The Longevity Formula
Is there a secret formula to living a longer, healthier life?
The Longevity Formula offers a comprehensive approach to well-being, providing actionable insights and strategies to transform your life and achieve holistic health and longevity.
This formula encompassing faith, light, movement, mindset, nutrition, and science, serves as your roadmap towards your best self. This podcast is designed for those who are driven to optimize their lives through the dynamic fusion of science, technology, and lifestyle choices.
As a leading functional neurologist, Dr. Brandon Crawford shares his expertise in brain healing and optimization. With a proven track record of restoring functions lost to brain injuries and tackling complex neurological disorders, Dr. Crawford reveals the profound potential within us all.
Unlock your brain's potential and discover the secrets to a long and healthy life. Tune in every Friday for a new episode.
The Longevity Formula
Primitive Reflexes in Adults: Overlooked or Overhyped?
In this episode of the Longevity Formula podcast, Dr. Brandon Crawford welcomes Dr. Trevor Montgomery, a physical therapist working at the NeuroSolution Center of Austin. They discuss growing up in small-town Texas and delve into Dr. Montgomery's educational background, highlighting the rigorous training required to become a Doctor of Physical Therapy. Dr. Montgomery shares his experiences working in outpatient orthopedic and vestibular rehab, emphasizing the differences and advancements in functional neurology practices at the NeuroSolution Center.
They also discuss the significance of understanding patients' stories and beliefs to tailor effective treatments, as well as strategies for overcoming personal and professional barriers through physical activity and cold plunges. Additionally, Dr. Montgomery introduced a developmental tracker app he is co-developing with Dr. Cordell Miller and Dr. Michael Larson, which aims to identify and address childhood developmental delays early on. The episode underscores the importance of personalized patient care, interdisciplinary collaboration, and continuous self-improvement.
What You’ll Learn
- Dr. Trevor Montgomery shares his background growing up in small-town Texas and his journey to becoming a physical therapist who specializes in traditional PT and functional neurology.
- The conversation highlights the differences in therapeutic approaches between functional neurology and traditional physical therapy, particularly in treating neurological patients and conditions like scoliosis.
- Methods for overcoming social anxiety, emphasizing the importance of physical activity, pushing through mental barriers, and the potential benefits of cold plunging.
- 'Path Childhood Development' app: aimed at helping parents monitor their child's development and connect with appropriate healthcare providers to address any delays.
Products
- 528 Innovations Lasers
- NeuroSolution Full Spectrum CBD
- NeuroSolution Broad Spectrum CBD
- NeuroSolution StimPod
Learn More
For more information, resources, and podcast episodes, visit https://tinyurl.com/3ppwdfpm
Voice Over: Welcome to the longevity formula with Dr. Brandon Crawford. Let's explore the new era of wellness.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Everyone. Welcome back to the podcast today. We have one of my absolute favorite physical therapists. This is Dr. Trevor Montgomery. He is currently working with us in Austin at the neuro solution. Center of Austin.
And today we're going to really get into some very interesting topics. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation. So Trevor, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. So the first thing to get down to is you're another small town, Texas boy.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Oh, absolutely.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: So we got to talk with Dr. Cordell Miller, right? And so he was from Whitney, Texas, right? I'm from Clifton, Texas, 20 minutes down the road. You two are from Whitney, Texas. So Tell me about your take on growing up in small town, Texas
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: man, you know small town Texas is a great place to kind of grow up and you know, really kind of establish yourself as a person You know a lot of just good hometown values Family is very important.
Faith is a very important thing there. So, you know, you get exposed to all that sort of stuff and it's just a nice, chill environment to kind of grow up in, so I prefer it over the busy city area, although I love it here in Austin, it can be a little chaotic sometimes, so.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's, that's one word to use.
Yeah. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's always interesting, you know, in, in small towns, it's like everyone knows everything about you. Mm hmm. I know that's how it was in Clifton, like you couldn't throw a rock across the street without five people hearing about it within ten seconds. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
It was pretty interesting, but so you're a physical therapist, and one thing I want you to kind of walk us through is the educational background because you're actually a doctorate, right? So you're a doctor of physical therapy. So can you walk us through what that looks like, please?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So from the very beginning, you've got to have a bachelor's degree in some sort of degree.
