Brain Detox Fasting

Fasting Improves Brain & Neurological Detox! 

A study published in Science in October 2013 entitled “Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain” found that we need to sleep specifically so that the brain can focus on a built-in detox that happens each night. 

Lead study author Dr. Maiken Nedergaard summarizes in a statement: “the restorative nature of sleep appears to be the result of the active clearance of the by-products of neural activity that accumulate during wakefulness.”

The study states:

...the restorative function of sleep may be a consequence of the enhanced removal of potentially neurotoxic waste products that accumulate in the awake central nervous system. Your Glymphatic System: A nightly brain detox

You probably haven’t read much about the glymphatic system; however, it is a vital function in your body. In 2012, researchers identified this 'maintenance system' called the glymphatic system, which uses the cells’ mitochondria to remove cellular waste from the brain. It was found that the clear cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) acts as a drainage mechanism, much like soapy water in your dishwasher. Basically, your brain cells’ mitochondria power the CSF to clean your brain and nervous system every night.

If you improve your mitochondrial function during sleep, you’ll turbocharge your brain’s maintenance system and get more cleanup done in fewer hours of sleep.

 In this episode, you will learn - How Fasting Supercharges Your Brain’s Clean-Up System.

The core principle of fasting is that it improves metabolic health and the function of mitochondria which power all aspects of our body, from repair to activity.

In this episode, you'll learn how to engage in fasting specifically to supercharge your glymphatic system. 

Want a guided fasting program for Mental Health? 

Email me at info@longevityfitnessandhealth.com for more information or check out my Instagram bio @longevityfitnessandhealth. 

Disclaimer:

This podcast is for general informational purposes only. It should not be used to self-diagnose, and it is not a substitute for a medical exam, cure, treatment, diagnosis, prescription, or recommendation. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Chapters

• 1:37 What is the Glymphatic System?
• 5:47 Fasting for 'brain detox'.
• 13:20 When to eat for mental detox
• 16:40 How to know if it's working...
• 19:30 36 hour fast for nightly mental detox
• 21:40 BDNF & fasting resutls
• 24:02 Biohacks for Extended Fasting

Transcript

Transcript for brain-detox-fasting

[00:00:00] Ryan: Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode. I have a very exciting and interesting subject to cover this week regarding brain health and cognitive function. It's a fasting technique that I've been using for a while now with myself and clients and found a lot of success with it.

[00:00:25] Ryan: So I called it the Brain Detox. And it's basically using fasting in a very specific way to help the brain and the central nervous system detox and function better and allow you to get more out of your ability to think and operate. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of theory about how this works and why it works, and then go right into some practical applications.

[00:00:54] Ryan: On different levels using fasting and some other simple techniques. So the [00:01:00] main thing we're addressing here is your body's natural ability to detox and to get rid of. Toxins overnight while you're sleeping through a system called the glymphatic system. And this is very similar to what many of you know as the lymphatic system.

[00:01:18] Ryan: So the lymphatic system is of course, the system in your body that has a lot to do with your immune response handling detox and allowing things that your body wants to get rid of, to be removed and to be eliminated. So the glymphatic system is a system that specifically helps your central nervous system detox and operate in a way that is more optimum because there aren't toxins inhibiting functions.

[00:01:48] Ryan: And the glymphatic system also helps distribute brain nourishing and central nervous system nourishing factors like proteins, fatty acids, et [00:02:00] cetera. So it's a very powerful system. Not a lot of research has been done about it, but one of the things that has been found is that when this system is operating cognitive function is much enhanced, you are sharper and the longevity of a person's cognitive function is increased. 

[00:02:20] Ryan: And there have been suggestions that it can help with disease processes that are degenerative and allow a person to not experience those even though they may apparently be predisposed by repairing the glymphatic system, a person doesn't experience the mental neurological degeneration that, that they might otherwise. 

[00:02:42] Ryan: So it's very powerful stuff. For most of us, it can be used on an immediate basis to improve clarity, cognitive function, and the ability to maintain and enhance our processes mentally speaking. 

