October 31, 2024 • 32 mins
Persistent toxins in our environment can quietly accumulate in our bodies, leading to increased struggles for women with ADHD, including more mental fog and reduced focus. This episode delves into the critical importance of detoxification and how it can help women manage their ADHD symptoms more effectively. Throughout the episode, listeners will learn about practical strategies for reducing toxic exposure, including food choices and environmental adjustments, as well as the significance of active and passive detoxification methods. By understanding these concepts, women can take actionable steps to support their health and well-being, ultimately aiming for a clearer, more focused mind.
Links referenced in this episode:
Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen – Check out the Environmental Working Group's annual list that highlights the most pesticide-laden produce and the cleanest options: EWG’s 2024 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce
Skin Deep Database – This tool from EWG allows you to search and assess the safety of cosmetics and personal care products: EWG Skin Deep Database
Think Dirty App – Think Dirty is an app that scans and rates cosmetic products for potentially harmful ingredients. You can download it for Android or iOS to check product ratings on the go: Think Dirty on iOS and Android.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Imagine storing a ticking timebomb in your body for decades without
even knowing it.
Sounds scary, right?
But that's what persistenttoxins in our environment are doing.
They're quietly building up inour brains.
And for women with adhd, thiscan mean more fog, less focus, and
even greater struggles.
Today, we're talking about howto diffuse that bomb.
Welcome to ADHD NaturallySmart Solutions for Holistic Women
(00:24):
with Christine McCarroll.
I'm Christine, and this is thespot to learn natural strategies
for supporting your ADHD brain.
As a woman with all thehormonal curveballs and unique challenges
that only females face, I'vemade it my mission to uncover the
root causes and little knownsupports for your ADHD brain that
your doctor doesn't know andwon't tell you.
Learn the truth and find your focus.
(00:45):
No prescription required.
Okay, ladies, we are back intodiscussing the Boss Brain Blueprint,
which is my framework for howyou take your brain from being a
disco ball to a laser beam on demand.
And we've been talking aboutthe pillars of the framework.
We started out with somethings that don't require you to
(01:06):
do much testing.
So foundational items that Ithink you can start every day, which
are the food you're eating andthe rest that you are giving your
body.
And today we are going to talkabout detox.
And there's actually kind of acombination of things that you can
do here.
So there are things you canautomatically just start doing to
(01:27):
make your, your brain workbetter to detox your environment
and therefore reduce the toxicburden on your brain.
And there are also things thatyou might want to test for to see
if you have been exposed or ifthis is something that is impacting
you.
So I got a little too far inthis episode.
So why are we talking aboutthis now?
I have to say that I have beentalking about detoxification for
(01:49):
the last decade and I've beenthinking about it for longer than
that.
Really started talk thinkingabout, you know, how toxins could
be impacting my kids before Ieven thought about how it could be
impacting me.
And I actually even rememberthis wild experience I had back in,
like, the, you know, wild westdays of the early Internet when I
was on a mom message board andI was asking for recommendations
(02:13):
for glass baby bottles.
And what was funny about thisis, you know, even today, I tend
to steer clear of getting intotoo much controversy online.
Um, I'm just really notsomeone who feels like it's going
to add anything to my life toget into some sort of online debate
with People.
So I've never really likedthat, but I certainly was even more
(02:35):
that way back then.
So I was on this message boardnot trying to stir up any controversy.
I was literally, I believe Iwas pregnant and I was doing all
of my, you know, like stockingup for the baby stuff and shopping.
And I had read about thepotential health effects of bpa,
which is a kind of chemicalthat is often used in plastics.
And I thought that soundedlike not a great thing to be exposing
(02:58):
my brand new baby to.
And so I was looking foralternatives and I was looking for
glass baby bottles.
Now I wasn't even talkingabout any of this research.
I was not putting it out thereas a topic of controversy.
And it was wild to me that Igot this like crazy group of women
just jumping down my throatabout how BPA wasn't a problem, how
(03:21):
I shouldn't be so worriedabout it, how this was made up, all
of this stuff.
And you know, now looking backon it, I certainly can have some
compassion.
I know like just like almostanything when we have really strong
opinions, a lot of timesthere's something protective underneath.
These women had maybe used Plplastic baby bottles.
They didn't want to think thatthey had in any way of harmed their
children, of course.
So of course they were goingto take that really personally.
(03:43):
And it was just reallyinteresting to me because I was certainly
not pointing anything in their direction.
I was just looking at, youknow, how can I help my own kiddo?
And you know, as things havegone on.
So that was my first kind ofintroduction to that.
And I really did try to be asnon toxic as possible when my kids
were little just because Ididn't want to expose them to stuff.
So I did have that, that kindof baseline awareness of wanting
(04:05):
to be careful and ca.
With my, with my kiddos.
And then when I startedstudying functional nutrition and
I saw, you know, all of theways that detoxification is supposed
to work in the body and thenall the ways that it is impaired
by the way that unfortunatelyjust our modern lives have unfolded.
I was just really shocked atthe, at the level of harm that we
(04:27):
could be doing to ourselvesjust by kind of accepting that things
are fine when they're not.
And then also how muchcontroversy there is around this
whole topic of detoxification.
And again, I was just kind ofshocked because, you know, if you
just start reading any anatomyand physiology textbook, like detoxification
is just a normal part of human physiology.
Like it is a thing that we do.
And this is where People weregetting all, you know, they were
(04:49):
getting their panties in abunch and saying, oh well, you know,
I don't need to worry aboutdetoxification, I have a liver for
that.
Okay?
So that is all fine and good,except that what your liver was designed
for was a life on this planetfrom, you know, 10, 20,000 years
ago when we were not exposedto the kind of crap that we are exposed
to now.
So we were, you know, we weredetoxing things like, you know, maybe
(05:09):
some bacteria that had gotteninto to our food, you know, just
generally make breaking downour own metabolic waste.
That is what detoxification is for.
You know, as a woman we breakdown our estrogen that has to go
through detoxification.
But like we just were notexposed to the kind of toxic levels
that we are now.
And so our detoxificationpathways are designed for a life
(05:33):
of thousands of years ago.
And my analogy for this is,you know, if you were trying to get
on a highway at let's say3:00am on a Sunday, probably going
to be pretty easy for you toget on that highway.
Like you're not going toencounter a lot of traffic, pretty
easy for you to merge, prettyeasy for you to go fast on that highway
and get where you're going.
If you are trying to get onthat Same highway at 5:00 on Friday,
(05:54):
you're going to run into some problems.
It's going to be hard.
There's going to be a lot ofother traffic, a lot of other people
trying to get onto that exactsame highway.
And that's my analogy for youknow, what we're dealing with now,
with the burden on our, on ourdetoxification systems.
So you know, hundreds,thousands of years ago we were the
car on the highway at 3am onSunday and now our bodies are under
(06:17):
a constant onslaught ineverything from what's in the air
we breathe to the water thatwe drink, to the, you know, the chemicals
that we put on our skin.
Especially as women, we do alot of, you know, as a midlife woman
myself, I'm certainlyinterested in like anti aging creams
and I sure put on a lot morecreams and, and lotions and potions
and makeup than I used to whenI was younger.
(06:37):
And so all of that is having abig impact on our bodies.
And you know, I startedtalking about this again like a long
time ago.
I got interested in this.
I've been talking about it inrelationship to women's and women's
women and women's hormonebalance for a really long Time.
And now I have been thinkingand looking and studying a lot more
(06:57):
about what is happening in ourbrains and specifically how the toxic
burden of our modern life isimpacting women with adhd.
