@DrWendyWalsh- Helen Christoni of Make Time Wellness

Helen Christoni is the co-creators of Make Time Wellness.
After the personal loss of her grandmother and mother-in-law to frontotemporal dementia, Helen was driven to take action, recognizing the critical importance of brain health.
Helen’s talks about her personal journey, particularly her caregiving experience, the impact of dementia within her family, and how she is proactively approaching her own health, preventing Alzheimer's in women.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendywall Show on KFI AM
six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. My next
guest knows dementia and Alzheimer's very well. After the loss
of her both her mother and her grandmother to the disease,
she has made it a mission to educate women and

(00:22):
to do whatever she can to help prevent Alzheimer's and women.
Her name is Helen Christoni. Did I say it right,
Helen Christoni?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yes, that's right.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
It's a very romantic last name. I love it.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
And you are the co creator of a website called
Make Time for Wellness. Before we get there, let's talk
about your own experience. Your mom and grandmother died of
fronto temporal lobe dementia. Can you tell me about that?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
So my mother in law died from frontal tempol dementia,
and then I also lost my grandmother to dementia. So
I've had my personal experience with two very loved women
in my family, and so that's one of the reasons
I'm so personally interested in this, and.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
So what are you doing to make it? First of all,
may I ask how old you are?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Sure? I'm fifty five? Years old.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Are you terrified?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
And I'm completely terrified, but I think also I'm also
very empowered because there's things that women can do to
not be that one in five a woman who who
are at risk.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
For Alzheimer's And what are the things?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
So you know, at make time long as you really
love to empower women with the five pillars of brain health.
And there's things that we can do every day to
put our brains first, and you know that makes how longest?
We just really want to talk to women about this
one and five statistics because I didn't know that one
in five women were at risk at all for Alzheimer's

(01:58):
compared to one and ten men, and when we learn
that statistic, it was really staggering. So we really talk
about these pillars of brain health. And the first one
is nutrition and supplementation, just making sure that you're eating
a very kind of grain first, you know, high and
healthy fat diet and making sure you get your greens

(02:19):
and fibers every single day. And how that protein.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Do our brains need more protein than we think?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Absolutely? I mean, as we know as women right now,
the protein conversation is very, very high, and especially in midnight,
mid life it's very important that women really start to
prioritize their protein.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Okay, so making sure we get all those fresh fruits
and vegetables every day, taking all the supplements so that
we're not having our brain deprived of anything.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
That's pillar one.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
What's next, right, and then also you know, just stress
and emotional regulation. You know, as women, we are and
care of everyone and everything, and the last person that
we're making time for is ourselves. So really making sure
that you're doing stress management, making sure you're making the

(03:13):
time to wind down, take care of yourself, go for
a walk, and just kind of just unplugged is so
important for women because we're always in fight and flight
in a very high court of all state. And so
just managing our stress is the next pillar.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
And you know, women actually have a secret defense in
stress coping skills. Of those researchers at UCLA discovered that
women tend and befriend, in other words, reaching out for
social support. When we call a girlfriend and just get
everything off our chest, it looks like nothing, it looks
like gossip, but it's actually lowering cortiso levels. So the

(03:52):
more you get together with other women for social support,
the lower your stress levels will be I love that one. Okay,
what's the third?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, and the third is what you were just talking about.
It was it's connection. So connection is so important. Making
sure that you're reaching out, whether it's through text messages,
talking to someone on the phone, making plans to connect
with people, making sure that you're not isolated is so
super important. So connection and key, and today it's getting

(04:26):
harder and harder to connect personally, so I think really
making that a priority, taking tenant today to reach out
to people, put plans on the schedule very important.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah, and say yes to those invitations.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
You know, last night I went to an early cocktail party,
like sort of launch of the holiday season, pre Thanksgiving
cocktail party, and I was like, Oh, we have to
go out. It's kind of rainy. I don't really want
to go out. I went and I had the best time,
and I met so many new people and it was
so much fun. So you know, you got to say yes,
get out of the house. Got to do that, all right,

(04:59):
Number Helen, what do we got?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
All right? Number four is absolutely prioritizing your sleep. So
this is something that is so important and your brain
actually kind of recharges when we're sleeping and so making
sure that your prioritizing your sleep is so important. I'm
a big fan of the or ring and monitoring your
sleep and really making sure you're setting yourself up for

(05:27):
a good night's sleep every single night of pea.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
And as we get older, why is it sleep becomes
so hard and it's so precious to get. And it's
not just that we're busy and worried and stressful. There's
something hormonally that goes on with women.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
So I'm a big fan of melatonin.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
I'm a fan of magnesium low or no alcohol, ladies.
Alcohol takes you down, but then it brings you up again.
I know, I see you on Facebook at three am.
I know you're there. And what's the final one?

Speaker 2 (05:59):
And the final one is absolutely movement. And this is
something that I think people really they go. You know,
it becomes overwhelming to try and get out there and
move every day and exercise. But you know, studies show
that if you just get thirty eight hundred steps today,
you can reduce your risk of Ulphimmer's by twenty five percent,

(06:20):
and that is really measurable. So I think that everyone's
trying to get their ten thousand steps you know, and overcompensate,
overdo it. If that's too much, just start with like
a couple walks around the block and start small build
from there. But just something as simple as thirty eight
hundred steps to that day can really make a difference

(06:41):
in your brand house, you know.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
One of the tricks I do, By the way, I
went on a big hike with my husband yesterday and
we did twelve thousand steps, so I'm like, I.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Feel it today and it was quite steep as well.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
But one of my tricks is, I think I read
it at the New York Times, is I when I
have have to have a computer day where I'm teach
grading answering emails, is I set a little timer on
my Apple Watch, and every forty five minutes it'll ping,
And all I do is get up and do twenty squats.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Get my prime movers moving. That's it. It takes a second.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
You do twenty swats, sit back down again, and your
brain flow. You get more brain brain blood float to
your brain and use all the prime movers.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
So that's my trick. But that's that's really good advice.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Now tell me about make time wellness and how can
it help people get better.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
So at Make Time Wellness, we our mission is get
the world talking seriously about women's brain health. And we've
created a line of kind of all in one supplements
that really are just focused on brain health. And at
Maytime we say, if you put your brain health first,
everything else falls into place. And so you know, we

(07:53):
have a podcast that Made Time and we're really out
there just talking to women raising awareness about this very
important conversation. And brain health is a mid life you know,
something that we all really need to focus on now
because what we do today can really really help us out.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Come on, Oh, Helen is so important, So people can
go to is it make Timewellness dot com? That's right,
Make Time Wellness, Helen Christni. I'm sorry for your losses,
but I'm grateful that these experiences have really kind of
put you on a mission and we all need to
take care of our brain.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Hell. Thanks for being with us today.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Thank you so much for having me on, Wendy. I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
And that brings the end the close of the Doctor
Wendy Welsh Show Tonight. I want to remind everybody you
can always follow me on my social media. The handle
is at doctor Wendy Walsh, and I'm going to start
to talk about it already. On Thanksgiving weekend, I have
a special that Sunday Night extended version. So if you're
saying why are you ending so early, it's because we

(08:55):
have some other important content coming. But on November thirtieth,
I think I'm doing three, three and a half or
four hours, and I have a full hour with the
director of the famed Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, and
he is going to talk about dating, mating, relating, and
what the data and research really tells us about our
love lives.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Thanks for being with us.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
You've been listening to The Doctor Wendy wall Show on
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.