Isolation = Rumination, Anxiety, & Accelerated Aging

DO YOU EVER SELF-ISOLATE? If so, you need to listen to today’s episode because I’ve got some shocking information to share on the negative impact this can have & some answers for how you can navigate through this to a positive outcome.

📌Key Points in this Episode
1:01  The foundational root of who we are is driven by the need to belong
4:00 Your Brain on Negative Emotions!
5:16  Premature aging of the brain due to Isolation
6:57  Relying on our tribe is not only good for us, it's great for others as well
7:37  Positively change the physical structures of your brain through  meditation and mindfulness

 🤝Connect with Dr Brian Brown, the Moody Brain Expert
🌎https://DrBrianGBrown.com
FB: @drbriangbrown
IG:@drbriangbrown
LinkedIn: @company/dr-brian-g-brown

🧬Find more information about genetics, epigenetics and how they impact your overall health and performance🧬 in Dr Brian's FREE Master Class on Gene Hacking https://drbriangbrown.com/genehack/bootcamp

Transcript

ITZ_EP103_Isolation Rumination, Anxiety, & Accelerated Aging KEYWORDS...

SUMMARY 

tribe, anxiety, isolation, mindfulness, brain, sit, meditation, aging, optimize, negative emotions, share, genetics,  depression, chronic symptoms, rumination, anxiety, accelerated aging, genesis zone, Dr Brian G Brown,neuro degeneration

Dr Brian G Brown  00:52

The mission is simple:

to help high achievers naturally eliminate emotional and physical obstacles, so they can optimize their life for higher achievement. 

Welcome, you just enter the Genesis zone. Good day, and welcome to the Genesis zone show. This is Dr. Brian Brown, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us today. I know there are a million other places you could be right now. And you're here with us. And we thank you for that.

Have you ever been in a position of self-isolating? Well, if so, this show is for you. Today, I'm going to share with you some shocking information, new research that's out and some really positive information about that research and how it can impact you in a positive manner for your life and outcomes for your life. And, dare I say maybe even preventing aging. 

So, let's roll right into it. The foundational root of who we are, is literally driven by the need to belong. And yes, that even applies to the introverts out there. Because I know secretly, you're screaming on the inside. What do you mean, I've got to belong. But it does. It applies to everybody introverts and extroverts this is not just an extrovert thing. 

The Foundation of Human Growth and Development

And you might even say that the foundation of human growth and development of just being human is to be an active part of a tribe. Now, of course, I don't mean this in the segregation or sense, I mean, this in the purest sense of belonging to a group of people that are vibrationally at the same journey as you and the same place and life is you doing the same things that you like to do. We all have numerous tribes that we are members of, some of them at deeper levels than others. Some of them may be work tribes, some of them may be religious tribes, or spiritual tribes, some of them may be family tribes, and others may be friend, group tribes, I think you get the idea. 

And if you sit and think about it long enough, I guarantee you can think of at least one example of a tribe where you're a member of that is really meaningful to you. If you don't have that, or you're having difficulty with that reach out to me, I'd be glad to help point out those areas in your life where tribe is impacting you, whether you realize it or not. 

So why do I even bring up the concept of tribe? Well, as I mentioned a second ago, tribe is the foundation of being human. This is because isolation is not good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that isolation is destructive. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, the list goes on and on. But here's the rub. Some of us are hard headed. Let's face it. We remember see these great tribes. But when the “you know what” hits the fan, so to speak, we retreat into isolation. 

Maybe we do this out of pride, maybe we do this out of selfishness, maybe we do this out of a keen urge to just not bother the other members of our tribe. Because what we're dealing with is just too heavy. Or at least that's our perception. 

A pre-publication study released just this week in the journal Nature Aging or it will be coming out in Nature Aging, really, really soon in February, says this and I quote,

 “Negative emotions, anxiety and depression are thought to promote the onset of neurodegenerative diseases and dementia.”

But what is their impact on the brain? And can their deleterious effects be limited? Neuroscientists at the University of Geneva observed the activation of the brains of young and older adults. When confronted with the psychological suffering of others, the nerve connections of the older adult brains showed significant emotional inertia. 

Negative emotions modify nerves negatively

They labeled it. Meaning that negative emotions modify nerves negatively, excessively and over a long period of time. This negative impact occurs in two brain regions strongly involved in the management of emotions, and autobiographical memory. Again, these results are to be published in Nature Aging, and they indicate that better management of these emotions through meditation could limit neuro degeneration. 