Now, one reason why I thinkthis is even more important for women
in midlife, like, this ismassively important for every human.
But persistent toxins, whichis what a lot of what we are exposed
(07:18):
to is, are those toxins arepersistent, meaning that they don't
just break down easily.
They're persistent in ourenvironment, and they are persistent
in our bodies.
And so what can happen overtime is that things can accumulate
in our body and potentiallymake ADHD symptoms become even worse
in midlife.
So on the episode today, Iwant to go into, you know, some of
(07:41):
the research that links commonchemicals in our environment specifically
with adhd.
And a lot of research hasbeen, you know, coming out on that
recently and then, you know,going from there.
I'm not trying to scare you.
I do want you to be real withwhat's in the environment, but thinking
about how you can protect yourbrain and how you can use some simple
detox strategies to helpmaintain some sort of homeostasis
(08:03):
in the world that we live in.
So let's first start with someof the research, and I'm going to
go into two studies.
Now, both of these studiesthat I'm starting with are looking
at some specifics around kids.
But remember that even thoughwe have spent a lot more time and
energy and probably moneyresearching ADHD in children, it's
(08:27):
because we used to think thatit kind of went away, right?
That this was something thatkids outgrew.
And what we know now is thatit persists, it's genetic, it affects
our brain wiring, and itdoesn't just go away.
We might just become a littlebit better at hiding our symptoms.
And especially when we werethinking about little boys, well,
maybe they just learned to sitstill a little bit better.
(08:48):
But that doesn't mean thattheir brains are.
Have magically gone from ADHDbrains into neurotypical brains.
So this first couple ofresearch papers is looking at kids.
But just remember that this isgoing to not only mean kids, but
it's going to mean adults.
But also that because a lot ofthese chemicals are persistent, it
means they're not leaving ourbodies and actually can make things
(09:08):
even worse as these thingsaccumulate throughout our lifetimes.
So the first research that Iwant to talk about is pretty new.
It came out last fall in 2023.
And what the researchers foundwas that children with ADHD might
not be able to get rid oftoxins as well, specifically bpa,
which I opened up this episodewith, and phthalates.
(09:31):
So those are chemicals, bothof those are chemicals that are found
in plastics.
And these kids don't get ridof that as well as other kids.
So, you know, the, one of thereally interesting things in this
to me coming from, you know,the background that I have is I've
been looking at the geneticsaround detoxification for the past
couple of years.
So again, you know, if you'renew here, I've been looking at genetics
(09:55):
related to adhd, related tonutrition, related to detoxification,
a lot of things that areimpacting how our brains function
for the last couple of years.
And what, what I will say hasbeen true for a majority of the time
is that I see that there is animpairment in the detoxification
system with people who alsohave genetics for adhd.
Now that is certainly true of me.
(10:17):
So that was one of the firstthings that I noticed was besides,
of course, the lightning boltthat I had these genetics related
to ADHD was I was also missinga set of genes that is related to
detoxification.
And I have continued to seethat over and over again in my clients
who have genetics for adhd.
We also see these geneticswhere there is a missing component
(10:40):
in the ability of the body to detox.
So it was almost like, just tome, it's like putting together something
super obvious.
But I love seeing it whensomeone's actually done the research.
Because me, I'm just, I havemy little spreadsheet and I'm tracking
people and I don't havehundreds of, of case studies at this
point, but it is interestingto me to see that correlation in
(11:01):
my own population.
And so seeing this in thisresearch study really drove this,
really drove this home for me.
My daughter, who has ADHD alsohas the same genetic predisposition
to impaired detoxification.
And so, you know, I start tothink, well, you know, hey, we are
the canaries in the coal mine,so we are maybe more sensitive to
(11:22):
chemicals in our environmentbecause we are lacking in these,
this, these enzymes that wouldhelp us to break things down.
And therefore we are going tohave a more significant impact on
our genes.
So I've talked before aboutthis concept of epigenetics, which
is basically that we have thegenes, but there's some influence
(11:44):
on how those genes expressbased on what is in the environment.
And so that can absolutelyinclude environmental toxins.
Things that we are exposed tocan impact the relative expression
rate.
I Think of the genetics thatare present.
So the other thing to know isthat if we can't get rid of these
(12:08):
toxins and they arebioaccumulating, well, where do they
accumulate?
A lot of them accumulate infat tissue.
And thinking about the factthat our brain is mostly made of
fat, a majority of the brainis made of fat, where are these toxins
going to be accumulating the most?
In fatty areas of the body andcertainly going to be accumulating
(12:28):
a lot in the brain.
So if we're alreadypredisposed to adhd, and the predisposition
may also be there, that wehave a hard time breaking down these
environmental toxins, and weare going to be holding onto these
things.
So we're, we're going to beexpressing those genetics more, and
then we're also going to beholding onto those toxins more.
(12:50):
We're going to be under areally high, high load of stress
on the brain.
Now, the way that I thinkabout this, my analogy has always
been, you know, kind of likeour bodies are tucking things under
the bed.
So if you're, you know, goingback to, you know, there's too many
cars on the highway, we can'tpossibly get all of that stuff out.
And so our bodies are tryingto keep us safe from that.
(13:11):
So they're trying to keep ussafe from all of the things we're
exposed to.
And it's kind of like, youknow, the kid who says they're cleaning
their room, but they shove allof that material under the bed.
So it's kind of what your bodydoes when it can't get rid of this
toxic material.
If we can't get rid of itthrough our normal ways, which is
peeing, pooping and sweating,primarily also breathing, we're going
to be trying to protectourselves from it, and we are going
(13:33):
to hide it kind of air quotehere under the bed, which is in our,
in our body tissues, and a lotof that is in the fat tissue.
So if we have been holdingonto this for our entire lives and
it's been building up, you canimagine by the time that we hit midlife,
we are going to have a muchhigher burden than we would have
had when we were children.
(13:53):
And we are not just, you know,it's not just like this exposure
ended.
We continue to be exposed tothese chemicals daily.
So again, this is a lot ofthat is in plastics.
We are exposed to it in food packaging.
We are exposed to it on receipts.
So BPA coats, receipts that wereceive at the grocery store, any
(14:13):
store really on the inside of cans.
So we have a ton of exposure.
And if you've been, you know,living in the modern world, it's
pretty much impossible thatyou would not have been exposed to
these chemicals.
So if you've been exposed tothem, you have a hard time detoxing.
They probably are accumulating.
And if you've been living withadhd, your brain might have already
(14:34):
been struggling to regulateenergy, to regulate metabolism, and
those chemicals might bemaking it even harder.
So again, the study is showingthat kids with ADHD have a reduced
ability to process those chemicals.
We can accumulate that, andthen if we can't get rid of that
as kids, certainly it could beexposing ourselves.
We could be, you know,increasing that over the lifetime.
(14:55):
Now, the second study wasactually related to two parents.
And so again, I'm looking at.
This is kind of across the lifetime.
And so the parental chemical sensitivity.
So in parents who were moresensitive to chemicals, they were
much more likely to havechildren who have had either autism
or ADHD.
(15:16):
So it was a 2x risk forparents who were chemically sensitive
to have children with adhd.
Again, highlighting this ideato me that there are.
There's a geneticpredisposition that a lot of people
have where they are moresensitive to environmental chemicals
than other people, and thatsensitivity in a parent might be
(15:37):
more likely to increase thechild's risk of adhd.
Well, I can certainly think ofa few reasons why that might be true.
Perhaps that is true becausethe parent is accumulating that in
their own tissue.
So either, you know, dad'saccumulating that and it's coming
through in sperm, certainlyfor mom, if mom's accumulating that,
she's going to be potentiallyexposing her child, her unborn child
to that the entire timethey're in utero.
