170- The Role Your Gut Plays in Brain Health with Steven Wright

[00:00:15] Bryan Carroll: in the last couple of years, anxiety and other mental health challenges have increased dramatically. And oftentimes the remedy for mental health challenges is either a certain medications or therapy.

[00:00:28] However, there's other components within our body that can really impact the way our brain functions. And I think these areas are. Talked about enough and we're not doing enough research on how we can change these other areas within the body and how it can improve our overall mental health. What's up everyone.

[00:00:49] I'm Bryan Carroll and I'm here to help people move more, eat well and be adventurous in today. I have Steven Wright on the show to teach us all about how. Our guts are connected to our brains and vice versa and how it changes in one can really impact the other. So for example, some of our neurotransmitters are actually produced in the gut instead of the brain.

[00:01:12] And yet when we tried to fix or help these neurotransmitters to do what they're supposed to do, we never even take a look at that. So with Steven, we're going to be diving into why it is. These are connected in the first place in different ways to improve our overall mental health by focusing on what's going on in the gut.

[00:01:33] And also what happens if you get like a concussion or something like that and how that impacts your gut as well. So Steven Wright is a medical engineer, a Kailash functional medicine Institute, grad, and a gut health specialist. He has spent close to 400 K overcoming his own health challenges, using everything from Western medicine to shamans in Stephen as the founder of healthy gut.com and lives over there in Boulder, Colorado.

[00:02:00] So let's dive into my conversation with Steven. Thank you, Stephen, for coming onto the. Thanks for having me, Bryan, of course. And I'm really excited to chat with you about the the brain and the gut connection and how the health of one can really impact the health of the other. But before we do that, let's learn a little bit more about you and what your own health journey is like.

[00:02:21] Steven Wright: Yeah. I mean, this could take a whole hour, but the short version of it is that I was born with a sort of a birth defect called a hydro seal hernia. And so my intestines were sort of affected right from the start. I almost didn't make it. It took some. The spermatic drugs at like week 12 so that I didn't basically die due to malnutrition.

[00:02:41] And then from there I had a, a regular Midwest upbringing until I had cystic acne in high school. And a dermatologist gave me four years of antibiotics, just like every, every week. And so I woke up in the hospital one day basically I'd wiped out all of my gut microbiome. And from that place forward, and even before then, I had like IVs related issues.

[00:03:02] It, you know, it got worse in college. I had like a beer and pizza dough. And then a lot of stress after college to the point where I was in Chicago working for a big four accounting firm. And I basically, it didn't matter if I ate chicken and salad or beer and pizza, I would have bloating so bad that I would basically cry after every.

[00:03:23] And then of course, if you get that bloated, like the only relief you're going to have is farting basically. And, and, but you don't want to cause you're at work and you know, it's really embarrassing, but I had to far, and I couldn't leave the high rise building I was in. So my coworkers ended up complaining to my boss.

[00:03:39] And basically, he said, you got to get this fixed, or, you know, we have a real problem with your job here. And so that was like, I I'm a little denser than most people. And so I need like a two by four to the head, if you, you know, before I really wake up. And so there was a lot of warning signs prior to this that I wasn't normal, that I had issues, but I didn't really seek help until I had several of these very embarrassing.

[00:04:02] Situations. And then from there I went to some Western doctors who basically said, you have a family history of IBS. You should take some Metamucil, eat some whole grains. You can have more antibiotics. If you'd like them, you don't show the markers for celiac disease. You don't have the genetic predisposition for that.

[00:04:17] So therefore you know, you don't have that issue. And that didn't really work. And so. I missed a date. I was on the toilet all night and I called a buddy of mine from college Jordan reasoner, and he needed to go on this special diet because the gluten-free diet for his celiac disease didn't do anything.

[00:04:35] And so he started on something called the specific carbohydrate diet and really stopped his diarrhea, his IBS, and saved his life. And so he was like, bro, you gotta, you gotta do this man. You need to change your diet. And so at the time that was a big deal to me because I didn't have. Like cooking or cleaning skills.

[00:04:51] And that diet, you basically didn't eat out anymore. You made everything from scratch at home to avoid all sorts of ingredients that come in packaged foods. And this was also 2009. So the awareness around diets and, and IBS and digestive conditions and brain conditions just wasn't where we are at the moment.

