Your Body Knows Before Your Brain | Ep 6

About the GuestRyan Williamson is a board-certified neurologist, proud Navy veteran, and the owner and founder of Transcend Health. He empowers leaders and individuals to optimize their cognitive performance through evidence-based strategies that address brain fog, improve memory, and overcome cognitive overload. He is the author of The Incredible Brain — a bestselling guide to living a longer, healthier, more impactful life through neuroscience. Ryan also hosts a free Brain Foundation course through his private Facebook community. Find him at transcendhealthgroup.com.Episode SummaryIn this science-rich and surprisingly personal conversation, Jen Aks sits down with board-certified neurologist Ryan Williamson to explore what is actually happening in the brain when we access — or suppress — our inner wisdom. Ryan opens with a Cold Open confession: he spent years pursuing degree after degree, certification after certification, trying to fix a deep-rooted belief that he was never good enough — only to discover through a failing marriage and couples therapy that happiness comes from within. He then breaks down the neuroscience behind explicit and implicit memory, the limbic system, neuroplasticity, the basal ganglia, the cerebellum, and EMDR — and explains precisely why practices like meditation, breath work, resistance training, and the power of gesture are not woo-woo but scientifically essential. This is the episode where bodyset gets a brain scan.What You’ll Learn• The two main types of memory — explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) — and why most of us only know how to access one of them• Why Ryan spent years collecting degrees, certifications, and awards to fix a limiting belief that none of them could touch• What happened in couples therapy that flipped his entire worldview: ‘Guess what, Ryan? You’re the problem.’• How unprocessed stress and trauma physically raise your blood pressure and disrupt your sleep — even when you don’t feel stressed• Why the modern world is not congruent with our biology — and what the 50% and 75% chronic stress statistics actually mean• What the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex does in plain English — and why activating it is the antidote to constant reactivity• Why the power of gesture connects unconscious emotional memories to conscious ones — validated by a neurologist in real time• What EMDR is, how it works, and why it may share the same brain networks as gesture-based healing• The bidirectional relationship between mindset and bodyset — and the neuroanatomy that proves it• Why memories are stored in the cerebellum — and why that was not taught in medical school even a decade ago• What myokines are, how resistance training sends chemical signals to the brain, and why movement is medicine for neuroplasticity• What the BRAIN protocol acronym stands for — and how to access it for freeKey Concepts Introduced• Explicit Memory (Conscious) — facts, education, learned knowledge stored in the cortex; what we commonly think of as ‘knowing’• Implicit Memory (Unconscious) — emotional and motor memories stored in the limbic system, basal ganglia, and cerebellum; where the body’s wisdom lives• The Limbic System — the emotional brain; home of deeper unconscious memories and fear centers that can hijack our responses• Neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to rewire and change its structure in response to what we practice, consume, and experience• Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex — the higher-order brain region behind the forehead; activated by meditation, breath work, and exercise to maintain control under stress• The Basal Ganglia & Cerebellum — deep brain structures storing movement-related memories; the neurological basis for why bodily practices create lasting change• Myokines — sign