(15:59):
And unfortunately, you know, astudy from the Environmental Working
Group, this was a long timeago, maybe 15 years ago, was showing
that over 90% of cord blood.
So in looking at cord blood ofmothers over 90%, I don't know, it
was like 96 or 98.
Something stupid of cord bloodalready had environmental toxins
in it.
So we're not bringing childreninto the world, unfortunately, who
(16:23):
are kind of like, as weimagine them to be, how all the commercials
would have us believed, orthey're just like, pure and untouched.
Unfortunately, our childrenare coming into the world already
with chemicals in their bodies.
So if a parent was sensitive,not able to detox, well, going to
be, you know, passing thatonto children, then we have a combination
(16:43):
of the genetics of a parentwho is, you know, maybe not able
to clear things, passing thaton to the children, the child may
be genetically also impaired.
And then the child has thedouble whammy of the all the things
that they are exposed to andall of the things that they were
exposed to in utero from the parent.
So.
So it's, of course, achallenge to be born into a chemically
(17:06):
laden world.
And it's really hard for mepersonally as a parent to be imagining
that, or not even imagining tobe knowing that my kids are exposed
to this.
Now, I have two daughters andthey're both teenagers.
And I can say there's a lot offights in this house about what I
allow them to buy as far as,like, cosmetics and, you know, certainly
(17:26):
if there is a whole lot of,you know, beauty lotions and potions
and chemicals going on for meas a woman in midlife, there are.
Are that many times 10 for my kids.
And, you know, I make mychildren research every product they
buy and they probably.
Well, I know that they getpissed at me for it.
I know they don't like it, and I.
It's a battle I'm willing to fight.
(17:46):
So, like, there's, you know,as a parent, there's battles that
you let go and there's battlesthat you're willing to take on, and
I 100% will take on this battle.
Those are potentiallyendocrine disrupting chemicals.
They are brain disrupting chemicals.
Again, for my one kiddo whohas adhd, obviously I don't want
her brain to be further disrupted.
So I have to be super aware,aware of what goes in and on her
body.
And if you didn't know this,our skin is our largest detox organ.
(18:10):
It's also our largest organand we absorb things really well
through the skin.
So, like, why do you think youcan wear a nicotine patch if you're
trying to stop smoking?
It's because our skin absorbs stuff.
So, you know, putting all ofthat stuff on our skin can be a problem.
So if we are thinking aboutthe way that all of this can be impacting
our brains and making our ADHDfeel worse, which is what I'm thinking
(18:33):
about.
I'm also thinking about, well,how the heck do I.
I avoid, you know, getting theexposure to the extent that I can.
And so first, I'm just goingto acknowledge, as I said earlier,
unfortunately, we do live inthis world and we can't unless we,
you know, are going to createa new community on the moon.
And we're Going to be exposedto some level of this, and there
(18:54):
is some level ofinevitability, which is a bummer.
But there are things that wecan do.
And I think aboutdetoxification in a couple of ways.
I think about it as there'sactive detoxification, which is when
we're trying to introducethings like herbs that can help us
to actually change the way ourdetoxification works.
(19:15):
And then there is passivedetoxification, where we are just
taking some of the burden off.
We're not putting as manytoxic things in and on our bodies.
We're changing the environmentthat we are in.
So starting with some of thethings that are, you know, these
kind of passive methods ofdetox, we can reduce our exposure.
And I think we want to go backto what I started everything with
(19:36):
when I started talking aboutthis framework, and that's starting
with food.
So switching to organicwherever you can, especially for
things that are more heavilyladen with pesticides.
Now, if you want to go do yourown research, and I will link to
this in the show notes, theenvironmental working group that
I mentioned earlier, they're agreat resource on a lot of things
(19:57):
for, you know, everything fromyour household items to your skincare
and your makeup.
Makeup.
But they put out somethingevery year called the Dirty Dozen
list.
And the Dirty dozen is the 12items of produce that are the most
heavily sprayed with pesticides.
And then we have the clean 15,which are the 15 items of produce
that are the least sprayedwith pesticides.
(20:18):
So if budget is a concern,then start with what is on the Dirty
Dozen.
Everything that's on the Dirty Dozen.
Try to get organic for thethings that are on the clean 15.
And maybe they're a little bitmore expensive.
You know, you can take thatinto consideration.
And maybe you're lessconcerned with buying the Clean 15
organic.
And you can buy those as conventional.
So other thing is, how is thatfood coming to you?
(20:40):
Um, so if it's coming to youin a plastic container, generally
speaking, the things that I'mlooking for, I try and avoid getting
things in plastic if I can.
But also, like, we live in theworld we live in, so sometimes you
can't avoid it.
I don't look for anything thateither I think was heated or like
it was processed in thatcontainer that was.
That's plastic, because that'sgoing to increase the likelihood
that things are leaching outof that plastic and into the food
(21:03):
or beverage.
Um, certainly never drinkingbottled water from plastic, if I
can help it at all, because alot of Times when plastic water bottles
are being transported, theyare in hot trucks and that is leeching.
You know, it's increasing thebreakdown of that plastic and it
can leach into the water.
So trying to avoid anythingthat would have been exposed to heat
(21:25):
in any, in any way.
So either from the productionside or from the transportation side,
avoiding heat.
I'm a little bit lessconcerned about things that are coming
to me.
Um, like let's say saladgreens, where it was very unlikely
because they would have killedthe salad greens, that those would
have been exposed to heat atany point.
And then I'm immediatelytaking that out and I'm not exposing
(21:46):
it to heat.
If anything came to you in apackage where it says heat this in
the package, like frozenvegetables, I never ever do that.
I always take it out of thepackage to heat it.
I never ever heat anything in plastic.
So even if that's theinstructions, there are usually alternate
instructions where you can putsomething into the oven or you can
take it out and heat it in themicrowave in a different way.
Um, but absolutely trying toavoid those plastics where you can
(22:08):
can drinking filtered water.
It's pretty easy, but reallyeffective for getting rid of chemicals
before they even enter your body.
So again, super sad research.
I want to say from.
It was a long time ago, morethan 10 years, because I remember
reading this headline when Iwas still working in a corporate
job more than a decade ago.
But it was.
(22:29):
They were testing water inmountain streams and they were finding
chemicals in these mountainstreams that were very far away from
urban areas.
And I think this was on theWeather Channel, of all things.
But it's because it's stillubiquitous in the environment.
So, you know, we are going tohave things in our water and just
having like a water filter onyour fridge is not sufficient.
You do want to be looking atbetter quality water filters, looking
(22:52):
ideally for ones that aregoing to be removing those other
environmental toxins.
Another thing that we can doto avoid, you know, what's in our
air is getting an air purifier.
So we're just, you know,changing the air that we're breathing.
And you've probably heardthis, but it's is the air inside
of our homes is actually lesshealthy for us than the air outside.
(23:14):
So we tend to think, I thinkthat, oh, well, you know, if we're
inside, then, you know,somehow like air filters and things
are making it better.
No, they're not.
It's worse.
So if you're spending most ofyour day inside, which a lot of us
are Nowadays, get an airpurifier, especially if you are in
an area that has a lot of airpollution, or if you're working like
in a building where they do alot of chemical cleaning or something
(23:34):
like that.
So clean air, clean water, andthen think about the things that
you are putting onto your skin.
So I was talking about mykiddos and being really careful around
the makeup that they're getting.
So getting natural cleaningproducts, getting natural beauty
products, avoid, you know,getting things dry, clean.