[00:05:11] And so it was kind of like me just figuring that out with him. Like a forums and listservs back then. But almost immediately that diet removed probably 50% of my bloating in the first week. And that triggered in me some like latent power that I had maybe given over to the, the modern medical regime as well as just sheer rage and anger that like, holy cow.

[00:05:35] There are, there are things I can do. Like this is a solvable problem. And so my background is in electrical engineering from, from college. And so that's just solving complex problems that we don't understand. And I was like, that's it. I can reverse engineer this with enough time and money and finding people who've struggled like this.

[00:05:52] I can fix each one of these. And so I tried to sort of take that anger and channel into teaching others to hopefully shorten their learning curves and not have to go through the same amount of pain that I, that I've been through. 

[00:06:04] Bryan Carroll: Now the modern medical model, doesn't really take into account that nutrition does anything for you.

[00:06:12] Right? And so when your friend was telling you, you should try this diet. Was there a part of you that was sitting there going what's that actually going to do for me? Nutrition probably won't do anything big. If the, you know, antibiotics and all this other stuff, didn't do anything. What's nutrition going to do.

[00:06:31] Steven Wright: You know, not in that moment because I was in so much pain. I would have tried almost anything. For most of us who are on our own wellness journey, oftentimes we were served in emotional breakpoint or in my case, several of them. And I think in those emotional points, you will almost do anything to, to feel better.

[00:06:50] And so at the time I didn't care if it had been studied, I didn't care. I just, I just wanted a solution. I just wanted less pain. And so it was like, well, I. I failed going in this other direction. Let, let me pivot 180 degrees and try something else. I'm a big fan of that. Like not, you know, just follow the law of diminishing returns.

[00:07:09] And if you just keep banging your head in one direction, you know, statistics and math says go the other way. 

[00:07:15] Bryan Carroll: Yep. So you said that within the first week, 50% of your symptoms were resolved, did you continue doing the diet and that resolved the rest of the symptoms? Or did you have to do other stuff to resolve the.

[00:07:28] Steven Wright: I did continue the diet for, for many years. And then I switched to like autoimmune paleo, and then, and then just more of a whole foods sort of. Non-grain sort of paleo type diet. It, no, it took me like a lot of money and everything from the craziest, most intense integrative and functional medicine protocols to Eastern medicine and Sharman and trauma work and, and psychedelic work to, to get where I am today.

[00:07:56] What I learned right away was that certain supplements when done in the right dosages at the right times would give me immediate increases in either mental clarity or stability or less digestive issues. And so I, you know, I've kind of spent the last 11 or 12 years sort of seeking out those interventions for my issues and then trying to help others with them.

[00:08:16] And so, yeah, it was, it was a long journey that included a lot of root cause elimination and you know, lots of supplements and lots of. Cool interventions. 

[00:08:26] Bryan Carroll: So you had mentioned that some of the gut connection can also impact your brain. And I know going through like your experience, you mentioned that there's a lot of trauma and all that type of stuff.

[00:08:36] So that's definitely going to take a toll on your, just mental health in general. Is there other direct connections between the gut and the brain? Like is there minus the trauma and all that type of stuff, is there connections that if you're having gut issues. You are more likely to have mental health issues or you might have some neuro-transmitters that aren't firing the way that they're supposed to, et cetera.

[00:09:00] Steven Wright: Yeah. 10000%. So I mean, there's, I think the human brain is wired for simple answers, but the true answer is much more complex than so there's layers to mental wellbeing and mental wellness as well as gut wellness and all of the wellness. And so if you have a. Limiting factors, how I like to think of it, where you're actually don't have, for instance, the building blocks to create neuro-transmitters like you don't have the right access amino acids to actually even build neuro-transmitters.

[00:09:29] It doesn't matter what you do. You can be doing all the trauma work you want. If you can't recreate more neuro-transmitters because you're not actually absorbing the immuno acids from your diet, you're sort of in a deficit the whole time. And so there's a, there's a huge connection between the gut and the brain.

[00:09:46] There's plenty of research studies showing that you're much higher to be effected by depression or anxiety. If you already have a gut issue like IBS. And I think most people who have. I have been struggling with gut health issues who are aware, you know, they can typically point out that, yes, I tend towards depression and I don't seem to see that in my other family members who don't have gut issues or I tend towards anxiety.

