UFC Fighter Miesha Tate on Past Brain Trauma & Optimization

[Music] thank you [Music] nice to meet you pleasure to meet you come this way Amisha thank you for doing this I'm really excited to have you join us and share your platform with us and continue this message of actually being a Pioneer and in not only women's Athletics women in fighting women MMA and UFC and such but now in a Pioneer in mental health and in

General Health and Wellness overall so thank you so much for joining us I couldn't be more excited I'm so excited to learn I really want to know if there are tools that I can use to better my mind and I couldn't think of a better place to be so I'm very excited to hear the results continue to share that with the world excellent excellent so I'll

give you just a little bit on me I've been here about nine years I'm a neuropsychiatrist um double board certified I work with kids work with adults um one of the associate medical directors here at the clinic so I've got an opportunity to work with a wide range of clients so from like I said kids I have a joke I see from four to 104. right

and in that perspective or in that cohort of of clients they'll see athletes and I always like seeing athletes especially like seeing athletes who are at the top level of of their fields basically it's interesting just to get a sense of what makes them tick and how to optimize their health in the short term and also in the long term so again this is cool for

me personally and it's an honor for me personally to get to work with you especially as a as a two-time champion that's correct right strike for us and at UFC yes that's awesome thank you I appreciate that and I'm now a mom champ so and your mom I have two kids two-time Championship there also I like it I like it so do I like to start

things off is talk about the why now like why going through this which you've already kind of spoken to but then definitely transition that into your goals like is there anything we should really focus on is there anything we should talk about relates to the scans any of the findings any of your Wellness goals especially going into the future I know you're out of retirement back

into fighting again anything we should think about well Dr I mean I think knowledge is power yes so I have been on this journey for the past 36 years to learn about myself and I feel like since I've become a mother I have a different kind of intuition and responsibility to myself and to my children so I know that if I'm not at my best nobody

gets me at my best my children don't give me my best so part of me seeking out the best version of myself and I know that I put my brain through a lot being a fighter I chose a career where impact and brain trauma is part of what we do so I've accepted that what can I do to mitigate that yep that's why I'm here excellent

excellent so we're going to spend a decent amount of time going over the scans I really like what this whole field of longevity and wellness especially brain health Wellness is growing so yeah even 10 15 20 years ago is not the same thing as it is now where and especially as a fighter I'm glad that you're prioritizing that because you have to think not just on

the next fight or being the champ it's homicide still going to be in five years 10 years 20 years what am I going to be like for my kids what am I going to be like for my spouse what am I going to be like for my grandkids absolutely I get concerned with the combination of cutting weight and hormonal changes at the same time because when

your body's it's a stressor to cut weight like it's a significant stressor if you got to drop 10 15 pounds or whatever in some short amount of time right so my last fight yeah I dropped a weight class for the first and only time in my career I will not be doing that again because it was extremely taxing for months yes it actually got so bad

that the the output and the stress of the workouts and the calorie deficits were to extremes I I mean I felt good in my Camp I work with one of the best coaches in the world that really helped me dial it and I never felt like I was starving but there was still a level of Taxation I was aware of on my body yeah yeah no

it's it's a significant stress for it it's one thing you might have been able to get away with that earlier in career but as we as we get older as we age it changes right how our body can respond to that level of stress right thank you [Music] I wanted everything accurate it's no longer about winning it's about knowing the truth okay I love it all

right so okay this is why I love it you're gonna see all stuff come through okay all right so I'll let you continue you have a very powerful brand you have a very powerful brand and I tend to see this and people who are successful who've pushed themselves who have that level of discipline like to be a champion in anything especially in that level you have

to push yourself you have to be okay with pain right how much pain did you have to go through to get to champion level right right um so these are not your scans yet I'm just going to show you healthy average so you did something called a spect scan it looks at blood flow in the brain okay okay so we took take pictures of the outside

of the brain we take pictures of the inside of the brain the outside is what will I summarize is the thinking brain or the cortex so the thinking brains out here this is the limbic or emotional break now this is one of the best ones for visualizing head injuries so um in your sport you've had some head injuries right you're gonna bump into yeah this much

is true yeah so I was actually pretty happy to see your skins all right before I say anything what what do you think the otherwise coffee grain this is why I love doing these scans because I didn't know what I was going to see just based on your history I watched a couple of fights and stuff so you were expecting worse I was honestly expecting them

first I'm sorry I was I'm sorry okay if you've watched a couple of fights I'd probably be expecting yeah so I was expecting a little bit worse but I also read your history and I knew that you've been really focused on Fitness and Wellness and you've been doing a lot of things I mean even swear by it yeah how much age ball do you think you've

done I mean guests hundreds hundreds right I mean that's one of the things we strongly recommend when people come in here with editors see it works it works but this was really really impressive really impressive I think I may be um maybe doing another scan on uh another UFC fighter hopefully coming up soon uh we'll see if uh he shared as well as you did well

now the competition though all right so let's take a look at the emotion brand because this is actually the more interesting one for you okay so this is you what do you think there's a lot of red a lot of red and yeah red and white a lot of red and white I see there's a lot in athletes so this is up here you have a

lot of parietal lobe activity you also have a lot of posterior cingulate activity and the parietal lobes are kind of back here so early I said it quickly I said the parts that are important for the athlete parietal lobe I mean everything's important in your blood but prior lobes your frontal lobe cerebellum parietal loves are important because they're going to be part of sensory information that's

coming in and then there's a control aspect too okay the cerebellum will refine some of that to improve the coordination of those movements and to really clean them up but the prior loads become extremely important and one of its data inputs is pressure so certain things you're going to feel you're going to be resents the other person more in that context you almost have more data

points when you're not touching them you have less data points right so you're just looking at them and your brain's trying to calculate what to do next some people's brains are wired in a way that that works for them so that's why I do the strikers and all that right some people are aware that they need that extra data points they want their ears almost ready

it's like they can hear more feel more and that give helps them be more comfortable yeah at that point I could close my eyes and just go off a field I don't need much other input so the way that I fight I definitely appreciate uh you know being connected yep yep you got a little bit of extra basal ganglia activity um basal ganglia help with fine

motor movements your pleasure Reward Center is there but it also does create a little bit of anxiety it sets your anticipatory anxiety a random question do you think trash talking especially if it got very contentious do you think that impacts you good question I know I generally prefer to be amicable towards my opponent yeah yeah I don't prefer to have trash talking and sincere animosity yeah

I don't like that I don't think that I operate better for that I just want to say again I really appreciate going over these things with you and I just want to make sure I've answered your questions we have a great product happy saffron we've got some other things like gabacom that can be very helpful what I also like is call my brain it's a combo

of things mixed up a little bit happy saffron just kind of start that process of cooling things down natural it's amazing all right I'm all for that kind of stuff exactly so the great thing about it is that we can be very intentional about how you use a brain like yours right it can help you be very successful and push yourself and then in the states

where you need to be I need to take take a chill pill right in some ways they're natural things you can take that slows things down to help you be more present in those moments okay okay I like that that sounds great [Music]