Brain Healing Options
Brain fog, memory loss, Mild Cognitive Decline (Mild Alzheimer’s), difficulty with focus, sleep issues, anxiety or depression. Does any of this sound familiar?
Optimizing Brain Health
The brain, often referred to as the command center of the human body, is an intricate organ with boundless potential. Its capabilities extend beyond just controlling our movements and interpreting sensory information; it also shapes our thoughts, emotions, memories, and much more.
Hence, maintaining optimal brain health is paramount. Let’s delve into understanding the importance of brain health and how we can nurture it for long-term wellbeing.
Why is Brain Health Crucial?
A healthy brain doesn’t just mean excelling at cognitive tasks or having a sharp memory. It plays a pivotal role in regulating our emotional well-being, resilience, interpersonal relationships, and even our perception of the world.
When brain health is compromised, it’s not just cognitive decline or memory lapses that may be red flags; we can also experience other symptoms like mood swings, reduced capacity to handle stress, or a compromised ability to engage in daily tasks.
Factors Impacting Brain Health
- Diet and Nutrition: The brain demands specific nutrients to function at its peak. Omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals play crucial roles in maintaining neural connections and protecting against oxidative stress. Diets rich in processed foods, sugars, and unhealthy fats can increase neuroinflammation, which is detrimental to brain health. Undiagnosed food intolerances can significantly affect the brain by triggering inflammation and potentially leading to a range of neurological symptoms. These may include brain fog, headaches, mood disturbances, and even cognitive impairment, underscoring the intricate connection between gut health and brain function.
- Physical Activity: Regular exercise isn’t just for a toned physique. It boosts blood flow throughout the body, including the brain. This increased circulation delivers oxygen and nutrients vital for cognitive processes and overall brain function. In addition, exercise increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which plays an important role in neuronal survival and growth, serves as a neurotransmitter modulator, and participates in neuronal plasticity, which is essential for learning and memory.
- Mental Stimulation: Much like muscles, the brain needs regular exercise to remain agile and robust. Engaging in activities that challenge the mind—like reading, puzzles, or learning a new skill—can fortify neural pathways and even stimulate the growth of new brain cells.
- Social Connections: Humans are inherently social beings. Forming and nurturing relationships can stave off mental decline. Social engagement stimulates our brains, combats feelings of isolation and depression, and even boosts longevity.
- Stress Management: Chronic stress can wreak havoc on the brain, leading to shrinkage in key areas responsible for emotion and physiological regulation. Mindfulness practices, meditation, and deep-breathing exercises can aid in managing stress levels.
- Sleep: Sleep isn’t merely downtime for the body. It’s when the brain processes the day’s information, makes connections, and undergoes repair. A chronic lack of sleep can lead to cognitive decline and increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.
The Interconnected Role of Gut Health
Recent research has drawn profound connections between the gut and the brain, often referred to as the gut-brain axis. Our gut health, determined by our microbiome’s balance, can influence brain health and mood.
A balanced gut can promote the production of neurotransmitters, vital for mood regulation and cognitive functions. On the other hand, an imbalanced gut can lead to inflammation, impacting brain function and potentially leading to mood disorders.
In conclusion, brain health is an integral aspect of our overall well-being, influencing how we think, feel, and act.
By adopting a holistic, comprehensive approach – considering diet, physical activity, mental stimulation, social connections, and more – we can pave the way for a sharper, healthier, and more resilient brain well into our later years. Embrace the steps today for a brighter cognitive future.
Brain fog, memory loss, Mild Cognitive Decline (Mild Alzheimer’s), difficulty with focus, sleep issues, anxiety or depression. Does any of this sound familiar?
Making a huge grocery list and then getting to the store and realizing you left the list on the counter…
Always loosing your keys or forgetting why you walked into a room? Feel as though you have anxiety or depression now, which is something you never had…..
Trying to remember the name of that neighbor you who ABSOLUTELY should know… Feel like you can’t recall and remember new things, or having a hard time to focus…..
Difficulty falling asleep or staying a sleep, wake up feeling not rested……..
Call it brain fog, memory loss, or just feeling like your brain doesn’t work like it used to.
If you know the feeling and want to finally find a solution…
The world of natural, holistic care offers several science-based methods of locating and balancing problems with brain function. Whether or not you have a disease, these methods can contribute to better function, quality of life, and happiness.
The methods we offer are based on either correcting the over- or under-firing patterns of the brain circuit pathways, or balancing the brain chemically. Children, adults, and seniors may all see benefit in performance from these methods. Vaughan Vitality Wellness is one of very few clinics that combine the power of QEEG or quantitative electroencephalography and Neurofeedback with each other and with functional medicine, nutrition, chiropractic, neurological exam, rehabilitation and sports or psychological counseling, connecting the whole body approach with the neurophysiology. Dr. Vaughan DC, BCN, IFMCP, B.S. has taken countless seminars regarding brain treatment for QEEG, Neurofeedback, Functional Medicine, and went through the course of Dr. Dale Bredesen MD, learning process he speaks about in the book “The End of Alzheimer’s”.
