Episode 76 - Dr. Paige Roberts - Insights into athletic wellness and brain health

Can trauma be the hidden adversary in an athlete's performance? Dr. Roberts sheds light on the invisible barriers athletes face and offers groundbreaking techniques for resetting the brain’s optimal functionality. Her insights into addressing the athlete’s holistic life experiences offer a fresh perspective on achieving peak performance. Whether you’re an athlete, coach, or sports science enthusiast, this episode is packed with invaluable insights and practical applications that promise to transform how you think about performance and recovery.

About our guest, Dr. Paige Roberts

Doctorate of Holist Health Quantum University Honolulu, Hawaii (2019- 2021).

Masters of Social Work Colorado State University Fort Collins Colorado

(Advanced Generalist 2010- 2013).

Bachelor of Arts Degree: Colorado Mesa University (Formerly Mesa State College) Grand Junction Colorado (Human Performance and Wellness: Exercise Science 2003-2005).

Check out her website for more information: Meet The Team – Paige Roberts (robertsneurotraining.com)

About the Show

We cover all things related to sports science, nutrition, and performance. The Sports Science Dudes represent the opinions of the hosts and guests and are not the official opinions of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), the Society for Sports Neuroscience, or Nova Southeastern University. The advice provided on this show should not be construed as medical advice and is purely an educational forum.

Hosted by Jose Antonio, PhD

Dr. Antonio is the co-founder and CEO of the International Society of Sports Nutrition and the co-founder of the Society for Sports Neuroscience, www.issn.net. Dr. Antonio has over 120 peer-reviewed publications and 16 books. He is a Professor at Nova Southeastern University, Davie, Florida in the Department of Health and Human Performance.

Twitter: @JoseAntonioPhD

Instagram: the_issn and supphd

Co-host Anthony Ricci EdD

Dr Ricci is an expert on Fight Sports and is currently an Assistant Professor at Nova Southeastern University in Davie Florida in the Department of Health and Human Performance.

Instagram: sportpsy_sci_doc and fightshape_ricci

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Sports Science Dudes. I am your host, dr Jose Antonio, with my co-host, dr Tony Ricci. You can find us on Spotify, youtube, apple Podcasts and Rumble, if you're a Rumble kind of guy. Our special guest today is Dr Paige Roberts. She has a BA in Human Performance and Wellness with an emphasis in Exercise Science from Colorado Macy University and a Master of social work from Colorado State University. Her doctorate of holistic health from Quantum University in Hawaii my favorite vacation spot, by the way love going to Hawaii While at CMU this is kind of cool.

Speaker 1: 0:37

You ran cross country we'll have to talk a little bit about that and you have over 19 years of experience in the sports and fitness industry as an athletic trainer in an intercollegiate athletic training room and electrocardiographic technician and telemetry monitor at the heart center of the Rockies, and as a personal trainer within multiple fitness clubs and as a youth sports instructor coach. And now you work with athletes all over the world via telehealth video conferencing. So that's just a little bit about you. I always it's always hard to. When you introduce someone, there's so much background that you know three or four sentences really doesn't do it justice. So first of all, I want to welcome you to the Sports Science Students. Thank you, paige, for spending the afternoon with us.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Yeah, grateful to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:25

Now, one of the reasons I was interested in having you on the show is your background. It actually falls in line with really some of the sports and neuroscience research that Tony and I are involved in. We actually collaborate with a neuroscience professor in our university, so I want you to give the audience a little bit of background, who may not be only backtrack. Our audience tends to be people who focus on exercise. They love exercise, they love nutrition. So you're dealing with what you would call performance neuro training, so sort of the. I always say we're great below the neck. I know if you ask me below the neck questions, I can answer them. Once you get above the neck, I don't know what the hell I'm saying, so I have to ask someone else. So tell us a little bit about your, what you currently do, the Paige Roberts Performance Neuro Training.

Speaker 2: 2:14

Oh boy. So when I worked at the hospital and did some of the exercise science stuff, I started to realize that a lot of diseases and a lot of issues, and including the inability to lose weight, had to do with the polyvagal theory. So Dr Stephen Porteous's work. So it was really that when we endure trauma, mental or physical, we hold onto it. The exact same way we go into a shock, we freeze it in time and then it ramps up our nervous system to a maladaptive homeostasis. So we get to be more beta brainwave, fight, fight, freezey essentially. So I talk to my athletes about, and so what that does is we are just persistently alarming and triggering that amygdala with anything that is similar to what we've ever experienced, so like if we were in a car accident.

Speaker 2: 3:04

Every time we get in the car our nervous system is going to completely ping up and be hypervigilant and afraid that's going to happen again. So it's persistently producing cortisol, so the inflammatory biomarkers. So what starts to happen is that's where we start to get that cellular decline when it comes to our muscles, when it comes to our brain cells, everything decline when it comes to our muscles, when it comes to our brain cells, everything. Because cortisol is. It's a free radical, so it's very harmful to us. So I started to just kind of realize and understand that connection because I was really interested in getting my master's in exercise phys but I jumped over to the master's in social work because of my past mentor, dr David Grand, who had really made the connection between trauma reprocessing and desensitization and that whole idea that we can reset the nervous system's homeostasis and get back to that optimal brainwave or the alpha brainwave frequency and then that would therefore allow for our nervous system to be in more parasympathetic dominant as well, so that we are not just alarming persistently to make cortisol and what begins to happen outside of just the health and all these autoimmune diseases and all these things that begin to happen in that way with the dysregulated nervous system, with athletes, their reaction time slows and then they get a greater beta theta ratio.

Speaker 2: 4:24

So beta is that fight, fight, freezy, uh brainwave and the theta is the rest of recovery. So you're up here in beta, that's sympathetic nervous system dominance. You're down here in theta, that's parasympathetic nervous system dominance. So with all of that, um, when an athlete or anybody, like I said, we store the mental and physical traumas the same way, we start to get so much trauma in our reservoir or our trauma memory network that, when the pressure to perform is on, so lose their fine-tuned motor skills and their flexibility and their ability to stay in flow and move. And so then they are trying to consciously override this alarming system that's very subconscious, and so then they start to force it. So they start to force it. It's like the guys with yips that are trying to force the ball and you're just like, oh my gosh, I mean, you can see it so you're trying to.

