The Complexities & Commonality of Brain Inflammation and How to BioHack Ourselves to Adapt
- Oct 8, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Jan 21
Honor Tremain is an award-winning longevity nutritionist, author, and journalist whose journey into nutrition began with a personal health crisis. Determined to reclaim her life, she completed qualifications in nutrition, eventually healing herself and going on to complete a Bachelor of Science degree.
Brain inflammation is more common than most realise, and it’s silently linked to anxiety, depression, fatigue, and even Alzheimer’s disease. In this article, Honor Tremain explores the hidden drivers of neuro-inflammation and shares insights from Dr. Marc Cohen on how nutrition, resilience, mindset, and simple biohacks can help us adapt, heal, and rewire our brains for better health.
Introduction: The hidden fire in our brains
Have you ever felt like your brain shuts down when you’re worried or afraid? Like the lights are on, but no one’s home? That foggy state where your thoughts are scrambled, your memory slips, and you’re frozen? That’s not just stress, that’s brain inflammation.
Medical researchers now recognise brain inflammation as a bigger problem than merely a lack of focus, it’s connected to anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, and a contributing cause to one of our greatest killers, Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s Disease Study
Luckily, each day our brains are trying to regenerate themselves by growing new neurons (a process called neurogenesis), rewiring old neural paths & finding new, healthier ones while even healing damaged areas. But the problem is inflammation prevents all of this. When the brain is inflamed, cells malfunction and degeneration begins, leading to disorder and disease.
The most surprising part? Our biggest drivers of brain inflammation are not exotic or even uncommon; they’re everyday habits, foods, and environments we’ve normalised.
5 causes of brain inflammation
1. The inflammatory diet
Nutrition is one of our most powerful determinants for brain health, and equally the most common saboteur. A diet high in processed foods, poor-quality oils, excessive sugar/ sweeteners, low antioxidants and fibre, sets the stage for neuro-inflammation:
Processed foods: Most packaged foods are the brutal combo of calorie-dense & nutrient-poor, with chemical preservatives, additives, and flavours that trigger more oxidative stress; negatively impacting body and brain.
Sugar: Excess glucose, sugars, and sweeteners damage neurons and their connections and are heavily linked to Alzheimer’s disease, AKA Type 3 Diabetes. Sugar & Alzheimer’s Study
Nutrient deficiencies: 80% of the world is Omega-3 deficient, and magnesium, B vitamins, and antioxidants are falling below acceptable standards too. These nutrients support membrane fluidity, mitochondrial function, and detoxification within the brain.
Water quality: We’re roughly 70% water, and the quality we drink matters. Pollutants like chlorine and heavy metals add a toxic load, harming our valuable microbiome, disrupting brain communication.
The second brain: Your microbiome, is one of the most critical links to brain inflammation. The collection of alien species that inhabit your gut (bacteria, viruses, and fungi=microbiome) regularly communicates with your brain via neurotransmitters, and controls immune responses, which influence inflammation. A gut that has only low-fibre, low-nutrient, low-antioxidant foods provided will provide the perfect environment for bad bacteria to flourish and negatively impact brain chemistry, cognition, and mood.
In essence, every bite and sip we choose to put into our bodies either stimulates brain regeneration or brain inflammation.
2. Poor sleep
Sleep isn’t just “rest time,” it’s brain and body reset time. During good sleep, the glymphatic system clears toxins, metabolic waste, and damaged proteins like beta-amyloids (implicated in Alzheimer’s disease). When sleep is disrupted, these toxins build up and remain within cells, inflammatory markers skyrocket & we start operating dysfunctionally (and hungrily).
Hormonal impact: Sleep deprivation alters our hormones melatonin, orexin, ghrelin, and leptin, which disrupt hunger, satiety, and mood. Less sleep increases ghrelin, our hunger hormone, and decreases leptin, our satiety hormone, making us crave sugary, inflammatory foods.
Inflammatory cascade: Poor sleep raises pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, TNF-α, CRP), accelerates oxidative cellular stress (aging of cells), and dysregulates the entire immune system, setting up a cascade of inflammation.
In short, sleep is one of our cheapest, most potent anti-inflammatory medicines available, and one of the most overlooked.
