Brain Workout with Joshua Campbell & Dianne Solano
Show Notes:
We are always reminded that we need to be getting the right nutrition, exercising, getting enough sleep, and doing things to aid our physical health, but what about our cognitive health? Today we are joined by Joshua Campbell and Dianne Solano to discuss their unique six-minute-a-day brain workout program CTS90. Josh is a forensic investigator and cognition coach, who focuses on the metrics in brain behavior and advancements using natural strategies. Josh and his team of brain experts specialize in brain rehabilitation and optimization, giving enhanced performance and recovery. Dianne is a registered orthomolecular nutritional consultant practitioner. She has spoken globally on the topics of applied clinical nutrition and specialized at the Concussion Recovery Clinic to empower individuals on their recovery. Joshua explains how the CTS90 program utilizes strategies that were originally developed in sports to improve cognitive function and Dianne explains the importance of combining this with proper nutrition. Tune in today to find out how the synergy between nutrition and a brain workout can address not just the symptoms but also the root causes of post-concussion syndrome and aid your recovery.
Key Points From This Episode:
• An introduction to today’s guests Joshua Campbell and Dianne Solano.
• Insight into what a brain workout is and how it was developed in sports.
• The importance of combining a brain workout with proper nutrition.
• Insight into the six-minute CTS90 program and its benefits.
• Bella likes that it’s not permanent and you can stop if it’s not working for you.
• The convenience and cost-effectiveness of being able to do this program at home.
• How you can try out this six-minute-a-day workout.
• How this program treats the root causes of post-concussion syndrome.
• Dianne shares a list of natural anti-inflammatories and superfoods that reduce inflammation and assist brain development.
• Joshua shares some tips for getting quality sleep.
• Bella stresses the importance of not throwing out your meds but supplementing them.
• How this program can function in a preventative way.
• How the whole family can benefit from the CTS90 program.
Connect with Joshua
Email: cognitioncampbell@gmail.com
Follow Joshua on Instagram: @yardiejosh
Connect with Dianne
Email: dianne@senargy.ca
Follow Dianne on Instagram: @thediannesolano
Transcript - Click to Read
[INTRO]
[00:00:00] BP: Hi. I’m your host, Bella Paige. Welcome to the Post-Concussion Podcast, all about life after experiencing a concussion. Help us make the invisible injury become visible.
[DISCLAIMER]
[00:00:17] BP: The Post-Concussion Podcast is strictly an information podcast about concussions and post-concussion syndrome. It does not provide, nor substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice, or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. The opinions expressed in this podcast are simply intended to spark discussion about concussions and post-concussion syndrome.
[EPISODE]
[00:00:58] BP: Welcome to today's episode of the Post-Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige, and today's guests, Joshua Campbell and Dianne Solano. Josh is a forensic investigator and cognition coach, who focuses on the metrics in brain behavior and advancements using natural strategies. Josh and his team of brain experts specialize in brain rehabilitation and optimization, giving enhanced performance and recovery. Their tools and strategies are available globally, as you deserve to feel and perform at your best.
Dianne is a registered orthomolecular nutritional consultant practitioner, a former teacher at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, and an active member of the International Organization of Nutritional Consultants. Her practice has expanded into the field of functional medicine and has worked closely with elite clinical nutrition experts in both the US and Canada. She has spoken globally on the topics of applied clinical nutrition and specialized in the concussion recovery clinic to empower individuals on their recovery. Welcome to the show, Josh and Diane.
[00:02:02] JC: Thanks for having us, Bella. We're super, super excited to be here. How are you?
[00:02:06] BP: I'm great. How are you, Dianne?
[00:02:08] DS: I'm fantastic, and I'm so excited. This is one of my very, very, very passionate projects that I've worked on for years at the concussion clinic. Very excited to share today.
[00:02:18] BP: Yeah. Today's episode will be a little different. We're going to let Josh take the lead, because he knows a lot more about this than I do. We're going to go through the steps of cognitive function and what we look at when we're looking at the brain and injuries.
