Brain and Body Fitness

Join us in this episode as we explore the vital connection between body fitness and brain health. Discover how regular physical activity can enhance cognitive function, boost memory, and reduce the risk of neurological disorders.

Transcript

Connie Gaylor: 0:11

Welcome back, listeners to the Smashing the Stigma podcast. Today we welcome Mike Jeffcoat of Activate Brain Body Fitness, which is located right here in Montgomery. Mike is the co-founder of activate, along with Adam Ortman. And combined they have 45 years of leadership in the fitness industry. Mike, welcome. Thank you for joining us. We talked at our mental health fair back in what was at the beginning of April and, uh, thought it would be a great idea to have you come on and talk about some of the things that you guys are doing. It's a little different, this podcast. It's going to be a little different than the ones that we've done in the past. The other ones have been very topic oriented to a mental health condition, something like that. This one, we're going to really focus on the integration of brain and body fitness. And maybe that's not something that people have actually thought about being mental wellness. I think that's kind of the rubric that we're going to go down. Can you just tell tell me why our listeners should consider the relation of their the relationship between their brain and their body, fitness to mental health. How does that all go together?

Mike Gelfgot: 1:23

Yeah. It's interesting you bring that question up because I feel like we tend to separate the two, although we understand that exercising and everybody would agree that exercising is the best thing you can do as a way to better manage your anxiety, better manage your depression. In fact, a lot of neurologists will tell you it's the best form of medication we have and in many times works really well along with medication. But what people don't realize is that when if you are struggling with, say, anxiety or depression, it structurally changes your brain. In fact, I preparing for this, I looked up a few specifics and this is the only this is as specific as I'm going to get with this. Where structurally our amygdala enlarges. And the amygdala, remember, is what controls the fight flight or fight flight or freeze. There you go. Mechanism. Part of our part of our brains. And so if it increases it, that means you don't do a very good job in regulating and managing stress. That's one part. The other interesting thing is with anxiety and depression specifically, it shrinks the size of your hippocampus, which is what's associated with memory, movement and learning. So from our perspective, that's where we would come in, right. So what the way that we help people is we are able to incorporate physical and cognitive exercises that work on things like memory and focus and attention and reaction time and better stress management as part of the People's Workout Program to help them improve the function of their brain. And we have some unique ways to measure that data. So that's the connection. Everybody understands that exercise is good for the brain. And yes, if you if you if you work out the way I'm suggesting you exercise, not only will you mentally benefit, but you will also structurally benefit meaning in terms of memory, focus, attention, reaction time. And we'll get into more more of how the specifics of that comes together.

Connie Gaylor: 3:31

That's awesome. So okay, let's just kind of start with somebody comes to activate and they are interested in getting started. What would that look like? What would that process look like for them.

Mike Gelfgot: 3:44

Yeah. Yeah that's a that's a great question. So our our our focus at activates to help people promote the link between exercise and brain health. So before we get to the brain health part of it, understand that all of this is only successful if you actually stick to an exercise program. So at the end of the day, you are exercising. And what we're doing is we're incorporating cognitive exercise part of your workout program. So because it's an exercise program first and foremost that has cognitive benefits. Step one when you come in our objective is to get to know you. We need to understand why is this significant to you? Like what have you done in the past? And maybe how come you've had a hard time sticking to an exercise program? And then once we understand that, then we take you through a really comprehensive physical and cognitive assessment. And where during that assessment, we basically identify what we need to avoid doing with you, both from a physical perspective and potentially from a cognitive perspective. Right. If you have a hard time managing, say, movement and, and some sort of a cognitive task at the same time, we might need to start you out at a bit of a lower level from a cognitive perspective, which is okay. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. It just means you're just not so good at that particular area. And that's quite okay. But that assessment process is critical. And then every 12 weeks, what's really interesting is every client goes back through throughout the same assessment process over and over and over again to check for two things. One, are you are you progressing? And then two, if you're not, that's okay. What needs to happen in order for you to continue to progress, both physically and in many cases cognitively as well? So that's a really good question, right? Because what you what doesn't happen, Connie, is that nobody just comes into our facility and goes through a workout. The first thing that does happen, we sit down as we get to know you. We figure out what your goals are and what you want to do, and particularly maybe why you've had such a hard time in the past with exercise. And then we take you through a really comprehensive assessment process for us to figure out what not to do. Once again, because it's an exercise program, you you need to stay motivated. And one of the ways you can stay motivated because genuinely, hopefully you're having a good time. That's really important. And equally as important, you have to feel like you're making progress. In our case, it's all quantifiable. So it's really interesting that clients get a really nice report card every 12 weeks that shows them trends. Are they trending in the right or the wrong direction? So to say. Yeah.