[00:10:11] And so there's, there's actual building block issues. Do you have. The immuno acids. There's, there's the same barrier called the, the like leaky gut or the gut barrier, those same proteins zonulin, the tight junctions. They're, they're exactly the same proteins that get expressed or not expressed in the blood-brain barrier.

[00:10:29] So what's happening in the gut is often happening in the brain. We have 95% of our serotonin there. So, you know, research is still young and exactly how all that works, but there appears to be an immune system component, a vagal nerve, a gut component, and then an endocrine component to sort of linking the two.

[00:10:50] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. It's super interesting because you hear about a lot of people struggling with depression, anxiety, and they're going on all these medications, but no one ever talks about it, except for people in like our industry. But you don't really hear people talking about. Let's take a look at the gut.

[00:11:06] You know, if 95% of the serotonin is created in the gut, that should probably be one of the first places we look at, but it's not at least not at the conventional that conventional approach to this. And it's very unfortunate because I feel like a lot of people could get some massive benefit if they did start taking a look at their entire body and stop focusing just on my mental health challenges that we could get a lot further with recovery from this stuff.

[00:11:34] Steven Wright: Yeah, I agree. And I, and this is very. This is very near and dear to my heart because I had some deep, deep depression issues when I was very sick. I also had panic attacks and come from a family lineage of a lot of anxiety. And so I I've struggled with my own mental health on and off pretty pretty hardcore.

[00:11:55] And so the most amazing thing is that as I've gotten. Better digestively, essentially my peaks and valleys of my mental wellbeing continued to decrease. And to the point now where I wouldn't identify with having those, those issues anymore. And so th I don't know if I agree with you a thousand percent.

[00:12:14] I mean, they, I wish people would just look at the research. Like for instance concussions are very near, like everybody's talking about traumatic brain injuries, concussions. We now know that those are a big deal. We should, we should pay attention to those there's research that shows the moment you get a concussion, your, your blood brain barrier starts to lose.

[00:12:32] And your gut barriers starts to leak like they're so tightly correlated. I, I just wish we could get this out there to everybody who's either working from one direction or the other direction, like you said. 

[00:12:42] Bryan Carroll: Yup. For sure. And yeah, it's, it's such a bummer that even the medication often taken for these mental health challenges as well can cause.

[00:12:53] Gaps in the tight junctions as well of the blood-brain barrier and the gut. So it's, we're really not setting ourselves up for future success by the current approaches to this type of. 

[00:13:07] Steven Wright: Yeah, I w I would agree. And I think there's significant advances, hopefully starting now on the research. I think hopefully the psychedelic revolution here is starting to open the eyes of psychiatrists as well as other neuroinflammatory related people to this.

[00:13:22] And so hopefully the next step will be to integrate this whole body approach to, you know gut and supplements and diet into, into the. 

[00:13:31] Bryan Carroll: Now, one of the things you mentioned earlier is it can take a two by four to the side of your head before you realize that there's actually a problem, which I don't think you're alone in that.

[00:13:41] And I think a lot of people, they get so used to their own symptoms that they're experiencing, that they believe that that's just a normal part of life for them. So for people that are so used to, you know, having these gut issues and not feeling well or now for them, they're unwell. Their barometer for what well feels like, because they don't know of any other way.

[00:14:04] How do you get them to start recognizing that, you know, you might actually have a problem and you should take a look at it and see if there's a better way to take care of this. 

[00:14:15] Steven Wright: Well, I, I hope through through shows like this I think, you know, hearing different ideas from different perspectives at different points in our lives when the window is open, because I don't believe that I can sort of save anybody or fix anybody.

[00:14:27] I think it has to come from inside. And so I think trying to get the message out there, like, look you know, normal human digestion allows you to eat a range of foods. You don't need to be. Giving up something that's really important to you. Normal bowel function is, you know, one easy poop a day at a minimum.

[00:14:46] Like there's this thing called the Bristol stool chart. You want to be like around a four. You could be slightly over a slightly under a four. You know, normal humans don't have to be bloated and fart all day. They don't have. Pain and their gut called visceral hypersensitivity. These things are not normal and your body was not designed to feel that way.

[00:15:06] And there are options and there are ways to get away from that. But you have to make health like a top three priority in your life. It has to be a top three value. And if, if they can see someone like themselves or. From someone and be sort of inspired that there might be another way. I think we can, we can sort of wake people up to that and then lay out the path.