Speaker 1: 5:27

I like the yips. I like the yips example because when you started mentioning that I thought, okay. First I thought of fighters where, um, the minute they lose a fight, let's say they're invincible, and all of a sudden they lose a fight and it's like holy crap it. It almost results in either other people are thinking, wow, he or she's not invincible, I can beat him now, and then they just start losing. It's really strange. But then the other example I came up with my kids used to play softball, I used to coach was the idea of the yips, which I thought.

Speaker 1: 5:59

I mean, how, how does a skilled player suddenly not know how to throw a ball? And I actually saw this in college too. At our university I was talking to this is a while back. I was talking to the head coach and she said, oh yeah, so-and-so, she's got the yips, she just can't throw the ball. I'm like, what do you mean? She can't throw the ball, she's 20 years old, she's been throwing the ball for 10 to 15 years, and and so I guess here's my question, because it's it's interesting that this happens. So you get someone with the yips. They can't throw the ball. They come to you. What are? What is the process you know in terms of getting them out of it? And then, if you can address, and also Tony fighters who suddenly lose, who are once invincible, how do you convince them? Hey, you're still as good as you were before, you just happened to lose.

Speaker 2: 6:47

So, paige, and I wouldn't say it's convincing per se because again, that's trying to condition over maladaptation. So when someone comes to me with this dorsal vagal collapse, when we talk about just the nervous system, just inability to access those fine-tuned motor skills on the outside of the brain, we will have them make an entire list of every single stressor or trauma that could have ever occurred on their nervous system. And then I have, like a lot of examples like oh, your dog died, being bullied in school, failing tests, having a different nervous system and being neurodiverse. A lot of our athletes are very highly gifted, neurodiverse individuals with the ADD, the high functioning dyslexia, all of that. But there's a lot of trauma and shame that comes with all that stuff of not really fitting in the box, and so I see a lot of history with that, with always outperforming, overperforming perfectionists trying to compensate for some of this shame and projection onto these individuals. But we go through that whole list, then we drop them into the altered state. So I utilize these sounds that are bilateral, that go back and forth, but they're also sulfasio frequencies, so it's dropping them into that alpha brainwave frequency, which is our intuitive space, which is accesses the entire energy field, so the quantified energy field, our subconscious programming, because really we are on autopilot most of the time. I mean, it's like we're 90% subconscious all day, every day. And then that also correlates with us creating the memories and experiences we can. We actually take in as much information as an encyclopedia every second of every day and we're organizing it based on past experience. And then by the time you're 25, um, about 97 percent of our uh makeup is just all subconscious programming, it's. We're not even very conscious, aware of what we're doing at all, so we drop them into the altered state, which you can do with sounds. You don't necessarily have to do plant medicine to drop in there. Um, so, and then I have them cover one eye or the other, so I will have them use like a sleep mask or an eye patch, because each eye operates independently with accessing memories and making memories. Our brain is so much visual we must manipulate the visual pathway, and so we cover one eye and then we literally go through the experience. And then I also add in the basic EFT tapping so that we're activating all the meridian channels and all of the energy, the access to all the organs that are interly connected with the meridian channels and accessing those emotions that are interly connected with all the meridians and the organs themselves. So we are tapping in, getting them in there. So they're tapping. Then I have them.

Speaker 2: 9:28

Tell me in as much detail the experience. We go back, sight, sounds and smells. Okay, you're there, you're seeing yourself as a six-year-old, the coach is yelling at you and we're going. Okay, where are you holding on your body? Because we know that we hold on to experience and lock up and encapsulate the trauma in that frozen state. Again, it's the shock mechanism. We recoil, we contract, so it's that shock experience and then we say, okay, where's that at? So the awareness of our mind brings it to the area, releases that energy, and then it's saying, okay, well, are there any emotions stored with that?

Speaker 2: 10:04

Because emotions, as we know, when we're doing these scans, body scans of the different composition, depression is a low energy expression, a depressed nervous system, essentially low functioning. We see it on the QEG brain scans as well. We see a decrease in voltage, we see a decrease in reaction time or increase in reaction time. So it's quite interesting. So we say okay, and so the little boy, what did he feel in that moment? Because when we're making those experiences. They're frozen in time. We didn't have time to process it, we didn't have time to access our body where we feel it, we didn't have time to access the emotions associated with it. We just had to shock and say, okay, we're not safe, and then keep going about the day. So we're saying, okay, what, what feelings?

Speaker 2: 10:47

And so the six-year-old that got yelled at by the coach well, yeah, it made him sad, it made him feel shame or it made him feel, you know, they weren't good enough or any of those types of things. And so it's really rewriting those neural pathways and creating a more positive experience within this attuned as we say. It's attunement my energy sitting with another human, that whole attachment theory of you know, you sitting there and observing them, them accessing the eye points it's all Bowlby's attachment stuff. So, yeah, so we're rewriting and reprocessing all that in the moment, so that then when a similar experience you know, the 25 year old, when his coach is yelling at him in the MLB, he doesn't go into that frozen state and that maladaptive state that he did when he was six, again, because it was a similar experience and you know, people will be like oh, this is like we were, this is. This is like no we see on QEG brain scans, the second that we are going back through reprocessing and desensitizing to these things happening again in the current reality. It just optimizes our energy expression, optimizes our nervous system functioning, and so then you regain all of your fine-tuned motor skills that you have been able to utilize since you're like four years old, right, with these really elite athletes.

Speaker 2: 12:02

I think Tiger Woods is a really huge example of this, right, you know, with all this tumultuousness and all the trauma in his life, how hard his dad was on him and all those things. He started to get the yips and started his performance began to decline because you can stay in that kind of fight space for a while but eventually it's just, you become completely disconnected, disassociated and frozen, so you can't in the moment actually just uh, be in flow state and that subconscious. And every athlete knows what flow state is. They know when they're out there and it's like, oh well, how did you know to just throw the ball? Uh, to the um, you know, and there's like, oh yeah, I don't know, I, it just happened, it was intuitive. It's like, yeah, our energy is connecting with each other, so the um cause energy begets energy.

