Every soft drink is a bullet to your brain! (EP6)

Give thanks for your life — and you’ll live a longer life! (EP10)

Welcome to my podcast, ‘Healing with Dr Helena’, where I challenge the limiting way we currently view disease, and offer a new paradigm for vibrant health and true healing. If modern medicine isn’t providing you with enough answers, and you want to come alive and thrive, rather than merely survive, this podcast is for you. It’s also for people who want to boost their brain to perform at their peak, avoid Alzheimer’s and other dementias, and live longer, stronger, healthier and happier. Here’s a glimpse of episode 10. Today’s Brain Booster is: Appreciate to elevate your thinking, and recognise that gratitude is more than a platitude.  It’s really unfortunate that in today’s hashtag world, the notion of practising gratitude, and appreciating our blessings, has become hackneyed and superficial. Yet behind the cliches, appreciation and gratitude boost our brain in profound and distinct ways. So today’s episode will be a fascinating exploration of the difference between appreciation and gratitude, and how they can help us build a better brain.  We live in a world that constantly trains our attention toward what’s wrong. Turn on the news — conflict. Scroll social media — it’s easy to jump to negative comparisons. Check your inbox — problems to solve. Without realising it, our brain becomes exquisitely skilled at spotting flaws, threats and mistakes. From an evolutionary perspective, this is a survival feature. Our ancestors did not survive by admiring sunsets; they survived by spotting snakes. So our brain is wired to scan for problems. But what happens when that survival setting becomes our default way of seeing everything? We become mentally tired, less creative, more reactive, and ironically, less effective at solving the very problems we’re focused on. The good news is that there’s a really simple skill that can turn things around and improve how our brain functions. That skill is appreciation. Hence today’s Brain-Booster is appreciate to elevate your thinking. Today’s Health Headline is: Gratitude delays the grave! Literally. Gratitude — expressing thanks for someone or something — adds years to your life. How? A Harvard study published in 2024 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, followed almost 50 000 nurses (49 275 to be precise) with an average age of 79, for over 3 years. The researchers wanted to answer the question: Do people who notice and feel grateful for positive experiences more frequently, tend to live longer? What did they find? The nurses who felt the most grateful — those in the top third of participants — had a 9% lower risk of dying from any cause compared to those who scored in the lowest third of participants. Specifically in relation to heart disease, the more grateful they were, the less likely they were to die of a heart attack or stroke. Wow! What’s missing from modern medicine is incorporating gratitude into standard medical care. Gratitude improves the functioning of our immune system, and reduces chronic inflammation, hence it’s been found to improve depression, anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain, heart health and arthritis. Another wow! Today’s Whether Report is a common scenario: I’ve been listening to your podcast from the very start and I absolutely love it. However I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the things I need to do to get my health on track. Not only do I need to overhaul my diet, exercise more, and get better sleep, you’ve made me aware that I have a lot of conflicts in my life, and it’s definitely causing me ongoing stress. I’d like to know whether you can help me overcome my overwhelm, and tell me where to start. It feels impossible to tackle everything in the TRUE MEDICINES acronym. I’d be very grateful for any advice. Resources: https://drhelenapopovic.com/podcast/

Purge yourself of Plastic (EP9)

