Key takeaway 1 : Emotions represent our life experience

Emotions are central to our life experience.

Additionnally, emotions are not all brain thigns. They really emphasize the brain-body relationship and its importance.

Key takeaway 2 : Depression can't be cured with a smile

Depression or other negative states need actual, practical tools to allow one's to take a grip on their emotions and state.

Depression can't be cured with a smile. Depression requires actual action from the person to be fixed.

Key takeway 3 : Primitive emotions … are action-driven

Primitive emotions like the ones of liking something (a taste, a smell) or disliking something are universal. And they have universal traits : when you like something, you will tend to make a certain face, to want to smell and come close. On the contrary, disliking something will tend to make you move away from that thing, …

And so … primitive emotions are … action driven ! Moving away or coming closer are actions ! They invole muscles, they involve neurochemicals to be active to drive us to do something. You are talking about a brain-body interaction.

Key takeaway 4 : The Vagus nerve : a highway for information and action

The vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve. It offers a two-way street. It has innervations to most body systems (lungs, heart, gut, stomach, …) and can therefore sense things (bacterial infection, empty stomach, heart rate, …) and send the information to the brain.

But it can also make things act because it has a motor capacity. So the Vagus is super important and is actually very important to govern the brain-body connection and to steer people's mood and emotions.

Key takeaway 5 : Specificity, specificity

Today, too many people still recommend generic "Vagus nerve stimulation". And that's bad. Because when stimulated the Vagus might for example trigger a fever because it thinks there is a poison within the body. You don't want that.

So generally, you don't want general stimulation of anything. You want specificity to target specific issues or trigger specific desired outcomes.

Furthermore, Vagus under or over-stimulation is thrown around as the sole culprit for e.g. flight or lethargic state or hyperlaxed joints. And that is simply not in agreement with modern science.

Key takeaway 6 : Polyvagal theory. Interesting but incomplete/partly wrong with today's science

Polyvagal theory means that the Vagus has several parts (poly). At the birth of the theory from Porges, it was said that there is a dorsal Vagus nerve involved in alertness and fight or fight. And there is a dorsal Vagus nerve more linked to calmness and empathic behavior. The idea is simple and seducing but not quite in agreement with today's modern anatomy.

Key takeaway 7 : You are not in command

Experiments have been done numbing the sense of smell, taste and vision so that people could not know what they were eating. And most people craved the food that contained sugar. Why ? Because there are cells in our gut that sense sugar and favor those foods.

So even if a food does not taste sweet but contains hidden sugar (e.g. salad dressing), you may crave that food more through that gut-brain axis. It's truly a gut feeling !

And this trickles to everything in our human experience. Maybe we are attracted to some kind of people for things we don't really know about because they come from inside us.

Key takeaway 8 : Pre-meal anxiety

Pre-meal anxiety is a thing. And it's actually normal. It's linked to an ancient mechanism that makes us feel more alert before eating.

And normally after eating, one should feel more calm thanks to our sensing cells in the gut. They react particularly on amino-acids content. Amino-acids are building blocks for muscles but also for the brain! The cells in the brain are made from amino-acids.

Key takeaway 9 : If short-term stress is good … What is too much stress ?

Too much stress is when it comes complicated to get a good night sleep.

Key takeaway 10 : Food as a modulator of dopamine and serotonin

Food can be used to increase serotonine and dopamine levels. Foods that are rich in protein and amino-acids tend to promote dopamine (and therefore the craving for that food itself but also the actions preceding that food ingestion). Foods that are starchy (carbohydrates) tend to promote serotonin. More specifically, they promote the precursors of dopamine and serotonine, specifically and respectively l-tyrostine and tryptophan.

And generally, dopamine shall be elevated during the day (alertness, willing to move) while serotonin should be elevated during the evening and night (bliss, calm)

Key takeaway 11 : Emotions are only "good" or "bad" in their context

Emotions must always be put in their context to be assessed "good" or "bad" or healthy and unhealthy. Being sad as a funeral is healthy (but is an unpleasant emotion).

Key takeaway 12 : 1000mg of EPA (fish oil) can be as potent as antidepressant

Many studies show that supplementing 1000mg of EPA (contained in fish oil) can be as potent as antidepressant. Even for people not suffering from depression, EPA supplementation can have positive effects on mood and willingness to take actions.

People can get it from food but given the high dose necessary to get the effects, it's quite hard to do.

Now, EPA only may not have an effect. But it can act as a kind of catalyser for antidepressants. So non-responders to anti-depressants supplementing fish oil became responders even with lower dosage of antidepressants. And it does this through the improvement of HRV, Heart Rate Variability. And this is amazing because it emphasizes the body is a whole system. You can't segregate it and understand it correctly. You have to study it and consder it as a whole to have efficient strategies for healing and optimizing the human peformance.

Key takeaway 13 : L-cartinine, an interesting supplement

L-cartinine has several benefits according to studies : mood, migraine, sperm quality, autism, polycistic ovaries. Check examin.com for more information.

Key takeaway 14 : Gut microbiome affects our performance

There is no question that gut microbiome affects our human performance. If we feel good or bad. And that's not because they care about us. It's because the conditions they promote (acidity, …) to make more of themselves either benefit us or are detrimental to us.

Key takeaway 15 : Probiotics : it's not a matter of how much.

Probiotics are generally healthy. But taking too much can lead to issues (e.g. brain fog) So the real objective is to promote a healthy balance of probiotics to get a healty gut microbiome.

Ingesting fermented foods is one of the best way to get good probiotics and in the right balance without exceeding thresholds.

Key takeaway 16 : Individualize your diet.

Diets should be highly individualized. And they shall be based on trials and errors. See what works for YOU. Don't abide by one particular diet (keto, vegan, …) because what works for A won't work for B. What works for you will be influenced by your genetic, epigenetic, lifestyle, childhood. Yes … Childhood! Because your entire system was shaped by your experience and your nervous system has been tuned up to match your life.

Of course, there are universal truths. Fermented foods will be good, processed foods will be bad. Saccharin will be bad. But the rest required tuning and trials and errors.

Key takeaway 17 : Fasting depletes the gut microbiome signiticantly

Fasting for a certain amount of time (so longer than intermittent fasting) depletes the gut microbiome significantly. And this is not necessarily a bad thing because when returning to eating, the gut microbiome can in fact become greater or stronger than before.

But it requires understanding that after fasting, your microbiome is not the same. So digestion won't be the same. Food effects won't be the same (on moods, alertness, …). And so gradual return to eating after fasting makes sense with that knowledge.

Key takeaway 18 : Mind over the body is bullshit (remember ?) Well not totally …

An experiment showed that the beliefs about food (high calorie shake vs low calorie shake) can influence the physiological response (altough the shake itself was identical!) So top-down mechanisms influence our physiology. Similarly, beliefs about the advantages of an activity also biased the physiological response. Well … Start considering your exercise and training differently !