Connie Gaylor: 6:09

So um, so on your on your website you talk about some different types of assessments. You've got the creos. Is that right.

Mike Gelfgot: 6:18

Cross brain health assessment. Yep.

Connie Gaylor: 6:19

And then you've got Foursquare balance assessment.

Mike Gelfgot: 6:22

Yeah.

Connie Gaylor: 6:23

So strength and all of that. So does that all work together. Does that person do every one of those assessments.

Mike Gelfgot: 6:29

That's a good question. So from start to finish it takes about 60 minutes to go through the whole process. And yes. So the the brain health assessment that's actually an online assessment that a client would take on their own, at their own time at our facility with us. What they would do is a balance assessment, an upper body and a lower body strength assessment. We would perform a cardiovascular assessment. We would perform, um, a, a mechanical assessment where we take a look at your posture, we take a look at your postural deviations and tightness and weaknesses that really guides us as far as what exercise is not to do with you. And then we take a look at your reaction time and your processing speed. And how well do you manage attention between moving and thinking? All in total about 35 different data points, which is really cool because every 12 weeks, if you have that amount of data in general, you can take a look and see, okay, am I trending overall in the right direction? Yeah, you might have a few arrows if you will. May not be pointing in the right direction, right? But in general you want to feel like you're heading in the right direction. And I think that's really good feedback for most people. It's really encouraging to know that they are meaning their time and their money certainly isn't quote unquote wasted, if you will.

Connie Gaylor: 7:41

Um, well, and they're certainly more motivated. Sure. Once they start seeing those markers starting to trend. Right, like up then. Yeah. Yeah. And there's feeling of course they're going to feel the improvement between, you know, physically.

Mike Gelfgot: 7:54

Between.

Connie Gaylor: 7:54

That's right.

Mike Gelfgot: 7:55

For certain energy levels, the way that they sleep I mean other people will comment on stuff. You know, what we find is really interesting. Even if a client, say, trending is trending in the wrong direction. So let's say, for example, the most obvious one, let's say somebody isn't losing the weight they would like to lose, right? But because now that they know now they got a decision to make and they find that to be most people find that to be very refreshing to say, okay, this is a great kick in the butt. Thanks for sitting down with me and discussing this with me. Okay. I'm I'm ready to start eating differently. It's just that's that sense of accountability, knowing that someone else is going to sit down with you and take a look at your information, I think is critical for sticking to an exercise routine, or maybe even pushing yourself a little bit more than you normally would.

Connie Gaylor: 8:42

So do you. Um, so if you, you know, imagine you have people come to you in all different phases of life and different physical and and cognitive areas. Do you work with physicians? You know, because maybe they had a stroke. Maybe they are even, you know, early diagnosis of dementia or something. Is there do you work with those kind of clients, and do you work with physicians, you know, to help with their plan like that?