Speaker 2: 12:44

So we're constantly trying to um align with someone's frequency and so when the coaches have all this, their trauma reservoir is full. All of their stuff is activating the athletes nervous systems and they are just trying to regulate around them. It's called co-regulation and so it's actually ramping them up. So when you have a really traumatized, abusive coach, that's super critical. You will see these athletes perhaps they got traded from another sports team. It's like, why are they not doing? Well, it's like, okay, so there's a little bit of the coaches stuff that's now impacting them and so having to desensitize.

Speaker 2: 13:20

So then we go through the reprocessing and clearing, or deconditioning as I'd say it. Then we go into the worst case scenario. Okay, so you're out there on the field sight, sounds and smells, what are the bad things that can occur? So we're desensitizing to this worst case scenario of what could occur. And so it's keeping them in that alpha flow state and by going back through the traumatic experiences in the alpha frequency, it teaches our nervous system to never even when we're you know, because it's kind of like exposure therapy, right. So we're going back through these traumatic experiences. It teaches the nervous system not to ping up to that beta wave, not to get into that fight, fight, freezey. So we're teaching their nervous system how to just always stay in flow, state it's yeah, that's how it works and it and you know, I went from hard science to the social science to.

Speaker 2: 14:06

I looked at the UW neuroscience program, the rehab it was all just old stuff. So I went with this quantum university with Dr Joda Spenza, patrick Porter, bruce Lipton, and it's gotta, you know, it's kind of out there but it's like nope, this is what's reality. That we communicate with bio photons. It's all energy.

Speaker 2: 14:23

Um, we are energetic beings we can't deny these things so that's kind of what got me on my journey of being like no, this isn't reality.

Speaker 3: 14:31

Energy is reality well, yeah, can I. This is really neat because and maybe this is in part two to your, your clinical background because what we tend to do I think a lot, dr Page, in sports psychology is we isolate the experiences and we say, okay, well, this batter, for example, never does well with the bases loaded, right. And we just say, well, that's because they don't do well with the bases loaded. Let's navigate through this, let's change the thinking. But when you're, you're looking at the global picture and you're taking it just I know this is overly simplified, but you're taking life's experiences that drive the amygdala as an example, probably, unfortunately, enhance the amygdala's function, so that you become almost amygdala driven to every response, right. And so you're saying, okay, well, because this happened to them when they were younger. It may not be an identical situation when they're 25. But because it from a well, to a large extent neuropathways, because it slightly resembles it, that experience is mimicking the negativity of the current experience, even though they're a little bit different.

Speaker 3: 15:41

And I think that's really neat because I don't think those have been connected before. I think they've been isolated, and what I mean by that? We don't take the whole individual into account and we don't take their life's experiences. We just take their sport experience and say they're lacking, maybe or something is an obstacle there, but we don't usually connect it to well. You know, as a from the ages of six to 10, they went through some really tough times, so hence, anything that might be a little bit challenging now is going to drive them back to the similar physiological effects. And I think that's really cool because you have you've globalized it much more than we tend to do in mental skill training and, and that's pretty fascinating.

Speaker 2: 16:27

That's, that's awesome yeah, and it's you know when we talk about so the fighter who lost.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Well, that's traumatic yeah, definitely so we need to go back through and reprocess that and desensitize to who they're fighting next and what, um, their gifts are or what, what you're going to encounter during that fight. It's like, oh yeah, he's got the flying knee. It's like, okay, well, where do you feel in your body that flying knee that he's going to get you with that? It's like, oh, I felt my chest. It's like, okay, release, so that when the flying knee comes at them, they're not going to recoil and pull back. Instead, they're just going to keep being able to be in that flow and subconsciously react quicker, essentially so that I can't get them. I mean, it's just so funny and you know, I my, my very first clients I started working with in Steamboat Springs, colorado, were freestyle mogul athletes and halfpipe athletes. So it is a insanely traumatic sport in learning the tricks when you're going off a jump at 80 miles an hour and having to land it. Every single time those kids didn't land a trick. We have to go back through those experiences because the body just starts reacting the second you go off that jump. And so, with you know, when I first started kind of presenting, you know, my case studies and all that kind of stuff. Even before I got the QEG brain scan it was just going okay well, they were averaging 19th place. We did 12 sessions to reprocess all of this. They got kicked off the US ski team to get them back on the US ski team and it was like we just undid all of this body's subconscious reaction because their body already knew how to be at that level, the World Cup level, and so it was really exciting initially.

Speaker 2: 18:11

And then, of course, the concussions are like a double whammy. I mean, they are so severely traumatic on the nervous system. That's the first thing you want to clear when you're working with someone, and that's kind of what got me into it was I had had sports concussions in a background. My high school swim team school bus crashed and the mountains of Colorado go into it, our first meet and all those types of things, and so my nervous system is very hypervigilant.

Speaker 2: 18:33

And yeah, as a high performer, you know I'm still performing, because that's the other thing too when we talk about sports performance. And even with ASP, which you know I've done all this supervision, that kind of stuff, but I'm just still not inclined with some of their philosophy because it is still this, just overriding the nervous system, trying to condition over the maladaptation. But when they talk about level of functioning right. So when we're talking about working with someone clinically in a mental health setting, they're not functioning in their environment, right, so we're going okay, this is mental illness, this is really inhibiting them. But when we look at the other end of hey, they're still functioning, so they just need mental skills or they just need this. It's like most high performers will be functioning despite their nervous system, but they will not be at their optimal performance.

Speaker 3: 19:15

Right.

Speaker 2: 19:16

And so, yeah, I was functioning fine, so to speak, and I thought I only need four hours of sleep at night. No, so I started kind of going into the altered state stuff and really looking at it and going, okay, yeah, so I have read every single mental toughness book there is on the shelf, but you know, it's like I am still not able to sleep fully, I'm still not fully optimized. And then I knew that and had that awareness and then having that mirror of individuals coming into the hospital thinking they're having a heart attack, when it had to do with grief or loss or something associated with the heart chakra. So it's an actual retraction because those emotions haven't been fully processed and released.

Speaker 1: 19:59

I have a question about. So far, we've touched on what are basically super high skill sports, whether it's throwing a ball in baseball or softball, the fight sports, and you mentioned skiing or one of the ski sports. You ran cross country in college, right yeah, did you also run track?

