Healthy Brain Program

Would you like to know if you are doing what it takes to make your brain more healthy?

This Healthy Brain scoring system will help you do just that.

You can click the link or the image to get started.  You will be redirected to another page.  Its is really helpful to the success of the program and necessary before we can move forward.

    Healthy Brain score questionnaire

By the way, if your interest is in brain health for preventing Dementia or Alzheimer’s, you’ll want to watch my Dementia video for inspiration on this topic; then come back to read the rest of this.  that we can reverse some dementia and delay Alzheimer’s significantly — see my video on that.)

I have a system that gives you the tools to help yourself.  So, for those who are unable to come to our facilities, you never even need to see me.  But, there is a catch.  You have to apply what I teach you.

Origin and the Power of the Healthy Brain score and the entire Tinnitus Synergy program

If you would like more information about the origin and the power of the Healthy Brain score and the entire Tinnitus Synergy program came to be, continue reading reading.

This journey to the best solution for tinnitus began as I was researching for solutions to chronic pain.  Transitioning from Pain to Tinnitus may seem like a large jump for some of you, as it did for me. As a Chiropractic Neurologist,  the most common conditions I see are chronic, pain-related.  As part of maintaining my board certification in neurology, I must read research continually.  So, the logical condition for me to research was chronic pain.  The ultimate pain conditions to research are phantom limb pain and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). I found the research on successful treatments of these conditions fascinating.  As I began to talk to other doctors, even medical neurologists, I found that they were familiar with these pain conditions, but they knew nothing of the successful treatments, apparently because it was not within the realm of drugs and surgery or traditional approaches taught in medical school.

Early on, and even today is some back-woods mindsets, the medical community believed that those who complained of tinnitus or chronic pain from phantom limbs were over-imaginative or that they were crazy.

The doctors I know don’t think these folks are crazy.  But even with compassionate doctors that want to understand and believe you, they often say, “Nothing can be done;  don’t waste your time.”

Does that remind you of your experience with your tinnitus?

Now, with functional MRI (fMRI), we know that tinnitus and chronic pain is due to structural and functional changes in the brain.

I applied treatment protocols that had been successfully researched, and I made up my own.

I have always been driven to make things better  — since I was a child.  I remember the company that advertised,

“We don’t make things; we make things better!”

That has been my unofficial motto ever since.  My wife (We’ve been married a short 15 years now.) wonders out loud, “Why are you always trying to change things?”

Unless something works wonderfully, I automatically look for a way to improve it.

As I developed effective systems for chronic pain treatments, I began to notice the common patterns.

These patterns of brain dysfunction involved:

1. Normal brain tissue that,
2. lost normal nerve stimulation, resulting in,
   1. brain that did not function, or in some unfortunate cases,
   2. brain that became overactive and irritable where it used to have normal sensation.  If it was normally an area that perceived touch on the hand, it now perceived pain, itching, other  irritating sensations on the hand.

I noticed that, occasionally, the chronic pain research also mentioned tinnitus.  At first this perplexed me, but now that I had the pattern figured out, it was obvious!  Why hadn’t I seen this all along?

In fact, with functional MRI (fMRI) we can actually see pictures of someone without Tinnitus, with Tinnitus, and the change after successful treatment of tinnitus with auditory discrimination therapy (ADT). (I don’t do fMRI in my office, but we see these results from research facilities.)

Again, I mentioned these research findings to experts in the field of audiology (hearing science).  They were interested, but new very little of the latest research related to these natural approaches.  I started to follow the work of the individual research scientists that had done the original works with natural treatments, but despite their successes, they had moved on to other fields of research.  I discovered that those who make their living doing research must move to the research fields where the grant money takes them.  Perhaps that is why this information doesn’t make it to

Undaunted and excited with this new discovery, I began my own research project.

Three years later, I had some amazing success and some disappointing failures.  I suppose I should have been content with the successes, but, as I say, “We don’t make things; we make things better!”

What was I missing? I kept changing the factors in the research — looking for the perfect combination that would spark the brain to a balance of normal activity.  The first year of the study, our improvements were averaging 28%. In 2015, we averaged 39% improvement. This is exciting!