Mike Gelfgot: 9:14

Yeah, that's a great question. We get frequent referrals from neurologists and oncologists and local physicians to our facility. I think anytime you put the word brain in your business title, you're going to get you're going to get a fair amount of people, which is a fair amount of people that are genuinely concerned and interested or other medical professionals looking us up because we have this cognitive component as part of a workout program to help patients who are currently struggling with some sort of a cognitive challenge. So the only thing that, uh, that matters to us is that you are free and clear from your physician to start exercising, and that's true with any exercise program, right? So if you know you're not released from your physical therapist or your physician maybe wants you to wait a little bit before you start an exercise program for whatever reason, then we can't work with you until that, until you get clearance. But other than that, you know, most physicians would say use common sense. Use your head, right? Don't do silly things that you know will make your condition and condition worse. We take quite a bit of precaution. Our average age is about 57 to 60 years of age. And so I don't think that we have we don't have a single individual that's got at least 1 or 2 health risks. Right. So the so that's not a concern to us. The only thing we'd be concerned to me is when you fill out our medical history questionnaire, which is all part of our initial assessment process, we screen you for your past medical history. And based on how you answer that, we might need to get clearance from your physicians, which we typically we frequently do. Um, so in that regard, we'll absolutely work with the physician. We'll reach out to the physician's office if there's something specific they need them to avoid. So we have many heart patients where the cardiologist doesn't want that patient's heart rate to be above a certain rate. No problem. All clients have a heart rate belt as part of their workout program, so we manage that very tightly to make sure that their heart rates do not get above a certain pace. But I I'll tell you, I think a lot of physicians, a lot of neurologists, oncologists refer people to us because we genuinely give people a sense of hope that they do have quite a bit of control in how well their brains age. And, uh, we just don't think that that's the case. We tend to think that brain is this complicated organ. Uh, and in many ways it is. But in many ways, we know quite a few things about the brain, particularly, how do I make sure my brain continues to stay as sharp as it is today, ten, 15 years from today, right? And I know that we'll get into a little bit more of that here in a minute.

Connie Gaylor: 11:54

Yeah. Yeah, we will, because I have some questions about that. Um, but let's talk about, you know, so you've got somebody, you've went through all the assessments, you're working with them and you kind of already touched on the reassessment, you know, every 12 weeks. So by doing that, um, what kind of data do you get from that or, and, and have you been able to really establish a good benchmark of, of, of data, you know, to work from, to look for.

Mike Gelfgot: 12:26

Yeah, yeah for sure. So I think we should we should definitely talk about, um, what is the basics of, uh, like, why does this data even change? And I want to bring that up because I think that's really interesting. Like, like when you, when you exercise at moderate intensity. And I want to be very specific here. So moderate means you're breathing heavy but you're not running out of breath. Right. Um, and you maintain that heart rate, which is, you know, for most people, probably somewhere between maybe 60 at most, maybe 75% of max heart rate for at least 15 to 20 minutes, the human brain begins to produce what are called brain growth factors that genuinely enhance and uptick your cognition like memory, focus, attention, reaction time, your processing speed, your proprioception which is your awareness in space, your balance. Of course, all of those cognitive functions are genuinely and literally upticked because of physical activity. The challenge is most of us do not take advantage of this uptick because it's not like in the middle of your current exercise program, you're going to stop doing what you're doing and start learning. I don't know, say Spanish is the example that I use most of the time, right? Although you absolutely, 100% should either in the middle or immediately after because you already have these growth factors in your brain fertilizing, if you will, your brain to uptake information and remember and process it more efficiently than if you didn't have those brain growth factors. And that's what we do. And that's why our clients see this uptick in cognition, which I'll talk about how, um, how we measure it here in a second. We mentioned a little bit before because as part of client's workout workout program, where they do balance and stability and endurance and strength training exercises. So we elevate their heart rate. And then once their heart rate is elevated, um, we, um, put them in front of different brain technology to play different brain games where they will work on things like memory and focus and attention and response inhibition, which is part of your executive functioning network, part of the brain. So stopping that work, part of the brain. The result is absolutely fascinating. So I'll give you two things to uh, to kind of consider. So one, because we've been tracking our clients data now for going on four years. We have lots and lots of data on our clientele. We looked at a subset of 69 people, where the average age is 64 years old. We measured their cognitive abilities using a Creole brain health assessment that you and I talked about. Now, for those listeners that if you're not aware of what this is, I'll give you a few bullet points. So the brain health assessments, the tasks that the clients are asked to perform are clinically validated against the gold standard neuropsychological testing like the Moca test. It's been performed over 8 million times by 85 plus thousand people. It's got a boatload of normative data. Now, here's why this is significant, because when we looked at our clients who have taken this brain health assessment four times over a period of 12 months, what we're seeing is that their memory and the brain. The brain health assessment assesses memory in four different ways. There's nine total assessments and four of them are memory based because memory is very complicated. Their memory scores are all trending up over a period of 12 months. Now, that's not to say they can all remember better. Nobody can claim memory. But the only thing I can say to you is this I have a clinically validated assessment that clients take every 12 weeks and every 12 weeks they take it. They tend to do better in the memory parts apportioned part of their of their assessment. The likelihood of this happening by chance is like, you know, 0.00000 1%, like there had to be some form of intervention. So that's really encouraging. Now, once again, I can't say to you that these people remember better. I can't say to you, we improve memory. Nobody can claim that. But what I can say to you is our programming works on people's memory, no doubt, and we have a clinical way to assess it using the brain health assessment. It's pretty interesting.