Speaker 2: 20:17

We didn't have track at the time, so it was a smaller state school. I ran track in high school. I always liked the foot race, I liked running. You know you're running through the trees and beating someone. It's amazing.

Speaker 1: 20:29

I wish I could run. I'm too fat. Anthony can run, though he still does his sprints. What distance were the races when you were running cross country? A 5K is what we were doing in Colorado.

Speaker 2: 20:42

So three miles and 800.

Speaker 1: 20:43

Let's take it Now, we're doing a low skill sport, distance running. It's not like fighting, it's not like tennis, it's it's just running. However, as you know, there's a mental aspect to it where in a race and actually any race it can be cycling at hell and happens in paddling Someone is right behind you and you know they're there, and then when they pass you, you're like, oh shit, and you, it's nothing really changed other than visually and maybe you hear the him or her breathing and it's like they pass you and you're like, okay, they're gonna're going to beat me, but nothing has changed. So how do you? Let's say it's, the athlete is like, oh my God, he passed me, I couldn't catch him. What do you? How do you work them through a low skilled sport? Because really it's just, I mean, they're not throwing a ball, it's just running.

Speaker 2: 21:41

I know I've worked with a lot of the triathletes and even stair climbers. That's actually like a thing. So with that, so as athletes, we teach our nervous system to disassociate from pain with that lactate threshold, and the lactate threshold of course, triggers cortisol, right, it's inflammatory, it's, it's a pain signal. So it's a skill, but it's a detriment to right. And so it's that when you're sitting in the altered state you are talking about that pain.

Speaker 2: 22:08

So you're having an individual access that lactate threshold and desensitize the nervous system to it and then desensitizing to, if you do, you know, okay, someone's potentially going to pass you, so we can desensitize the nervous system to that.

Speaker 2: 22:22

And then it's kind of like, well, what's happened in the past? When someone's passed you, it's like, oh man, they beat me and I didn't get on the podium, so that kind of thing. But it does slow your reaction time as well, all these past traumas, right, so you are just not as fast with your foot placement and so on. So it's really interesting when you're working with the endurance sports as well, because it's the same thing. But, yeah, a lot of athletes don't, you know, when you're just pushing through that pain, you kind of become addicted to it, but it's actually just teaching the nervous system to completely disconnect. And then your times you just eventually start to slow and slow and slow. And you see it with these athletes like and I know Steve Prefontaine was always saying like oh, I can endure more pain than anyone else, that's why I'm so good, he was a beast, I know.

Speaker 2: 23:09

VO2 max, everything right Back in the day. But yeah, so it was just like okay, but he was still performing at that level despite being disassociating, and his reaction time was slower. So who knows what his potential could have been had he been doing this type of technique?

Speaker 1: 23:24

He probably would have so yeah, maybe I mean that guy. That guy had pain tolerance like out the wazoo, and the guy was, I think he would rather die than lose in a race. That's how good he was.

Speaker 1: 23:39

And I don't know if you remember the Olympics I forget what year it was he was running against. It was Lasse Viren, tony. I don't know if you remember this, but Pri was by far the best middle distance runner in the United States and Lasse Viren beat him. But after the fact we find out Lasse Viren's been doping. So how fast would Pri have been if he had been doping? Who the hell knows? But the guy was. I mean, he had a mindset that people in other sports wish they had, not just runners. It's like man. If I could have a mindset like Prefontaine, it'd be something. Even fighters I think even fighters have quoted Prefontaine Tony.

Speaker 3: 24:23

Yeah, they had a movie about him, did they not? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:27

Yeah, it was called Pre actually, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3: 24:30

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:30

You know so, yeah, it was called pre actually. Yeah, okay, you know so, uh, but um, but yeah, I just thought it was interesting that in a sport that's quote simple just the mere act of someone passing you just wrecks you.

Speaker 2: 24:40

You're like the feet losing, fear of losing that performance anxiety that we talk about all the time. I mean, we just bucket performance anxiety with all of these symptoms, um, but it's like, yeah, I, I can potentially lose when that person passes me so instantly. It's essentially shocking and traumatic, so it gets you to recoil and slow down.

Speaker 1: 25:00

Yeah, One of the topics we're going to cover at the ISSN fight science camp in October at Nova Southeastern University. Tony and I will be there. Tony's giving a talk. I think you're doing the weight cutting talk, but actually I think neuromuscular adaptations are neuromuscular adaptations right, or maybe you'll talk a little bit about both, but one of the things we're going to cover is post concussion treatment. I know that's part of your. You know. You know repertoire, so talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 2: 25:39

So with that, it's that perpetuating inflammation, the neuroinflammation, right, so the microglial become hypervigilant and start attacking the brain. And so it really is that overabundance of that cortisol all the time. And thinking about it this way, so this is what's really interesting too If you have hit your head, the noceCO receptor the second that you lay down, or you put that football helmet on it is alarming and triggering. That it's not okay. Your head's getting hit again, as if you're going back through that concussion experience over and over and over again. And so that's why you know now. They know with the whole sleep thing, with the concussions, like, yeah, most individuals can't sleep afterwards. Well, what do you? You're laying your head on the pillow. So it's alarming, subconsciously like oh no, oh no, we're hit again, we're hit again. So it continues to allow for that inflammation and that alarm system and that hypervigilance staying in that fight, fight, freeze, the beta, high beta wave, sympathetic dominance. So you must reprocess that fully. And when it comes to the distal stuff, when I'm having someone work on a concussion, I am having them take a pen, chopstick, whatever that looks like, and we're bringing it all the way in and trying to get the nervous system to desensitize, to its reaction, to release that, to not be alarming, to not being predicted. So it's funny to me, like when I had my clinic I've been online for a year and a half down here. Um is what it was like 10 years of having the clinic. I would sit here and come real close on an NFL player and they'd grab it because it was so uncomfortable, because the nervous system's going no, no, no, no, we can't be hit again, and so that's what allows for the nervous system just finally like okay, we don't have to alarm anymore, we've rewritten this experience, we're not predicting it to happen again.

