Enhancing Sports Performance

Almost every professional sports organization has a Chiropractor on their team to enhance player performance and promote optimum recovery from injuries. Hand, eye, and foot coordination is one of the most important skills to develop for any athlete. Inches can be the difference between a home run and a strike out in baseball. Dr. Sperry won the Nobel prize for his work showing more than 90% of the brains messages are for coordinating the body and the affects from gravity.

One of the most important parts of the brain function is directing the messages from the brain to the body. This process is called "Proprioception" and is one of those background physical processes that make up your body's total IQ. Proprioceptors are specialized nerve endings located in your muscles and joints that inform your brain about your body's position in three-dimensional space.

You're able to write legibly because proprioceptors are sending instantaneous data about the angles of the small joints of your fingers and wrists as your pen moves across the page. You're able to run on the beach because proprioceptors are continuously sending signals to your brain about the changing shape of the uneven surface of the sand.

Without these specialized nerve endings, we'd never be able to hit a baseball, throw a Frisbee, or drive a car. But proprioceptors can be affected by posture and nerve stress. One person out for a stroll might trip over a crack in the pavement and suffer a badly sprained ankle. Another person might trip over the same crack, even badly turning over their ankle in the process, and keep on walking without even a trace of a limp.

The difference between injury and non-injury is the level of proprioceptor training, and this level usually is related to whether you're doing regular exercise. Exercise trains your muscles and joints to adapt to varying kinds of stresses (weight-bearing loads) throughout a variety of positions (the full range of motion of those joints).However, if an ankle, shoulder, or the back are injured it can disrupt the exact messages to and from the brain. This in turn can affect hand, eye, and foot coordination.

As a result, trained proprioceptors can withstand a high degree of stress (such as a sudden twisting of an ankle). The untrained ankle, possibly the ankle of a person who hasn't done much walking, running, or bike riding in the last five years, will be damaged by an unusual and unexpected stress. The result is an ankle sprain of varying severity and possibly a broken ankle.

Similarly, it is well known that older adults experience more frequent falls than do younger adults. Part of the explanation involves proprioception. Many older adults don't engage in regular exercise. Proprioceptive function decreases, changes in level or surface aren't recognized quickly by the person's feet and ankles, and the person falls.

It's easy to see that the effort to maintain an athletes proprioceptive system is time well spent. This process is also extremely important for anyone that wants to maintain a high level of mobility as you age. The fastest way to boost the brain body connection is by maintaining the best alignment possible and doing regular exercise. All kinds of exercise provide benefit, so the best exercises are the ones that have some interest for you personally.

Better Brain Tip:

• Athletes -Do regular coordination exercises or drills for your desired sport
• Non Athlete- balance on one foot with the opposite arm outstretched in front of your body for 30 seconds / then switch leg and arm sequence { this develops better brain balancing and proprioception}

The All Star Break and Brain Health

The "All Star Break" just ended for Major League Baseball last week. I had the honor of doing evaluations on the team at  the last game before their time off and it was apparent that they needed a rest from a long road schedule. The "All Star Break " for most players is a great planned "time to revitalize" and pause to prepare for the rest of a long season .

In any season there has to be a natural break or our body gets out of rhythm. In nature there are rhythms and change that happen year after year. Our daily rhythm is probably one of the most important cycles to get into balance. Athletes have a rhythm to their training. If you ever go to a pregame warm up no matter what sport, there is a specific process to getting prepared for game time.

No matter how great an athlete is they all begin their pregame activities with light stretches, jogging or calisthenics. In baseball, batting practice or a pitcher warming up in the bull pen are all necessary to get the nervous system in sync and body loosened up. To reach peak potential and avoid injuries we need to adopt this same principle. Waking up rushed or not having time to let the brain get engaged properly puts our bodies in a stressful fight or flight. It's critical to reprioritize your day if you wake up in a stress response.