[00:02:33] JC: Absolutely. I know cognitive function, that's a mouthful, so let's break it up for a little bit. Cognition really refers to all of the mental stuff that happens inside that skull of yours, so in between those two ears. What happens is that that is always on. It's on from the moment that you're conceived, all the way to that very, very end of life.
What happens is that a lot of people, sometimes they don't pay a lot of attention to it. We're always told, make sure that you're getting outside, and make sure you get in some good sleep, make sure you're being hygienic, and then you're moving your body. What about brain? One of the reasons why I'm super excited to be here to share today is because there is such a huge need, but more especially within some of your listeners, Bella, because those individuals have had injuries, unfortunately. Then they have a stark difference, sometimes in terms of their cognitive function and there are strategies that are backed by science that we can do as interventions, and for those that who haven't had been injuries and want to optimize to get a little better every day. That's what I love. Especially, as we stand to be here, because when you combine with anything, when you combine the nutritional science with the training, you have a synergy that is unmatched.
I'm going to speak a little bit to the training portion and how that came about, then I'll hand it over to Dianne, so she can talk a little bit about the nutrition.
What is even a brain workout? That may sound super, super strange, but it's something that anybody can do. Think of recalling the 10 names of your best friends. That's a mental process. You've gone back and it's like you're in a shopping aisle, and this is a really, really simple metaphor, but it's like you're walking down an aisle and your brain has said, “Okay, well, we need this on the right, we need this on the left.” That's something, like when you're recalling info. As we know, about Bella, and especially when people have had injuries, sometimes walking in that grocery store can be a little bit difficult, because there's too much stimulation, there's too much noise, and the brain can filter and turn down things and turn up other things. To make it very, very short, a brain workout helps to improve those cognitive processes. Working memory, what does that mean? That you're able to remember things better. Your decision-making, your processing of information, both visually and auditory.
This was something that started in sports as a performance optimization technique, and then found its way into research and has been used to work with kids who have ADHD. This is all published pub medical studies, which is peer reviewed papers, because people wanted to not only feel better, but they wanted to have an intervention technique. Or, if they are aging, and there's a little bit of decline, they wanted to get back some of that mental function back, and they're able to do that. Then when you combine the two, so that's a training program that we call cognition. A lot of the times are the CTS90 program. When you combine that with other functional foods, and good life practices, that things just explode.
Dianne, I’ll just hand over to you if you want to speak a little bit about combining the training with the nutrition.
[00:05:22] DS: I'm so excited to hear you talk about the neuro-tracker, the CTS90. I know the six-minute workout a day for the brain, Josh, because for many years in practice, I specialize in the nutrition piece. Our bodies have thrived on nutrition for thousands of years. That's not changing anytime soon. The brain is the most energy dependent, most nutrient dependent, most sensitive to oxygen. It's very dependent on oxygen. When we deprive the brain of these essential basics, we feel it. When you throw in an accident, a concussion, someone with an injury, man, oh man, they really feel it.
Our brain is designed to last and take care of us for our entire lives. What I realized was that people were eating right, but somehow we needed to speed up the recovery process. When I met Josh Campbell, and I realized the work he was doing, I got super excited, because it's the workout for the brain. It's six minutes a day, you do from the comfort of your home. You don't go to travel anywhere. I know this, because I worked at the hyperbaric oxygen therapy center, we specialize in concussion recovery.
What does that mean? That means you got to get dressed. You got to find a ride, if you can't drive, because most people can't. Or you got to whether the drive yourself to the center every day. You got to get changed. You got to go into a treatment room. You got to drive for about at least an hour, depending on your protocol, and then get dressed and go all the way back home. That is a serious time investment. It's a serious financial investment. It's needed.
When I saw that there were tools that people can use, a downloadable software based on artificial intelligence that you can do from the comfort of your living room, in your pajamas, for six minutes, and it literally shows the science and not only the science, but we're seeing actual bodies bounce back. That's where we have so many practitioners be able to now bring in cognition, the CTS90 program into their offices.
What I got most excited about when I met Josh was that he was able to connect people now through technology, to be able to do it from their home. I know what that's like, because I saw so many of our patients and clients suffer on the journey to have go in and out of the clinic. This is what I'm excited about now is that with the changes of the world, we're able to now provide services in the home.