3. Chronic stress
When fear and anxiety are the norm; stress hormones like cortisol remain chronically elevated, inflammation surges, neurons shrink, and the hippocampus (the area of our brain for memory) takes a big hit.
Common causes of chronic stress:
Emotional stress: Grief, past trauma, toxic relationships, chronic overwork.
Mindset stress: The stories we tell ourselves, living from fear/worry rather than freedom and trust, negative perspectives, self-criticism, catastrophising, too much focus on our perceived problems, pessimism, glass-half-empty mentality.
Biological pathway: The immune system communicates directly with the brain through cytokines. Prolonged stress changes this balance, setting up inflammation within the nervous system and certain organs, including the brain.
4. Body-wide inflammation
Brain inflammation is rarely isolated. Autoimmune conditions, chronic pain, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease all generate systemic inflammation. Markers like IL-6, CRP, and TNF-α travel through the bloodstream, crossing into the brain and accelerating neuro-decline via inflammation and vice versus.
5. Not enough real stress
It sounds crazy, but it’s true, many of us aren’t stressed adequately, and we’re living in a comfort crisis that’s fuelling illness. Instead of experiencing real challenges that force your brain and body to level-up and adapt, many of us opt to numb out from the ‘un-real’ stress inside our own heads; staying in the luxury of a comfort bubble; doom scrolling socials, streaming shows, UberEATS on the way and “just chillin.”
But too long in a comfort zone is dangerous for you and your brain; idle glucose and sugars in the bloodstream accumulate from inactivity and overeating, leading to neurotoxicity, anxiety, and depression, and our underactive cells adopt our own stance of laziness and haphazardly misfold damaged proteins within themselves, instead of clearing them out, leading to brain degeneration.
But science has discovered something interesting, placing yourself under “good stress” physically and mentally helps you to become happier and more relaxed.
“Only by meeting your ‘edge’ paradoxically, can you truly find the deepest growth, relaxation, and stillness.” Says Professor Marc Cohen, medical doctor, professor, engineer, and pioneer of what he calls” Ancient-Future Medicine”.
Interview feature: Dr. Marc Cohen on inflammation, resilience & ancient-future medicine
To continue unpacking the complexities of our brain and how to rewire ourselves to optimal health, I spoke with Dr. Marc Cohen, Medical Doctor, University Professor, Engineer, and Pioneer of “Ancient-Future Medicine”. With multiple doctorates, PhD, and decades of merging science, Chinese medicine, and lifestyle practices together, Cohen is on a mission to create a “Culture of Wellness” that he believes can be more contagious than disease.
Wellness culture
“Wellness can easily be more contagious than illness. The practices I teach don’t require high cost or advanced training. They’re simple, shareable, and most importantly, transformative for your body and mind.”
From navigating extremes to mindset to biohacking, let’s take a deeper look at what works:
Extremes build resilience
Did you know exerting extremes on your body, like saunas followed by a cold plunge, creates resilience and lowers inflammation. But how?
“Pushing to the very edges of your limits teaches you to define and experience the middle point of homeostasis, that bliss point of stillness, which gives you the greatest resilience and flexibility to handle the world.” Says Cohen.
But to experience the stillness requires preparation.
“The first step to stillness is to push yourself to the very limits of your capacity and learn to relax there. This can be achieved through varying practices and activities like alternating hot saunas followed by cold plunge or ice baths, or deep breathing followed by holding the breath, or remaining in a difficult yoga pose and softening into it.
At your edge, your brain switches off, and you learn resilience. True peace only comes after struggle. Nature is structured that way; it’s the Hero’s Journey; the reward always follows the effort it took to earn it.” Cohen explains.
On mindset & fun
“Fun, gratitude, play, and challenge are hardwired tools for resilience and massively underrated as immune boosting, mental building, inflammatory-lowering health strategies, while fear is hugely underestimated as crippling wellbeing, mental state, and immunity. Interestingly, fun is often reached when facing fear and learning to adapt and expand through it.
So, avoiding risk may keep us ‘comfortable’, but unwell. While good stress, interestingly, is a requirement for our best health.”
5 ways to bio-hack the brain to better health
1. Anti-inflammatory nutrition
Stick to a base of wholefoods, 5-7 different fresh seasonal veggies a day, 2 x fresh fruits a day, a mix of varying herbs & spices, seaweeds, wholegrains, legumes, and clean proteins.
