Can we get enough of it from sunshine and diet to ward off deficiencies?

I'm shaking my head, sadly, no. Listen, I'm not that doctor that wants to push supplements, but if anything in this book, there's one thing that I want every listener to do is please go to your primary care doctor, even if you live in a sunshine state like Texas or myself in Florida, and get your vitamin D3 levels checked, and you're likely going to need supplements. When you're in the sunshine, and if you are Caucasian, you need at least 40 minutes in the sun with four limbs exposed without sunblock on every day to get enough vitamin D. Well, no doctor in their right mind because of the risk of skin cancer is going to say that. And by the way, if you have melanin in your skin, it's going to take even more vitamin D than that. And the food sources aren't enough either. And here's why. When you're under chronic stress and you have a busy brain, the metabolic pathways of digestion and liver that process this natural vitamin D from foods is just not enough. And that's the one thing. Every time we run this eight-week protocol for our corporate clients, I can't tell you how many people come back with a dangerously low vitamin D3 level. We optimize it. And within months, they literally feel like we've restored their youth and their energy and their power to focus and think again. Lots

of us have experienced the way stress will affect our eating behaviors. We should note you are not opposed to comfort foods, but you hope that our comfort foods, what, are not Takis and Oreos alone? Listen, I

define comfort food as this. These are foods that have a core memory of joy in your life. They may be tied to a family recipe, a religious holiday, your country or state of origin. My goodness, the steak there in Texas, I get hungry just thinking about it. Or a vacation or a meal that you've had with a loved one. I don't want you to rob yourself of that. As a doctor and chief wellness officer, I know diets are actually really toxic and cleanses, and they can raise stress hormone levels in your brain and disrupt your circadian rhythm. It's why you crave the foods the minute you finish the diet or cleanse and put the weight right back on. You actually disrupted the busy brain center of the brain. So we ask people to schedule comfort food once or twice a week. So if it's your child's birthday this weekend, don't let them see you sneering at a piece of cake or cupcake going, ooh, carbs. Enjoy the cake or cupcake with your child and create that core memory of joy. Instead, as we said in an earlier segment, choose either high glycemic carbohydrates, like the sugar, like the cupcake, like a piece of bread, or choose caffeine, one or the other, but not both. We actually found that once people go through the first four weeks of our protocol, restoring their circadian rhythm and sleep and focus, the stress eating actually goes away. Stress eating is using an entire bag of potato chips or a gallon of ice cream or a box of cookies to calm anxiety and stress. And that isn't going to help anybody. And that's the difference. And by the end of the eight-week protocol, most people found that their belly and their brain bloating were relieved and they were down one to two pant sizes. And this is in 1,000 people who went through this eight-week protocol while we were testing and refining it, getting it ready for this book. What

is a methylation disorder? A

methylation disorder. Methylation is a chemical metabolic process that happens in our cells. It is driven by DNA. There are about two dozen different types of methylation disorders that can come from your DNA. It's really important and something that's routinely tested if someone is young and they've had a heart attack or a stroke or blood clots or a miscarriage. But it's fascinating that in the last decade, we found that if you have a methylation disorder, specifically on the MTHFR gene, that you could have anxiety and difficulty focusing. And many people with the MTHFR genetic deficiency, homozygous or heterozygous, well, the only thing you're presenting with is neuropsychiatric symptoms. You don't have early heart attack or clotting disorder or miscarriages. It's something really easy to test for by looking for homocysteine levels in the blood and treating with a special type of vitamin B complex and folates. And it's an easy blood test that is a part of our lab panel in the Busy Brain Cure that your primary care doctor can check for and make all the difference in the treatment of Busy Brain. How does

it happen that thyroid disorders are often missed by doctors for a long time. You

know, I candidly share my burnout journey and the Busy Brain Cure for this reason, that even as a doctor, I thought something was wrong as I was getting more and more stressed. Not only did I never have a regular period in my life, chunks of my hair were falling out. And I was like, is it thyroid? And when you go to a doctor, endocrinologist, most of them will only check a TSH or maybe a T3 and T4. There are actually eight labs you need to check as a man and a woman in the busy brain cure. around with a busy brain, difficulty focusing, anxiety, being wired and tired. It's actually a thyroid disorder. And one in eight women in the clinical literature shows in the United States have subclinical hypothyroid or autoimmune thyroid. That's been missed because we didn't check the entire lab panel. What

do we do about our sort of collective induced state of attention deficit? Can we somehow build back capacity for sustained focus if as a society it feels like we have lost it?

for the energy I bring into the room. You are. And if I choose to brain shift and heal my busy brain, well, then it sends a healthier signal to the entire team because the health of a leader or the health of a parent that's leading their household determines the health of the rest of the team or the rest of the family. The second thing we talk about in workplaces is a collective digital detox. In Chapter 9, where I was previously a chief wellness officer at Evolution Hospitality, this is a company that manages hotels. And we asked 500 of the leaders to stop sending emails and text messages at night. It's something many other companies have adopted to have that break from digital devices so that we can actually create a boundary in our brain and in our personal lives. As

we start to heal our busy brains, Romy, will we know it's happening? Like, what are some signs that these measures of care are working for us? Yes. You're

going to wake up and feel energized without needing coffee. You're going to find that your to-do list is not controlling you, but you're controlling it. And you're able to actually focus. You know what three things on your calendar are the most important thing to do. And everything doesn't feel like a competing emergency. Even better, the carb cravings stop and the stress eating stops. And you fall and you stay asleep again. Dr.

Romy Mushtaq is a board-certified physician and a speaker on leadership and workplace wellness. Her book is called The Busy Brain Cure, The Eight-Week Plan to Find Focus, Tame Anxiety, and Sleep Again. Romy, this has all been so interesting. Thank you for making time to talk. Chris,

thank you for reading the book and helping all of your listeners heal their busy brains. You

can find us on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to our podcast with the search term KERA Think wherever you like to get podcasts or find it at our website, think.kera Again, I'm Chris Boyd. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.