[00:02:57] Ryan: So very exciting way of using [00:03:00] fasting. And more and more as I work with people, I find that they're interested in things that not only help with body composition and things like that, but also really enhancing their life. And one of the best ways to enhance a person's life is to improve their mental function. Cause everything else follows. You know, the more cognitively sharp a person is, the more they're able to engage in everything they wanna do to be happier, be more successful, be healthier, and all the other things that they might have as goals. 

[00:03:28] Ryan: Let's dive into this a little bit. Lymphatic system has to do with drainage and a, a person's response physically to bacteria or agents that might cause a person to become ill. Or compromised somehow.

[00:03:42] Ryan: So the glymphatic system does this plus helps the central nervous system become regenerated and renewed through the distribution of different factors. It's very simple to understand if you just keep it on the level of, it's a detox [00:04:00] factor that allows your body to improve and heal. Specifically for the central nervous system.

[00:04:07] Ryan: It uses the, the vascular system of the body to do this. And you know, like with the lymphatic system, it is a drainage pathway. And it allows your body to. You know, let's say you're exposed to toxins like glyphosate or something via your water or via things you've eaten or whatever, or you're exposed to some other toxin via where you live.

[00:04:28] Ryan: You are using chlorine to clean with or something that your body finds toxic. . And there's also processes just through the normal metabolism that a person uses to get the energy to, to operate cognitively. There are different. Toxic byproducts that the body has to get rid of when you're operating, especially when your body is using mostly glucose, which is the case for most people, is that they're, they're running on carbs basically.

[00:04:55] Ryan: So as you fast your body starts to run more and more on ketones. [00:05:00] If you combine that with a low carb, high fat, moderate protein diet, you get into ketosis faster and more thoroughly. As many of you know from fasting. So what we are gonna look at today is, okay, so based off of this information that the body uses this system called the Glymphatic system to detox, how do we enhance that?

[00:05:21] Ryan: How do we make the removal of toxins in the removal of proteins that are damaged, et cetera, during the night, which is when your glymphatic system is most engaged, the glymphatic system actually does the vast majority of its functions while you're sleeping. So having a good sleep schedule is integral to making this operate.

[00:05:42] Ryan: However, a great starting point is fasting because the functions that the glymphatic system is trying to accomplish, detox, removing damaged proteins, as well as distributing healthy factors. are all a part of what [00:06:00] happens when you're fasting. And these start to happen during the day. So if you're fasting during the day and then you go into your sleep cycle at night, your body is set up to take advantage of the functions of the glymphatic system and to detox cognitively or physically the brain and the nervous system.

[00:06:19] Ryan: So very simply, how do you engage? Really, it's just what you normally do when you're fasting with a couple little tweaks. So if you're just starting out or if you, you're not into doing extended fasts, I'm gonna give you the intermittent fasting regimen that I found to be very workable. And then at the end, I'll also go over how to use extended fasting to really deepen your glymphatic system detox at night.

[00:06:46] Ryan: But to. You would just build up to the point where you're at a normal 18/6 fasting schedule, at least it could be 20/4, but 18/6 will do it for most people. So if you're not able to [00:07:00] fast that long, that's where you'd want to build up to. It's getting to the point where you have an 18 hour fasting window.

[00:07:05] Ryan: Six hour eating window. And one of the key things to do is while you engage in this 18/6 fasting is to make sure that that last meal of the day is at least three hours away from when you fall asleep. So if you're, you're eating your last meal at six, you wouldn't wanna be falling asleep until at least nine.

[00:07:26] Ryan: Preferably you're four to five hours away from your sleeping window. So if you ate your last meal, finished your last meal at six, you know, going to bed at 10 or 11 would be even better cuz you'd be in that four or five hour window after having eaten. And this is crucial because after about three hours for most people and most types of meals a person has digested, at least preliminarily all the important factors involved with that meal.

[00:07:56] Ryan: You're no longer in the digestive mode [00:08:00] and your body starts to go into the fasting mode and you wanna fall asleep when your body is going into or already into the fasting state. That fasted state where your body's starting to look to use ketones or produce ketones in order to have energy. It's starting to look at autophagy.

[00:08:20] Ryan: It's starting to produce some of the brain nourishing factors that are produced when you go into a fasting state, it's very interesting. Your brain, your cognitive health is one of the most important things. We all know or most of you who've, who've listened to me or are in the fasting world, so to speak, that the body begins a repair process when you enter fasting. 