Speaker 2: 27:25

And it was interesting because what's hard with kind of being like in the forefront of some of this stuff, there's not a lot of literature and so I found it interesting right before COVID happened, because I'm always looking on that website, whatever it is, where they say what current studies are going on and what's going on, and looking for participants and all these new things. They were actually in France at an ER. They were talking about EMDR, so eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing, which is very similar to this of the bilateral component of dropping you in and having to go back through the experience and fully processing it through the nervous system. They were talking about if just one EMDR session for someone who had a head injury who came into that ER. They were trying to predict and see if they had a quicker recovery time, and so I found that interesting, but then I never found, because COVID happened and all this stuff. They never continued to carry it out, which was unfortunate, because I'm like, okay, other people are getting it at this point in time, so, yeah, so the concussion experience is so important to reprocess and desensitize too, because your body's just going to and then, of course, with the inflammatory piece, that tau protein is not being detoxed. The other aspects of the brain are just not going through their detox process, and so it just kind of starts building on it, building on, building on, and then the athletes are piling on drinking, drugging, not getting enough sleep, all the things that are causing neuroinflammation as well.

Speaker 2: 28:46

And so when I first started, I was working with he was the past team doc for the avalanche Dr Frank Palermo. He's the lead physician that brought the WAVI QEG. So the QEG I utilize it's all about the P300 of how quick you are responding, auditory wise and visual wise, to a stimulus right, and then what the overall voltage of the brain is and that distribution of the voltage and if it's maladaptive, if we're only utilizing certain areas of the brain, are they not all working together? So he was talking about, okay, we have these retired players that are really suffering right from the avalanche. I went down there and I worked with some guys down in Denver and I mean the amount of other things they were doing that was causing their inflammation.

Speaker 2: 29:29

It it made it very difficult just to say isolate with like, okay, let's reprocess this concussion stuff. Just so much tumultuous stuff had gone on. You know all the criticism of the coaches, all the drinking, all the drugging. They were utilizing marijuana at this point in time to keep their nervous system from alarming all that you know and getting them to sleep and they'd stopped working out. So a lot of athletes, you know, because of the grief that they don't process when they retire, they just stay frozen and they stop exercising, they stop doing all the things that they know that they should be doing. They start eating really crappy because, hey, the team nutritionist isn't telling them what to eat. So it's really interesting when you're working with someone, when you're truly trying to get them out of this prolonged traumatic brain injury response or post-concussion response.

Speaker 2: 30:11

It's going to take all of the pieces to get them back to optimal brain health and once the brain and body learns how to do something, it just immediately will do it. And so that's like with my athletes I'll say, okay, about 10 to 12 sessions to get you back where you were. But we need to constantly be reprocessing and desensitizing to all the things that are occurring. So I have like tune-ups or they'll reach out right before our comp and we'll get them tuned up to, or, if something bad happens, because it's just like exercise. We have to keep doing this process in the neuro training because you can't just work out for three months of your life and think you're good for the rest of your life. That's just not how we work.

Speaker 2: 30:51

We go into maladaptation adaptations and that really starts showing up with behavioral stuff too. You know, when we talk about like personality disorders or the narcissism and all this kind of stuff, those are maladaptive trauma responses. Those are trying to control, those are trying to keep others to not have emotions because they can't sit with their own, and that's that mirroring, that co-regulation thing. So there's just a lot more going on when you start to look at and that's where the domestic violence aspect in sports comes into play. You see all these really high performing guys and you know they're beating their wives. I mean it was very, it's very prevalent in the NHL and it's like well, that's because they're stuck in this fight response. They don't know any other way. They're so uncomfortable in their own body because they're so hypervigilant they react and do these things that are simply not okay. But they were survival mechanisms. So it gets to be a little complex with it all, but you can reverse it.

Speaker 2: 31:49

And then the other thing that I know is that when we start to have symptoms with concussion, we're already way it. And then the other thing that I know is that when we start to have symptoms with concussion, we're already way down the road right. So we call it brain reserve. So if you go into, you haven't been sleeping, because less than five hours of sleep it's guaranteed neuroinflammation. Less than seven, it takes four days for our brain to recover from that. So if we're going into and you get this a lot with football too, of memorizing the playbook these guys stay up all night. They're just so hypervigilant. They're like oh, you know, that's obviously a huge stressor and it is difficult I mean, I don't think I can memorize the playbook, but nonetheless they're not sleeping Then they get tackled and so they're having a harder time recovering, you know, from the concussions, like, okay, well, they went into it already with a lot of neuroinflammation.

Speaker 2: 32:37

And then the other component is on the QEG brain scan, the Wabi one that I utilize, you can see the decrease in voltage, decrease in reaction time regionally, up to 10 years prior to having any symptoms of Alzheimer's or any of these things. Also, we get to such a level of neuronal death that the areas of the brain stop communicating and working together, and so that's when these people are actually struggling and having the symptoms. So the reality is, all these fighters, all these football players, all these hockey players, anyone who's in these contact sports, of course the extreme sports when they're slamming down on the snow and their brain bounces around in their skull contra coup, the velocity is just too much. It's like it's occurring, there is brain um damage occurring, so it's that they have reached that threshold. So now they have symptoms. So it's like no, these individuals still need this work and need to do this work. Uh, regardless if they're having symptoms or not is there?

Speaker 1: 33:30

are there any nutritional aspects that athletes will ask you about? And not that they'll listen, but like Absolutely. What advice do you give them?

Speaker 2: 33:40

Well, the basic of things. You know. I'm a little apprehensive with some of the herbs and supplementation sometimes because really we need to be doing the blood panels, we need to know what people are allergic to. We need to know doing the blood panels. We need to know what people are allergic to. We need to know herbs are extremely powerful. So you see a lot of these biohackers and stuff just talking about oh, this adaption, take this, take this, take this, and you're going. Those things are as powerful as pharmaceuticals. I mean they like they will completely wipe out your gut microbiome. I mean herbs are very powerful things. So so we need to be careful with just like stuffing down all these herbs because someone said that it does this, or this research study showed it did this or this. So there's that piece with it. So I'm very apprehensive about where the athletes are just taking all these things like, oh, it's for focus. I'm like, eh, we don't know if you need that and you gotta be careful.

Speaker 2: 34:28

And then the other thing with the supplementation pieces. I mean like glutamine, right, so glutamine has been a really big deal with the gut health and all that. Well, too much of it has been shown to cause pancreatic cancer. You know, we, we just have to like, um, be cautious with some of this stuff. Uh.