Connie Gaylor: 16:40

So, um, okay, so I'm just trying to picture this in my head. So they come in, they do they do a physical workout. Then at the completion of that, they go into cognitive type exercises. Right. So it's not like they're doing something on a treadmill. They come off and they come over and do this this wall board.

Mike Gelfgot: 17:00

Yeah. So so that's a good question. So think of doing like um, think of doing in the exercise world we would call it like a giant set. So a giant set is a combination of four exercises. So for example let's say you do you're doing a squatting exercise and you're pushing exercising or pulling exercising. Right. And then maybe some sort of a core exercise. So once you've completed your four exercises and let's say that takes you a total of four minutes to do and your heart rate is elevated. Um, then we'd say, okay, when you're finished with your core exercise, now you're up at the Smart Fit board, which is one of the pieces of technology that we use to play a brain game. And while you're playing that brain game, you're doing some sort of a light physical task, meaning you're doing some sort of a marching exercise or maybe a side to side shuffle, but there's always a movement component and a cognitive component. That's when you're truly dual tasking. Our objective is to get our clients in front of brain technology no less than call it, depending on the workout, probably 4 to 7 times. So you're on an average, you're probably spending no less than 5 to 6 minutes doing some form of dual tasking exercising, which is what is which is how we're able to basically capitalize on those brain growth factors. The rest of the time, you're doing strength training exercises, you're doing functional strength training exercise and functional versus non-functional. Functional means that will help you in your daily activities of living. Right? So carrying things, walking, walking, lunging, you know, squatting, leaning, pulling, pushing all those, that's the way that we exercise you. And then as we elevate your heart rate, we are just able to take advantage of what's already happening in the brain because we put you in a position of, of novelty or learnings where you have to process information, avoid hitting certain targets. It's pretty cool.

Connie Gaylor: 18:43

So and I think that is cool. So with the dual task training, exercising and somebody has went through their first 12 weeks and you reassess and they're still. Do you change that cognitive testing to be in a more advanced level.

Mike Gelfgot: 19:02

Yeah it's interesting. That's why we use cross because there's no upper limit right. So that's that's probably the the one of the main reasons we use the cross brain health assessment is because it's got um, um, artificial intelligence built into every single one of the assessments. So in other words, as you continue to improve, it will continue to challenge you. It learns you. Right.

Connie Gaylor: 19:24

Okay.

Mike Gelfgot: 19:24

Um, that's actually it's on that note. That's why crossword puzzles and Sudoku puzzles as it relates to brain health are inefficient. You you should do them because you like to do them. But if you're doing them because you genuinely want to improve your brain health. The challenge with them is because once you figure out a Sudoku or a crossword puzzle pattern, then you just get really good at Sudoku puzzles. You're no longer learning. You're no longer in an activity where you are.

Connie Gaylor: 19:52

You're not. A novel.

Mike Gelfgot: 19:53

Deal. That's exactly it. And it's it's interesting because you have to challenge your brain cells, much like you have to challenge your muscles. What we're saying is when you combine the two, when you physically challenge yourself and you cognitive challenge yourself, your brain tends to respond so much more because of those brain growth factors. And we have our own data and our own research to support it.

Connie Gaylor: 20:13

Yeah. That is so good because like we said at the beginning, we get this. I guess it's just it's just a social interaction. Okay. You work out for physical, you do crossword puzzles or word searches or something for your cognitive, but you're not marrying the two together. And so the, the dual task is doing that. Um, and I think we've given some good examples of that. Let's talk a little bit more. And this is going to be where your scientist geek side of this is going to come out, which I like. Um, and that's cognitive reserve. And that is what we're working towards, right. With all of this.