Remembering that anything thattouches your skin can be absorbed
(23:55):
through your skin.
So we're looking for the leasttoxic versions of those that we possibly
can.
Again, the EnvironmentalWorking Group is a great resource.
They have a couple ofdifferent things that you can check
out.
So the Skin Deep website is.
Also has like, a little appwhere you can scan things.
You can find out how toxicyour, your cosmetics are, other,
(24:17):
you know, lotions and shampoosand things like that.
There's another app I usecalled Think Dirty, um, that also
tells us what we might be.
Again, you can kind of scanit, what you might be exposed to
from cosmetics.
Excuse me.
So those are some of thepassive ways of detoxing.
So when it's passive, it meanswe're just trying to reduce the load
that we are exposed to.
And then there are a couplemore active forms of detoxification.
(24:41):
Now, these are things who areactually pushing detoxification a
little bit more.
So one way is doingperiodically some sort of a fast.
Or what I use in my practiceis the fasting mimicking diet.
And basically what happenswhen we fast is our body kind of
gets to go do the work that itwould have been doing, it should
(25:02):
have been doing, I guess, any,any way.
But it's been so busy doingother stuff because of everything
that we're exposed to all thetime, that it's not.
So a lot of the detoxificationwork of our bodies gets kind of backlogged
when we're, you know,constantly eating just our regular
diet.
So when you go into a fastingstate or what I like to do, like
I said, fasting, mimicking,which can be done, you know, there's
products for that.
(25:22):
You can also do it on your own.
I walk through clients through that.
But you're eating a low amountof food and you're still getting
the same benefits of fasting,which is your body kind of doing
its cleanup work.
So that is more active.
And then at the same time thatyou're doing that you typically would
want to be doing, takingsupplements that support your own
detoxification.
Now, I'm not going to go intoa lot of the specifics around supplementation
(25:46):
and detoxification here, butsome of the really easy things that
you can start with, thingslike dandelion tea is really helpful
at supporting your liver'snatural detoxification.
Omega 3s are helpful.
Getting sufficient protein inyour diet actually helps.
It's a little different thanwhen you're doing the fasting, mimicking
diet glutathione.
So, you know, one of thethings that it was, you know, that's
(26:09):
a challenge for some peoplegenetically with detoxification.
I was mentioning that enzymethat I mentioned missing earlier,
and it's related toglutathione, which is your body's
own natural antioxidant anddetoxification support.
So I take glutathione myself.
If you know from your geneticsthat you need it, that's certainly
an option.
N acetylcysteine is aprecursor to glutathione and your
(26:31):
body converts it into glutathione.
That's really helpful as wellfor detoxification in not a high
dose, in a limited dose.
Supplements like milk thistleor St.
John's wort are also reallyhelpful for supporting detoxification
medication.
So again, all of thesupplements, that's a little bit
bigger of a topic than thisparticular podcast, but there are
(26:51):
supplements that help.
I would be very wary of a lotof the powders and drinks and stuff
that are like, marketed inlike, you know, like, generally,
like, you know, if you'regoing to take a drug test and like
drink this detox concoction.
Like, I think those areusually kind of BS and could cause
more harm than good.
So I tend to be wary of, like,these, you know, fantastic claims
(27:16):
on any product.
So do your research.
And usually individualingredients are going to be more
helpful than some sort of, youknow, magical detox concoction that
usually doesn't help you andmight actually hurt.
And then one of the lastthings that I love is sweating.
And so active sweating iseither like if you're doing a sauna,
(27:38):
which is one of my veryfavorite things.
So pee, poop and sweat I wasmentioning earlier, so obviously
making sure you're hydrated,you're peeing appropriately, you
should be having a bowelmovement every day.
That's your body's natural detoxification.
Breathing is part of that.
But then sweating is, is areally important part as well.
And we actually removedifferent toxins from our body depending
on the method.
So we get different things outin the pee, the poop and the sweat.
(28:00):
So if you have access to asauna anywhere, do it.
You can also sort of mimic asauna by getting your shower as hot
as humanly possible and notgetting under the water.
Don't burn yourself, but juststaying in that hot, that hot environment
until you're starting to sweatand then you can rinse off with cooler
water.
I personally have a little zipin sauna that I got like on a Black
(28:22):
Friday sale a few years ago.
My head sticks out, which, youknow, ideally you would be all the
way in a sauna, but I stillget tons of benefit from just being
able to zip it, zip into it.
And the benefit is I can foldit up really small and stick it in
my closet when I'm done.
So it doesn't like take up alot of room and my house.
So someday I might have one ofthese magical, you know, one person
(28:43):
saunas made of cedar somewherein my house.
But until that day comes, Ihave my little zip in sauna and,
and that's really helpful.
So thinking about all the waysthat we are exposed to toxins, I
think it's really important tomake detoxification a part of your
regular life.
And that means something thatyou're considering every single day,
at least passively.
(29:04):
So how can we remove thingsand then periodically looking at
strategies for more intensive,you know, ways things called kind
of that more activedetoxification and then those things
that we had, you know, talkedabout on previous episodes.
So sleep is when your, yourbody is doing a lot of that taking
out the trash, a lot of thatdetoxing work.
Our brains are detoxing viathe glymphatic system, which is just
(29:27):
like the lymphatic system ofyour brain overnight.
So going back to that sleepepisode, super crazy important for
us to be doing that, you know,that getting that sleep and doing
the sleep hygiene to make surethat we're detoxing our brains then.
And then if you want to do alittle bit more testing, this is
the first place I'm going totalk about testing as an option.
(29:48):
So, you know, kind of goingwith the idea of test, don't guess
you can find out if some ofthese things are impacting you.
So first place I would startwould just be on some regular blood
work.
You can look at your liverenzymes, your kidney enzymes, you
can look at some markers thathave to do with how well your gallbladder
(30:08):
is producing, sorry, yourliver is producing bile, which is
bile acids.
You can look at that on blood work.
So a lot of things will tellyou, you know, kind of like how well
is your bodily body handlingthis toxic burden.
And then there also are directtests, urine, hair, where you can
look for specific things likelead or heavy metals or environmental
toxins or, you know, otherheavy metals, other environmental
(30:33):
exposures.
I will put a link again in theshow notes to where you could order
that yourself if you'reinterested in learning a little bit
more about, about that.
But those are kind of twolevels you can look at.
How is your body generallyhandling the toxic load?
And then directly you can lookat, you know, are there some, some
chemicals that we can see thatare present in your body that you
might want to do a little bitmore of a focused detoxification
(30:56):
protocol with a practitioner?
So going from simplest tohardest, the simplest thing is to
do some of that passive detox.
Then we can do a little bitmore active detox and certainly we
can look at what the body isexperiencing on your own.
And there are some testingoptions for that.
So hopefully this has been anempowering episode for you.
What I don't want you to takeaway from this is overwhelm or that
(31:19):
you have to do all of thesethings tomorrow because that's usually
what leads to people freezingand doing nothing.
I would pick one thing andstart there.
Pick one thing, like you'regoing to get a water filter or you're
going to start reading theingredients of your.
Your makeup and every time youbuy a new makeup product, you're
going to test it out and throwaway your old one one at a time.
You're not going tonecessarily go and change your whole
(31:41):
makeup cabinet all at once.
But that's why detoxification matters.
That's why detox is such animportant part of a holistic strategy
for managing adhd.
And if you want to check outany more resources on how to help
your ADHD brain naturally, goto getabossbrain.com.
uh, that's where I'll besharing more about my specific strategies
and framework for getting aboss brain, even as a woman with
(32:05):
adhd.
Hey, love, thanks for makingit this far.