The nutrition came into play, because now we've got the exercise. It's like training at the gym, only training for your brain. It's literally a game on your computer, six minutes a day. At the same time, now we're feeding those brain neurons. We are feeding them with omega oils. We are helping them with natural products, like huperzine. We're giving those specific nutrition molecules designed to regenerate, rehabilitate, and really provide cellular regeneration. Cells are alive, and they don't really just disappear. What they want is they want the right conditions in the right environment to recover. If a body is alive and nourishing and moving forward, we can do that.
A lot of people don't know this because they're stuck in the conventional medical model system. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of education in that space. This is the reason why we're having this conversation today is that if you're listening today, and you're tired of not getting answers, there's so many exciting things for you to explore. People like Josh, people like myself, people like Bella are providing a platform for more information for you to go out there and do the research, ask the questions because tools are there if you want it. That's what I really wanted to point out was the synergy between the nutrition, your gut health, your brain recovery, specific nutrition, neurotropics, it's known as, and married with natural strategies, like a six-minute a day workout. We're getting turnaround so quick, so fast. It is just mind boggling.
This is where I invite people on this call to just step outside the comfort zone and start looking at these different strategies to see how we can get you better. Can you get 10 percent better? 10 percent better for someone is a lot of recovery, versus nothing. I know the journey is very difficult. It's different for every person, depending how severe your case is. Some people are living with serious symptoms for many, many years. Some people have just had the onset of a condition happen, or an accident. I mean, it is case by case, but these tools exist. No known adverse effects, no known toxicity levels. They're non-threatening, and that's what I love about it.
[00:09:41] BP: Yeah. I’m really big for things that you can stop that's not permanent. Whenever I did therapies or anything, I always wanted something that I could stop taking the pill, or I could stop the therapy if it wasn't working for me. I like that, because there was one time, Botox was heavily pushed by a few doctors. My problem with it was I couldn't reverse it. There was no, if this doesn't work, I can't take it out or so. I was like, “That's not what I want.” I want something where I can try it and be like, this is working, or it's not working for me. Doing it didn't cause me any damage. I really like that. I find it really important.
I really like your shopping cart method, period, because I think I'm pretty sure sometimes, now I'm good, but the aisles used to be empty. I’d be going, “Okay.” Or I go physically grocery shopping, and I’d be like, “I'm just going to try again later,” because I'd walk in, and I've completely forgot why I was even there, or I'd be having a conversation with someone and trying to recall something and there was nothing to recall. I just stay on there and be like, “Oh, I don't know what I was going to say. I don't know what you're talking about and now I'm blank.”
It was something I dealt with for a long time. I liked that, Dianne, that you mentioned the doing it from home, because I am actually from a small town and I had to fly. There was no getting in a car. There was getting on a plane to get to doctor's appointments. It was a lot. Between the cost and then planning and scheduling around my life. A lot of the time, depending on how my head was, I couldn't go alone. That meant a parent taking the time to come with me and go to all these doctor's appointments and get a car and travel. It can be a lot to organize. Do you guys want to explain how someone can get a handle, or try out this six-minute a day workout?
[00:11:26] JC: Bella, I just want to underscore what you said there, because I think it's so, so important. When you are not recalling some of the info, and it happens to me sometimes, I just call it buffering. It's quite literally, there's no connection. That's one of the things that I love between the training and the nutrition is that you can start to build more plasticity in the brain. You're building more connections. There's more access for info.
For anybody listening that wants to get in touch with us, best email to reach me at is Cognition Campbell, and I’ll ask Bella to give that in the show notes. It’s cognitioncampbell@gmail.com and we'll get you set up with a baseline. Then you see where it is. What I absolutely love about it is you can combine this with other modalities that you're doing. What you're going to find is everybody's so different, that you're going to find the modalities that help you and the ones that maybe are not best at that current moment. Not to say they're not effective, but maybe your body is looking for something else at that current time, and it's small changes that you may not feel, until your brain is so aware of them. It is mind-blowing. I know that there's many ways to get in touch with you, what is the absolute best way.