If you really want long lasting health and vitality don't just prioritize your schedule every day,

you must "schedule your priorities." This means getting your mind and body prepared for each day. When you master your days, you can master your week, when you master your week you will master your life!  Look at your future calendar  to schedule a" time to revitalize" break .This should be done at least once each season to maintain optimum health. Start looking at your life like a peak performer and begin your days slow then build momentum and then close the day for better mental clarity and less stress.

Better Brain tip:

·         Write down all the ways that you feel you can revitalize your body, mind and spirit.

·         Schedule a time each season to get away and design your life so you can  listen to your highest  voice, see your highest vision and trust your gut instinct.

The 4 step T.E.A.M Approach to Achieve Better Brain Power

This is the powerful and profound, the 4 step, keep it simple approach to Better Brain Health for LIFE!

Remember T.E.A.M as your health acronym

1)    Think Better today then you did Yesterday

2)    Eat  Better Today then you did Yesterday

3)    Act Better today then you did Yesterday

4)    Move Better today then you did yesterday.       

Repeat!!

The 4 Levels of the Brain and Your IQ

Studies are now showing that a high IQ may be linked to how we process information.

Here's the question: Is there a single way to predict whether someone has a high IQ or not?

The answer: Maybe.

 According to a new study in the Journal Current Biology, high IQ is correlated with an ability to process important information while ignoring the unimportant distractions.

In the movie "For the love of the game"  Kevin Costner has to drown out all the distractions as he attempts to pitch a no hit game for his farewell performance in the big leagues. His strategy was to blur out all the visual and auditory distractions by creating a focused strategy. He would say to himself "clear the mechanism," and he would have a much clearer focus on the task at hand. Having a strategy to regain your focus can increase your memory, cognitive skills and reduce stress. Each level of the brain often overrides the other based on prior experiences if you let it just remain on auto pilot.

Many scientists have suggested that high IQ is linked to processing speed, or how quickly and accurately a person can understand incoming information. This information can come from a wide range of sensory inputs, including sounds, sights, and physical sensations. Responding to a tap on your shoulder or computing a difficult math problem both rely on processing speed, among other cognitive abilities. The problem in today's lifestyle is we have more potential distractions from texts, cell phones, 24 hour world news and the rapid pace of our world than ever before.

The University of Rochester had researchers conduct a study searching to find what if the ability to ignore certain information is just as important as the speed it takes to process it internally.

Researchers first set out the determine how quickly the study’s 53 participants processed different types of visual information. A series of shapes passed across a screen, and participants were asked to identify how the shapes had moved — for example top-to-bottom or left-to-right. The shapes could be large or small.

Counter intuitively, participants generally took longer to process large shapes than small shapes. This phenomenon, called spatial suppression, originates from a natural instinct to pay less attention to large background movements — like ignoring the lion on the horizon to focus on the lion in front of you.

Each participant received a Suppression Index score (SI) based on the difference between their response time to the small moving shape compared to the large moving shape.

Participants also took a version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), one of the most extensively studied IQ tests in existence.

Analysis revealed a strong correlation between IQ score and SI score — meaning that people with higher IQs were better at processing small movements and worse at processing large movements. Learning how to use all 4 levels of the brain teaches you how to attain selective focus on what is most important.

This study’s findings make plenty of sense in real-world scenarios: most of the time, the environment rewards a myopic focus. When you drive, it’s the cars and pedestrians close by that command the bulk of your attention. Events happening in the background  such as buildings you pass, objects on the side of the road, people moving on the sidewalk all become secondary.

The brain is complex and sometimes perplexing, so it’s always gratifying to see researchers begin to understand one of its most important mysteries and how our focus can affect our intelligence quotient.

Better Brain tip

Next time you’re out in the world, pause for a moment and see if you find yourself relying on a specific sense more than others.

Stop and look around to see first what feels most important to pay attention to...then broaden your senses to also see a bigger picture of your surroundings.

Both of these actions  are important to create a better balance between the 4 levels of the brain and avoiding getting stuck in a sensory pattern.