If you're hearing this, you'reone of the magical statistical few
that listened all the way tothe end.
And I so appreciate your engagement.
I hope that means the messagetoday resonated with you and you're
taking away a tool trick oraction step that will help you have
your best feeling brain.
If that's you, I have a favorto ask.
(32:25):
So many more women need tohear this Message and your 30 seconds
to leave a rating or reviewwill help them hear it.
Just go to the show in yourpodcast player and scroll down until
you see the stars to leave aquick rating and make my day while
you're at it.
Thank you so much.
Imagine storing a ticking timebomb in your body for decades without
even knowing it.
Sounds scary, right?
But that's what persistenttoxins in our environment are doing.
They're quietly building up inour brains.
And for women with adhd, thiscan mean more fog, less focus, and
even greater struggles.
Today, we're talking about howto diffuse that bomb.
Welcome to ADHD NaturallySmart Solutions for Holistic Women
(00:24):
with Christine McCarroll.
I'm Christine, and this is thespot to learn natural strategies
for supporting your ADHD brain.
As a woman with all thehormonal curveballs and unique challenges
that only females face, I'vemade it my mission to uncover the
root causes and little knownsupports for your ADHD brain that
your doctor doesn't know andwon't tell you.
Learn the truth and find your focus.
(00:45):
No prescription required.
Okay, ladies, we are back intodiscussing the Boss Brain Blueprint,
which is my framework for howyou take your brain from being a
disco ball to a laser beam on demand.
And we've been talking aboutthe pillars of the framework.
We started out with somethings that don't require you to
(01:06):
do much testing.
So foundational items that Ithink you can start every day, which
are the food you're eating andthe rest that you are giving your
body.
And today we are going to talkabout detox.
And there's actually kind of acombination of things that you can
do here.
So there are things you canautomatically just start doing to
(01:27):
make your, your brain workbetter to detox your environment
and therefore reduce the toxicburden on your brain.
And there are also things thatyou might want to test for to see
if you have been exposed or ifthis is something that is impacting
you.
So I got a little too far inthis episode.
So why are we talking aboutthis now?
I have to say that I have beentalking about detoxification for
(01:49):
the last decade and I've beenthinking about it for longer than
that.
Really started talk thinkingabout, you know, how toxins could
be impacting my kids before Ieven thought about how it could be
impacting me.
And I actually even rememberthis wild experience I had back in,
like, the, you know, wild westdays of the early Internet when I
was on a mom message board andI was asking for recommendations
(02:13):
for glass baby bottles.
And what was funny about thisis, you know, even today, I tend
to steer clear of getting intotoo much controversy online.
Um, I'm just really notsomeone who feels like it's going
to add anything to my life toget into some sort of online debate
with People.
So I've never really likedthat, but I certainly was even more
(02:35):
that way back then.
So I was on this message boardnot trying to stir up any controversy.
I was literally, I believe Iwas pregnant and I was doing all
of my, you know, like stockingup for the baby stuff and shopping.
And I had read about thepotential health effects of bpa,
which is a kind of chemicalthat is often used in plastics.
And I thought that soundedlike not a great thing to be exposing
(02:58):
my brand new baby to.
And so I was looking foralternatives and I was looking for
glass baby bottles.
Now I wasn't even talkingabout any of this research.
I was not putting it out thereas a topic of controversy.
And it was wild to me that Igot this like crazy group of women
just jumping down my throatabout how BPA wasn't a problem, how
(03:21):
I shouldn't be so worriedabout it, how this was made up, all
of this stuff.
And you know, now looking backon it, I certainly can have some
compassion.
I know like just like almostanything when we have really strong
opinions, a lot of timesthere's something protective underneath.
These women had maybe used Plplastic baby bottles.
They didn't want to think thatthey had in any way of harmed their
children, of course.
So of course they were goingto take that really personally.
(03:43):
And it was just reallyinteresting to me because I was certainly
not pointing anything in their direction.
I was just looking at, youknow, how can I help my own kiddo?
And you know, as things havegone on.
So that was my first kind ofintroduction to that.
And I really did try to be asnon toxic as possible when my kids
were little just because Ididn't want to expose them to stuff.
So I did have that, that kindof baseline awareness of wanting
(04:05):
to be careful and ca.
With my, with my kiddos.
And then when I startedstudying functional nutrition and
I saw, you know, all of theways that detoxification is supposed
to work in the body and thenall the ways that it is impaired
by the way that unfortunatelyjust our modern lives have unfolded.
I was just really shocked atthe, at the level of harm that we
(04:27):
could be doing to ourselvesjust by kind of accepting that things
are fine when they're not.
And then also how muchcontroversy there is around this
whole topic of detoxification.
And again, I was just kind ofshocked because, you know, if you
just start reading any anatomyand physiology textbook, like detoxification
is just a normal part of human physiology.
Like it is a thing that we do.
And this is where People weregetting all, you know, they were
(04:49):
getting their panties in abunch and saying, oh well, you know,
I don't need to worry aboutdetoxification, I have a liver for
that.
Okay?
So that is all fine and good,except that what your liver was designed
for was a life on this planetfrom, you know, 10, 20,000 years
ago when we were not exposedto the kind of crap that we are exposed
to now.
So we were, you know, we weredetoxing things like, you know, maybe
(05:09):
some bacteria that had gotteninto to our food, you know, just
generally make breaking downour own metabolic waste.
That is what detoxification is for.
You know, as a woman we breakdown our estrogen that has to go
through detoxification.
But like we just were notexposed to the kind of toxic levels
that we are now.
And so our detoxificationpathways are designed for a life
(05:33):
of thousands of years ago.
And my analogy for this is,you know, if you were trying to get
on a highway at let's say3:00am on a Sunday, probably going
to be pretty easy for you toget on that highway.
Like you're not going toencounter a lot of traffic, pretty
easy for you to merge, prettyeasy for you to go fast on that highway
and get where you're going.
If you are trying to get onthat Same highway at 5:00 on Friday,
(05:54):
you're going to run into some problems.
It's going to be hard.
There's going to be a lot ofother traffic, a lot of other people
trying to get onto that exactsame highway.
And that's my analogy for youknow, what we're dealing with now,
with the burden on our, on ourdetoxification systems.
So you know, hundreds,thousands of years ago we were the
car on the highway at 3am onSunday and now our bodies are under
(06:17):
a constant onslaught ineverything from what's in the air
we breathe to the water thatwe drink, to the, you know, the chemicals
that we put on our skin.
Especially as women, we do alot of, you know, as a midlife woman
myself, I'm certainlyinterested in like anti aging creams
and I sure put on a lot morecreams and, and lotions and potions
and makeup than I used to whenI was younger.
(06:37):
And so all of that is having abig impact on our bodies.
And you know, I startedtalking about this again like a long
time ago.
I got interested in this.
I've been talking about it inrelationship to women's and women's
women and women's hormonebalance for a really long Time.
And now I have been thinkingand looking and studying a lot more
(06:57):
about what is happening in ourbrains and specifically how the toxic
burden of our modern life isimpacting women with adhd.
Now, one reason why I thinkthis is even more important for women
in midlife, like, this ismassively important for every human.
But persistent toxins, whichis what a lot of what we are exposed
(07:18):
to is, are those toxins arepersistent, meaning that they don't
just break down easily.
They're persistent in ourenvironment, and they are persistent
in our bodies.
And so what can happen overtime is that things can accumulate
in our body and potentiallymake ADHD symptoms become even worse
in midlife.
So on the episode today, Iwant to go into, you know, some of
(07:41):
the research that links commonchemicals in our environment specifically
with adhd.