[00:12:33] DS: I would recommend that people start somewhere, but start. You can't deny root cause issues. Bella, thank you for sharing that story of the Botox. There's a difference between symptom suppression and root cause. Can we get to the root of feeding yourselves? Can we get to the root of creating and reminding your brain the pathway, just rebuilding the highway again? That's what the CTS program that Josh has is going to do.
If you're curious around that. I mean, we have many, many experts speaking on concussion. Josh is definitely one of my favorites, because he's a sports coach. It's super cost effective. I think that's the big issue — Bella, thank you for sharing that — air flights and time, and then the person, the caretaker involved, it's time, it's energy, and it's money. What I love is strategies that are effective root cause and cost effective.
If you're curious about that, you can find me @thediannesolano, at my Instagram account. I have a lot of different experts. I mean, my specialty is actually in health podcast as well. We share a lot of different topics. Brain is just one of my favorites, because that's where I worked, and I saw how lives changed radically with just a small workout and a couple of tweaks to the diet. People started feeling that they started getting a part of their life back and everyone's going to be very different.
You can find me on Instagram, or you can email me directly as well at dianne@senargy.ca. That’s where you can find me and that’s where you can find Josh, and then ask your questions. I think it's really important that people just be open. Be open because the medical model is very limited.
[00:14:05] BP: Don't be afraid to reach out. Both Josh and Dianne are welcome to any questions that you might have about any of this and more. With that, we're going to take a break and don't forget that all of that will be posted in our show notes.
[BREAK]
[00:14:21] BP: I just wanted to say thank you. The podcast is just over six-months-old, and I couldn't be happier with the response. If you truly love the podcast, please consider leaving a tip in our support the podcast tip jar, found at the bottom of our episode description. All tips are greatly appreciated and help cover costs of the show.
[EPISODE CONTINUED]
[00:14:46] BP: Welcome back to the Post-Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige, and today's guests, Joshua Campbell and Dianne Solano. We're going to talk a little bit about, well, I call it “My brain is on fire”, because that's what it used to feel like and that's how I used to explain it to people. Do you have any tips on how to deal with this inflammation that a lot of us deal with after a concussion?
[00:15:06] DS: Great question, Bella. Here's what I really want to stress. Inflammation of the body is your body's defense mechanism. It's the immune system doing its work. It could happen anywhere. You hit your knee, hit your leg, hit your elbow, inflammation. Well, you hit your head, inflammation. When you have inflammation, it eats up something called nitric oxide. That's what creates oxygen to all your cells and tissues.
Remember, at the beginning of the show, I said the energy is, the brain is very energy dependent, very nutrient dependent and very oxygen dependent. The minute you have inflammation pathways that turn on, your oxygen levels start to deplete. I love nutritional strategies. Remember, root cause to reduce inflammatory pathways, not just the Advil and the Tylenol on the over the counter stuff. I get that. I get putting out fires. I'm not saying that to get off your meds. What I'm saying is that there are options out there to get to root cause, which is what we want. One of my favorite anti-inflammatories, things are like turmeric, things like DHA oils, EPA oils. They're really, massively anti-inflammatory, especially the EPAs. EPA version is very good for inflammation. DHA is very, very good for brain regeneration. That's why you see a lot of DHA oils in puppy food, kitten food. You'll see a lot of DHA recommended for pregnant women. Brains when they develop, need high doses of DHA. Well, you're creating new cell neurons. Again, we got to feed those new baby neurons to be at their optimal best, and the EPA will take care of the inflammation.
Now, one of my superfoods that I'm absolutely in love with that I'm seeing so much turnaround so quickly, especially in concussions is a medicinal mushroom called Ganoderma lucidum, also known as Reishi, also known as Lingzhi.
Now, there are different qualities on the market. That's the truth. You pay what you get for. You want high-quality, in-ground cultivated, not plastic bag grown, in-ground. Because when you have superfoods grown in the soil, they are much more potent to deliver those antioxidants, those actual nutritional factors that we need from mother nature itself. I call it mother nature's intelligence.