[00:08:45] Ryan: It actually is the natural detox and repair function that is built into how we work biochemically. How our biomolecular structures are enhanced to, to assist in [00:09:00] the process of detoxing things and repairing the body. When you start going into a fasting state, so after three hours, you are moving towards that fasted state.

[00:09:10] Ryan: Now, depends on what you call a fasted state as to when we say that window actually begins. Generally speaking, the conventional idea of when you begin in a fasted state is after 12 hours, but your body has processed most of the food that's eaten from a meal after three or four hours. So we could say the process actually starts there

[00:09:32] Ryan: and then we get into a full-blown fasted state around 10 to 12 hours or so, because that is when your body actually begins to go into a fairly deep state of autophagy. So where it's recycling damaged proteins and it's eliminating damaged cellular structures like your mitochondria, et cetera. And it's regenerating or

[00:09:56] Ryan: breaking down and putting together these structures [00:10:00] to create new, more healthy structures within your cells and in the amino acid structures that are created from the recycled proteins. So that's all autophagy and the, the breakdown of your mitochondria and then recycling and building them up again, creating new mitochondria that work more effectively. That's called mitophagy. 

[00:10:21] Ryan: So autophagy, mitophagy very similar functions of the fasting state that happens around 10, 12 hours depending on your metabolism, body size, health, all that. And then also at that point was where a person will get into ketosis or start going into a deeper state of ketosis if they're not already ketogenically adapted, if they're not already burning fat for fuel.

[00:10:43] Ryan: Don't eat for about 12 hours, you'll go into some sort of mild state of ketosis. You know, if, if you've never fasted before and you eat really high carb, you might not be in what we would call full ketosis. You might not be at that level, but you'll start producing ketones that [00:11:00] can be used for energy around 12 hours.

[00:11:02] Ryan: So this is all the progression that happens from when we stop eating. Three or four hours, we, we've digested the food. Now the body starts to go into this repair and utilization mode, depending on what you're doing physically. And you can speed up getting into this fasted state by exercising, by taking certain supplements.

[00:11:22] Ryan: By changing the way you eat. Now, how does this influence you cognitively and affect detox? So around three or four hours, your body starts to go into this fasted state. The preliminary steps of it, that is perfect because that means that swelling is going to be reduced even if you've eaten a high carb meal.

[00:11:42] Ryan: Swelling will start to go down after three or four hours a little bit. And that allows for drainage to occur and allows for distribution of nutrients to occur. So the, the formula would simply be, to start taking advantage using fasting, as a lever, so to speak. Start [00:12:00] taking more advantage of detoxing your brain and central nervous system.

[00:12:05] Ryan: Don't eat three to four hours before you fall asleep and fast at least 18/6. This begins the process wherein your body is detoxing at night very thoroughly, and it's able to distribute the nutrients because it's all been broken down and it's available to be distributed. Distribute the nutrients throughout, your brain, your nervous system, your body for that matter.

[00:12:31] Ryan: But we're concentrating on that. So your brain nervous system so that it can be used as a way of increasing healing factors that can occur at night. So fatty acids have been broken down, proteins have been broken down. They're ready to be utilized at that point. So this is super important. Most people don't realize how important it is to have that window of three to four hours before you fall asleep because that allows for this healing process to take place.

[00:12:55] Ryan: If that doesn't occur, then the entire night can be thrown off to some degree. [00:13:00] Now that's at let's. Life work schedule kids schedule doesn't allow you to have that window. Okay, fine. So maybe Monday through Friday, you eat within a couple hours, your sleep fine on the weekend. Try to take both days if possible, or at least one day and have a full five hours between when you stop eating and when you fall asleep.

[00:13:23] Ryan: That will allow your body to get into this state where it can actually heal and detox thoroughly overnight while you're sleeping. And so that would at least be once a week where you're getting this thorough healing and detox process. And for most that would be a great improvement. . So you can sleep even less if you have this detox process going.

[00:13:44] Ryan: It's one of the great things is you could sleep a shorter amount of time and get more out of it. If you are fasting and you're making that three to four hour window happen before you fall asleep. So it's a way of getting around it if you can't do it during the week. take advantage of the weekend or whatever [00:14:00] days you can, whenever you can fit it in.