This is when I found the missing piece…once again painfully obvious, with hindsight perspective.

My revelation came in the form of 2 wonderful pieces of research on dementia REVERSAL (ref below).  Dementia is what happens with folks with Alzheimer’s, perhaps the most prominent brain diseases of our time….and, yes, I said REVERSAL of dementia. (But, let’s be clear; no one is saying we can reverse Alzheimer’s.  It is clear that we can reverse some dementia and delay Alzheimer’s significantly — see my video on that.) From this research, I developed the Healthy Brain Score.  This score is based off of multiple criteria proven to affect brain health.  A low score means your brain is being nourished well, that it’s fertile ground for healthy, growing and rejuvenating neurons and neuron connections….but we’ll get back to the score later.

Previously, if we wanted to research the treatment of dementia MEMORY we would have people practice REMEMBERING things and see if they improved or stopped forgetting as much.  It worked, barely.

That’s logical, but it is incomplete.

This new research addressed almost everything.

And it worked… beautifully.  The dementia was reversed!  I would like to say that I did the research; I did not, but have been excited to apply it to my patients.

What is the secret to its success?  They recognized that the brain needed 3 things:

1. Specific Activation
2. Global Activation
3. Maximize Nourishment
4. Minimize Irritants

So, that was for dementia; what about Tinnitus?

The different forms of auditory training for Tinnitus, even the one I developed, only address the first need, Specific Activation.

Could it be that the different forms of auditory training for Tinnitus work REALLY well for some people, but not everyone, for the same reason that the memory training exercises don’t work for everyone?  …because they are missing the right combination of: Specific Activation, Global Activation, Maximized Nourishment, and Minimized Irritants?

Of course!  We are talking about the same brain!…whether it is the part of the brain that perceives sound or perceives memories.  In fact, the sound centers of the brain, where tinnitus comes from, and the memory centers, where dementia and Alzheimers’ come from, are only centimeters apart.  They literally almost touch each other in the brain!

I went back to my research data, looking for those tinnitus sufferers who had been Activated Globally, Nourished Maximally, and Irritated Minimally.  All of  this information was there, because I had asked each individual for it as part of the enrollment process.  I knew it was important, but I had gotten lost in the researchers paradox of looking for changes in the body’s complex system when only studying the effect of one simple factor.   I had seen hints of this combination resulting in greater success emerge earlier, but it was hidden deep in the data.  When I analyzed the results with this new viewpoint, the pattern was obvious.  Those who had the most “nourishing” combination had the greatest success.

Of course, not everyone fit PERFECTLY in this box, but it had proven to be VERY powerful and predictive.

Then I compared this “nourishing combination” to the Brain Nourishment Score criteria.  It fit almost perfectly with my brain Nourishment Score I had developed for Dementia treatment.

With this information we can, and this is exciting, we seem to have the formula for helping almost everyone’s tinnitus improve or improve MORE!

Now, it is a matter  of your knowing WHAT to do, HOW to do it, and, of course, DOING it well.

What to do:

Here at Synergy, we have a 6-Steps to Health approach that we have found to be effective:

These steps will be applied to what/how you: Eat, Drink, Breathe, Think, Move & Sleep.

There is no priority order to these elements of health that is the same for everyone.  For example,one person may be entirely sedentary (poor “Move” element) and another may eat very poorly (poor “Eat” element).  For each of them that may be the most important element to improve and without improving it, that cannot be healthy.  That is where Step 1 comes into play, the Healthy Brain Score.

The Synergy Brain Nourishment score will accomplish Step 1 for you.

It will take you about 30 minutes to complete the thorough questionnaire.

There is no charge.  All you will need is your height, weight, name and email, so we can send you the  results.  We will also have you find your resting heart rate…pretty simple, but since the questionnaires are built from standardized questionnaires, the results are VERY predictive of real health status.

Healthy Brain score questionnaire  Click the link to get started.