[00:15:25] But I do think it's a, it's an insight. 

[00:15:29] Bryan Carroll: Yeah, your story kind of reminds me of I'm a kid that I grew up with. He had terrible gas and he just thought it was funny. Right. And then now as we're adults, he discovered that he's got IVs and all this other stuff going on as well, which looking back it's like, well, yeah, it totally makes sense.

[00:15:47] You know, especially for us males who tend to find that type of stuff more funny. It's it's interesting that you go from, this is super funny. Ha ha to eventually get to a point where it's no longer funny and it can actually have impact on your life, your work situations like. 

[00:16:08] Steven Wright: Yeah. I mean, I think, look, the gut gut related stuff can be very embarrassing, very shameful experiences.

[00:16:15] And so we use a lot of defense mechanisms, especially as males too, to try to explain a way that kind of thing. And I think in this society, we're starting to wake up to how important gut issues are and the fact that. Almost everybody's suffering, like, like it's very ubiquitous out there. And so I think at least in the last five years, there's been an explosion in awareness that, Hey, you don't have to suffer alone in the closet or in, in your house alone.

[00:16:42] There's a lot of other people like you who are suffering. And so. You know, one step, like you said, is just realizing what is normal. Because even if you come from a family history of, of farting a lot, or being really stinky, you might not. You're like, Hey, that's what I've always known. How would I be different?

[00:16:58] You know? And so I think there is, you know, just getting the word out, having conversations like this, like that, you know, people poop differently. People have different bathroom habits and, and that's a good conversation. 

[00:17:10] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. So if people are feeling like they have gut issues and they go with the diet route and they start taking out some of the stuff that can cause a lot of bloating and gas, they start feeling better.

[00:17:23] You mentioned there's some supplements also that really helped out as well. What are some kind of main rocks supplements that are very beneficial for the gut? 

[00:17:33] Steven Wright: Yeah. So. And I think we'll mention this on and off throughout the show, but I'm a weirdo. Like I, I order everything from like Asia, Russia.

[00:17:41] I don't care. Like if it's supposed to be good, I'll try it. And that leads to a lot of really bad experiences and a lot of amazing experiences. And so whatever the newest thing is, I'll try it on myself. I'll tell other people about it. And what I've learned is that. There are some underlying assumptions that as humans we often make about our guts.

[00:18:02] And that is like that the, the current state of your gut is capable of even doing the job it was designed to do. And, and not, those are things like is your stomach capable of producing stomach acid to break down the. That you feed it and kill off. The microbes that are coming in are is your small intestine able to secrete enzymes and break down the food into smaller chunks and actually absorb it is your, is your colon in the right condition to create the right microbiome?

[00:18:29] That we're all so. Concerned about and taking so many probiotics and prebiotics and fibers and things. And so I, I really have come full circle on this over the last decade. I've used most of these products. I still take a probiotic and a prebiotic daily. I rotate all the time. But I've, I've come back to first principles, which is that if the organ can't do its intended job, Wild caught salmon or that grass fed steak or that organic vegetable.

[00:18:58] You're not even getting what you thought you were getting out of it. And you can, you can sort of, I guess, you know, be so fixated on, you know, the way the room looks and the paint and the light fixtures and making it all pretty with the fact that, or failing to account for the fact that your foundation or your roof is falling apart.

[00:19:14] And so I really like kind of going Oregon by Oregon and just checking yourself because everybody has their own. Genetics their own epigenetics, their own microbiome, their own, their own diet. They live in a different part of the world. And so just rule out Oregon, Oregon by gut Oregon, that that Oregon doesn't need support.

[00:19:36] And so that's kind of what we've done at healthy gut. Now, as we sort of tried to formulate the best in the world, supplements for each organ and we'll, we'll branch out in, in the coming years and to really cool. Probiotics and prebiotics and things like that. But I wanted to go back to first principles because I feel like that's the missing piece that I'm seeing out there today.

[00:19:55] Yep. 

[00:19:56] Bryan Carroll: Makes a lot of sense. You get all these compounding type of supplements and sometimes people don't need certain pieces of that compound and they just need the basics. I need something for my stomach or I needed something for, to support my pancreas, et cetera. 

