

I can’t afford to have an accident or get hurt, and I’m sufficiently depleted and spacey, that it’s a definite risk. I also can’t afford to not do the things I need to do. I’ve got errands to run and bags to pack and vehicles to clean out, before I go, so…

The main thing with me, these days, is to keep safe and get healthy and strong. There’s a tradeoff, of course, because it’s tough to get really healthy and really strong without some element of risk … or stressing your system. If you’re pushing the envelope regularly, you’re going to develop in certain ways, and those ways will probably also be accompanied by stress. It’s tough to push yourself past your limits without stress — and a bit of damage.

So, the task at hand is to not back off and avoid stress and risk and situations that test me, but to figure out how to recover better, build myself back, and develop strengths rather than weaknesses.

Some people come up against challenges, and when they fall short (or feel like they do), they interpret it as meaning they’re deficient. And as they face one challenge after another, they keep confirming their suspicions that they’re not up to the task – or any task at all. And they block themselves in, building a wall around themselves that keeps the world out and also keeps them out of the world. Eventually, it keeps them from doing anything and everything that matters to them and gives their lives meaning. They’ve done it to themselves, but they think the rest of the world is to blame.

When I fall short, I take it as a challenge and important information about where I need to improve, in order to reach my goals. If anything, I want those experiences to tear down the walls and give me more access to strengths and abilities I never knew I had before. Sometimes you have to really take a hit, before you can access hidden talents and gifts.

But you don’t want all the hits to tear the crap out of you, so…

You’ve got to build back up. Recover. Be smart about things – which can be difficult, if you’ve gotten hit in the head a bunch of times. I’m lucky, in that I know that I have executive function difficulties, so I can make some really bad decisions, especially under stressful situations or when I am tired. It gives me pause. A reality check.

Speaking of reality check, I’m getting my raw DNA data sequenced online. I uploaded my raw DNA data from ancestry.com to the website promethease.com/ondemand, paid $5, and now I’m waiting for the results. It takes about 20 minutes to do it, so I’ll go get my shower and get ready for the day, then check back in.

Fascinating stuff. Largely recreational… and who knows what I’ll find. Hopefully, I’ll get some more data that will show me where I’ve got vulnerabilities, so I can do something about them. Finding out if I’m generically predisposed to Alzheimer’s will change things for me, I’m sure. After all the TBIs I’ve had, I need to know if this could be a problem. It’s always in the back of my mind, but why not find out what the data says.

Anyway, time to get moving. This day won’t move itself.

Onward!

Joe Rogan Experience #574 – Dr. Mark Gordon, Matthew Gosney & Jason Hall

Talking about the work Dr. Mark Gordon is doing with vets

SuperHuman Radio – Reversing Traumatic Brain Injury

I just discovered an excellent radio show: SuperHuman Radio. They’re pretty much on the same wavelength as me, though I’m not nearly into all the supplements that they are. Everybody has their focus, and for this show (listen here) they talk about something that’s near and dear to my heart.

Guest: Dr. Mark Gordon – Brad Leggett & Dr. Cassandra Forsythe-Pribanic

Dr. Gordon discusses the prevalence of Traumatic Brain Injury and the millions of people who go undiagnosed for decades while symptoms become unbearable. Mainstream medical orthodoxy do not understand how to treat these individuals properly even if they get the diagnosis correct. Leggett, a pro football player with the NFL was one such case that Dr. Gordon diagnosed and treated and he is now leading a full and healthy life PLUS Dr. Forsythe-Pribanic gives the second installment of New Rules Of Training For Woman with the focus being upper-body training.

Also of particular interest is the focus on hormonal changes as a result of TBI, which can affect so much. Check it out.

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