So, what is this neuro degeneration? Well, quite simply, it's premature aging of the brain. That's it. The researchers went on to report in this pre-publication study, that this accelerated brain aging was accentuated in people who showed symptoms of anxiety, negative emotions, and rumination. 

Now, what is rumination? Rumination is those thoughts that roll endlessly over and over in your head. And I'm not talking about good thoughts. If you've ever had these rolling thoughts in your heads, that's rumination. The kind that keeps you up at night, actually. Now, I don't know about you, but those times in my life when I sit by myself alone, in isolation, to usually during the toughest times in my life, my thoughts run wild, they ruminate. And my anxiety goes up. You know why? It's because I've ignored my tribe. 

And if I'm being totally honest, it's a combination of pride and not wanting to bother others. Is there self-love in this act that I'm doing in that moment? I think not. In fact, as a good friend of mine shares with her tribemates.

 “We are keeping others from expressing love toward us when we sit alone in the dregs of our mess.” 

Thank you for that wisdom, Liz Hall. I can't wait for her first book to come out regarding this topic. Yep, that's right. Relying on our tribe is not only good for us, it's great for others as well. 

But getting back to the meditation piece of this last study, in a totally unrelated study that was also published this month, and in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found this and “Practicing mindfulness helps individuals regulate attention, thoughts, feelings, and behavior.”

 Let me read that, again. Practicing mindfulness helps individuals regulate attention, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. That pretty much sums it up, we can literally change the physical structures of our brain, by meditation and mindfulness. And in previous episodes, I've spoken about the powerful power of mindfulness and meditation, and how it literally changes the DNA throughout your entire body when it comes to inflammation. And we know that inflammation leads to illness and disease, chronic problems, chronic symptoms. 

And if we would just stop and pull in and become mindful of our situation, if we would pull our tribe in around us, and share with them what's going on so we're not dealing with this in isolation. Guess what? We might just decrease our anxiety. And we might just stop those ruminating thoughts. And we might just stop the aging process of our brain or at least stop the accelerated aging process of our brain related to being in isolation. 

So, I'll leave you with this. There are those of you out there that struggle with anxiety. There's those of you out there that struggle with depression, and you're in this world of isolation, you think nobody will understand. I've got 16 years of personal experience with both depression and anxiety. 

I was on 9 different antidepressants over the course of that 16 years. none of them worked. It wasn't until I understood clinically, how my genes, my genetics, were interfering with my recovery. And I was able to put measures in place that actually took care of those. 

And it wasn't until I understood that my hormones being out of balance because of the chronic stress that I was under. And they needed to be rebalanced and optimized. 

And it wasn't until I understood that bile energetically, the way my systems within my body communicated among themselves.

Dr Brian G Brown  10:37

When I understood how all of these fit together, and I started, modifying them, optimizing them, getting them back in balance, that's when I received my healing. 

So if you're curious to understand what it is that I'm talking about, what it is that you can do to overcome this depression and anxiety, you can do the things that I've mentioned here in this episode, by reaching out to those in your tribe, sharing with them what's going on, so that you don't have to shoulder the burden myself. 

I had this epiphany recently. And I just received this kind of message, and it said, thank you, Brian, we don't need your shoulders anymore. Because you see, I'm notorious for shouldering the burden for a lot of things. And I think there are a lot of you out there in the listening audience that shoulder the burdens for things that you don't have any business shouldering the burdens for, and you don't have to do it alone. You can share that. And that's what tribe is for. 

And then pulling in and learning how to just sit in mindfulness. The best practice you can do for mindfulness, if you're brand new to it. It's just to sit quietly, in a chair, on your couch, wherever lay flat on your bed, or on your couch, or on the floor on a yoga mat, whatever you want to do. And just focus on your inhale and your exhale, just focus on your breath. That's an act of mindfulness. It’s a little bitty thing you can do. 

But if you want to go deeper. 

If you want to understand, okay, what do my bioenergetics look like? 

What do my hormones look like? 

What do my genetics look like? 

How do they all come together to create  this chemical soup that's called me?

And how they're out of out of balance and how they can get back in balance.

If you want to understand that…Message me, reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram @Dr. Brian G. Brown. 

I'll be more than happy to answer your questions help you in any kind of way I can. That's all I've got for today, most informed, most trusted and most grateful that you spent this time with us today. Until next time, stay in the zone. I'm Dr. Brian Brown.