Shownotes
To tell you brain health is good for your business is a no brainer (pun intended).
What may be less obvious is the incredible impact of how the foods you eat impact on your brain and by extension your business.
Brain health is foundational to productivity in your business and just skimping on your daily water intake will cause a negative trend.
In this episode, we sit down with Karen Hurd, an entrepreneur who has used her ADHD to her benefit and intentionally acts to maintain the health of her brain.
Karen discusses the role of nutrition and how fat intake, cholesterol levels, glucose, protein, and hydration all impact brain function.
Join us today for a helpful conversation about common things we do well and might not be doing well as it relates to caring for your brain.
Use it or lose it. If you want to be more productive and creative in your business, it all starts with investing in the health of your brain.
Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:
How Can We Honor God in Our Business?
Taking care of your brain is a powerful way to honor God in your business. Your brain is not only the control center for your physical body, but it also houses your connection with God.
A healthier brain leads to a more robust relationship with Him, allowing you to better hear His voice and align your decisions with His will in both your personal and professional life.
One Challenge from Today:
One key challenge is to practice patience with your brain. Your brain, just like your body, needs time and care to function at its best.
You may need to make adjustments in your life to better take care of your brain. You don’t have to do it all at once. Take one thing at a time and focus on one habit at a time.
That way you can make steady progress without overwhelming your mind.
More About Karen Hurd
Website: womanwize.com
Podcast: The Divine Healthy Living Show
More About David Schmidt
Subscribe to Redeeming Business Today Podcast Newsletter
Website redeemingbusinesstoday.com
Mentioned in this episode:
What God Says About Business: 5 Uncommon Truths for Modern Business
If you want to go deeper in your walk with God and integrate your faith and business this is the tool to make it happen. God has laid out the path to success without the regrets and emptiness that come with success the world's way. Download your FREE pdf resource today. A 10-minute investment of your time will return a lifetime of transformation.
Leadership GPS: Christian Business Coaching
Are you looking to integrate your faith and business but don't know where to start, book a time to discover if Christian business coaching and training might be right for you. If you are dissatisfied with your current rate of improvement, desire a clearer vision of what God says about business, or even what those first steps may look like, let's talk.
Transcripts
David:
[0:00] Hello, today I brought on with me Karen Hurd, who is an all-around wellness advocate and mostly into the brain health. And so she initially pursued the study of brain health as a means to solve personal challenges. And she's been on this journey for over 40 years with herself and her children. And right now she has a podcast called Divine Healthy Living, which help busy people nourish their brains so they can get things done. And so I brought Karen on today to talk specifically about nutritional strategies for the brain health and how that directly impacts our business because you need your brain to operate. So, Karen, welcome. And what is one way you believe that we can honor God in our business that others may not know about?
Karen:
[0:43] Ooh, that's a good one. Well, Dave, thanks so much for having me as a guest on Redeeming Business today. I really am blessed to be on your podcast and I'm real excited to be talking about this. What's really interesting is in the last five to eight years or so, you are seeing business people pursue brain nutrition specifically for increased performance, stamina, and endurance, right? But what's really interesting is when you think about your brain, it's an organ, so is your heart, so are your kidneys, but your brain houses your personality. Your brain houses planning. Your brain houses decision-making, like, should I do that or maybe not?
Karen:
[1:25] That's where that lives um and your brain houses your memories your history your connection with the world and in many ways your connection to god not your spirit man i do not believe your spirit brand is housed in your brain but your soul is your mind will and emotions right they're housed there and a lot of times when we're praying this where we're interacting with god um i did a podcast recently which the episode just dropped with tamra engwald and we were talking about brain poison and she had gotten a brain injury from brain poisoning so just talk about honoring god and she lost a lot of speech but the only thing she could say in her mind in her brain was thank you jesus thank you jesus jesus neat so taking care of your brain is not like a cool thing to do it is like not optional okay but the benefit is absolutely everything you do for your brain has very positive downstream effects so everything you do for your brain you're weight should improve everything you do for your brain your skin will look better everything you do for your brain your energy will improve your immunity will improve because of the way the brain works.
David:
[2:33] Yep that's that's i've heard too that books i've read on the brain it's like yeah it's just an all one if it's good for your brain it's good for everything else as well
Karen:
[2:43] For the most part yeah yeah but almost without exception.
David:
[2:48] Very good. So give us an overview of how'd you end up down this journey of really narrowing in on brain health and really trying to, what's motivating you to do all this?
Karen:
[3:00] Sure. I was that girl that could do good work when she wanted to, that had a tired time sitting still, that talked too much, sometimes made impulsive decisions.
Karen:
[3:12] And that's what ADHD sometimes looks like in women it looks very different in women than it does in men by the way boys tend to have not often right there's many subsets of it um but women tend to be daydreamers that that battle adhd tend to be more daydreamers it's more internal she's like more likely to be an overthinker and perfectionistic and boys are bouncing off the walls because they're made different right so it just expresses differently so as i over time when i had kids is when i really started looking into it because if you're a dhd and the odds of you having kids that are ready dang high anyway um and i got into a business marketing educational toys which is brain health and development actually and then as i'm working through and i'm asking questions like well why does this child do this and you start understanding the impact of food and brain food allergies and brain chemical exposures and brain and how that looked like and what i came to realize not only for myself and my own children was that a lot of things we call bad behavior is actually what i call brain driven behavior it's not a child or maybe even an adult although So adults have a little bit better control than kids, even if they're neurodivergent.
