What A Day! The Top 8 Take-Aways From revitalize 2018 Main Stage

Needless to say, we learned a lot. And we couldn't wait to share our newfound knowledge with all of you. Here are the biggest take-aways from the mbg revitalize 2018 main stage. Sign up here to be the first to see the FREE full-length videos!

Brain games like crossword puzzles and Sudoku get a lot of credit for keeping our brains engaged, but nothing will ever compare to having meaningful interactions with other people and a sense of purpose in life. According to Dr. Dean and Dr. Ayesha Sherzai—the married directors of the Alzheimer's Prevention Program at Loma Linda University Medical Center and authors of The Alzheimer's Solution, who were first to take the stage this year—research shows that while nutrition is extremely important when it comes to the health of our brain, the data shows that a purpose-driven life is imperative for wellbeing. It drives how we eat and what we do and how we think. The take-home? The most important thing for brain health isn't necessarily your job or IQ or what you eat; it's your level of mental activity, and nothing determines that more than the people you surround yourself with and how often you set goals and work toward them.

The mitochondria are small energy centers inside our cells that are responsible for converting the energy from our food into energy in our body. Unfortunately, they are damaged by free radical production and subsequent oxidative stress, which can lead to symptoms like chronic fatigue and anxiety. Dr. Robert Rountree, a family medicine physician; author; and expert in nutrition, medical herbology, and mind-body therapy, explained that when it comes to free radicals, environmental toxins are the worst. This isn't something spoken about a lot in mainstream medicine, but BPA, arsenic, lead, and mercury are just some of the 80,000-plus chemicals registered in the United States, and many of them are burdening our mitochondria, contributing to stress and fatigue.

When it comes to being a conscious consumer, it's important now to think about where companies are getting their water and how sustainable they are. A lot of companies are starting to become more transparent and conscious about how they are using water. There are half a million people without clean water in California. A huge water crisis is occurring right under our noses, according to Christy Zenner, Ph.D., a professor at Fordham and author of Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis, and Anecita Agustinez, a tribal policy adviser for the California Department of Water Resources who has been named one of the nine experts to watch on California water policy.

Anxiety, fibromyalgia, and IBS; these are just a few conditions on a growing list of disorders characterized by hyper-irritability of the nervous system. According to Dr. Robert Rountree, research is showing that CBD, specifically, can be extremely beneficial for these disorders.

The answer? Regenerative agriculture and doing what we do best as humans: taking care of one another. We can start by eating a wider variety of foods to restore the biodiversity of the soil and promote remineralization. "Hunters and gatherers used to eat about 10,000 different things every year, and nowadays, we eat about 10," explained Hawken. We can also focus on limiting chemicals like glyphosate, which is the biggest killer of biodiversity in the world.

If you think you're doing more than one thing at the same time, you're not. And when it comes to the health of your brain, it's one of the worst things you can do. Especially when it comes to Alzheimer's and dementia. With those conditions, you can't get from A to Z while you're doing an activity. So constantly being distracted and never really digging in to a task is a big no-no because focus is at the center of cognitive development. The good news? According to the Sherzais, you can develop focus at any age, and that gives you a LOT of power in the face of neurodegenerative diseases. How do you do it? Be present, and really try to go deep when you're completing a task to access every nook and cranny of your brain. When you multitask, you're only skimming the surface.

Can you imagine what the world looks like from space? Ron Garan can. He's a retired NASA astronaut who has traveled over 71 million miles during more than 178 days in space. When he took to the main stage, we were hanging on every word as he described seeing the earth's constant dance of colors and light and motion from so far away. "The world looks really fragile but also indescribably beautiful. When I looked out the window from space, I didn't see the economy; I saw a luminescent biosphere teeming with life. And he realized that we are all living in a lie." What does he mean by that? So often we think that the health of the planet is something that exists within the larger context of the economy, when really it's the opposite. So how do we become more present? According to Garan, "Treat every moment of your life as a continuous thread from your complete past to your complete future with this inflection point, the present." Fixing the planet isn't a pipe dream; it's a requirement.

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