And a lot of research hasbeen, you know, coming out on that
recently and then, you know,going from there.
I'm not trying to scare you.
I do want you to be real withwhat's in the environment, but thinking
about how you can protect yourbrain and how you can use some simple
detox strategies to helpmaintain some sort of homeostasis
(08:03):
in the world that we live in.
So let's first start with someof the research, and I'm going to
go into two studies.
Now, both of these studiesthat I'm starting with are looking
at some specifics around kids.
But remember that even thoughwe have spent a lot more time and
energy and probably moneyresearching ADHD in children, it's
(08:27):
because we used to think thatit kind of went away, right?
That this was something thatkids outgrew.
And what we know now is thatit persists, it's genetic, it affects
our brain wiring, and itdoesn't just go away.
We might just become a littlebit better at hiding our symptoms.
And especially when we werethinking about little boys, well,
maybe they just learned to sitstill a little bit better.
(08:48):
But that doesn't mean thattheir brains are.
Have magically gone from ADHDbrains into neurotypical brains.
So this first couple ofresearch papers is looking at kids.
But just remember that this isgoing to not only mean kids, but
it's going to mean adults.
But also that because a lot ofthese chemicals are persistent, it
means they're not leaving ourbodies and actually can make things
(09:08):
even worse as these thingsaccumulate throughout our lifetimes.
So the first research that Iwant to talk about is pretty new.
It came out last fall in 2023.
And what the researchers foundwas that children with ADHD might
not be able to get rid oftoxins as well, specifically bpa,
which I opened up this episodewith, and phthalates.
(09:31):
So those are chemicals, bothof those are chemicals that are found
in plastics.
And these kids don't get ridof that as well as other kids.
So, you know, the, one of thereally interesting things in this
to me coming from, you know,the background that I have is I've
been looking at the geneticsaround detoxification for the past
couple of years.
So again, you know, if you'renew here, I've been looking at genetics
(09:55):
related to adhd, related tonutrition, related to detoxification,
a lot of things that areimpacting how our brains function
for the last couple of years.
And what, what I will say hasbeen true for a majority of the time
is that I see that there is animpairment in the detoxification
system with people who alsohave genetics for adhd.
Now that is certainly true of me.
(10:17):
So that was one of the firstthings that I noticed was besides,
of course, the lightning boltthat I had these genetics related
to ADHD was I was also missinga set of genes that is related to
detoxification.
And I have continued to seethat over and over again in my clients
who have genetics for adhd.
We also see these geneticswhere there is a missing component
(10:40):
in the ability of the body to detox.
So it was almost like, just tome, it's like putting together something
super obvious.
But I love seeing it whensomeone's actually done the research.
Because me, I'm just, I havemy little spreadsheet and I'm tracking
people and I don't havehundreds of, of case studies at this
point, but it is interestingto me to see that correlation in
(11:01):
my own population.
And so seeing this in thisresearch study really drove this,
really drove this home for me.
My daughter, who has ADHD alsohas the same genetic predisposition
to impaired detoxification.
And so, you know, I start tothink, well, you know, hey, we are
the canaries in the coal mine,so we are maybe more sensitive to
(11:22):
chemicals in our environmentbecause we are lacking in these,
this, these enzymes that wouldhelp us to break things down.
And therefore we are going tohave a more significant impact on
our genes.
So I've talked before aboutthis concept of epigenetics, which
is basically that we have thegenes, but there's some influence
(11:44):
on how those genes expressbased on what is in the environment.
And so that can absolutelyinclude environmental toxins.
Things that we are exposed tocan impact the relative expression
rate.
I Think of the genetics thatare present.
So the other thing to know isthat if we can't get rid of these
(12:08):
toxins and they arebioaccumulating, well, where do they
accumulate?
A lot of them accumulate infat tissue.
And thinking about the factthat our brain is mostly made of
fat, a majority of the brainis made of fat, where are these toxins
going to be accumulating the most?
In fatty areas of the body andcertainly going to be accumulating
(12:28):
a lot in the brain.
So if we're alreadypredisposed to adhd, and the predisposition
may also be there, that wehave a hard time breaking down these
environmental toxins, and weare going to be holding onto these
things.
So we're, we're going to beexpressing those genetics more, and
then we're also going to beholding onto those toxins more.
(12:50):
We're going to be under areally high, high load of stress
on the brain.
Now, the way that I thinkabout this, my analogy has always
been, you know, kind of likeour bodies are tucking things under
the bed.
So if you're, you know, goingback to, you know, there's too many
cars on the highway, we can'tpossibly get all of that stuff out.
And so our bodies are tryingto keep us safe from that.
(13:11):
So they're trying to keep ussafe from all of the things we're
exposed to.
And it's kind of like, youknow, the kid who says they're cleaning
their room, but they shove allof that material under the bed.
So it's kind of what your bodydoes when it can't get rid of this
toxic material.
If we can't get rid of itthrough our normal ways, which is
peeing, pooping and sweating,primarily also breathing, we're going
to be trying to protectourselves from it, and we are going
(13:33):
to hide it kind of air quotehere under the bed, which is in our,
in our body tissues, and a lotof that is in the fat tissue.
So if we have been holdingonto this for our entire lives and
it's been building up, you canimagine by the time that we hit midlife,
we are going to have a muchhigher burden than we would have
had when we were children.
(13:53):
And we are not just, you know,it's not just like this exposure
ended.
We continue to be exposed tothese chemicals daily.
So again, this is a lot ofthat is in plastics.
We are exposed to it in food packaging.
We are exposed to it on receipts.
So BPA coats, receipts that wereceive at the grocery store, any
(14:13):
store really on the inside of cans.
So we have a ton of exposure.
And if you've been, you know,living in the modern world, it's
pretty much impossible thatyou would not have been exposed to
these chemicals.
So if you've been exposed tothem, you have a hard time detoxing.
They probably are accumulating.
And if you've been living withadhd, your brain might have already
(14:34):
been struggling to regulateenergy, to regulate metabolism, and
those chemicals might bemaking it even harder.
So again, the study is showingthat kids with ADHD have a reduced
ability to process those chemicals.
We can accumulate that, andthen if we can't get rid of that
as kids, certainly it could beexposing ourselves.
We could be, you know,increasing that over the lifetime.
(14:55):
Now, the second study wasactually related to two parents.
And so again, I'm looking at.
This is kind of across the lifetime.
And so the parental chemical sensitivity.
So in parents who were moresensitive to chemicals, they were
much more likely to havechildren who have had either autism
or ADHD.
(15:16):
So it was a 2x risk forparents who were chemically sensitive
to have children with adhd.
Again, highlighting this ideato me that there are.
There's a geneticpredisposition that a lot of people
have where they are moresensitive to environmental chemicals
than other people, and thatsensitivity in a parent might be
(15:37):
more likely to increase thechild's risk of adhd.
Well, I can certainly think ofa few reasons why that might be true.
Perhaps that is true becausethe parent is accumulating that in
their own tissue.
So either, you know, dad'saccumulating that and it's coming
through in sperm, certainlyfor mom, if mom's accumulating that,
she's going to be potentiallyexposing her child, her unborn child
to that the entire timethey're in utero.
(15:59):
And unfortunately, you know, astudy from the Environmental Working
Group, this was a long timeago, maybe 15 years ago, was showing
that over 90% of cord blood.
So in looking at cord blood ofmothers over 90%, I don't know, it
was like 96 or 98.
Something stupid of cord bloodalready had environmental toxins
in it.
So we're not bringing childreninto the world, unfortunately, who
(16:23):
are kind of like, as weimagine them to be, how all the commercials
would have us believed, orthey're just like, pure and untouched.
