Fitness Titan Kathy Smith on Becoming The Healthiest Version of Herself

grew up following use your work so the impact you've had is just awesome um but neither you or I want to see the effects of aging on our brain right we want to be vital and go for as long as we can it's clear as we can so I did your podcast and then I floated the idea of you coming here and you said I jumped

at it yeah I jumped at it I've been following you Dr Ayman uh you know for ever now and I um I've been fascinated with what you do partially which you know we've talked about this partially because of the trauma that I experienced when I was in a late teenager and the work that I've done through the years to manage some of the behaviors that came

out of that but in general just watching you helped so many people and understanding the brain and I think you know this thing about the body this whole connection between the body and the Brain I mean how can you ignore it and either people don't get that you know they think of the Mind is separate from the body but your brain the physical functioning of your

brain creates your mind and so if your body that feeds the brain is healthy you're not going to help uh I read your history thank you for doing that and it said you love your brain meditate and I think it's my mother the way my brain functions but yeah but you have a busy brain or a quiet brain there's a lot of Captain um [Music] there's

a repetitive thought so I wanted to learn about it look at that and what you meant by that I think it has to do a repetitive thought pattern tied into what should I do am I doing the right thing so those things go hand in hand and I almost think this thing about not being able to pull the trigger to do the right thing gets this

repetitive thought pattern so let me give you an idea I've been um dating somebody off and on for the last 10 years we have great vacations great trip we have great you know sex we have great things together there are a lot of things that is just a completely different lifestyle and it's not my lifestyle and it's not what I want so the question is why

do I stay in it especially now this person is saying and has over the years let's move in together let's be such a such and I stay with the person but the thought pattern will the repetitive thought pattern is God I can't believe he did that he is such a you know he is he is you know how shallow with that he know he doesn't know

or how he doesn't know anything about what I do he doesn't understand me at all whatever that thought pattern and like and why am I with them and why am I with him and hi oh my god of course I'd like to go to Spain next week that sounds fantastic refridge yeah count me in and so that thing which not honoring myself in some ways um

of why do I what is it in in the brain what is it that just like is is what is that fear of of like no not the right one we have and the words will come out of my mouth when he says like let's try let's try it again you know move in come to L.A he's gonna you know come to La move in and

I'll say you know we've tried this over and over again and no I'm uh you know not willing to go there now but I can you know get an apartment or something in L.A so I can spend a little bit more time here so it's like and then I say those words come out of my mouth and I think why do I do that I mean

why am I afraid it's either afraid of moving away or afraid of stepping in so we'll look at your frontals which are involved with just my one we'll look at your frontal level because they're involved in judge decision making and we'll look at your anxieties and you know given the early losses attachment and be an issue [Music] um has it been an issue for you in

the past if you look over the last 50 years and uh and getting attached you're saying getting attached or is that yeah yeah um because it sounds like for the last 10 years you're sort of attached well the one thing [Music] oh my God this is coming up right now I don't know I don't think I put this in my history now that you bring it

up but there was and um I'm gonna be I'm gonna tiptoe a little bit around this one but still try to explain it married two children amazing dad had some addiction issues we won't go into the types of addiction but he had some addiction issues and um [Music] and [Music] there was ah I could get emotional on this one but there was a complete um betrayal

on ways that everybody goes to probably right now I'm thinking oh I know I go in ways that you can't even imagine uh and that knocked me for a loop when I was 50. so I I oh I for my children and you know and I was this is a point where I was really like [Music] came out with moving through menopause I was on the

Oprah show I was going I was on the Today show I would go and I would literally go into the bathroom have a good cry get out my under eye cream run out yay you know and do and do what you need you needed to be done and I felt the weight the weight of of um having to hold everything together sort of for the family

for the kids for my ex now who happens to be a lovely man but was going through some very troubled times and I became the rescuer the person that had to stay strong get the job done keep everybody together um and keep everybody together meaning you know keep just how unravel the situation we were in I mean and and solve it in the sense of like

the issues anyway so that when I got through that I mean I think that more so more so than even the parents for the abandonment thing because I I went through therapy et cetera when not right away I think you know I ran away from the parent that my parents dying and the impact it had but the time I was um in you know my late

20s early 30s I was you know had gone through and I was doing therapeutic process and I and I I felt I feel pretty good about that honestly I mean I can talk about my parents I love them I feel I I understand and I understand the impact it had on me but this other one um I don't know if I maybe processed that as well

and I didn't you know because I was helping so many other people that they became the the priority and you're a fixer I'm a fixer yeah I wrote a book called your brain is always listening and I talk about the dragons from the past they're always breathing fire on our emotional brain and you have the responsible track yes with my family with my you know yeah

I just have the Greek lost track from your parents but also from your marriage [Music] so this is healthy and I'm gonna show you okay so expect is a study that looks in blood flow and activity actually looks mitochondrial function uh so when I interviewed Chris Palmer I like I emailed him research on spec because he said the unifying theory of mental illness is mitochondrial dysfunction

I'm like well I measure mitochondrial function and so spec tells us three things good activity too little or too much and then my job is to balance image on the left broken at the outside surface and a healthy scan it should just be full even and symmetrical top left we're looking underneath the brain so the top is the front part of the brain bottom is back

it's really important this is cerebellum because half the brain's neurons it's involvement process and speed and coordination you've been working at your cerebellum for apparent time right all the videos non-stop work for your server um it's the bottom right view looking down from the top just like this and the color doesn't matter the ones on the left it's the shape just should be full even symmetrical

the image is on the right how it does matter blue is average activity red is the top 15 White is the top eight and it should be here in your circle so if we look at your scan remember I said your brain got hurt you can see it right here so you don't have holes in your brain but what that means is significantly low blood in

your right parade so if you are going to fall out of a tree I and you wanted my opinion on where to hit your head it would be back right should be a little bit of denial and your direction sense might be off but it's not really going to give you a lot of behavior problems so when you say we say whole is it do you

see a hole there we'll see it right here okay that hole now here in the front I think that's you could have been trauma engaging either way we want to see if we can make it better you have a lot great these are your temporal lobes now if you do everything I say I'm back six months sister tell me tell me what do I do we

can make it better okay so go back though I I guess how do we how do we pop that out you're gonna tell her down hyperbaric oxygen I have not really significant improvements an activity if we look at your active scan it's pretty normal you have a gorgeous cerebellum which one would expect given how much exercise you've done in coordination exercises right that you've done that's

the big thing it's not just running it's moving in lots of different ways that enhances your brain so I'm like a huge fan of dancing right and Tennis table tennis and pickleball love it I love it all so my impression you're amazing and I adore you thank you and I can help your brain do better I love it it's only good names right you're already amazing

your brain's not headed for dementia but let's prevent it from further aging and see if we can first that's all right thank you for that I have a lot that I want to do in the next 15 20 years and I want you know this part to work and of course this part so um I know honestly people think this Asian it is so much fun

if you have your brain and your body to work you know and they're not like you're not in a lot of pain and you have those two things that are working and functioning it's just like an amazing time in life with all these experiences you have you know you let go of the small stuff things don't worry you as much as they used to and there's

you know just this bright bright future so I'm excited about and that's why I was excited to come to see you because I do believe this is the next um this next 15 20 years is going to be a highlight of my life [Music] thank you [Music]