Mike Gelfgot: 20:57

That's right, that's right. So what is cognitive reserve? Cognitive reserve is a 30 year old neuroscience concept that basically says this based on how you live your life, meaning how you eat, how you socialize, how you manage your stress, how you sleep, whether or not are you active, how you manage your stress like that style? What is your style to manage those things based on how you live your life? Um, you can literally circumnavigate, if you will, blockages in your brain. So meaning continue to function at a high level, even though there may be, uh, there may be, a genetic predispositions where that would otherwise would affected your brain. So in other words, you can build this reserve that you can rely on as you age, that you can then utilize as you are aging to continue to function, even though there might be some cognitive dysfunction, if you will, if they were to do an autopsy of your brain. Right. It's fascinating that that there's such a thing as even possible. Right. Like, you can build new blood vessels in your brain. You can build new blood vessels in your heart. You know what promotes your brain's ability to build new blood vessels? Physical activity, particularly when done at moderate intensity, like your blood vessels, get clogged in your heart because of lifestyle stress. All the obvious things that we know. The same thing happens in the brain, right? And so. But if you are constantly pushing the ticker, if you're constantly pushing the heart, particularly aerobic exercise done at moderate intensity, you can literally circumnavigate the blockages both in your heart and in your brain and continue to function like you are functioning today in later years in your life. It's crazy right? Um, and so our objective, right, is to put together the right lifestyle that clients can follow. And that lifestyle includes physical and and cognitive exercises, stress management, nutrition and socialization to allow people to build more of this cognitive reserve to circumnavigate any sort of roadblocks that they may have as they age.

Connie Gaylor: 22:58

Yeah. So and I would encourage our listeners who are listening to this to really get on activates website, because there's a lot of really good information on there. So I was reading about neuroplasticity, and on there it talked about, um, how many neurons or new neurons are produced in our brain every day. Right. But then how many die if they're not nurtured and and so it's like, okay, you have the capability of doing something. It's having the knowledge that you do and taking advantage of of doing that. I mean, we are in control of our physical state. We're in control most of the time of our mental state and emotional state. But there and, you know, and often I don't want to, you know, to overstep because there's people that things happen with them that that was not in their control. But if you know, you can do something about it, then then it's on us to do it right. So let's talk about that. The neuroplasticity for just a second.

Mike Gelfgot: 24:00

Yeah.

Connie Gaylor: 24:00

So people can see that there's something there that you can do.

Mike Gelfgot: 24:04

Yeah. And I think that's probably the biggest message that I would love for listeners to take away from this podcast is that there is so much you can do. You have so much control over how well your brain ages. The simplest way to put it all neuroplasticity is, is your brain rewiring itself based on the environment that it's in. It's as simple as that. You change your environment. You change how your brain is functioning, right? By the way, your from a cognitive perspective it's called neuroplasticity. But from a physical perspective it's called the physical adaptation. So both your brain and your body will adapt will change based on the highest level of stimulus if you will. You are constantly exposing yourself to on a regular basis, and that's probably the biggest challenge with us as we get older. There's not a whole lot of physical nor cognitive stimulation we're.

Connie Gaylor: 24:56

Really.

