Are you ready to start your journey toward better neurology and overall wellness? Restore is one of the five foundation pillars in many successful recovery programs at Sharlin Health and Neurology, offering a unique approach that can help you make meaningful changes in your life. With this blog post, we will explore the meaning behind Restore—why it stands out from other strategies and ways to implement its practices into your lifestyle for maximum benefit. We’ll look at what makes Restore such a powerful tool for reaching positive goals, so come along with us as we demystify this important part of achieving lasting transformation!
This Polysemous Word – Restore
Restore means a lot of different things to different people, including my team. Restore can mean restoring the foundations of health.
A lot of times folks say, ”I just wish I could get back to the way I was.”
In our Brain Tune-Up program, our goal is to help you be the very best version of yourself. Restoring the foundations comes with the first three pillars of identifying the problem correctly, investigating the root causes, and integrating those puzzle pieces together into a cohesive plan. The modifiable lifestyle factors remain foundational to the Brain Tune-Up program. They are sleep, movement, nutrition, the mind-body connection, stress resilience, and our relationship with others.
Another meaning of Restore is the critical role that hormones play in brain health.
The Critical Roles of the Hormones
Hormones are chemical messengers produced by glands in the endocrine system. They:
- play a crucial role in regulating the body’s functions, and
- are responsible for maintaining homeostasis—the balance of physiological processes necessary for optimal health and wellness.
The brain is the most complex organ of the body, and it requires a delicate balance of hormones to function correctly. Hormones regulate neuroactivity, behavior, and development. Moreover, they protect the brain from stress and degeneration. Hormones affect the brain by binding to specific cell receptors, leading to neuroactivity and behavioral changes. Imbalances in hormones can lead to a wide range of mental and neurological health conditions and cognitive impairments, making it essential to maintain a balance of hormones for optimal brain health.
What Happens when there is a Concerning Imbalance?
Hormone imbalances can cause mental health problems such as depression and anxiety and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
Hormones also play a critical role in brain development, particularly during the prenatal and early postnatal periods. For example
- Estrogen is essential for forming neural connections in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning and memory.
- Similarly, progesterone is necessary for developing the cerebellum, a brain region involved in motor coordination and balance.
- Progesterone also plays an important role in developmental myelination and myelin repair. This can be critical in diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis – where the immune system’s attack on myelin is a significant part of the disease process, and in the aging nervous system, which appears to remain sensitive to progesterone’s beneficial effects.
Furthermore, hormones directly impact the brain’s ability to adapt to stress. Cortisol is released in response to stress and plays a crucial role in regulating the body’s stress response. It helps the body adapt to stressors by increasing blood sugar levels and blood pressure while reducing inflammation.
Chronic stress can cause too much cortisol. This can damage the brain and make mental health conditions like depression and anxiety worse. It can also affect the nervous system, causing problems like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
Hormones protect brain health by preventing the degeneration of brain cells. Melatonin produced at night plays a critical role in regulating the body’s sleep-wake cycle and is essential for maintaining the health of the brain’s neurons. In addition, melatonin helps to protect brain cells from damage caused by free radicals, which are molecules that can damage cells and contribute to the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Testosterone, estradiol, progesterone, and other hormones play a crucial role in brain health and in preventing neurological diseases such as ALS, Alzheimer’s, MS, and Parkinson’s disease. Testosterone has been shown to improve cognition, mood, and brain function. While estradiol has been linked to increased neuroplasticity and better memory function. Progesterone has been shown to protect the brain from damage caused by oxidative stress and inflammation, as well as to enhance neurogenesis and synaptic plasticity (making of new brain cells and how nerve cells connect to one another).
Other hormones, such as Growth hormone and dehydroepiandrosterone, or DHEA, have also been shown to protect brain health and prevent neurological diseases.
It’s important to note that hormone imbalances can have adverse effects on brain health, so it is essential to maintain balanced hormones throughout through proper diet, exercise, stress management, and other lifestyle factors. Additionally, hormone replacement therapy (HR) may be beneficial for individuals with low hormone levels, such as post-menopausal women, but men may benefit as well.
At Sharlin Health and Neurology, in our Brain Tuneup program, we focus on optimal hormone levels for men and women of all ages. Hormones are a key player in providing our brains with the protection they need from neurological diseases, and it looks like optimizing them could even be beneficial to those already suffering. Make sure your hormone levels stay balanced.
Hormone Contribution to Brain Wellness
It is crucial to maintain balanced hormone levels and address imbalances to support brain health and reduce the risk or impact of neurological disorders.
Testosterone is vital for maintaining brain structure, improving mood, regulating anxiety, providing motivation, and improving cognitive function. Testosterone affects how aggressive and sexual a person is. It also controls the release of other chemicals in the brain, such as dopamine and serotonin. These chemicals help regulate a person’s mood, anxiety, emotions, and motivation.
Estradiol is a form of estrogen, which is important for maintaining brain structure as well as cognitive function, including learning and memory. Estradiol has been shown to protect the brain from oxidative stress, which can lead to damage and contribute to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. Estradiol has been shown to be particularly protective in women who test positive for the APOE4 gene, the gene most notorious for increasing the risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Progesterone has several important functions in the brain, including regulating the release of neurotransmitters such as Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) and serotonin, which are involved in regulating mood, sleep, and anxiety. Progesterone has been shown to help protect the brain. It can reduce inflammation and stress and help new brain cells grow and develop.
Our hormones are powerful protectors of our brain health; cortisol and melatonin work in tandem to maintain cognitive function. Cortisol keeps stress levels low, allowing for better learning, memory storage, and emotional balance, while Melatonin ensures a good night’s sleep, which is imperative for maintaining optimal mental performance whilst reducing the likelihood of age-related decline.
Overall, hormones play essential roles in maintaining brain health and function, and imbalances or deficiencies of these hormones can lead to a range of cognitive and mood-related problems. We know from science-based research that optimizing hormones can protect your healthy brain and may slow the progression of disorders that involve autoimmunities, such as MS, and degeneration, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS.
It is our hope that through this article you will have a greater understanding of the meaning behind restore and why it is one of the foundation pillars of Sharlin Health and Neurology. We believe in its ability to help individuals recover from nutritional imbalance, hormonal deficiency, and other health concerns. If you are interested in learning more about how we can help support your brain wellness journey, please schedule a discovery call with us today. Thank you for reading!
Are you ready to embark on a journey toward relief and lasting solutions for your brain health, as well as overall wellness? Take the first step with us by scheduling a discovery call. It’s an opportunity that allows both of us to decide if we’re right for each other while answering all those burning questions you have!
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DISCLAIMER: The information in this email is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All content is for general informational purposes only and does not replace a consultation with your own doctor/health professional