It doesn't really matter too much. I got mine in kinesiology. And Texas A& M Commerce and then PT school itself is a three year program with didactica and clinical work. So, you go through all kinds of things, neuroscience, gross anatomy, cardiopulmonary education and, you know, the PT profession is, you know, a doctorate level profession.
So, you're seeing patients right after surgeries, right after major accidents. So, it requires a lot of education. And also, you're seeing people right off the street. Coming in, just seeing you for the first time, that's kind of the purpose of being a doctorate program is that you can see people are off the street.
So you have to be able to differential diagnose and also refer them to the correct providers.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Absolutely. So it's
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: a, it's a high level field. Absolutely.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: What was your favorite class going to school? High school.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So, I'll I'll split it between two because I liked them both pretty equally but orthopedic and neuroscience.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Absolutely.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: I know we were just talking about gross anatomy so that's where you actually dissect the human body, right? And so we got that. Physical therapy gets that. So how was that for you guys? Was that, was that fun? Was that gross? Was that, what was it like?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Oh man, you know, it's pretty jarring when you first walk in there.
So how we had it done was we had two separate lab groups. One day one group would dissect and then you would come in and walk, like, look at what they dissected and kind of check it out. So I started on the back end of it. I came in after they had already kind of been dissecting it. But yeah, it's very jarring when you first walk in because it's like the realization like, oh man, this is a body right here.
Yeah. This was a person at one point. And you know, beyond that though, you kind of get used to that and then it just becomes getting down to work and it really becomes super interesting to kind of really dive into what a body actually looks like on the inside. Pictures can only tell you so much. Yeah, you really get a great idea of what all the different layers of muscle Fascia tissue nerves and where it all kind of intertwines and connects.
It's not so Neat and cut and dry as pictures
Dr. Brandon Crawford: make it look it's all gray.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Oh, yeah. No, absolutely It's hard to identify those. That was
Dr. Brandon Crawford: interesting. I knew we so we had a A really robust gross anatomy program at Parker University was amazing. We did that for a full year. I mean, we, we got to dissect every square centimeter of, it was, it was amazing at the same time.
Kind of, I'm actually really chemically sensitive. I know it sounds weird, but I would have nosebleeds that entire year because of the chemicals that they used. Preserve the bodies and everything. That was interesting. But invaluable. I mean, it was, it was so bad. I don't think invaluable is the right word.
It was extremely valuable. To be able to see like real human tissue and like how it interacts with, you know, so you can actually see this stuff when you're working with someone very important. So prior to coming here What exactly were you doing?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So I was working at an outpatient orthopedic clinic in Louisville, Texas.
So a little bit outpatient orthopedic, but also we did vestibular rehab there. So seeing patients post surgery, low back pain patients patients that had experienced falls all kinds of different vestibular issues, you know, your BPPVs your central disorders, all that kind of stuff, so.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: I really got a, kind of a full spectrum of life experiences when I started there.
Kind of established myself as a physical therapist, but it was definitely looking for the next step and more more education beyond that.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Do you think you went the next step by coming here?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Oh, absolutely. 100%. We're at the pinnacle, I would say.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Fantastic. I would hope you would say that since I'm sitting right next to you.
Right. No. So can you kind of contrast a little bit about what you're doing? And I love PT. Like, I think you get an amazing education. I've worked with several physical therapists in my career but can you kind of contrast like what we do here versus your traditional PT approach?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So PT is very exercise based at its core.
You know, there are some uses of like passive modalities and things, but they're not really talked about in the way that we talk about them here. We're really focused on the sensory systems here and really driving a sensory input in order to improve motor outputs, which I. You know, kind of figured going through when I was like working with these patients, I'm like, man, this is important.
I can remember a specific stroke patient that we had that was six months out of a stroke and he, you know, traditional PT says those impairments are set in you're not going to make that many changes beyond that point. So he had the classic contracture right here but I had been talking to Dr.
Cordell Miller about what you guys do here. He didn't give me the full story, but he did tell me, Hey, we use like vibration and stuff and it really helps with muscle tone. So I just started taking a vibration tool and literally applying it to his triceps every single treatment. After about four weeks of that, I noticed he was all the way down here.