[00:20:14] Steven Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Again, if. If your organ can't do its job, like, you know, for instance, the stomach, I think it's the most underrated gut organ out there.

[00:20:23] I mean, it's so cool. Like it creates acid levels down to like one or 1.5, which is like lower than battery acid. Like that's crazy. And it's all inside of you and it's totally contained. It, it neutralizes all the bugs on your food. Basically the acid levels open up protein. So proteins are all these like folded messes, these crazy 3d images.

[00:20:44] And like without the stomach acid dropping down enough, the balls don't begin to open. And then if they don't open, the enzymes are just trying to attack the protein from the outside, but they can't actually get in there and cleave off the, the, the pieces of the protein. And so there studies showing that.

[00:21:01] If you have a higher asset level or you take acid suppressing drugs or, or other things out there that suppress acid, like over the counter stuff you're increasing the risk of food allergies because you don't cleave the protein structures down. Into small enough chunks. And the only way you can, again, an amino acid across the gut barrier is in a really small amino acid structure.

[00:21:26] If it's too big, the immune system will start to tag those and say, that's it, that's an invader. Even if it's organic chicken or organic broccoli, if there's a protein structure, that's not the right size. It's T it's, it's potentially an invader. And so there's research showing that basically the right amount of stomach.

[00:21:44] Lowers these, these size, these MIS sized proteins and reduce your risk of having food sensitivities. And so I think that's like just a first principle. That's super cool. And under appreciated about the way our bodies work. 

[00:21:58] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. And it's really interesting because there's so many people that are just eating basically PPIs for.

[00:22:04] Breakfast, like they're shutting down all acid production and they're just, you know, they don't want to feel that burn. They get heartburn or whatever it is, and they don't want to feel it. So they do everything they can to not feel it. And then you run into the issue you just mentioned, which is you're not actually breaking down, digesting your food.

[00:22:21] It's going through your system at larger particle sizes and it's supposed to be, and then your body starts tagging it as an invader. And now. Got food allergies and that's not ideal either. 

[00:22:35] Steven Wright: Nope, Nope. Yeah. And I, and I can sympathize, right. I, I, I had my phase of heartburn and and I never took a PPI, but I tried some of the like eaten Tums for breakfast for awhile there.

[00:22:46] And yeah, unfortunately, if you look deeper into what's happening there, there's some really cool doctors like Dr. Jonathan Wright, Dr. Steven Sandberg Lewis. These are like pioneers in integrative and functional med. And when they test their heartburn and IBS patients, they find between 70 to 80% of them actually have low acid, not high acid, even though our, our direct experience as a human, that it it's it sure as heck feels like high acid when it's happening.

[00:23:14] Bryan Carroll: Yup. Yeah. They're getting fermenting and inside of their stomach. And then that gas is putting pressure upwards and pushing the what little assets they do have back out. And then it feels like they have too much. Yeah, crazy how it all works. Well, Steven, is there any final things that you want to make sure that we cover when it comes to gut health, different ways to keep our guts nice and healthy and how that can then translate to a healthy brain?

[00:23:43] Steven Wright: Well, I think, you know where the, the. Health stuff is headed is in it. I think this leads more into the brain conversation is around short chain, fatty acids. And so we've heard for decades now eat your vegetables. Vegetables are good for you. And yeah, there's a lot of things inside of like for instance, a cruciferous vegetable, like broccoli that are, are important for us.

[00:24:05] But one of the most overlooked things is it just provides the fermentable matter that your microbiome needs. To make these short chain fatty acids. And these short chain fatty acids, I think are like the future of a lot of gut healing protocols as well as brain healing protocols. Because what we're learning is that butyrate is probably the most well-researched and most understood one it's very anti-inflammatory it's like probably the best molecule in the world for healing leaky gut based on the research.

[00:24:35] And we also know that essentially everywhere we look there's either mouse studies or, or human studies showing that butyrate is important for bone health, for brain health, for lung health. Not just even keeping the microbiome and the colon healthy, which it, which it is. So I think the future and where things are headed, where I want people to be thinking about is, is deeper than that.

[00:25:00] Probiotics and deeper than fibers, even though those are important and beneficial. It's what are, what is that doing? And just to summarize really quickly so people can understand if this is a new topic, which I understand it often is basically fiber, your, your probiotics or microbiome eats fiber and poops out butyrate, that butyrate is taken up by your colon cells for energy, about 90% of it.