Unfortunately, our childrenare coming into the world already
with chemicals in their bodies.
So if a parent was sensitive,not able to detox, well, going to
be, you know, passing thatonto children, then we have a combination
(16:43):
of the genetics of a parentwho is, you know, maybe not able
to clear things, passing thaton to the children, the child may
be genetically also impaired.
And then the child has thedouble whammy of the all the things
that they are exposed to andall of the things that they were
exposed to in utero from the parent.
So.
So it's, of course, achallenge to be born into a chemically
(17:06):
laden world.
And it's really hard for mepersonally as a parent to be imagining
that, or not even imagining tobe knowing that my kids are exposed
to this.
Now, I have two daughters andthey're both teenagers.
And I can say there's a lot offights in this house about what I
allow them to buy as far as,like, cosmetics and, you know, certainly
(17:26):
if there is a whole lot of,you know, beauty lotions and potions
and chemicals going on for meas a woman in midlife, there are.
Are that many times 10 for my kids.
And, you know, I make mychildren research every product they
buy and they probably.
Well, I know that they getpissed at me for it.
I know they don't like it, and I.
It's a battle I'm willing to fight.
(17:46):
So, like, there's, you know,as a parent, there's battles that
you let go and there's battlesthat you're willing to take on, and
I 100% will take on this battle.
Those are potentiallyendocrine disrupting chemicals.
They are brain disrupting chemicals.
Again, for my one kiddo whohas adhd, obviously I don't want
her brain to be further disrupted.
So I have to be super aware,aware of what goes in and on her
body.
And if you didn't know this,our skin is our largest detox organ.
(18:10):
It's also our largest organand we absorb things really well
through the skin.
So, like, why do you think youcan wear a nicotine patch if you're
trying to stop smoking?
It's because our skin absorbs stuff.
So, you know, putting all ofthat stuff on our skin can be a problem.
So if we are thinking aboutthe way that all of this can be impacting
our brains and making our ADHDfeel worse, which is what I'm thinking
(18:33):
about.
I'm also thinking about, well,how the heck do I.
I avoid, you know, getting theexposure to the extent that I can.
And so first, I'm just goingto acknowledge, as I said earlier,
unfortunately, we do live inthis world and we can't unless we,
you know, are going to createa new community on the moon.
And we're Going to be exposedto some level of this, and there
(18:54):
is some level ofinevitability, which is a bummer.
But there are things that wecan do.
And I think aboutdetoxification in a couple of ways.
I think about it as there'sactive detoxification, which is when
we're trying to introducethings like herbs that can help us
to actually change the way ourdetoxification works.
(19:15):
And then there is passivedetoxification, where we are just
taking some of the burden off.
We're not putting as manytoxic things in and on our bodies.
We're changing the environmentthat we are in.
So starting with some of thethings that are, you know, these
kind of passive methods ofdetox, we can reduce our exposure.
And I think we want to go backto what I started everything with
(19:36):
when I started talking aboutthis framework, and that's starting
with food.
So switching to organicwherever you can, especially for
things that are more heavilyladen with pesticides.
Now, if you want to go do yourown research, and I will link to
this in the show notes, theenvironmental working group that
I mentioned earlier, they're agreat resource on a lot of things
(19:57):
for, you know, everything fromyour household items to your skincare
and your makeup.
Makeup.
But they put out somethingevery year called the Dirty Dozen
list.
And the Dirty dozen is the 12items of produce that are the most
heavily sprayed with pesticides.
And then we have the clean 15,which are the 15 items of produce
that are the least sprayedwith pesticides.
(20:18):
So if budget is a concern,then start with what is on the Dirty
Dozen.
Everything that's on the Dirty Dozen.
Try to get organic for thethings that are on the clean 15.
And maybe they're a little bitmore expensive.
You know, you can take thatinto consideration.
And maybe you're lessconcerned with buying the Clean 15
organic.
And you can buy those as conventional.
So other thing is, how is thatfood coming to you?
(20:40):
Um, so if it's coming to youin a plastic container, generally
speaking, the things that I'mlooking for, I try and avoid getting
things in plastic if I can.
But also, like, we live in theworld we live in, so sometimes you
can't avoid it.
I don't look for anything thateither I think was heated or like
it was processed in thatcontainer that was.
That's plastic, because that'sgoing to increase the likelihood
that things are leaching outof that plastic and into the food
(21:03):
or beverage.
Um, certainly never drinkingbottled water from plastic, if I
can help it at all, because alot of Times when plastic water bottles
are being transported, theyare in hot trucks and that is leeching.
You know, it's increasing thebreakdown of that plastic and it
can leach into the water.
So trying to avoid anythingthat would have been exposed to heat
(21:25):
in any, in any way.
So either from the productionside or from the transportation side,
avoiding heat.
I'm a little bit lessconcerned about things that are coming
to me.
Um, like let's say saladgreens, where it was very unlikely
because they would have killedthe salad greens, that those would
have been exposed to heat atany point.
And then I'm immediatelytaking that out and I'm not exposing
(21:46):
it to heat.
If anything came to you in apackage where it says heat this in
the package, like frozenvegetables, I never ever do that.
I always take it out of thepackage to heat it.
I never ever heat anything in plastic.
So even if that's theinstructions, there are usually alternate
instructions where you can putsomething into the oven or you can
take it out and heat it in themicrowave in a different way.
Um, but absolutely trying toavoid those plastics where you can
(22:08):
can drinking filtered water.
It's pretty easy, but reallyeffective for getting rid of chemicals
before they even enter your body.
So again, super sad research.
I want to say from.
It was a long time ago, morethan 10 years, because I remember
reading this headline when Iwas still working in a corporate
job more than a decade ago.
But it was.
(22:29):
They were testing water inmountain streams and they were finding
chemicals in these mountainstreams that were very far away from
urban areas.
And I think this was on theWeather Channel, of all things.
But it's because it's stillubiquitous in the environment.
So, you know, we are going tohave things in our water and just
having like a water filter onyour fridge is not sufficient.
You do want to be looking atbetter quality water filters, looking
(22:52):
ideally for ones that aregoing to be removing those other
environmental toxins.
Another thing that we can doto avoid, you know, what's in our
air is getting an air purifier.
So we're just, you know,changing the air that we're breathing.
And you've probably heardthis, but it's is the air inside
of our homes is actually lesshealthy for us than the air outside.
(23:14):
So we tend to think, I thinkthat, oh, well, you know, if we're
inside, then, you know,somehow like air filters and things
are making it better.
No, they're not.
It's worse.
So if you're spending most ofyour day inside, which a lot of us
are Nowadays, get an airpurifier, especially if you are in
an area that has a lot of airpollution, or if you're working like
in a building where they do alot of chemical cleaning or something
(23:34):
like that.
So clean air, clean water, andthen think about the things that
you are putting onto your skin.
So I was talking about mykiddos and being really careful around
the makeup that they're getting.
So getting natural cleaningproducts, getting natural beauty
products, avoid, you know,getting things dry, clean.
Remembering that anything thattouches your skin can be absorbed
(23:55):
through your skin.
So we're looking for the leasttoxic versions of those that we possibly
can.
Again, the EnvironmentalWorking Group is a great resource.
They have a couple ofdifferent things that you can check
out.
So the Skin Deep website is.
Also has like, a little appwhere you can scan things.
You can find out how toxicyour, your cosmetics are, other,
(24:17):
you know, lotions and shampoosand things like that.
There's another app I usecalled Think Dirty, um, that also
tells us what we might be.