[00:14:01] Ryan: It doesn't have to be on a regimen, of course. In fact, it's better to do it whenever you can than to just do it on a set schedule. And then the other factors that we can very easily add in here have to do with adding in exercise. and structuring what you eat when during the day. So exercise very simple.

[00:14:19] Ryan: Sometime when after you wake up while you're in a fasted state, engage in moderate exercise for the purposes of enhancing the glymphatic system, the detox process that occurs when you sleep. Wake up in the morning, do your normal routine, whatever that is, and then try to exercise moderately. You know, if you're already super into exercise, you exercise every day or something, then this might be going to the gym for half an hour and working out.

[00:14:42] Ryan: That would be moderate for you. If you don't exercise, it might be just going for a 20 minute walk and working up a little bit of a sweat that it depends on where you're at. So judge that and have some sort of session where you are exercising and then this will help with the lymphatic system in the evening.

[00:14:58] Ryan: Now, even if you can't make that window [00:15:00] happen, exercising every day like that or regularly like that will help the glymphatic system work at night. And then the other thing you can do is structure your meals in a certain way so that you have the nutrients that helps the most with repair at night.

[00:15:15] Ryan: So you wanna, at your first meal of the day, if you're doing this 18/6 schedule, the first meal, make that your biggest meal and make it very high in protein. Get most of your protein and calories from that first meal. And then if you're doing two meals a day, then that second meal, the one you'd have three or four hours before you go to sleep, you want that to be moderate, to lower protein, high fat, moderate to low, carb.

[00:15:43] Ryan: So it can't help that. When you know this three or four hour window, let's say you can only do two if you're having a light meal, that will also help. So if you can have a light meal, but you can only, you've only got a two hour window before you need to go to sleep. So you can get up early or whatever, have it [00:16:00] be a light meal.

[00:16:01] Ryan: That will also enhance the glymphatic system. Now, ideal scene, you're doing 18 hours of fasting. Your last meal is four or five hours before you fall asleep and it's a light meal high fat, , moderate to low protein, moderate to low carb, and you've exercised in the morning. That's the ideal scene for intermittent fasting to enhance brain detox.

[00:16:24] Ryan: There are other techniques you can use. There's a lot you can do to, to hack this and make sure that you are getting the most out of your detox at night. But I wanna give you these basics. This is, the most simple. The biggest bang for your buck, so to speak, that I found in helping people take advantage of this.

[00:16:41] Ryan: So a good way to judge your glymphatic system is when you wake up in the morning, do you wake up or does your body just start moving and you're hoping that you catch up? You know, in the morning we, we say we have trouble getting into gear. We have trouble functioning until we get our coffee, whatever it is.

[00:16:58] Ryan: These are all signs [00:17:00] that you didn't detox overnight. That the, the healing and the repair and the detox that the glymphatic system is supposed to perform during your sleep schedule, did not occur to the level that it needed to and by doing these simple techniques, you can improve that.

[00:17:17] Ryan: Even if you're not sleeping a lot, even if you're not, you're getting in the minimum because you have such an intense schedule or whatever. Doing these techniques can greatly, and I've had someone I worked with that didn't sleep much about five hours a night during the week. Just the way life was, the cards they were dealt at this time.

[00:17:34] Ryan: They did these techniques and they were a hundred percent better and they started. so much more done during the day that they could sleep longer. It was, it was pretty awesome actually. So you can really get a lot out of this if you use it for this purpose. So you're not fasting to lose weight, you're not fasting in order to get more fit or any of this, you're fasting to improve your brain detox.

[00:17:58] Ryan: So many things can [00:18:00] improve once we have better cognitive function. So sometimes this is the place to start with fasting. Don't worry about losing body weight. Don't l worry about improving your energy levels or anything else that you might do. Just work on getting more out of your sleep. This can be life changing.

[00:18:15] Ryan: And, and it can also help you break through a plateau or a slump you've had in your health is to just concentrate using these fasting techniques to improve your detox at night. Now speaking of improving your brain detox at night, really getting that glymphatic system working very well, extended fasting it, I've had amazing results personally from this and amazing results with my clients.