Karen:
[4:35] It's more like the brain is just like a child who's maybe chemically sensitive to be acting out, raging, doing that stuff. It's not that they don't know not to have tantrums. It's that their brain is taking actions and they can't grab hold of the brain. Does that make sense? The same way as if you had muscle spasms, your leg would just be kind of, you know, restless leg. It just goes out there. You can't say stop the leg and stop it. You'd like to.
David:
[5:00] But it won't. So what do you do for that? What do you do for kids who are swept right there? It's not like
Karen:
[5:04] A three-step program that always works. Yeah.
David:
[5:06] Oh, yeah.
Karen:
[5:07] Why not? Because kids are different and they change. So let's talk a little bit. I'm going to back up just real quick and let's talk about what brains love. Because that's a good place to talk. Here's what your brain loves. It loves healthy fats. What have we been telling people not to eat? Fat.
David:
[5:22] Go fat-free, yeah.
Karen:
[5:24] Yeah, no, no. Your brain loves fats, and it loves cholesterol. If you don't have enough cholesterol, the good kind, not the kind that sticks too much to your blood vessels, but the good kind, it's like the mother substance for all the hormones in your body. Insulin, reproductive hormones, thyroid hormones, immune, all of the community comes from good cholesterol. Too low cholesterol, not good for your brain. What have we been telling people to do? Oh, yes, not have cholesterol. And then when they do have it, we give them drugs, which negatively impacts that cholesterol.
Karen:
[6:00] And then we wonder why their brain isn't functioning well. All right. So your brain loves healthy fats.
David:
[6:06] Okay.
Karen:
[6:07] Your brain loves healthy carbs. What have we been telling people not to eat? Now, I understand that we're not talking Doritos.
Karen:
[6:16] We are talking whole grains, the carbs and fruits and vegetables. There may be people who are sensitive. You may, for a season, need to watch what you eat. But your brain really loves those. Your brain runs on fats and glucose, which comes from what you eat, protein, and water. So your brain loves protein, good, healthy protein. And most people don't get enough, frankly. They eat about half what they really need, that hootskits, and water. Your brain is very hungry for water. It's always very hungry for what you eat. It's very, what they call metabolically active.
Karen:
[6:55] 25% of your food intake, your brain's going, me, that's for me, me. So if you cut back too low on calories, extreme dieters, guess what your brain does? Dials down that metabolism because it's going to protect itself. Your brain is really smart. So the, um, the first place to look for kids is what's their diet like and the cleaner, and it really is shown. And some kids are more sensitive than others. Um, but you really want to eliminate food colorings as much as possible. And if you've got a sensitive child, that's a go-to, you might want to look at typical allergic foods. Um, dairy, Dairy can spike. Wheat can spike. I mean, gluten can spike. In sensitive kids and non-sensitive kids, it's not an issue, but it is for sensitive kids.
Karen:
sugar, which Americans in the:David:
[7:54] Yep.
Karen:
[7:56] Artificial sweeteners. Brains don't like those very much at all. So if God didn't make it, don't eat it. Good rule of thumb.
David:
[8:04] Absolutely. I'm there with you.
Karen:
[8:07] Um the other thing is chemical sensitivities a lot of kids are actually very sensitive in fact there was a there's a book it's an older book from the 90s but it's still true dr doris rap r-a-p-p and she wrote a book called um i just lost it is this your child and what she did she did an experiment where she had kids in a class where somebody did it there were kids in a classroom They took a handwriting sample And some kids struggled a little bit But handwriting They took the kids out of the classroom Or the room, wherever it was Cleaned it like they do typically with chlorine bleach Put the kids back in One child could not complete the writing assignment Another one was suddenly dyslexic, Other kids were The handwriting was very altered They took the kids out of the room again Cleared it out Let the kids air out Came back in to try their writing again again. Most of the kids recovered the one child didn't quite recover so chemical sensitivities can cause aggression can cause brain dysfunction um so can food allergies so you will you kind of got to start a checklist and in the west but in particular america our thing is what's the one thing in your coach so you hear that what's what's not on that's the one.
David:
[9:28] Thing that's the high heater that's right
Karen:
[9:30] That's human nature the man went up to jesus and said so laws all good what's the one right what.
David:
[9:37] Am i missing yeah
Karen:
[9:38] Yeah yeah and it doesn't work because we are fearfully and wonderfully made we're a bunch of but there's a lot of factors so what i would do mama, is start and and if mom's got brain health issues she's overwhelmed at the very thought of doing this right so i would pray about it a lot of times holy spirit will say yeah start here And you'll get direction from the Lord, But if you're not sure What he's saying Do the obvious Junk food, sugar Do the super obvious stuff first And it will take some time The mistake a lot of people make Adults too When they're putting themselves through this process Is they say Well, I'm just going to pick on junk food, I'm not eating brand name taco chips anymore with, you know, with the weird old flavors. So I don't see any change. So I can put those back in my. No, you might have three or four things going on. You can't just put it back in and go, I guess that wasn't it. That might have been a piece of your puzzle.
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