Speaker 2: 34:43

And then basic nutrition. Oh my goodness, anything with chemicals in it is going to cause neuroinflammation and just, uh, if the gut's inflamed, the brain's inflamed period, we know that the gut-brain access. So just being careful, of course, with the additives, the preservatives, the highly processed. Looking at things that are organic, because we know that with the Monsanto, the wheat killer, on all of our wheats that is inflaming, that wipes out the microbiome. Sometimes there's one time eating this, not organic bread. And then just looking at things like because I'm trained under Dr Daniel Amons, the brain health coach, I love this stuff because it is that wheat is just inflaming. You know it's hard on us. You know, obviously, alcohol oh my gosh, no one wants to talk about alcohol because it's helping, helping. Now it's not. It's like okay, so that's immediately causing neuroinflammation and gut inflammation.

Speaker 1: 35:38

I like my beer.

Speaker 2: 35:41

You know, as long as you're doing enough to counter it and you're not going into a football game thinking that you don't want to get CTE. It's like hey.

Speaker 1: 35:50

Luckily I don't bash my head. I get plenty of sleep. I work out. So sitting on my patio staring at the alligators in the backyard drinking a beer.

Speaker 2: 36:02

I'm like well, we're getting into another kind of arena of our environment when it comes to frequency as well, of our environment when it comes to frequency as well. So this isn't woo, woo, blah, blah, blah when we are talking about these 5g towers not being good for us. They're not the wifi receiver, all these things, because what happens is energy begets energy. So we're constantly trying to align with this high frequency that we are not. So it's triggering the serotonin, it's triggering the cortisol all the time, because it's activating our nervous system. So it is not woo, this emf protection stuff. Not at all. And it's not like because I know, with covid, everyone's just like oh, it's the 5g.

Speaker 2: 36:41

That's why everyone's getting sick. It's a component of causing hyper vigilance with our nervous system and with this frequency being around us all the time, we we're not actually resting, so we are producing the serotonin all night, so we can't um produce our melatonin because serotonin and melatonin can't be present at the same time. We're not getting our serotonin restores, um, and then that cortisol is being triggered all the time. So it's people are fairly resistant to it. But you know, I have an EMF detector. I'm looking at things. Before I'll use some of these biohacker products, I want to know what the EMFs are. It's like okay, are you microwaving yourself in that sauna, even though the sauna is amazing and heating up metals and all these toxins and getting them out of our system? But if you're in there and you're microwaving your brain, that's not good.

Speaker 2: 37:25

Teslas are horrific on your nervous system because you're sitting on these two big batteries and the second you engage it. It's off the charts. My neighbor has a Tesla and we drive my like 2002 Forrester anywhere we go, because I will not get in her Tesla. It is not healthy for you. You know it's, it's just. And then the electric seats, the screens, all these things. It's just inundating your nervous system to get up.

Speaker 2: 37:46

This frequency is not. We are more of the frequency, the Schumann frequency of the earth, and so what you're talking about like, okay, you're sitting there on your porch, you're sitting with your feet on the ground or on the grass, you are grounding and resetting your nervous system to its optimal frequency. So an earthy, I mean, this stuff is not. It is science. But this crazy thing with these phones and so on is that they talk about your ears and your arms and legs not being a part of your body. So that's how they have been able to sit here and say that these EMFs and because the signal between the satellites and this phone are constantly pinging, so Microsoft, apple, all these, you know they have gotten away with saying that these are not parts of our body. It's crazy. So you never I will never answer a phone call next to my head. We are always on speakerphone way out here.

Speaker 1: 38:37

Hey, I never even answered the phone. I know I'm like just send me an email or text because I am not answering my phone, because I just it's funny, everyone has a phone now but no one wants to talk on the phone and I'm guilty, guilty, as charged. I do want to get to because we're running out of time. I want you to explain to the audience because I don't know anything about this, the photobiomodulation light therapy. What does it entail, who's it for, how do you do it, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 39:12

I have all sorts of things, so my first laser.

Speaker 1: 39:17

Yes, do you do it, etc. Etc. I have all sorts of things.

Speaker 2: 39:18

So my first laser yes, the device, woman, you have everything. I love them. So you know this was multi-radiance, so this is a cold laser. I've got a multi-radiance hot laser, which means it has the e-stem component, so it's making the um, you know, muscles uh, do exactly what it's supposed to do, because, of course, when we have injury that they get frozen, they need turned back on. So that's a hot laser component. So when you hear of hot laser, it's got the neophred and red light and then that e-stem component. But this one's a cold one, so it's neophred and red light, the thing that I mean.

Speaker 2: 39:46

There are probably 3,500 peer-reviewed studies on it at this point in time, and it was Dr Michael Homblin who started studying the near infrared on the brain and the components of what it was, the positive impact on the brain, and so he was within the photo medicine clinic around Harvard. Really, you know, similar to me, one of those is going no, no, no, this is the reality, this is what's going on. So, red light, much like the spectrum of the sun, we have a different it's isolated, different colors, right? So it's like I have like green ones on right now, green and near infrared, because I'm always using all this stuff right. So we isolate these colors, because when we're out in the sun we are getting the benefits but just a little bit of the benefits of all of these colors, and so each color does something different. Much like the rays of the sun make us produce vitamin D, it's the same thing. So it's a physiological reaction. So the red light, it goes to a particular depth. So it's really good for collagen production. It's really good for collagen production. It's really good for muscle recovery. You know the recovery time with increasing blood flow, all of those pieces.

Speaker 2: 41:02

But when we get to the near infrared on the brain, it actually allows for the microglial to stop temporarily priming, which is amazing. And so I use, like you'll see it right here, helmets. So I suggest that we take these light pads and create a helmet and put it on the brain, because there's oxidation that occurs when the brain bounces around the skull. So we break up that oxidation and break up all those toxins, because the toxins are going through our system all the time. Will the heavy metals, the plastics? All of that will be accumulated in this oxidation. So we put it on the brain, it breaks up that, it brings back the blood flow. It stops the microglial from over priming. It's also the neuronal sheath is actually being repaired at this point in time because when I started 10 years ago with it, we just knew the basics of what it was doing, and the primary basis of it is it's stimulating the mitochondria to increase the number and size and release nitric oxide. Well, nitric oxide is an antioxidant, so it's combating the free radical component of the cortisol. So that's how it's reversing aging. So when you're putting it on the brain, we're doing all these positive things to it, and so every single athlete out there needs a light therapy device to be putting it on their brain to prevent what can occur and to reverse what has occurred.