Welcome to my podcast, ‘Healing with Dr Helena’, where I challenge the limiting way we currently view disease, and offer a new paradigm for vibrant health and true healing. If modern medicine isn’t providing you with enough answers, and you want to come alive and thrive, rather than merely survive, this podcast is for you. It’s also for people who want to boost their brain to perform at their peak, avoid Alzheimer’s and other dementias, and live longer, stronger, healthier and happier. Each episode comprises four parts: 1. A Brain Booster 2. A Health Headline 3. An Exploration of What’s Missing from Modern Medicine 4. A Whether Report where I answer your whether questions eg ‘I’d like to know whether you can really die of a broken heart?’ Here’s a glimpse of episode 9. Today’s Brain Booster is: Purge yourself of plastic!  Why? And what do I mean by that? Plastics have become ubiquitous in modern life. Over time, larger plastic items degrade into smaller particles — micro and nanoplastics (MNPs) — and these MNPs can infiltrate air, water, soil, food chains, and ultimately the human body. While the environmental impacts of microplastics are well-documented, human health consequences are only just beginning to be understood. A 2024 study at the University of New Mexico found triple the amount of MNPs in the brains of people with dementia compared to the brains of people without. At this stage, we don’t know if the plastics caused the dementia, or if a person with dementia has an impaired blood brain barrier, which makes their brain more likely to absorb plastics after they already have the disease. Either way, my suspicion is that plastics in the brain are not a good thing. We can’t escape plastics entering our bodies altogether, but we can try to minimise our exposure in various ways. Here’s an acronym I created to help you remember how you can purge yourself of plastic. And the acronym is PLASTIC! P stands for purify the tap water in your home. L stands for limit, if not eLiminate processed foods because so many of them are contaminated with high levels of plastics. A stands for Avoid cosmetics that contain micro-beads, and check the ingredients on personal care products for polystyrene, polyethylene and polypropylene. S stands for Swap plastic cutting boards, utensils and cutlery for wooden or bamboo chopping boards and stainless steel cutlery. T stands for Tyre pressure maintenance. Keep your car tyres at the right pressure so they don’t wear down as quickly because tyres are a big source of microplastics in the air and oceans. I stands for Invest in a HEPA air purifier for your home to capture microplastics from the air. C stands for Choose Clothes made from natural materials like cotton, linen, silk, or wool. Cotton and wool shed fewer micro-fibres than synthetic materials during washing. * * * * * Today’s Health Headline is: There’s a spoonful of plastic in your brain! According to a study published in Nature Medicine in December 2024, even in the absence of dementia, our brains contain a teaspoonful of plastic. Really? Let’s take a closer look at the study and the whole microplastics scene. * * * * * What’s missing from modern medicine is conclusive evidence for the specific harms of plastics, and definitive advice about what we can do once plastics have made their way into our body. It’s important to recognise what we don’t yet know because jumping to conclusions, and getting into a panic, could take us down an unhelpful path. * * * * * Today’s Whether Report tackles a tricky question: I’d like to know whether microplastics cause gut disorders like inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), and whether eating specific foods like blueberries, blocks the absorption of microplastics or helps clear them out of our bodies? Please subscribe to my podcast or YouTube channel so that you don’t miss an episode, and email your whether questions to: podcast@drhelenapopovic.com [podcast@drhelenapopovic.com?subject=Question%20for%20Podcast%3A%20Healing%20with%20Dr%20Helena] For references and resources visit: https://drhelenapopovic.com/podcast/ [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbUhSTVlYaVpmX184emZDbFptdTE2MG5oUi1Sd3xBQ3Jtc0treHZfZUlkOHp0RWVzM3l0UnhGM18xYmVqa24zMmpXaUU4WF9nbDhhZnA1ZmlKUUlZNzNDUm9RVlJCaUdBd3JnR2FoaTVwY19ma1pZeUdZMmlqYVo4aEgxMkxVMDFjM0JnbUxkSFNxejF5NnA5SlRXSQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fdrhelenapopovic.com%2Fpodcast%2F&v=v80B9AETqRQ]

Feeling is healing (EP8)