QEEG and Neurofeedback
We assess the electrical circuits in the brain using a noninvasive scan technology called QEEG or quantitative electroencephalography. This is a cap that measures brainwaves leaving the skull and captures them in full color 3D brain mapping reports that compare your brain to thousands of subjects.
This same cap can be used to teach the brain through feedback how to fire more efficiently and rest more deeply. This method is called Neurofeedback and has been highly studied. QEEG and Neurofeedback can be applied to patients as young as 6 years old. Our system is the most advanced available today reaching deep brain structures using the s-loreta processing system that guides imaging and treatment.
Functional Neurological Exam and Rehab
1990-2000 was called the Decade of the Brain because the National Institutes of Health funded massive university imaging studies of all types of brain function. These brain scans led to the knowledge of brain regions and their distinct functions. Examination methods became standardized and brain clinicians began to activate distinct brain regions with targeted precision. Today, physical examination and other testing can reveal very specifically where the brain problem is, and then therapies can be directed that stimulate those deficit areas perfectly.
We use a number of directed brain therapies, including specific balance training, eye movements, skin brushing, object or word identification, tilt table training, visual or auditory stimulations, double tasking, laser headset training, neurological muscle energy techniques, and many other fun, interesting, and pain-free exercises.
At Vaughn Vitality Wellness, we promise to put you first — by treating you with respect and providing the holistic medical attention you need. Our team excels at discovering the root cause of your medical condition. Our treatment approaches can help prevent disease and, in some cases, reverse illness.
Metabolic Balancing or Functional Medicine
The brain is bathed in a chemical soup within the cerebrospinal fluid that can either be sustaining or toxic for it. For the chemistry of the brain, urine, and blood, we have lab tests, medical history, physical examinations, and imaging that can help us locate chemical imbalances.
These chemical imbalances can be improved by many different treatment methods. Metabolic balancing is also key. What is going on in your gut is also affecting the brain. We call this the gut-brain axis. When you work on the whole systems approach we see better results with brain dysfunctions, however you can start with one and move through phases of care depending on your needs and symptoms.
At Vaughan Vitality Wellness we evaluate your brain based on the 5 subtypes of Cognitive Decline, which really helps us evaluate and look at many root causes that are missed.
Subtype:
- 1. Inflammatory: Here was look at anything driving inflammation looking at elevated markers in Blood work, dysbiosis in stool, oral dysbiosis, omega ratio, viral patterns and autoimmune.
- 1.5. Glycotoxic: Addressing your diet and blood sugars.
- 2. Trophic: This is were we evaluate Hormones, genes, and nutrient deficiencies and more.
- 3. Toxic Illness: We address here all the environmental toxins such as Biotoxins (Mold), Heavy metals, herbicides, pesticides and more.
- 4. Vascular: A step when we help stabilize the membranes.
- 5. Traumatic: This step we ask deep questions and test if there has been any traumatic brain injuries. Often time patients think they need to be knocked out or sent to the emergency room for this to be considered but that is not the case. Even emotional trauma can fall into this category.
By adding these subtypes to all Brain related issues we are helping prevent and reverse Alzheimer’s in a world at large. These steps are critical to get to the root cause of brain related cognitive issues. In our office we have seen numerous patients stop the process and even return back to their activities they love and connecting with family and friends again.
Repairing such imbalances involves:
- Evaluating genes and the role they play in your health
- Eliminating toxins from your body such as Heavy metals, mold and more
- Heal the gut. Kill the infection. Repair the gut lining. Repopulate with good bacteria.
- Addressing and reducing inflammation
- Balancing hormones
- Addressing nutrient deficiencies
- Adding or subtracting foods from the diet
- Adding or changing nutritional supplements or their serving size, and
- Changing exercise, sleep, and other lifestyle habits
Some Indications for Brain Services
Symptoms and Conditions that may benefit from supportive, adjunctive, or palliative brain therapies include:
- ADHD, and ADD
- Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other neurodegenerative disorders of the brain
- TBI Traumatic and mild traumatic brain injury or concussion
- Multiple concussion or post-concussion syndrome
- Sleep problems
- Concentration and focus issues or brain fog
- Mood disorders such as depression and anxiety
- Autoimmune diseases affecting the brain, endocrine, or digestive systems
- Panic attacks
- Tics and tremors
- Reading difficulties and some learning disorders
- Headaches of several types
- Behavior control
- Auditory and sensory processing disorders
- Some speech and language disorders
- Chronic vertebral subluxation (non-ligamentous spinal instability) that remains unresolved despite chiropractic care
- Reduced sense of smell
- Posture and gait disturbances
- Some vagal nerve conditions
- Allodynia (pain from normal touch)
- Balance problems, falls, and clumsiness
- Nausea
- Vertigo
- Asperger’s
- Tourette’s
- Bipolar and schizophrenia
Many conditions require co-management with a psychologist, psychiatrist, dentist, dietician, acupuncturist, naturopath, nutritionist, podiatrist, optometrist, PT, OT speech therapist, medical neurologist, or other health professional.