Speaker 2: 42:34

His peer reviewed studies on my website within and around it and of course, not everyone has been putting it on the brain. I just you know, of course, with the waivers and everything. It's like do you want this or not? This is the literature, it's up to you. So it's very new of really putting it on the brain and Michael Homblin works with James Carroll, who brought photobiomodulation from Europe in 1993 to be studied at Harvard. So they have this Thor laser, so they have a big laser like the hot laser and and and really the NFL signed with light force, so they actually do. Their athletic trainers have the lasers to enhance the recovery of, you know, the external athletic training component, but they're not putting it on the brain but they have like a big. It looks like one of those things in the salon where it comes down and so the Thor. They have a big helmet like that and it's a little cumbersome and the whole device costs about 50 K and you have to. You know it's kind of interesting but you can get these light therapy pads for about $2,000 of the ones that we know actually do what they say they're doing.

Speaker 2: 43:38

And initially the research, because what happens with the FDA, which is kind of creepy with this stuff, is that once you say you see the literature and you create a device, it's the same LED lights, blah, blah, blah Then they get the approval to actually say hey, it's doing all these things, but we don't know if it actually is unless there's been a peer reviewed study that's been done on that device as well, as there's a physicist report to know it's actually putting out the energy it says it is those jewels. So that focused energy, because a lot of these devices aren't doing anything, and initially we knew that only 30% on the market are doing what they say they are. But it's becoming a flooded market so now we only know 10% is doing what it says it's going to do. So it's really important to get a classification of a real medical device, because you're just wasting your money and you're just putting EMFs on yourself and you're not actually getting the benefits of it.

Speaker 2: 44:23

So the red light neophred is amazing and that's. And then the green light it's really good for release. It puts like the red light. It punctures holes in the adipose cell and so that the lipids dump. And we know that with you know, adipose fat cell, that there's a lot of toxins in there too. So that's why I'm constantly putting them on my body to help my body, because detoxing is like the fountain of youth right To get all these chemicals out of our system and allow for more, a higher level of photon communication and functioning.

Speaker 2: 44:55

But, um, so the green light does it at a greater rate. So then the red light so that's like, oh, okay, so amazing stuff. Uh, there's actually a sports recovery study too. I think it's from 27, uh, 2017, where Hamlin took volleyball players and by putting it on the spine, which then travels the meridian channels to all the extremities. So putting putting it on the spine, which then travels the meridian channels to all the extremities, so putting a pad on the spine, um it's allows for a quicker recovery time up to 50% within the two hours of playing or, uh, the two hours of putting it on the body prior. So this stuff is like to me, it was magic when I saw it first.

Speaker 1: 45:31

You know like it'll heal a bone 50% quicker, for God's sakes you know what's the duration like that this one you're referring to when they put it on the spine. How long are they putting it on? Is it once, is it?

Speaker 2: 45:42

so daily or the dosing has been the big thing. So you will see old literature, current literature. You will only benefit from how much your body needs, just like the sun. You're not going to go out there and overproduce vitamin D. You're not going to get toxic in vitamin D. We used to think, okay, at 20 minutes you can't do any more. So it's kind of still the gold standard where a lot of these devices are set at 20 minutes, right, but we know now that within seconds it can increase that biophoton communication. And that was you know.

Speaker 2: 46:18

I finally got to take a training with James Carroll because I've done multiple trainings on it. I'm a certified light therapist. I have malpractice for it. It's kind of funny. But it's like he was going, yeah, and someone said, well, why is it calibrated at like five minutes for each one of the points? Because we had this whole treatment books with all this oh, how you treat sciatica, how you treat this, how many sessions, what time. And he's like well, we just didn't know what we know. Now we know that it could be 30 seconds of putting it on the spine. So it's really dependent on the individual. And we know like cause, the Thor has a big laser bed and I mean they're like astronomically expensive.

Speaker 2: 46:47

So you're really high level athletes have one. You know Tony Robbins has one. I mean like these guys who know all this stuff. But the thing about the laser beds is it's like a tanning salon, so the EMFs are so much that it could be countering the positive effects. So I like the light therapy pads and putting them on you, because we know there's just not a huge electric output with them. So it's you know. So you're going to see all this stuff popping up everywhere. It's becoming really mainstream. My stuff was actually a couple of my clients. She's a very, very talented medical writer. It's healing with red light therapy. So she interviewed James Carroll and and Homblin and all of the kind of leaders with doing this work. But she did an amazing job on so many different issues right, so like psoriasis Healing with red light therapy.

Speaker 3: 47:34

I'm just going to write that down Good.

Speaker 2: 47:36

It's an excellent book.

Speaker 2: 47:37

You know, I know that David Asprey talks about it and some of those things, but it's, you know, like this, she's a medical writer and so she really did some good research for it. And that's always like consider your source. When you're looking at some of these books written by these biohackers, you're just kind of like yeah, yeah, so really cool stuff, also with fertility. So we have a huge issue with fertility right now, and so they have found that of like nearly 300 subjects in Japan, because that's where some of the fertility issues are the worst. So we're kind of looking at radiation and all the things that are going on there, because they have pretty clean diets. They've got a lot of food that we eat here. So, of these nearly 300 individuals who've been determined infertile, of females, uh, over half of them became fertile from putting the near infrared on the ovaries and increasing mitochondrial functioning of those eggs. And then, with men, they found one red light session on the testicles will increase their sperm output and quality.

Speaker 1: 48:37

Tony, this is a study that needs to be done. However, I will not be collecting data.

Speaker 2: 48:43

Well, but infertility, I mean it's just devastating. And then we even know now they're talking about when it comes to miscarriages and individuals trying a lot of it is the non-healthy sperm too. We used to just always of it is the non-healthy sperm too. We used to just always think it was the eggs, it was the woman. It's like now they're saying 75% of the time it's unhealthy sperm and so it's really cleaning up your system. But I mean this is amazing. You don't need to get an egg donor and do all those things potentially.