[00:25:22] And when it does that, it draws oxygen out of the colon, which is what we do. Without that oxygen reduction, you actually have the perfect conditions for gut dysbiosis and microbiome dysbiosis. So that one little. Linkage right there. If you have the wrong oxygen level will basically guarantee that all the fiber and all the probiotics and all the other things you're doing, won't work.

[00:25:46] If you don't have enough butyrate. And so that starts a whole cascade, like I said, across various components of the body. But I do think that's the future of, of gut healing over the next, like decade. 

[00:25:59] Bryan Carroll: Fascinating, fascinating. So for someone that Isn't consuming much fiber. Is that going to have a huge impact on their gut microbiome?

[00:26:10] Steven Wright: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, one of the most talked about diets out there for gut issues is called the FODMAP diet. And basically the FODMAP diet reduces the amount of fermentable matter that you're eating. So a lot of like vegetable matter and things like that and what they, what they see in the studies around week six or week eight of the FODMAP diet, you start to lose your butyrate production and your butyrate species.

[00:26:33] And so you change. The microbiome. And so this shouldn't be a shock if we go back to like seventh grade biodome, like life sciences, and you think about it, if you remove the, the frogs or the mosquitoes, the biodome, it begins to fall apart and change. There's a, everything is sort of depending on each other.

[00:26:50] And so I. You know, I've been a big proponent of dietary change and dietary intervention. I, and I still am, but I want people to know that they need to potentially be taking things like a butyrate supplement during these changeovers to protect their microbiome. Because if you remove all the. Life can't live.

[00:27:09] That's, that's literally how basic this needs to be for most people. And that's what you're doing. When you go on a carnivore diet or a low FODMAP diet, or one of these even a specific carbohydrate diet, you, you know, you're, you're really creating your own dysbiosis over the long run. If you're on the diet longer than like, say eight weeks.

[00:27:29] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. And this is one of the problems that you run into. If you try to do all this stuff without having guidance too, is you can be doing stuff to your body that you don't even recognize as a problem, like walking off the food chain to your microbiome. And then after a couple of weeks, now your microbiome is starving and you had no idea.

[00:27:49] You just did that to. 

[00:27:52] Steven Wright: A thousand percent working with a, with a good medical provider, whatever their expertise, if you trust them, they've helped people like you is. You don't even know what they're accounting for for you, but it is a big deal. And unfortunately, that's partially what happens in this, this world of, of the internet is, you know, we don't want to spend money there cause it costs a lot, but we go from diet to diet and you're like, oh, I'm getting a little better.

[00:28:15] I love this new thing. And then you're like, I'm going to switch to keto now. Oh, that didn't work on switch carnivore now. And unfortunately you could be missing huge components of health because you just haven't spent the last, you know, four to 10 years studying it. Like a health provider has. 

[00:28:32] Bryan Carroll: Yep. You might have done your quote research, but that research is a couple of Facebook posts that you read some stuff from some people, and that's not actual research and diving into the material and living that material for years and years and years like most professionals, 

[00:28:50] Steven Wright: correct?

[00:28:51] Yup. 

[00:28:52] Bryan Carroll: Yup. Well, Steven, what is your vision of what healthy looks like and what are three things you do daily to reach that vision? 

[00:29:01] Steven Wright: To me healthy is resiliency in, in my life and being able to respond to, to life's demands. And so. I would like to be able to eat most, every type of food. I don't want to eat.

[00:29:12] We are grains on a regular basis, but if that's the only thing that's available, legumes I'll eat it. And so being able to basically eat those things and not have digestive upset to me is pretty healthy. And then in as well as being able to respond to the stress of modern life you know, being able to see.

[00:29:28] In my zone of tolerance and sort of still be emotionally available and functional adult despite the, the intensity that can be life. And so I think that's sort of my definition of health at the moment. What was the other question? 

[00:29:43] Bryan Carroll: Three things you do daily to reach that vision. 

[00:29:47] Steven Wright: One thing is just, you know, I, I'm a big believer in our tribute or next supplements and our, our enzymes and our HCL guard.