I've seen so much turnaround on people having medicinal mushrooms and feeling the difference. Why? Medicinal mushrooms are great for reducing that inflammatory pathway. It also increases nitric oxide. You're getting both the anti-inflammatory and the increase in oxygenation to all cells and tissues. It can be used in animals, in plants, in children and adults. The reason why I go to it is because there's no known toxic dose, it’s super natural.
My favorite thing now is I see so many clients that are exhausted from taking so many pills. Oh, my gosh, you're swallowing this and you're swallowing that. This company was really smart, they decided to infuse these wonderful superfoods into beverages, like coffee, tea, hot chocolate. When you have a child that's struggling, whether it's a concussion, a fall on a bike, life happens. You can give that little boy, that little girl a cup of hot chocolate. They're much more happier, much more compliant, and they're getting that nutritional dose that you're looking to infuse them with, which tastes good, which I think is huge for kids. That's why it's one of my favorites.
For adults, same thing. I have so many adults that are another thing to do, another thing to swallow. I can barely put on my pajamas. I barely slept last night. The last thing I want to do is swallow 10 more pills, because I don't even remember they exist. Yet, if we put them in a beautiful tea and you wrap yourself up in a blanket and you feel that emotional comfort, that signaling starts to happen right away. What I’d like to often stress is bodies don't lie. They're really honest. The body will always speak. Sometimes, it'll whisper before it screams.
When something works for you, you will feel it and which this is why I'm so passionate, is because when we get people on programs, things like huperzine, which by the way, help create and reduce that amyloid plaquing, so do the medicinal mushrooms. Amyloid plaquing is your scar tissue when you have an injury, which leads to inflammation, which reduces oxygen. It's a feed forward cycle.
That's why I love the medicinal mushroom route, things like again, Ganoderma lucidum, lion's mane, all of that starts to deal with the inflammation, deals with the amyloid plaquing, deals with the nitric oxide with one or two products. That's what I loved. It's not 10, 20 different things. It's one thing that is in actually driven through mother nature that is supernatural, yet super powerful.
I really, really want to encourage people there. Don't give up. There's so many answers. Give it a try. Like you said Bella, worst-case scenario, didn't do much for you. No big deal. No love loss. A dollar, two dollars is what you're paying for a dose to see how it works. Give yourself a seven-day jumpstart, a seven-day reset. I mean, we have programs that people can jump on and trial it out for a week and see how far it goes for them. You'll never know unless you try.
[00:19:46] JC: I absolutely love it, Dianne. Because when you said that bodies are super honest, just to be 100 percent transparent, sometimes I am not the best in terms of getting my sleep. The minute I don't sleep enough, I feel it physically, but it also shows up cognitively. What do I mean? You'll be saying something to me, I miss two words, or I'm driving and I'm like, “Which I exit am I supposed to take again?” Everything just becomes so much more exhausting.
What I really like is, again, finding a tool that I could use to gauge, not only where it was, but what are the things are having an impact. When you sleep deeply, and you get into some of that REM and non-REM sleep, that's when your body has a chance to clear out all those toxins, because brain’s always on. It's regulating your heartbeat when you're asleep. It's making sure that you breathing. That's super important. You want to wake up tomorrow. It has other jobs. If you're not getting that sleep, one of the top tips is trying to get to bed early. If it is maybe a challenge, falling asleep, maybe throw the cellphone out into the other room.
Now, if you have young kids and stuff, I totally get it. I know I gave my mom hell. I'm not too sure I can be the best person to give you any advice there, but find the pockets where you can. If it's not length of sleep, you want to get some of the deeper, quality sleep, and there's tips and strategies that you can do with that.
If you live in a city, blackout the lights. Don't let any of that light getting in. There’s many things that you can do from a phone perspective and laptop, to limit that screen time. Then, see how you are the next day. There are not many things that I found that are backed by the science, which was a huge thing in brain training, because it's known as transfer. There are a lot of products out there. There are not many, in fact, there's only maybe two that I've seen that have transfer effects. What do I mean? That you do think something in one area, and it extends to other areas of your life.
We have older individuals that didn't feel confident driving on the road, because they couldn't pay attention to the cars and the headlights at night, that have done that six-minute brain workout and gotten their confidence back. That all happened in a relatively short time period, versus other training, you need three and four and five accept duration of time. That's what I absolutely love. Then when you combine it with all other things, like sleep and nutrition, you just see and feel the difference so much further. I definitely recommend everybody to try those.
