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**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Yeah. And so going "This is my environment", and maybe I probably have some predisposition in my genes relative to weight and obesity, that I go "You know what - if I'm to keep doing this, this is the sort of fork in the road that's going to take me a direction that I don't think I really want... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, totally. You said though "Maybe I'm predispositioned in my genes..." So that leads to the question of how the heck do we know what's in our genes? Because if I had some wisdom -- let's say I'm a listener of this show and I'm 15, 18, 20, somewhere before my age currently, 41. Somewhere where I ... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Sure. Well, to some degree - I mean, you can go real sciency. There's test kits out there to actually look at and know your genes... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** They call them markers, right? You've got markers for this, this or this... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Right. And I don't know that that's necessarily helpful for everyone, because it can also then make you aware of things you didn't know, but you could then obsess over... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Oh... You think bliss is better. |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** No... But for some people - again, if you already are more anxious-prone, is that necessarily helpful for you, to know all of the idiosyncratic things relative to your genes? Because now, again, you have this awareness, and so what are you going to do with that? |
I mean, I say obesity just because I ironically never necessarily reflected on that. I just know, looking back through -- I mean, certain maternal/paternal sides, looking back through who has struggled with obesity... Like, "Wow, there's more than I had really thought about before." And that, combined with even my envi... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[19:59\] Because of those reasons, yeah. |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Yeah. It's not surprising even that I took the trajectory to go into the field of psychology recognizing the overlap of how my mind and how my feelings impact my decisions and henceforth my performance, both in the gym and in life as a whole. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** You said though you're not sure you could recommend knowing this because of awareness. We preach awareness quite a bit, so I wanna play devil's advocate for just a second and say the classic answer there might be "It depends." |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** There you go. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Because there's some people that would love to have that information and could make -- I don't wanna say good decisions, but use that in a manner that helps their life, be aware of those opportunities or those predispositions, and actually do change. There's some that will just take that as a senten... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Sure. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** "...and there is no stopping. The train is heading to the station. Good luck." So maybe there's some like that. But I would say for the people who are motivated to understand, be aware and change, I would think -- if it were me, I wish I could have learned about genes earlier in life, so that I knew... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Sure, yes. Okay, but I guess that is highlighting there is not a one-size-fits all approach, and that the whole purpose of these conversations is I want you to think... I want you to think about yourself, and -- I mean, they're not free, so you'll have to spend money on the kits in order to ge... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Okay, I like that idea. |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** I haven't done that, so I'm not gonna say "Yeah, go do that", because I don't know what you're gonna get. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** So here's some homework if you're listening then... If you know about genetic testing, and there's some information you've read, or a book you've read, or something that seemed credible with you, share it with us. There's comments you can go to... I'm not sure what episode number this will be, but y... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Yes. But it's the same thing relative to psychological testing. So one of the things in neuropsych testing is if people could have access to these tests, but they don't know how to interpret it. So it's like, do you know what a baseline is? Do you know how to make sense of that information? Ju... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Hopefully -- and this is the skeptic in me out there, too... It's like, I don't wanna give my blood to people I don't know. That's why I can't do the whole 23andMe, or what is it... Maybe I'm advocating for something I can't even get on board with, I don't even know. I'm not trying to advocate for i... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** I was gonna say, we're gonna turn. We're gonna go-- |
**Adam Stacoviak:** We don't know. Let's turn. \[laughter\] |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** \[24:00\] So what we're talking about though is conceptually neuroplasticity. And if you haven't heard about this, what it is is literally the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout your life. So neuroplasticity allows neurons, which are nerve cells i... |
One way in which I could say that it'd be helpful to know your genes is relative to autoimmune issues... Because we've talked about stress as it relates to our immune system, and going "Hey, if I know that I've got a long line, or even multiple people in my family who've had auto-immune things, I wanna be very consider... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, that's definitely true. What's also really interesting - auto-immune is such a common thing... This disorder out there is such a common thing, relating to your immune system, your auto-immune disorders, and stuff like that... And they play such a gigantic role, gigantic role in everyday life -... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** And be in relationship with people. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Of course, yes. \[laughs\] A healthy mind requires other people, so that's the baseline there... But to avoid those things is sort of like giving yourself \[unintelligible 00:26:12.16\] and that's auto-immune. |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Yeah. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Auto-immune is generally impacted by those things, too. So this healthy diet or healthy eating or conscious eating, and how you're active in your life, throughout your whole life, and then toxic things like chemicals, that are definitely toxic - avoid them. |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Right. Well, and that's just why going -- it's sort of like overloading the system... Maybe 5% - not so bad; 10%... Or I do this one time, two times, three times... But 25,000, or a million times of repetition - that's where I get into trouble. So recognizing that there are certain habits we e... |
I appreciate that it was Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone out of Harvard's Medical School who described neuroplasticity as this intrinsic, so internal property of the human brain, that represents evolution's invention to enable the nervous system to escape the restrictions of its own genome (i.e. genes), and thus adapt to envi... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** That's deep. |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** I know. So this is our hope. This is where I wanna camp out. And really, epigenetics is this study of the way in which our genes and our environment intersect. So a researcher going "How did these show up? What do we do? How can people change their genes?", so to speak. And it really isn't \[u... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[28:15\] Yeah... I mean, it interesting how the brain plays such a role in these things. I wouldn't imagine that neuroplasticity would allow me to override my genome, to be able to adapt. The brain has that much ability; once we understand its capabilities and how we can play a role in the subconsc... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Right. So if we're using this metaphor relative to a house, and our genes are the foundation... So I might have, again, the case of schizophrenia; there is a genetic component to that disorder. So there's a crack in my foundation already. Well, then over time in my -- I never developed skills ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Kind of. |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** So if I would have been doing other things earlier on -- and again, it's not like a guarantee. I can't say "Well, if you do all these things, then you're safe and you're fine, and you don't need to worry about it." But if someone was using meditation, managing stress, anxiety, had social suppo... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. Is that because they'd been working on things like emotional intelligence? |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Yes. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** I know we're gonna talk about that at some point more deeply, but is that underlying what that is? Like, once you learn coping skills and have awareness, and you have a real clear picture of what you're actually thinking or why you're thinking it and all these things - is that emotional intelligence... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** EQ? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Like an EQ, yeah. |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Yeah, it is... Because you have an awareness of going "This is where I get stuck or struggle, so instead of playing right next to the edge of the cliff, I'm gonna play way back here." So maybe I make choices in my life where I manage my stress differently, which is an emotional intelligence. I... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Pick your timing better... If you can. |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Yeah. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** But if you couldn't pick that timing, realize that you're gonna struggle... And that's part of the awareness. It's like, "Okay, this is a perfect storm of struggle coming up. What am I gonna do about it?" Well, now I have to leave a buffer in there, I have to say no to things I would normally say ye... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** Yeah, so if I can geek out again for just a little bit... I wanna talk about this one specific protein (or gene) that's called BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Can you say that five times fast? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** \[32:23\] No, I can't say it once... |
**Mireille Reece, PsyD:** \[laughs\] So BDNF is a gene that provides instructions for making a protein that's found in the brain and spinal cord. And what this does is promotes the survival of nerve cells by playing a role in the growth, what we call as maturation or differentiation of neurons, and the maintenance of t... |
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