[00:29:54] So I take our, take our supplements every single day. I take extra supplements on top of that, based on my, my conditions. I'm a big believer in that we might've messed up our, our environment too much at this point to ever go back to just being able to. Eat food and be healthy, like is just too much internet and wifi and mold in the environment and intensity out there.

[00:30:19] So I supplement heavily and I believe that gives me a pretty solid advantage to being healthy. And I will plan to do that the rest of my life. I tried to. Either do a gratitude journal and, or meditate every single day, just to, just to be aware that there's more outside of myself and there's connection out there in that life, you know, right now could be the best time ever.

[00:30:39] And it is if you're actually in the moment. So those are big, big things for me. And then you know, probably just trying to be as mindful as I can around food. And not I, I tend to overeat and emotionally eat and have some interesting things there. So I try to be healthy with my food selection.

[00:30:56] Bryan Carroll: Perfect. And people can find more about your [email protected]. You're stopping your shop in your store is all on there. So people can go check out those products. There is a coupon code summit for a wellness and that will get you, how much does that get you 

[00:31:12] Steven Wright: off? $15 off and free shipping, which ends up usually being about 25 bucks off any size order.

[00:31:19] And again, 

[00:31:19] Bryan Carroll: that coupon code is a summit for wellness. And is there anywhere else that people can find you social media? I would assume. 

[00:31:28] Steven Wright: Yeah. Yeah. I'm on some social platforms, but the main stuff is on our, on our website there and on our email list. 

[00:31:35] Bryan Carroll: Awesome. Well again, people can learn more about [email protected].

[00:31:40] Thank you, Stephen, for coming on and sharing how the gut is connected to the brain in different ways to support both. And like we mentioned super important information, especially if you have any mental health challenges, you should take a look at what's going on in your gut and see if helping your gut helps you mentally in any way as well.

[00:32:01] Yeah, thank you, Bryan. Now, Steven, and I can dive a lot deeper in how the gut and the brain are connected. And we may do that in another episode in the future, and I've a lot deeper into how to take care of your gut, what different neurotransmitters are produced, et cetera, and how that can help your mental health challenges.

[00:32:19] But for right now, all of those show notes for this episode, you can [email protected] slash one seven. And remember the coupon code summit for wellness can be used to get $15 off [email protected] slash summit for wellness to get that discount code now next week, I have Donna Bourke on the show.

[00:32:44] Let's go learn who she is and what we'll be talking about. I am here with Donna Bourke. Hey Donna, what is one unique thing about you that most people don't know? 

[00:32:53] Donna Burke: I was a very highly ranked national Irish dancer as a kid. 

[00:33:00] Bryan Carroll: Wow. How'd you get into that? 

[00:33:02] Donna Burke: My family's Irish. So that's kind of what we do. 

[00:33:07] Bryan Carroll: And what does that Irish dancing look like?

[00:33:10] Is that the tapping 

[00:33:13] Donna Burke: it's like river dance Lord of the dance. You've seen it on St. Patrick's day. The Irish jig. Yep, absolutely. We traveled the world doing. 

[00:33:21] Bryan Carroll: Wow. That's amazing. I've never had anyone come on. And that was their unique thing. So that's a fresh one. I like it. What will we be learning about in our interview together?

[00:33:34] Donna Burke: But sports nutrition was never made for women, but now it is. 

[00:33:40] Bryan Carroll: Yep. And we'll definitely dive into why that is. Why that is why it's different than the men formulations that are out there and what you're doing differently to change that up. So women get the actual support and the nutrients that they need for their bodies.

[00:33:55] And what are your favorite foods or nutrients that you think everyone should get more of in their diet? 

[00:34:00] Donna Burke: Everyone needs more vitamin D and everyone needs more magnesium. 

[00:34:04] Bryan Carroll: Perfect. And what are your top three health tips for anyone who wants to improve their overall wellness? 

[00:34:10] Donna Burke: When start walking? To get your blood work done and see where your baseline is.

[00:34:17] And three supplement where your diet is lacking. 

[00:34:21] Bryan Carroll: So you may not have known this, but the majority of supplements out there currently available are basically made for males because a lot of the research is done on males because it's easier to do. Research and males when their hormones and their bodies aren't changing every single day of the month is pretty consistent for them.

[00:34:41] So it's a very interesting episode with her talking about how women's bodies change and how different nutrients are needed depending on the time of her cycle. So until then keep climbing to the peak of your health.