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Okay, that was the questionnaire.  It’s truly amazing the information we can get from that. It’s because researchers have done the hard work of doing what we call “standardizing” it. To be clear, the entire Brain Nourishment score has not been standardized yet, but most of its pieces have been. For example, the physical fitness portion has been compared to people’s fitness ability in doing a 1-mile walk test. This set of questions is at least as accurate as that. In fact, it even correlates significantly with the “gold-standard” testing done on a treadmill where they measure oxygen intake and gases used by individuals. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831835/pdf/1471-2458-10-59.pdf)

Once you have identified what your body needs, you start addressing the problem to help  you get better.

Over the last 20 years, I have put together the resources for you to accomplish this without coming to see me.  There are 2 reasons I did this:

1. Since the time I was in 8th grade, I have had a passion to help others get well by addressing multiple areas of their health.  I knew, even then, that if you just try to address the health area that comes easy, or the one that is the latest fad, you will fail in the long run.
2. Most people need a little information and guidance to help themselves in a natural approach to restoring their body’s health more than they need a specialist to help manage their disease condition.  Through years of seeing patients who had health conditions that varied from Migraines to Back pain and from Acne to Celiac disease, and from Tinnitus to Alzheimer’s disease, I found that there were common elements that contributed to causing or worsening their condition.  I also found that those elements common to each of those conditions needed to be addressed in a personalized way, because everyone is a little bit different.  So, I developed the “6 Steps to Health” approach for each health condition that I saw often.

Certainly, there is a time to get the doctor involved personally to help you treat your condition.  Sometimes, infections or other serious conditions require a medical doctor’s testing and prescription, you may need the support, direction, and  spinal adjustment by a chiropractor, you may need the personal attention and training of a physical therapist.  But all of this will work better when you have begun addressing the foundational work of the 6 Steps.

When you want to start helping yourself get healthy, it’s nice to have set of tools to start going through that process of getting healthy, naturally.

Until now, someone had to be a patient of mine to go through this 6-step process.  Now, with the Healthy Brain score questionnaire,  you have access to this process without becoming a patient.

To learn more about how we address each pillar of your health, follow the links below:  {Until these become active, we will send you the information through email correspondence.}

• Eat, Drink,
• Breathe, Think
• Move
• Sleep

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For example, let’s say someone has Sleep Apnea. It could have several causes.  Obesity is a common one.  Sometimes it seems to be purely neurological.  My program for sleep, “Sleep is Good, Good Sleep is Better,” will not rid you of obesity.  So, if you have sleep apnea, you need to be evaluated for that.  But if you sleep problems are not that severe, or even as you get personal, professional help for your apnea, you will want to apply what I have taught MANY others about the common problems preventing good sleep.

The goal is to help balance level of inflammation, blood sugar, and insulin so that the brain cells live in a nourishing environment.

We do this through a personalized food and drink plan that is FRESH, LOCAL, IN-SEASON, NUTRIENT-DENSE, COLORFUL, LOW-GLYCEMIC, LOW-GRAIN, and LOW-INFLAMMATORY.

 

The goal is to reduce triggers of gut irritation, auto-immunity and inflammation so that the brain cells do not have to fight against constant damage.

We do this by reducing or eliminating food sensitivities, highly processed food, most grains and sugars, and artificial ingredients.

 

The goal is to stimulate the brain cells to grow stringer and more interconnected.

We do this by getting good Sleep, Exercise (Physical and Mental), Improved Muscle and Joint Function (4-6x/week).

 

The goal is to overcome genetic or environmental  deficiencies to promote brain cell healing, strengthening, and growth.

We do this by taking nutritional supplements based on your functional lab tests.

 

The goal is to track progress in a measurable way and determine if more or quicker results can be achieved.

We do this by using Questionnaires and Functional lab tests that revealed significant & modifiable results in Step 1.  For Tinnitus, we use the THI, a standardized, short 25-question survey.

References:

• Reversal of cognitive decline: A novel therapeutic program    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221920/
• A 2 year multidomain intervention of diet, exercise, cognitive training…  http://press.thelancet.com/FINGER.pdf
• The Relax photo is attributed to :  Vicente Villamón on Flickr, Intestine photo  attributed to Hey Paul Studios on Flickr, Cleanse image by Barbara Walsh onFlickr, Exercise image by Bluesbby on Flickr