Nutritional and dietary supplements can make a huge impact too. Quality of life can be greatly improved even in the absence of cure. Advanced brain imaging centers are available to us for special testing and reports as well.
New and Advanced Types of Neurofeedback We Offer
Neurofeedback can be applied to patients as young as 6 years old. Our system is the most advanced available today reaching deep brain structures using the s-LORETA processing system that guides deep brain imaging and treatment so that you get a visible 3D QEEG every session-that is a fresh, real time brain scan guiding your training every session. These medical instruments are FDA cleared for doctors only-not like the brain training toys you see for sale for unsupervised use all over the internet.
S-LORETA deep brain neurofeedback
This method uses a full 19 channel cap to see and train all the brain waves from delta up to gamma, at a level of inches deep into the Limbic system-the emotional control center of the brain. Most neurofeedback only reaches 6 mm into the brain below the scalp. This deep limbic region regulates emotions, detects lies and errors, is deeply involved in the sympathetic and parasympathetic balance of the nervous system, it is heavily involved in PTSD, and it contributes much to the control and regulation over the endocrine (hormonal) and immune systems. It uses Z-scores which are power or amplitude scores from over 1200 normal brains to compare to yours to train up or down the voltage output of brain regions superficial and deep. Some areas become too powerful or too weak in their output. It uses beautiful harp sounds and can show most of the brain visually with color codes in 3D in real time as you train. We can also train with your favorite movie, show or video, or with brain-based video games.
ISF-Infraslow fluctuation Basic
This method uses 5 wires to train the lowest foundational resonant frequency of the brain, far lower frequency than the delta, which was previously thought to be the lowest. It plays very soothing low pitch rumbles that feedback to your brain, training it to find its Optimal Frequency and that feels fantastic. This is not simply amplitude or coherence, but it can combine all of these and even do cross-training between regions and wavelengths.
ISF-s-LORETA
This method combined the Infraslow waves with the rest of the waves throughout the brains deep and superficial regions and allow much flexibility in tailoring training to complex and delicate imbalances.
Coherence or connectivity training
This method is not training amplitude or power. It trains the connectivity or crosstalk between near and far brain connections. It is about communication, not power. This method trains you to turn down hyper cross talk channels, or to turn up messages when they are deficient across certain pathways. This coherence has a direction, just like a pair of dancers has a lead and a follower. It matters which brain regions are leading the signal and which are receiving. We can train your brain to correct errors in cross talk communication channels, so it calms down excessive chatter or raises needed talk between vital disconnected regions.
Schedule Discovery Consult
Have questions about improving your brain health? Our patient coordinator is on standby, happy to assist and clarify any questions you might have to determine if our comprehensive approach is right for you.
Click here to schedule your free discovery consult or call our office at 714.434.9355.
About Vaughan Vitality Wellness
Pioneering a transformative approach to brain health, Dr. Kristi Vaughan DC, BCN, IFMCP, B.S. at Vaughan Vitality Wellness blends integrative & functional medicine insights with advanced diagnostic tools. We prioritize deciphering and treating the root causes of your symptoms so patients can feel and look their absolute best.
Brain Healing Success Stories
“Dr. Vaughn’s treatments methods might seem out of the ordinary to some but they work and work well. Even though you might be skeptical, the advantage to alternative medicine is that it will not hurt you and you will find that it will help your condition without the use of prescription drugs. I suffered from migraine headaches, but with alternative medicine treatments I have been migraine free for several years. I cannot argue with success. Give it a try. You have nothing to lose.” –Debbie J
“After suffering from migraine headaches since I was12 years old, taking medication and getting shots in my neck, I haven’t had a headache or migraine since seeing Dr. Vaughan over six months now. She immediately changed my life. She evaluated my labs, running other diagnostic test, discovering some triggers. I would highly recommend her. She’s the best. Thank you Dr. Vaughan.” –Suzan K.
At Vaughn Vitality Wellness, we promise to put you first — by treating you with respect and providing the holistic medical attention you need. Our team excels at discovering the root cause of your medical condition. Our treatment approaches can help prevent disease and, in some cases, reverse illness.