Mike Gelfgot: 24:57

Putting ourselves through. So what's happening is you're just adapting to the highest level. If that highest level is really low. Well, no wonder why you're losing balance. No wonder why you're losing your muscle mass. That's why you have a hard time remembering and processing information. Because at what point do you actually push your brain cells enough so they adapt differently, right. Mhm. So Doctor Ratey wrote a book called um uh, spark. Um, and in his book spark. Right. He, um, he talks about something, uh, he talks about something really interesting, um, where he says that once you when you start doing physical activity, particularly at moderate intensity, particularly in the hippocampus, part of the brain, that's where you're able to birth a lot of new brain cells. That process is called neuro genesis, right? The birthing of brain cells. And so what he says is this you got roughly about, I think he says 28 days or so for that brain cell, if you will, to be, uh, to be, um, connected, if you will, as part of your overall central nervous system before it dies, before it goes away. Now, remember, everyday brain cells die. Every day you build new brain cells. Physical activity just encourages your brain to build more brain cells. Um, and so we really promote hyper hyper we believe promote neuroplasticity because we are giving clients the opportunity to build these new brain cells because of physical activity, and because we are encouraging them to learn something and process something and and do something unique and different with their brains that further promotes neuroplasticity. More so versus if you just do physical exercises on a regular basis, you could say, well, Mike, I do different exercises. Isn't that isn't that good enough? It's certainly better than nothing. I will say that to you, right? But if you really, genuinely want to take advantage of it, either one, you do it in a way like we do it. It activates our brain and body, which is we combine it with this part of your physical workout or two. You do physical exercises at moderate intensity. And then immediately after your your exercise program, get into some sort of a learning setting. Whether you are learning how to play the piano, maybe you are taking Spanish lessons, but get into a position where you are learning something you're not very good at your your brain growth factors. Doctor rating. His book says they can kick up to 4 or 5 hours after your workout session. It all depends on the in the intensity and the duration of your workout. Um, so you we tend to take advantage of it during the workout because we know most people aren't going to go home and start learning how to play the saxophone necessarily. Right? Right. Uh, we got other, other things to do. Um, but if you are one of those people where you just want to understand the X's and the O's and you want to continue doing what you're doing, but you want to take advantage of neuroplasticity, your brain, do your workout, and then immediately after start doing something you're not very good at.

Connie Gaylor: 28:00

Okay, that makes sense. Other than going home and plopping down because you're tired from your workout, which is what a lot to do.

Mike Gelfgot: 28:06

A lot of questions I get when I talk about this is so if I ride my bicycle, for example, or I'm on a treadmill and I'm listening to a podcast, does that count? Right? Uh, and I would say the only time that that would count is if you listen to a podcast and then you go to you with your buddies at lunch or to lunch. Um, you can tell them what you listened about. Like, there has to be a sense of comprehension and learning and processing and genuinely understanding. What did you just listen to? Right. Uh, because how many times do we listen to something or shoot even read something? And then, um, what did I what did I just read?

Connie Gaylor: 28:40

Right, right. It's that recall that you don't always have. Correct. Right. Correct. So. Okay. So I think that's a really good discussion on cognitive reserve. But it's not it's not a lone Ranger by itself because I was reading on, on the website about Brain Reserve. Um, so let's talk let's kind of round that out with that discussion because, you know, you can work and work and work, but if you don't have a healthy brain, say you've say you've had a stroke or say you've you've had some kind of traumatic brain trauma or something, you're kind of, you know, working against something that you may not get the same results as somebody who who has a healthy brain, who's doing all these things. So how I mean, how do we approach that? And can you can you turn any of that back or.