Speaker 2: 49:10

So really cool stuff is coming down the pipeline with this light therapy. And so really cool stuff is coming down the pipeline with this light therapy. It's. And then also the pain signal. So james carroll and if you look that up on youtube, he went in front of congress with some other high-level doctors right before covid happened and saying, hey, we don't need opioids because you can dose the light therapy and stop the pain signal every three hours, just the same as taking opioids. So he was saying hey, I'm pleading with you to implement this in and stop giving out opioids, because opioids don't really stop the pain signal and they don't put the body out of trauma, because that pain signal is causing trauma. I don't care if, within the mind, we're attaching to those the opioids with our opioid receptors. The body's still in a lot of shock and so by doing this you're stopping the shock. You're actually, you know, systemically healing someone from the pain. You're helping them heal. It's really cool stuff, but yeah all this stuff's out there.

Speaker 3: 50:03

Yeah, really, one would never have been able to predict earlier that. I guess obviously the different wavelengths, right of these lights are going to impact the body differently. And question two, um page you were talking about. So there's. So the red light to the, the um was kind of a pad that you're saying using. So that is that, that direct light. Despite the fact that the skull may be there, it's still. There's still going to be penetration and those effects are still going to occur. It doesn't have to go through like the photoreceptors of the eye. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 50:36

Nope, wow, in the photoreceptors of the eye. That's another intervention, right? So yeah, looking at the blue light can help heal the recovery of the concussions.

Speaker 3: 50:46

The green light looking at green light, can help with migraines, that's a different mechanism, different, but it's amazing that direct applications of these lights can have such benefit.

Speaker 2: 50:58

You, you would, yeah, I know, and we we used to think it didn't go through the skull and the hair. So the the foundational protocol was brain stem for five minutes, one ear for five minutes, up the nose. Five minutes, one ear for five minutes, right, 20 minutes, and so I have little extensions. I was that's what I was doing with my athletes clinically back in the day, but now we know you can just put it on them. Very cool yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:20

The other thing, oh sorry. Oh, this is really cool. So Homblin's current research is putting the neurophoretic on the sternum and the shins, because that's where our most stem cells are produced, and so you're modulating the stem cells and they're going where they need to go. So he's not even putting it on the brain and doing some of these things anymore. It's amazing, and the you know benchmark study of that was they took a wrap, opened up his chest, scratched up his heart, which you know cardiac tissue is.

Speaker 2: 51:47

It's so fragile right, you know you can cut off your finger and put it in the freezer for a month and then put it back on Right. Um, not with cardiac tissue, and that's why so many people die of heart attacks Um, but nonetheless. Uh, they did the shins and the sternum of this rat and opened back up the heart, and the heart had completely healed.

Speaker 1: 52:04

I'm like, oh, yeah, you know it's and we're a little, we're almost out of time, but I think what's interesting about this? I just pulled this up because there's so much data on it Photo biomodulation. This is a 2018 study published in lasers and medical science. Photo biomodulation at 904 nanometers was effective in reducing fatigue levels and increasing muscle performance in young, active women, and obviously there's many wave here.

Speaker 1: 52:31

Here's the challenge what wavelength do you choose? I mean, I, this one is at 904. I I actually read one earlier at like 850 had no effect, so I'm thinking, okay, there are literally. I mean, how many wavelengths could you possibly look at? Tony? And this is simple stuff because it's non-invasive if you could get someone athletes understand recovery of muscle. They may not get this stuff in the brain, but they're like, oh, my muscles recover, I understand that stuff. This would be and again, trying to figure out the details of it this would be a great non-invasive way to promote recovery. Absolutely, tony. We just need the equipment. We can do this study easily. Oh, absolutely, yeah, we do need the equipment.

Speaker 3: 53:12

We can do the study easily oh, absolutely yeah, we do need the equipment, but we're going to rely on your counsel as to what we, what would be seriously, what might be the best equipment. But it would be a fascinating study for sure. I know they're they're they're undergoing right now, but you've I think you've excited us on all of this work yeah, this is cool.

Speaker 1: 53:30

this is super cool stuff. Um page. Uh, you, I want to be respectful of your time. Could you tell the audience where, if you're going to give any talks, or where they need to find you if they want more information on this? Because this is Tony is more familiar with this stuff than I am, but, yeah, anything that helps exercise or athletic performance, I'm a fan, so so where can people find you?

Speaker 2: 53:54

Well, I have my basic website at robertsneurotrainingcom and then I am on all the socials at sports psych page. So insta, youtube, all those good things, and is that on instagram too?

Speaker 1: 54:06

actually, yes, okay, I'm looking right now sports page yeah, tiktok all the things you know hey, if you're, you know what, if you're ever on the east coast, well, florida, specifically, because we're in south florida, let us know. I think, uh, um, it'd be fun conversation to have, because these kinds of things that are sort of not, this isn't taught traditionally in exercise and sports science, because it's just not so. When you see sort of these different modalities that can promote recovery and enhance performance, I'm like, hey, I'm a big fan. Anything that helps, I'm a big fan. So absolutely.

Speaker 1: 54:43

Tony, any final words for Paige?

Speaker 3: 54:45

No, I think other than this is. I mean, I'm glad that we've had the opportunity to speak to you because it's new information to many, but it's it. I think it opens up the mind to the entire field of sport, neuroscience and exercise, physiology and recovery. On investigating these modalities further, you know they, at first glance it's just like I don't see how that could work. I'm not talking about me. I I'm about I have buy-in. I don't see how that could work. I'm not talking about me, I have buy-in. But I'm excited that we spoke to you and that we can get this out to more people and have them follow you and further understand. There's some really neat things going on and we got to look into them further.

Speaker 1: 55:25

Yeah, very good. Well, dr Paige Roberts, we appreciate your time. You are an official sports science dude so hopefully, if you're on our side or if we're on the west coast, we'll have to link up. But uh, again thanks for being on the show and we'll have this posted, usually within 24 to 48 hours. So, um, enjoy the rest of your day and we appreciate you coming on sports science yeah, thank you again.

Speaker 3: 55:49

This was great. Well, thank you guys.