Aim to increase your Omega-3 fatty acids from fresh fish (sardines, salmon, anchovies, mackerel, etc), flaxseed/Chia seeds and their oils, and microalgae like nannochloropsis oceanica.
“Our biggest interface with the universe is not the brain but our skin and gastrointestinal tract. Both are policed by the microbiome. Pollutants like chlorine, PFCs, and toxins damage these barriers, altering the microbes that regulate immunity and inflammation. While high fibre, prebiotic and fermented foods strengthen them.” Says Dr. Cohen.
Kimchi, organic miso paste, sauerkraut, natural yogurts, organic tempeh & kombucha are great fermented food options for the microbiome.
Boost antioxidants from colourful plant foods like; well rinsed (with water & vinegar) blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, spices like turmeric/curcumin, saffron, clove, nutmeg, mace, ginger, and herbs like rosemary, oregano, thyme, and marjoram are particularly strong; See Top Antioxidant Foods study Organic green and/or black tea, organic medium/dark roasted handmade coffee, oak aged red wines & 70% and over dark chocolate are also wonderful additions on occasion.
2. Sleep hygiene
Have a consistent bedtime & wake time.
Reduce blue light/screen time 2 hours before sleep.
Slow, deep breathwork or meditation for parasympathetic (sleepy) activation.
Magnesium and herbal sleep teas (chamomile, passionflower, valerian) can be useful as gentle aids.
3. Resilience training
Heat (saunas) + cold (ice baths) to reboot immune signalling & build resilience & stillness.
Fasting cycles (12 hours fasting each night) to allow cleaning of damaged cells (autophagy).
Breathwork to balance oxygen and CO₂.
Intense exercise: not just movement, but occasionally pushing into that limit of uncomfortability and relaxing there.
4. Mindset medicine
Fun, gratitude journaling to reset fear into opportunity.
Play, laughter, and learning are anti-inflammatory “neuro-hacks.”
First aid for fear, anxiety, or pain: Ten mini-hacks to instantly relax:
Touch all your fingers
Wriggle your toes
Soften your stomach
Breathe through your nose
Sigh
Smile
Swallow
Sing
Flutter your eyelids
Focus within
5. Active cognitive stimulation
Build your brain through regular puzzles, crosswords, riddles, and brain-training apps.
Learning new skills such as languages, music, and crafts.
Social connections are a big protective factor for long-term brain health.
Conclusion: From fire to flow
Brain inflammation is both complex and common, touching nearly every modern life. But it’s preventable and in many cases reversible. By addressing the simple, daily drivers, diet, sleep, stress, resilience, and mindset, we can not only prevent neurodegeneration & disease but also actively rewire ourselves for brain regeneration.
The paradox is striking, comfort makes us weak, while challenge makes us resilient. As Dr. Marc Cohen emphasises, “The greatest movement into life comes from the stillest point.” But to reach that stillness, we must dare to meet the very edges of our own capacity and endurance.
In a world of rising dementia, anxiety, and mental fatigue, perhaps the most radical prescription is also the oldest, eat whole foods, stress yourself wisely, play, laugh, rest deeply, and stay open to life, the universe, to extremes, and the stillness in the middle of it all.
Find more:
Nutrition appointments and books by Honor.
Award-winning eco-conscious pet food: (10% off with code: BRAINZMAGAZINEDAYA10)
Find Dr. Marc Cohen. His book: The Beautiful Mare and Maruia Hot Springs Retreat
Read more from Honor Tremain
Honor Tremain, Nutritionist, Author, and Journalist
Honor Tremain is an award-winning longevity nutritionist, author, and journalist whose journey into health began with a personal crisis where, between the ages of 18 and 23, Honor was bedridden with multiple chronic illnesses & determined to reclaim her life, she completed a Diploma in Nutrition, eventually healing herself, and went on to complete a science degree. Honor opened a thriving nutrition practice in Sydney, Australia, became a columnist and feature journalist for national and international publications, and in 2015, Honor published her debut book, A Diet in Paradise. Most recently, she founded Daya Pet Food Co., a health-focused and sustainable dog food company that was proudly awarded Best Health-Conscious Dog Food Brand 2025.