Mike Gelfgot: 29:32

Yeah. Well, I mean, so interesting you say. Right. I think we've all maybe heard or seen in person someone who's had a, maybe a stroke. Right. And then, you know, immediately, once they have a stroke, the individual loses quite a bit of blood flow to the brain. When you lose blood flow to the brain, your brain cells are dying at a at a dramatic pace. Right? And so once brain cells are dead, then picking up a pen may be really difficult to do. But then 12 months later. Right, you see that individual and it's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe Joe over here. It's the same Joe as it was 12 months ago. So like, what changed? What happened, right? So we do a lot of work like particularly in occupational therapy. There's so much interesting work that's done where we are teaching people how to move and think at the same time. And so you're teaching someone how to climb a ladder, or you're teaching someone how to, you know, bend over and pick something up. What are you doing? What you're introducing is movement. And learning is part of the same. It's part of the same setting. It's dual task exercising our facility with just ten x it. So to say for those individuals that are able to be ten x. With that said, if you have a traumatic brain injury or had a stroke, it even gives you a much more significant and bigger, more important reason to exercise like this. Because you are or you have a. One working against you sort of say, right. So you have to be in a position where you are exercising and promoting as much blood flow as possible to the brain, and you have to exercise at moderate intensity to really build new blood vessels and new brain cells, and you got to do what you can to introduce learning, whether it's in the middle or immediately after. On top of all of that, though, you must pay attention to how well you're sleeping. Oh my gosh. If there's one thing that will improve your brain function, we all have had 1 or 2 nights where we had a bad night of sleep. Can you remember anything the next day? How well do you process it? It seems like you are literally a zombie, right? When you take that times, you know, X amount of years, that's going to really affect your cognition. So it's not just the workout that's a big deal, but it's the way you sleep. It's how you eat, right? Eating is critical in the sense you got to figure out a way on how to eat in a way that lowers your inflammation. In fact, choose to live in a way where you are choosing to eat, um, or choosing to live where you're, uh, doing activities that are promoting low or no inflammation, like, for example, physical activity when done consistently helps your immune system. It it acts as an anti-inflammatory, right? There are foods that you can eat that are just better than others in terms of inflammation. Right. And so, um, it's one thing to say I'm just going to exercise. Right. And I'm going to do some of this dual tasking stuff, and that's certainly better than nothing. But if we're talking about genuinely, I want to have a healthier brain in general. What can I do? While Doctor Gupta in his book, uh, Sharp doctor in his book, uh, Keep Sharp, uh, doctor writing his book spark, um, and I can't remember the name of the author, but she wrote the book ending Alzheimer's is the name of the book. Uh, I can't remember the physician's name, but what they all talk about is you got to do five things. You got to manage stress. You got to eat well, you got to exercise. You got to. You got to learn, and you got to socialize. Right. Um, and so with that said, like, are you better off doing one thing than than nothing. Yes. If you're already doing one thing, can you. Should you pick up a second thing? Sure. And I think it's a spectrum, right? But no doubt about it. Gosh, if you have a traumatic brain injury, concussions or strokes, you are a bit of a I would certainly at a disadvantage. You asked the question can can they heal? Oh my gosh. Sure. Absolutely. We see it all the time right. But it's certainly is a matter of your attitude. That's a big deal. Um, and of course, finding the right nurturing I would say probably environment for you to work in, because once you graduate from physical therapy and occupational therapy, you're not necessarily good. You're just good enough. Now it's on you to pursue this with with rigor. Because if you don't and I said this earlier, physiologically and cognitively, you'll just continue to adapt to the highest level of stimulus you are exposing yourself to. And then physical therapy and occupational therapy. We push people. They rise to the occasion. Most of us do. And when we stop pushing people physically and cognitively, what happens is that we regress. That's right. So I think that's important to to understand. You're right. It's a multi like at our facility we call it it's a multi-domain or a multifaceted approach when it comes to brain health. It's not any one particular thing. It really is a combination of multiple things that make a big impact. Now last tip I said with that said if you just start doing one right, I mean you are faster doing one than somebody who is sitting, if that makes sense, right?

Connie Gaylor: 34:47

No, I agree, yeah. And that's a good segue because we've talked a lot about dual task training and cognitive, but also you do other workouts. So if you had somebody who's just getting started and they're like, Mike, I just want to start Slow.

Mike Gelfgot: 35:08

Yeah.

Connie Gaylor: 35:08

So what are some other things they can do there?

Mike Gelfgot: 35:11

Yeah. So it's interesting. I think an interesting question to consider is if I am so out of shape, how do I even start? Because it seems like if I go for a walk, I can't move my legs for three days. And if that's the case, that means you're really, really deconditioned. And that's okay. Um, whatever physical activity you're doing, you should be fully recovered at most. Gosh, 36 hours a day and a half. Two days. If it takes you more than two days to recover after your workout, you pushed a little too hard. You got to back up. You got to back up. Continue to back up until you can do exercising with regularity. You will not get in good shape. Working out once a week, sometimes twice a week, and not doing it again for another seven days. It's lower intensity with more frequencies. How you do it. Now, to answer your question, if somebody comes into our facility, we'll take them through the assessment process. And really the assessment process helps us understand quite a bit about your overall level of condition, if you will. Um, and if somebody is that deconditioned, then what we would do is we would just begin. Begin them at a different level, meaning we would start start off doing some light aerobic exercises, even as simple as 5 to 10 minutes of of bicycling with some mobility exercises to work on their flexibility of muscles, ranges of motion in their joints. Uh, start building a base level of stamina. And we we might maintain that, say, for 3 to 4 weeks, like we need people to go through at least 8 to 12 of those types of sessions. Right. And then we can start introducing some of our brain and body workouts. Uh, but once again, make sure with the client's feedback that they're know that they're not, um, quote unquote sore for no more than 24 or so hours. Right. And if they are, we just got to back it up. We got to find and we will we with client's feedback, we find the right amount of sets and repetitions where we need to perform.

