{"id":2667,"date":"2023-09-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peptidehq.com\/?p=2667"},"modified":"2023-08-07T14:22:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T14:22:42","slug":"proper-brain-hygiene-breathing-techniques-and-proven-alternatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/max-supplements.com\/bogo\/proper-brain-hygiene-breathing-techniques-and-proven-alternatives\/","title":{"rendered":"Proper Brain Hygiene: Breathing Techniques And Proven Alternatives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Have you ever wondered if there was a way to wash your brain the way you wash your hair, scrub the bathroom, or mop the kitchen? Well, according to a new scientific paper, you might be able to do just that with the right breathing technique. The paper, published in the journal Medical Hypotheses, (Chavez 2023<\/a>) suggests that a breathing technique that has been popularized by Wim Hof, a Dutch inventor, motivational speaker, and self-proclaimed extreme athlete, could literally ‘wash’ your brain by clearing out metabolic debris that accumulates in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hypothesis, as absurd as it may sound when you first hear it, has recently gained some attention on social media, and as our deep dive into streams of cerebrospinal fluid floating in and out of your brain will reveal: the whole “brain washing” issue should not be prematurely dismissed as pseudoscience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s The Hypothesis<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Figure 1: Proposed mechanism by which the Wim Hof method could “wash” the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors of the paper, John A. Chavez and Mauro Zappaterra, propose that by using breathing exercises, namely taking a deep breath and then holding it for 30 seconds after exhaling, you could create a pressure gradient that would push cerebrospinal fluid through the brain and flush out waste products. Their hypothesis of what would happen to the CFS content of the brain is illustrated in Figure 1. In essence, it is as if you were operating a pump by regulating the vasomotor tone of your cerebral blood vessels through your breathing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this hypothesis can be confirmed, the implications, according to the authors, would be brain-changing, with significant benefits for the prevention or treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, which are associated with the accumulation of toxic proteins in the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brain Washing” What Is It And Why Is It Important?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For most of us, the idea of “washing [our] brain[s]” probably sounds so exotic because the sewers of our neuronal network, better known as the glymphatic system, were only discovered 10 years ago by scientists at the University of Rochester. (Iliff 2012<\/a>, Abbott 2018<\/a>, Bohr 2022<\/a>) Meanwhile, however, the glymphatic system and its putative role in Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases has made it all the way to The Economist<\/em>‘s Science & Technology<\/em> section, which titled in April 2020: “Alzheimer’s researchers study the brain’s plumbing.” (Economist 2020<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udd0e Definition<\/u>: The process we previously jovially refer to as “brainwashing” is actually called glymphatic clearance<\/em>, or glymphatic transport<\/em>. These terms refer to the process by which the brain uses the glymphatic system to eliminate harmful substances that accumulate as a result of its high metabolic activity in our central nervous system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the excellent illustration in Figure 2 shows, the glymphatic transport, which would normally occur primarily during the deep non-REM (NREM, often used interchangeably with slow-wave or deep sleep) sleep phases of the night, decreases significantly with age.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Figure 2: One of the unfortunate truths we’ve learned about our brains over the past few decades is that their self-cleaning ability naturally and inevitably declines with age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While young people experience sustained very high glymphatic system flow as early as in the first 3 hours of sleep, older people do not even reach stage 3 NREM sleep, they experience frequent interruptions of stage 1 and 2 NREM sleep, and their total sleep time decreases. All this serious sleep deprivation contributes to a literally dementing decrease in glymphatic activity with age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Nedergaard 2020<\/a> adapted from D. Xue by Kellie Holoski\/Science)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the consequences of age-related decline in glymphatic system clearance? More and more metabolic waste, including carbon dioxide, lactate, and proteins such as amyloid-beta and tau implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, remain in the aging brain. The problem? If these substances are not removed efficiently, they can affect the function and structure of neurons and glial cells in our brains, leading to cognitive decline, inflammation, and neurodegeneration. (Nedergaard 2016<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Are Known Modulators Of Glymphatic Flow?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 3: Scientists hypothesize that glymphatic system dysfunction may pave the way to dementia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this model, the glymphatic system is at the crossroads of a wide range of disorders that share an association with decreased cerebrospinal fluid clearance. Normal aging is also associated with a sharp decline in sleep quality and decreased glymphatic flow. The stagnation of glymphatic flow and the accumulation of extracellular proteins, in turn, contribute to protein aggregation with misfolding and seeding, which triggers local inflammation and neuronal loss, ultimately manifesting as various forms of dementia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Nedergaard 2020<\/a> adapted from D. Xue by Kellie Holoski\/Science)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aging is one of the primary modulators of glymphatic system flow. However, as Figure 1 shows, it is by no means the only one. The figure, which was published as part of a 2020 review in the scientific journal Science<\/a> by two of the leading researchers in the field, (Nedergaard 2020<\/a>), illustrates our current understanding of the importance of optimal glymphatic function in the prevention and progression of neurodegeneration and dementia and highlights some of the already established reasons for reduced, if not impaired, glymphatic function:<\/p>\n\n\n\n