[00:22:01] BP: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I love that we're not telling you to throw away your meds. We’re telling you to supplement them. Because I did that a few times, where I just give up. I've talked about on the podcast before, where I want to be a kid, I'm done and I throw out everything in, and I'd stop you taking everything I had.
To this day I take – there's a few meds that I take. Some of them, I still need them even with all the other supplements. I can't take away from that. I can't be like, “Oh, well. I can supplement all of this with everything else in my life.” It just doesn't work for me, because sometimes those pharmaceutical meds are what works for you. It's important to try other things that can supplement that, so you can feel even better.
Josh, when you mentioned that your brain is always on, it's funny, because when I was struggling with a headache every single day, I always wanted to turn my brain off. That was always what I used to say was I want to turn it off, because I can't think properly. My head hurts. I just want to turn it off, turn it off, turn it off. Then I used to just sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep. It was almost a defense mechanism for dealing with the pain, where I could sleep for 20 hours a day, and then be up and eat, and I go back to bed, because I was just in so much pain. Like you said, your brain is always on.
If you're awake, it's moving. If you're sleeping, it's still technically not stopping. That sleep pattern is hard. I'm bad for it too. I get in a good pattern, where I'm going to sleep. Waking up at around the same time every day. Then all of a sudden, I'm up till 4 in the morning, working on something. It’s like a restart, try again. It takes a long time to get hang of that. Is there anything else you guys would like to add before ending today's episode?
[00:23:38] JC: The one thing I like to add is sometimes when you get head injuries, they don't show up until a lot later in life. Because as you age and as you grow, you have these critical periods throughout life, where there are certain periods that are very strong at learning language. I'm sure, some people here have probably heard well, speak a different language to your kids, because it'll pick it up fast. Because that age, they're just so attuned. They're just so open and receptive to things.
I'm really, really a big fan and advocate for prevention, versus always intervention of things. I know I've had a few bumps to my head when I was younger, from horseplay and you name it, but you feel that, but hey, why not try something that could give you a level up in case anything does happen down the road? Or pay it forward.
I've introduced it to my cousin, who he is, or has been – he's been diagnosed as autistic. He absolutely loved it, because it's something easy for him to grasp. He's just loving that journey throughout. I would say, it's not always that you have an incident and you feel something right away. It doesn't work that way in the mind. It's not a paper cut, where you're like, “Oh, that's where the cut is.” Sometimes these things take a while to develop. If you're curious about any of that, maybe reach out, get some support where you need it, but there are tools and strategies out there that you can use globally.
[00:24:49] DS: Awesome sharing, Josh. I want to back that up by saying, you know what? For all the caretakers out there, or the actual person, the injured, but then there's the caretakers. These programs help the whole family. Someone like Bella's not by herself. That your caretaker, your mother, your father, your partner, your spouse, your child can jump in there with you. The whole family gets healthier. The whole family increases their brain cognition program. Mom and dad isn’t aging so hard. Grandpa and grandma are getting their cognitive function back with these strategies.
That's what I love about tag-teaming with people like Josh, is because they're proven effective, they are so gentle, they are preventative, they rebuild foundations, and they are cost-effective. For me, that checks off all the wins. Doing this for 22 years, I know what stands in people's way, and all the barriers are lost. There you go. Thank you for having us, Bella.
[00:25:41] BP: Yeah. Thank you so much, Josh, and Dianne for joining us today and sharing your work on living post-concussion.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:25:52] BP: I just wanted to say thank you. The podcast is just over six months old, and I couldn't be happier with the response. If you truly love the podcast, please consider leaving a tip in our support the podcast tip jar, found at the bottom of our episode description. All tips are greatly appreciated and help cover costs of the show.
[OUTRO]
[00:26:14] BP: Has your life been affected by concussions? Join our podcast by getting in touch. Thank you so much for listening to the Post-Concussion Podcast and be sure to help us educate the world about the reality of concussions, by giving us a share. To learn more, don't forget to subscribe.
[END]
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