Happy Pride and Alzheimer's/Brain Awareness Month!

Tracy Shulsinger • June 1, 2024

This month has two very important celebrations that I would love to connect. Making connections is actually one of the strengths of the functional medicine detection process that guides us to the root causes of illness and toward healing! I now invite you to take a pause and ask yourself, what does pride in owning one’s sexual orientation as LGBTQ have to do with brain health and Alzheimer's Disease? As not to leave anyone out- if you identify as straight or heterosexual, what could having pride in yourself have to do with your brain health and Alzheimer's?

An important connection that I would like to make involves the nervous system. The brain is a central component of the nervous system, along with the spinal cord and nerves. Our nervous system influences and controls many bodily functions and is also influenced and controlled by many factors. Our emotional state highly influences our nervous system.

Individuals who do not feel accepted to be who they are without being judged, criticized, ridiculed and loved by others live under tremendous stress. They often feel unsafe- emotionally and/or physically. Living with constant emotional stress and feeling physically or emotionally unsafe takes a major toll on the nervous system, including the brain, and can be one of many contributors to cognitive impairment.

This constant level of stress can impair cognitive function. Stress is inflammatory to the body and brain. Stress affects neurotransmitter production, causing excess excitatory neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine and epinephrine, which up-regulate our system which can unfortunately cause even more stress. Stress also causes increased cortisol, the stress hormone to be produced. An excess of these chemicals causes health consequences to many bodily systems. To name a few:

Cardiovascular- increased blood pressure and heart rate
Respiratory- shallow and rapid breathing that reduces oxygenation
Musculoskeletal- pain and tension
Endocrine System- sex hormone and thyroid hormone abnormalities due to the HPATG (Hypothalamus Pituitary Adrenal Thyroid Gonadal) Axis disturbance caused by high cortisol and elevated blood sugar that could advance to diabetes
Immune system- Autoimmune disease risk increases significantly from chronic stress
Gastrointestinal- GI issues due to parasympathetic and vagus nerve disruption
And on and on! Every single system is affected by chronic stress in the nervous system.

So looping back to the initial connection between brain health, Alzheimers and pride week- hopefully by now you have connected the dots, but also connected your own dots. Any way that we can be proud of our truth, feel safe being who we are and love ourselves as we are, greatly benefits the health of our brain and nervous system. Alzheimers is a brain degeneration condition. There are many contributing factors- see this post for more on this:

www.thehealingcollective.us/post/dementia-prevention-recovery

But as we focus on the physical causes, let's not forget the importance of the emotional factors that affect the nervous system.

In conclusion, I wish everyone, whether identifying as LGBTQ or heterosexual, to be proud of who you are and to reap the physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of being so. I wish for you to feel and be safe expressing your truth and for this to provide great benefit to your whole being, including your wonderful brain. While it is absolutely preferred for others to give us this love and acceptance, the most important person we need it from is ourselves.

Many blessings,

Tracy Shulsinger, FNP

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