[00:18:42] Ryan: So I really wanted to make sure that I shared this and you understood how to do this. You could do parts of what I'm gonna cover here, and you'll still get a lot out of it. You don't have to do everything. I'm gonna give you a whole bunch of steps. But if you you know, just do an extended fast and then engage in [00:19:00] sleep, then that will help a lot too.

[00:19:03] Ryan: But there's a lot of techniques you can use to help with it that I wanna give you so you can really take advantage of it at least once in a while. Now, an extended fast, anything beyond 36 hours, you wouldn't do every week. that's for sure. Except in very rare cases, if you're working on something specific and you'd need to be working with someone, I would highly recommend working with someone that knows what they're doing regarding fasting, if you're gonna do extended fasting more regularly.

[00:19:29] Ryan: But if you're gonna do a 36 hour fast once a month. awesome. On your own. Fine. If you're gonna do a 72 hour fast once every quarter great. That's, that's perfect. And it will definitely help. And you could do the intermittent fasting techniques in conjunction with the extended fasting techniques, all for the purpose of improving brain detox.

[00:19:48] Ryan: And your life will change , there's no doubt about it. So for an extended fast to help with neural detox that we want to have [00:20:00] occur while we're sleeping. You want to engage in at least a 36 hour fast. It's very simple to do. If you've ever done a 24 hour fast, you're practically there. Just skip your dinner and then wake up the next day and wait it out to 36 hour point.

[00:20:16] Ryan: You're done. You have late, late. Or early lunch, depending on when you started here fast and you'd be at 36 hours. Very easy to do and very, very beneficial. So some key things happen around the 24 hour mark when we're fasting, and these are the things we wanna take advantage of during that sleep time.

[00:20:36] Ryan: So if you fasted from a dinner to a dinner like an OMAD schedule, you fasted about 23 hours, just skip that meal, and, and you can even have something, you could have a you know, a butter latte, Bulletproof la drink to hold you over instead of your dinner. Just have this fat based drink and obviously no caffeine.

[00:20:54] Ryan: And that would help hold you over in the evening if you need to, if, if that's where you're at. Regarding fact, if you do 36 hour [00:21:00] fasts, no problem. And you don't need that to hold you over even better. 

[00:21:03] Ryan: The reason these extended fasts help with the glymphatic drainage process is that they put you, your nervous system and your brain into this ketogenic state where swelling has gone down. So the, the passageways for detox are opened up and the passageways for replenishing and nourishing your nervous system and brain are also opened up.

[00:21:27] Ryan: So you get that. Double benefit there. And there's certain brain healing factors that that occur around 24 hours and then multiply from that 24 hour point forward. And, and it has a lot to do with the B D N F. And the stem cell regeneration that occurs around 24 hours. Bdnf, let's take that up.

[00:21:48] Ryan: First. Brain derived neurotropic factor. So this is a, a particular factor, a protein that is produced by the nervous system, by the cells that are involved [00:22:00] with the healing and the structures therein. And they, they help with detox and building up and replacing the neurological cells that help make everything work right.

[00:22:12] Ryan: So again, just like what happens at night with a glymphatic system, when we have this process of detox and therapeutic nourishing healing that occurs at the same time, we have this process of. BDNF allowing for this, this process to happen more efficiently. So if you're in this 24 hour and beyond fasted state, you have a lot of BDNF being produced in order to detox.

[00:22:37] Ryan: So overnight, you're detoxing because of the normal lymphatic system processes and because of the fasting state you've put your body in, you are multiplying the effects of both of those factors, right? And then stem cell regeneration, obviously the stem cells are kinda like the master cells. Everything else is derived from these cells.

[00:22:58] Ryan: So when they are present in your [00:23:00] body, a lot of healing can take place on a very deep cellular level. So you basically are recalibrating and kickstarting your neurological brain, neurological system, and brain function. overnight. When you go to bed in a fasted state of being, of having fasted for 24 hours or more, and all night, you'll be getting this multiplied benefit.

[00:23:23] Ryan: And you should wake up very cognitively aware. Now, what also can happen when you do this the first few times is that your brain, your body is wow, I can do all this detox and it can't get it all done in that one evening. So you, you don't necessarily wake up with. You know, intense aware state and drive to get on with a day and enthusiastic excitement and interest and, and what's to come.