Connie Gaylor: 37:02

Yeah. And what I and and I want to make this point is that, um, you know, sometimes you may end up having a client come to you because they're at a certain age and they've had a scare, or they've had something where they think, I got to do something or, you know, or somebody in their family was diagnosed with something and they're like, okay, that could be me. I'm going to have to make a change. But they could come to you at any condition. So, you know, we've gotten really excited talking about, you know, just the combination of these things and the improvement. But what I don't want is I don't want our listeners to be afraid to take the step to come to you because you got to start somewhere. And you you've got to know that there will be a comfort factor for them to be able to walk in that door and get started. No matter where they're at, you'll meet them where they're at and help them. Yeah.

Mike Gelfgot: 37:59

That's a really good point, and I appreciate you underlining that and bolding that. You're absolutely right. This is why we go through the process of assessing. This is what helps us understand exactly how to proceed and what not to do. Without that, I am totally blind. I wouldn't know how to make good, accurate decisions with my clients, and odds are I would do things I probably shouldn't do with them, right? Um, it doesn't take a whole lot of brain to work somebody out. It really doesn't. I mean, gosh, you just pick two exercises and kick your butt. What takes more of a brain is to figure out what not to do, and to understand what not to do. You have to go through some sort of a screening process, like the same way you would go through if you pull up your car to a mechanic. He doesn't just come out with a screwdriver and a hammer and he says, okay, Connie, I'm ready to fix your car. You know, like they do their thing, they diagnose it, they plug it in, they say, okay, here's the damage. Right? That's how they come back to you, right? But the point is, like here, they know what's up. They know what's wrong. They know how much labor they're gonna do, whatever, whatever kind of tools they need to use. And they give you an understanding based on this analysis. Here's what needs to happen next. And in our case, it's the same.

Connie Gaylor: 39:05

Way, same thing. Yeah. Man, this has been fun. Um, it's been exciting to talk about this. And, you know, and it is largely, you know, based in physical ability and the results, you're, you know, are your clients will see physically and cognitively. But it is so related to mental health. Um, you know, because not everybody is diagnosed with something, but most people deal with something, um, with their mental health. So if, if you can do something to help improve that, you know, you're going to improve your whole life. You know, the physical, the emotional, the mental. Um, so we've covered a lot, but is there anything that we haven't covered that you know, that you want to close with?

Mike Gelfgot: 39:58

Yeah, I would say what we really need people to understand is that you have quite a bit of control in how well your brain continues to age, whether you've had a cognitive impairment of some sort or anxiety or depression. Um, you have you have quite a bit of control. I think finding the right, uh, community and finding the right, uh, atmosphere is really, really critical. Um, and I just encourage people to come out and, and meet us and tour the facility and, uh, and try the facility. Um, so that would be what I would like to have.

Connie Gaylor: 40:34

Why don't. You share, um, website, phone numbers, anything that they would need to be able to to find. You.

Mike Gelfgot: 40:41

Yeah, that'd be great. So our website is WW dot brain and body com. Um, our address is 513. Oh I'm sorry. Address. Our phone number is (513) 793-2724. Our web address is 9301 Montgomery Road. Um, I would say this anybody because we do quite a few, uh, podcasts such as, such as this. And if you're local, uh, tell us you heard about us through the, through a podcast, uh, in Montgomery, and we'll give you a 30 day trial, completely free, uh, to our facility. Uh, 30 days will give you quite a bit of time to understand what we do, and it gives us quite a bit of time to show you change as long as you come in and work out at least a couple times a week.

Connie Gaylor: 41:28

Okay. That's awesome. Okay. Well. Thank you. It's been, um. It's been really good. I really appreciate you spending your time with us. And and, you know, being so passionate about helping people. Uh, thank you to our listeners for tuning in to today's podcast. We hope it has provided a lot of valuable information to you. We hope that you also listen to our other podcasts on the Smashing the Stigma podcast station. Until next time, be well.