Welcome to my podcast, ‘Healing with Dr Helena’, where I challenge the limiting way we currently view disease, and offer a new paradigm for vibrant health and true healing. If modern medicine isn’t providing you with enough answers, and you want to come alive and thrive, rather than merely survive, this podcast is for you. It’s also for people who want to boost their brain to perform at their peak, avoid Alzheimer’s and other dementias, and live longer, stronger, healthier and happier.  Each episode comprises four parts: 1. A Brain Booster 2. A Health Headline 3. An Exploration of What’s Missing from Modern Medicine 4. A Whether Report where I answer your whether questions eg ‘I’d like to know whether you can explain how …’ Here’s a glimpse of episode 8.  * * * * * Today’s Brain Booster is: Train your brain to reframe.  Have you ever put your foot in it and unintentionally offended someone? Or received notification that your job interview was unsuccessful? Before you know it, your mood has plummeted. Even though physically nothing has happened to you, your heart rate and blood pressure rise, your muscles tighten, and you start replaying the event in your mind.  Why couldn’t I just have kept my mouth shut? Now that person’s going to hate me. I’m hopeless at interviews. I’m never going to get a job. But all of that is just my interpretation. The person I unintentionally offended might have forgotten about the incident, or not been as offended as I thought. And the job might have had hundreds of applicants and I did well to get to the interview stage.  So it’s not the event that’s inherently mood-dampening; it’s what I’m telling myself about the event. It’s the meaning I attach to my experiences that determines their impact. And that’s where a powerful brain skill can come in and rescue the day: cognitive reframing — also sometimes called cognitive reappraisal. Tune into this week’s podcast to find out why cognitive reframing can improve both our physical and mental health.   * * * * * Today’s Health Headline is: Every symptom is a signal. I first introduced the idea of every symptom being a signal in podcast episode 1, but we only scratched the surface. Today we’re going to explore the concept further because it’s an example of cognitive reframing. In fact, my entire approach to healing is grounded in four cognitive reframes: 1. Disease is a doorway — not a defect.  2. Symptoms are a signal — not a scourge. 3. Cancer is a catalyst — not a catastrophe.  4. Pain is a paradox — not a problem.  Instead of regarding disease as something that gets in the way of living a full life, reframe it as the very thing you need to guide you to a full life. Reframe disease as your body communicating to you that there’s some sort of conflict in your life that needs to be resolved, or at least acknowledged. This approach may take more time and energy than medications or surgery, but do you want the path of popping pills or the path to personal power? * * * * * What’s missing from modern medicine is acknowledging that emotions impact our physical health, not just our mental health. Modern medicine relegates emotions to the domain of mental health and psychologists. But emotions also have a HUGE impact on our physical health. Suppressing our emotions can make us sick, while learning to feel can heal. * * * * * And today’s Whether Report answers a question I was asked at a recent presentation: ‘When it comes to the benefits of expressive writing, can you tell me whether typing on a computer is as effective as handwriting in a journal?’ * * * * * Please subscribe to my podcast and email your whether questions to: podcast@drhelenapopovic.com [podcast@drhelenapopovic.com?subject=Question%20for%20Podcast%3A%20Healing%20with%20Dr%20Helena]  For resources and references visit: https://drhelenapopovic.com/podcast/

People are more powerful than pills (EP7)

Welcome to my podcast, ‘Healing with Dr Helena’, where I challenge the limiting way we currently view disease, and offer a new paradigm for vibrant health and true healing. If modern medicine isn’t providing you with enough answers, and you want to come alive and thrive, rather than merely survive, this podcast is for you. It’s also for people who want to boost their brain to perform at their peak, avoid Alzheimer’s, and live longer, stronger, healthier and happier. Here’s a glimpse of episode 7.  * * * * * I’m not going to reveal today’s Brain Booster because at the start of the episode I give you a clue and ask you to guess what the Brain Booster might be. So let’s launch straight into today’s Health Headline: People are more powerful than pills. Study after study has shown that supportive relationships are the number one way to improve our health, happiness and longevity. And it took me a long time to get my head around that. Nurturing relationships in midlife are a greater predictor of good health as we age than cholesterol level and obesity. Stop and think about that. We’re obsessed with losing weight and keeping our cholesterol down, yet we’d improve our health and longevity to a greater extent if we improved the quality and quantity of our relationships. That’s mind-blowing. All those years in medical school I spent learning about blood tests and medications and surgical procedures — and it turns out the best medical advice I can give you is to spend more quality time with the people you love. If you want to improve your health — first and foremost — improve your relationships. Tune in to find out why. * * * * * What’s missing from modern medicine is taking on board the wisdom of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama when he said: Humans sacrifice their health for wealth — and then have to spend their wealth to regain their heath.  The reason our species has survived for so long is because of our interdependence and ability to co-operate. We know this intuitively. We know that social connections are fundamental to our health and happiness. But we don’t seem to be living that way.  Our current culture pushes us to prioritise work and career advancement and getting a better income and ticking things off our to-do list, at the expense of looking after our health; at the expense of getting enough sleep, exercise, sunshine, and good nutrition. And at the expense of our relationships. There are so many pressures constantly pulling at us that maintaining friendships and just being present with our family can take a back seat. And that’s evidenced by the fact that more than 40% of marriages in Australia, the US and UK end in divorce.  It’s not that work and paying bills isn’t important, but paradoxically, we’d actually be more productive at work, we’d get ahead more quickly, we’d be more successful, and we’d handle life’s stresses more effectively, if we spent more time building good relationships at work and at home. And here’s the other irony. We think that the reason we’re working so hard, and keeping so busy, and not switching off, is to improve our quality of life and that of our family. But is it really improving our quality of life? * * * * * And today’s Whether Report answers the question: I’ve heard that loneliness is as damaging as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. I’d like to know whether this is actually true. I’m an introvert and I like spending time alone. I’m happy in my own company, but I’d like to know whether I should force myself to become an extrovert for the sake of improving my health.   * * * * * Please subscribe to my podcast so that you don’t miss an episode, and send your whether questions to: podcast@drhelenapopovic.com [podcast@drhelenapopovic.com?subject=Question%20for%20Podcast%3A%20Healing%20with%20Dr%20Helena] For resources and references visit: https://drhelenapopovic.com/podcast/ [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbFRuc2tuU2RYTXM1RUZKNERsNl9sOUpFelFXQXxBQ3Jtc0tsODBUWDR3ZnBiSkJjQ3QxSmlRcTNpS1lJX0ZQWjNRUmRaTHJoaEdSYVE0X3dqUGhLUUIyUmU3YldyMmVfZF9DM09zRXBPTG1FRVZoWmQ2bldScTMta1NXWlRRemU3MHpJbkhjdGpmTXU1RkwtSm9jWQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fdrhelenapopovic.com%2Fpodcast%2F&v=o-ebUr_aCF0]