[00:23:45] Ryan: But you will have gone through a detox state and you'll feel a little more mellow in the morning and a little more kind of something occurred that was healing. and you might still in be, be in that healing state and feel a little bit sluggish, [00:24:00] but mellow and satisfied too. So depends on where you're at.

[00:24:03] Ryan: If you've done these a few times, you'll probably get into that more energy driven wake up and take on the world state. It might not happen the first few times. You do an extended fast and with the purpose of doing this now while you're doing the extended fast you can also add in you can add in exercise. So around 17, 18 hours during your extended fast, do moderate exercise. Again, we don't wanna do intense exercise cause we don't want to over activate the body and put a lot of toxins into play before we go to bed or before we fit, go through the day and, and detox.

[00:24:33] Ryan: We're looking specifically to detox the, the brain and the nervous system. So we don't want to go in change, put other parts of the body into a deep autophagy state, deep detox state, which intensive exercise during fasting can do. So that can be beneficial if you're doing other types of detox functions with fasting, but for the purposes of getting the most out of your nightly brain.

[00:24:59] Ryan: Moderate [00:25:00] exercise during that period. Now the other thing, which I'm gonna go over here, and you can do this with the intermittent fasting exercises as well, but you really get a lot out of it when you add in some enzymes, some binders, and some drainage that help with the process. So before you start exercising around 17 or 18 hours, or later or, or earlier exercise period will help.

[00:25:22] Ryan: You can do it around 17 or 18. That usually seems to be the sweet spot. Before you exercise, you wanna take a, a drink about eight ounces of water with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. You want to take a proteolytic enzyme, so an enzyme that helps digest proteins, protease, these type of things.

[00:25:37] Ryan: You want to take a binder, so something like activated charcoal that helps bind toxins, and then you want to take some sort of drainage. Now, cider vinegar with waters drainage in itself. But if you have another drainage product that you like Even a probiotic, you could take that as part of it too.

[00:25:52] Ryan: Mind you, these are all pills and, and water with apple cider vinegar. I'm not talking about eating any sort of food. Cause we don't wanna break your fast. [00:26:00] So you do all of those things before, about a half an hour, about 30 minutes before you start your exercise. So 30 minutes before you start your exercise.

[00:26:08] Ryan: One capsule. Very small dosage of the proteolytic enzyme one binder. , whatever you're using, activated charcoal is popular. And then some sort of drainage. If you're gonna do drainage in addition to the apple cider vinegar with water, drink all of this before 30 minutes before the exercise, that exercise moderately, and then continue your fast rest of the day with lots of electrolytes and liquids.

[00:26:33] Ryan: So you want the electrolytes cuz that helps the glymphatic system when you go to sleep, have the energetic in order to detox more effectively. That's the magic formula. Do all of these things 36 hour fast, along with you know, exercise and those supplements, and you'll see remarkable results from your overnight brain detox.

[00:26:55] Ryan: So I suggest trying it and seeing how it works. If you, if you're using fasting with this [00:27:00] concentration. Brain detox and cognitive function, you can get some amazing benefits that you would not normally get from fasting. You'll get these, just these benefits of improved glymphatic function overnight. Regardless, just because you're fasting and improving your health, but if you really target in on it, you can have some amazing results and sometimes that's what's needed to get us to the next level of wanting to take our health to that the next level, a lot of improving your health, as we all know, is the intention and the willingness to engage in the activities and remain interested in doing that despite everything that life is always throwing at us.

[00:27:36] Ryan: So I always find that, using health techniques, techniques to help improve the body and help improve your, your cognitive health and your sharpness. Are one of the best ways to improve everything, even though they don't target body weight or, building muscle, losing fat, improving energy because they put you in a state where you can be more intentional [00:28:00] about what you're doing and more energized and, driven to make something happen.

[00:28:06] Ryan: you can make so many things happen just by doing this very simple technique. So urge you to give that a try. Thank you for hanging out with me here today. I hope that was super helpful. Again if you have any questions about that, always feel to feel free to reach out. 

[00:28:19] Ryan: You get a lot of information I go intensively and extensively into how to use fasting for improved cognitive health and improved emotional response to life and handling stress. 

[00:28:31] Ryan: I look forward to hearing from you. Okay, thank you. Have a great day.[00:29:00]