What Causes Brain Dysfunction?

Almost all brain dysfunction can be summarized into one of three categories that I call the three Ts , "TRAUMA ,TOXICITY and THOUGHTS". You may have seen some of my previous videos when I told the story about how my wife Jeanine and I were in a horrific helicopter crash. She suffered a traumatic brain injury and it is the main reason I created the Better Brain Academy.

The synthesis of what  I learned in 30 years of practice along with the worldwide search to find the best doctors, the best research, best treatments and remedies to create a healthy brain and nervous system was the main reason for my wife's recovery

 Any time there is a trauma to the brain and body it can short-circuit the nervous system. It is very important to always make sure that you do something to start to reset the nervous system and restore proper function. Any stress can trigger the fight or fight response that needs to stop within a short period of time. There's a feedback loop that takes place from the brain to our body and then back the brain. Healthy responses have to send messages to the cells from the brain 100 % of the time for proper communication

It is critical to look at what energy and information is being received  to support the health and healing for the best amount of communication from the brain. The brain can actually affect the messages down the spinal tracks so your posture is very important in the recovery after a trauma. Many of us have toxins that have been accumulating in the body .A critical step in healing is to make sure that you are taking steps to start to reduce that and eliminate toxins as much as possible .I will go into the steps more in depth in future videos on how to reduce toxicity

 It is also important to really be aware of what we're thinking because it could be firing off this feedback loop with negative feedback reducing your overall health. I want you to have 100% of your brains message to bring 100% of expression of life energy flowing to the body 100% of the time. So start to THINK a little bit better and reduce TOXINS now to achieve a much healthier life.

Better Brain Academy and The 3 Powers

We all have the ability to transform our lives by understanding how to use our "Three Powers." In the Better Brain Academy we take you through a three week process to tap into each of your powers. It takes 21 days to create a new habit pattern so we address all the three powers starting first with your Elective power, then your connective power and finishing the last week addressing your Reflective power.

Your Elective Power is the "power of you". Your ability to find what truly drives you and link this with your values for more fulfillment in life. Your Connective Power is how you create stronger lifelong connections using your emotional brain. Your Reflective Power is tapping into your Innate purpose and defining your highest mission in life.

For more information watch the introductory video below or visit our website at www.betterbrainblueprint.com

Balancing the Brain with Our Innate Senses

This week the focus is about getting in touch with our own innate senses. The word innate means inborn or natural. We all have innate skills, innate dreams and desires that makes us each unique. Our five senses are how we interact with the external world and actually create the quality of our life. These senses also direct our internal drives and motivation. We can all create an internal feeling that is enough to compel us to travel great distances for our favorite food, to see something that is majestic as a ocean sunset, or listen our favorite musician.

I would like to take a closer look at how to reduce the stresses of daily life by using the sense of smell. Different smells can actually alter brainwave patterns because it is the only sense that bypasses the gatekeeper of the brain( thalamus). The universal smell for calming the brain is lavender .It has a direct effect on the brain and nervous system reducing anxiety. If you have kids that are more hyperactive and they have a hard time sleeping, use lavender on their pillow. When my grandkids come over my wife will put it a little bit of lavender oil on their pillow and it's amazing how they sleep much better.

We begin the digestive process with smelling our food first. With our fast food society it is so easy to overeat because the sense of smell is not stimulated. The brain triggers the digestive process with smell and begins stimulating the release of digestive enzymes. Many times a meal has already been devoured before the body can catch up so indigestion occurs. I challenge to consciously tap into your senses this week at a greater level of mindful awareness.

Better Brain Tip

Close your eyes for an entire meal and truly listen to sounds around you and taste your food at a higher level. We all need to use our five senses on a daily basis however many times we can be on auto pilot and don't allow the body to digest the energy and information our food and environment is providing. Slow down today and it will be easier get the brain in better balance and reduce stresses on your nervous system.