Again, you can kind of scanit, what you might be exposed to
from cosmetics.
Excuse me.
So those are some of thepassive ways of detoxing.
So when it's passive, it meanswe're just trying to reduce the load
that we are exposed to.
And then there are a couplemore active forms of detoxification.
(24:41):
Now, these are things who areactually pushing detoxification a
little bit more.
So one way is doingperiodically some sort of a fast.
Or what I use in my practiceis the fasting mimicking diet.
And basically what happenswhen we fast is our body kind of
gets to go do the work that itwould have been doing, it should
(25:02):
have been doing, I guess, any,any way.
But it's been so busy doingother stuff because of everything
that we're exposed to all thetime, that it's not.
So a lot of the detoxificationwork of our bodies gets kind of backlogged
when we're, you know,constantly eating just our regular
diet.
So when you go into a fastingstate or what I like to do, like
I said, fasting, mimicking,which can be done, you know, there's
products for that.
(25:22):
You can also do it on your own.
I walk through clients through that.
But you're eating a low amountof food and you're still getting
the same benefits of fasting,which is your body kind of doing
its cleanup work.
So that is more active.
And then at the same time thatyou're doing that you typically would
want to be doing, takingsupplements that support your own
detoxification.
Now, I'm not going to go intoa lot of the specifics around supplementation
(25:46):
and detoxification here, butsome of the really easy things that
you can start with, thingslike dandelion tea is really helpful
at supporting your liver'snatural detoxification.
Omega 3s are helpful.
Getting sufficient protein inyour diet actually helps.
It's a little different thanwhen you're doing the fasting, mimicking
diet glutathione.
So, you know, one of thethings that it was, you know, that's
(26:09):
a challenge for some peoplegenetically with detoxification.
I was mentioning that enzymethat I mentioned missing earlier,
and it's related toglutathione, which is your body's
own natural antioxidant anddetoxification support.
So I take glutathione myself.
If you know from your geneticsthat you need it, that's certainly
an option.
N acetylcysteine is aprecursor to glutathione and your
(26:31):
body converts it into glutathione.
That's really helpful as wellfor detoxification in not a high
dose, in a limited dose.
Supplements like milk thistleor St.
John's wort are also reallyhelpful for supporting detoxification
medication.
So again, all of thesupplements, that's a little bit
bigger of a topic than thisparticular podcast, but there are
(26:51):
supplements that help.
I would be very wary of a lotof the powders and drinks and stuff
that are like, marketed inlike, you know, like, generally,
like, you know, if you'regoing to take a drug test and like
drink this detox concoction.
Like, I think those areusually kind of BS and could cause
more harm than good.
So I tend to be wary of, like,these, you know, fantastic claims
(27:16):
on any product.
So do your research.
And usually individualingredients are going to be more
helpful than some sort of, youknow, magical detox concoction that
usually doesn't help you andmight actually hurt.
And then one of the lastthings that I love is sweating.
And so active sweating iseither like if you're doing a sauna,
(27:38):
which is one of my veryfavorite things.
So pee, poop and sweat I wasmentioning earlier, so obviously
making sure you're hydrated,you're peeing appropriately, you
should be having a bowelmovement every day.
That's your body's natural detoxification.
Breathing is part of that.
But then sweating is, is areally important part as well.
And we actually removedifferent toxins from our body depending
on the method.
So we get different things outin the pee, the poop and the sweat.
(28:00):
So if you have access to asauna anywhere, do it.
You can also sort of mimic asauna by getting your shower as hot
as humanly possible and notgetting under the water.
Don't burn yourself, but juststaying in that hot, that hot environment
until you're starting to sweatand then you can rinse off with cooler
water.
I personally have a little zipin sauna that I got like on a Black
(28:22):
Friday sale a few years ago.
My head sticks out, which, youknow, ideally you would be all the
way in a sauna, but I stillget tons of benefit from just being
able to zip it, zip into it.
And the benefit is I can foldit up really small and stick it in
my closet when I'm done.
So it doesn't like take up alot of room and my house.
So someday I might have one ofthese magical, you know, one person
(28:43):
saunas made of cedar somewherein my house.
But until that day comes, Ihave my little zip in sauna and,
and that's really helpful.
So thinking about all the waysthat we are exposed to toxins, I
think it's really important tomake detoxification a part of your
regular life.
And that means something thatyou're considering every single day,
at least passively.
(29:04):
So how can we remove thingsand then periodically looking at
strategies for more intensive,you know, ways things called kind
of that more activedetoxification and then those things
that we had, you know, talkedabout on previous episodes.
So sleep is when your, yourbody is doing a lot of that taking
out the trash, a lot of thatdetoxing work.
Our brains are detoxing viathe glymphatic system, which is just
(29:27):
like the lymphatic system ofyour brain overnight.
So going back to that sleepepisode, super crazy important for
us to be doing that, you know,that getting that sleep and doing
the sleep hygiene to make surethat we're detoxing our brains then.
And then if you want to do alittle bit more testing, this is
the first place I'm going totalk about testing as an option.
(29:48):
So, you know, kind of goingwith the idea of test, don't guess
you can find out if some ofthese things are impacting you.
So first place I would startwould just be on some regular blood
work.
You can look at your liverenzymes, your kidney enzymes, you
can look at some markers thathave to do with how well your gallbladder
(30:08):
is producing, sorry, yourliver is producing bile, which is
bile acids.
You can look at that on blood work.
So a lot of things will tellyou, you know, kind of like how well
is your bodily body handlingthis toxic burden.
And then there also are directtests, urine, hair, where you can
look for specific things likelead or heavy metals or environmental
toxins or, you know, otherheavy metals, other environmental
(30:33):
exposures.
I will put a link again in theshow notes to where you could order
that yourself if you'reinterested in learning a little bit
more about, about that.
But those are kind of twolevels you can look at.
How is your body generallyhandling the toxic load?
And then directly you can lookat, you know, are there some, some
chemicals that we can see thatare present in your body that you
might want to do a little bitmore of a focused detoxification
(30:56):
protocol with a practitioner?
So going from simplest tohardest, the simplest thing is to
do some of that passive detox.
Then we can do a little bitmore active detox and certainly we
can look at what the body isexperiencing on your own.
And there are some testingoptions for that.
So hopefully this has been anempowering episode for you.
What I don't want you to takeaway from this is overwhelm or that
(31:19):
you have to do all of thesethings tomorrow because that's usually
what leads to people freezingand doing nothing.
I would pick one thing andstart there.
Pick one thing, like you'regoing to get a water filter or you're
going to start reading theingredients of your.
Your makeup and every time youbuy a new makeup product, you're
going to test it out and throwaway your old one one at a time.
You're not going tonecessarily go and change your whole
(31:41):
makeup cabinet all at once.
But that's why detoxification matters.
That's why detox is such animportant part of a holistic strategy
for managing adhd.
And if you want to check outany more resources on how to help
your ADHD brain naturally, goto getabossbrain.com.
uh, that's where I'll besharing more about my specific strategies
and framework for getting aboss brain, even as a woman with
(32:05):
adhd.
Hey, love, thanks for makingit this far.
If you're hearing this, you'reone of the magical statistical few
that listened all the way tothe end.
And I so appreciate your engagement.
I hope that means the messagetoday resonated with you and you're
taking away a tool trick oraction step that will help you have
your best feeling brain.
If that's you, I have a favorto ask.
(32:25):
So many more women need tohear this Message and your 30 seconds
to leave a rating or reviewwill help them hear it.
Just go to the show in yourpodcast player and scroll down until
you see the stars to leave aquick rating and make my day while
you're at it.
Thank you so much.
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