Every soft drink is a bullet to your brain! (EP6)

Welcome to my podcast, ‘Healing with Dr Helena’, where I challenge the limiting way we currently view disease, and offer a new paradigm for vibrant health and true healing. If modern medicine isn’t providing you with enough answers, and you want to come alive and thrive, rather than merely survive, this podcast is for you. Here’s a glimpse of episode 6.  * * * * * Today’s Brain Booster is: Skip the sugary sip — because every soft drink is a bullet to your brain! A landmark study found that people who regularly consumed sugary drinks — including soft drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks, sweetened tea and fruit juices — had smaller brain volumes and scored worse in tests of recent memory.  A large review of US adults aged 60 years and older showed that increased consumption of the above-listed beverages was significantly linked to worsening cognitive function.  And an investigation of more than 177 000 UK residents who were followed for an average of nine and a half years revealed that those who drank two or more soft drinks a day had a significantly higher risk of developing dementia — whether or not they carried genes that increased their risk of Alzheimer’s. In other words, having good genes does not protect you from dementia if you drink sugary drinks.  So the message is clear: the more you drink, the more you shrink your brain and its ability to function.  But how do sugary drinks cause so much havoc to our brain? That’s what today’s Brain Booster is all about.  * * * * * Today’s Health Headline is: Soft drinks are the new cigarettes. In podcast 5, I said that sitting was the new smoking. And it is. But equally so, soft drinks are the new cigarettes. Is there a safe level of cigarette smoking? No. Smoking just ONE cigarette a day increases the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.  A similar scenario plays out for soft drinks. There is no safe level of soft drink consumption. The problem, however, is that there are no anti-soft drink campaigns or public health initiatives to encourage people to quit soft drinks because the general attitude to soft drinks is back where we were with cigarettes in the 1950s. Today’s Health Headline explores the lessons we can learn from dealing with cigarettes, and how we can apply those principles to soft drinks.  * * * * * What’s missing from modern medicine is the guts to stand up to the soft drink industry.  Much like cigarettes half a century ago, soft drinks have enjoyed decades of social acceptance while quietly contributing to all chronic diseases. And while there are scientists and public-health advocates arguing that sugary drinks warrant similar regulation to cigarettes, their voices aren’t loud enough.  Why aren’t the hazards of soft drinks taught in every school in every country in the world? Why aren’t soft drink vending machines banned from educational institutions, work places and fitness centres? Why aren’t there soft drink public education campaigns, warning labels, taxes and stricter marketing controls — especially in relation to young people? * * * * * And today’s Whether Report addresses the following dilemma: Can you please tell me whether fruit juice is healthy or not? I keep seeing contradictory messages about fruit juice. One minute I’m told to go on a juice cleanse, and the next minute I hear that fruit juice has too much sugar and I shouldn’t drink it at all. Also can you tell me whether squeezing my own fruit at home is healthier than buying ready-made juice from the grocery store? And finally, please tell me whether using a blender or NutriBullet to make a smoothie is healthier than simply drinking juice. * * * * * Please subscribe to my podcast so that you don’t miss an episode, and email your whether questions to: podcast@drhelenapopovic.com [podcast@drhelenapopovic.com?subject=Question%20for%20Podcast%3A%20Healing%20with%20Dr%20Helena] For resources visit: www.drhelenapopovic.com/podcast