He didn't, no longer had that just resting tone there and he could like let that arm relax. Yeah. So, absolutely. It you know, it kind of highlighted to me that there's more to this than what my education to this point had told me about and of course, coming here, we use all kinds of different sensory modalities and we really value that and I think it is a real value in the rehab Process for neurological patients, but also your general low back pain patients and really everybody.
I mean sensory is
Dr. Brandon Crawford: huge. Absolutely. When when I'm lecturing and everything I always tell people sensory drives motor, right? And it's really just based on how we develop, you know how a baby is designed to develop and how we're supposed to develop our brain from the bottom up and You know, we, we have to make sure that those sensory systems are integrated.
Right. And then that leads into our primitive reflexes, right? Did y'all get a primitive reflex?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So we had a pediatric class and we talked about primitive reflexes, but what I remember from it was, is okay, these primitive reflexes might be there. But there wasn't really too much talk about, okay, we can actually integrate these in a meaningful way.
They're like, Sometimes these things just continue to persist and it's just something that's there almost. Yeah, so that was my exposure to it. So I was exposed, which was really nice coming in here. It's like, okay, I remember this now, now I can actually utilize that information to help people heal.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, it's interesting, you know, because, you know, it's not just the PT field, even Pediatricians like I remember having a conversation with a pediatrician and you know, the conversation, I don't remember exactly how it went, but it was something along the lines of, Hey, do you check primitive reflexes in kids over a year old?
And he said, no, and I said, well, why not? He said, well, because they're not there. And I said, well, but what if they are? Right. And he was like, well, what do you mean? I'm like, well, what if they are still there? Right? And he's like, well, why would I check them? They're not good. They're not supposed to be there.
I'm like, but they could still be there, right? It's this whole concept. It's like. Whoa. Like this is completely missed. Yeah. In so many different professions. You know, pediatricians, neurologists, unfortunately, like there I was actually, I spent the weekend in California. I got to hang out with some pretty intelligent people.
One of them was a neurologist. Mm-Hmm. . And this is a highly, I mean, it was a Harvard grad, right? He, someone that was, you know, very respectable. And same thing, you know, she was like, well, why would I check primitive reflexes in a kid older than one or two years old? There's no reason they're not there.
And I'm like, but, but what if they are?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: No, absolutely.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: We see adults with them. Exactly. Exactly. And the interesting thing is. That's a sensory motor roadmap, you know,
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: absolutely.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: I mean, it's beautiful because it's literally the brain screaming. Hey Stimulate here and you're going to help me grow my networks and my neurons.
My brain
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: right
Dr. Brandon Crawford: is beautiful how we're all connected like that You know,
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: absolutely
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Well, what about so I love vestibular therapy, right? So is there a major difference in how we approach vestibular care in functional neurology versus? You Physical therapy.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Absolutely. 100%. You know, PT ends up getting pretty standardized as far as rehab structure and how they go about things.
So it's pretty set that you just do your standard VOR. Up and down, but one big difference that I noticed here was we actually look at the canals and see which canal is most affected and then train those canals in order to more specifically treat the vestibular disorder. If those listening don't know what we're talking about, we have this structure on our inner ear.
And it's these different canals in our vestibular system that tell us where our head is in space, but specifically in the anterior direction, horizontal direction, and posterior direction. And you can bias that out side to side as well.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Right.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: And that's such an important piece. You know, we talk about it as far as BPPV, which is, you know, when these little otoconior crystals get lodged in there and then you can reset them, but that's the only time that PTs ever really talk about.
Canals as far as my understanding of
Dr. Brandon Crawford: it. That BPPV is benign paroxysmal positional vertigo which you can do a Dix Hall Pike repositioning maneuver, and reposition those otoconia. We, we have other methods that we can do as well that we've gone through here. It gets quite interesting. So, so we have a patient coming in right now.
It is just top of mind. And she has a, a pretty severe spinal curve, right? And so last week you know, we, we evaluated her The other thing I love about what we do here is it's a team approach and we saw this vestibular imbalance in her. Right?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Absolutely. I
Dr. Brandon Crawford: believe she had a more dominant or pronounced.
Left vestibular response. So, so the vestibular system is kind of like a seesaw, you know, so if the left side of the vestibular system is firing too high, the right side is firing too low. And there's so many different ramifications that can come from that. Right. One thing to point to and in reference to this case is the vestibular spinal pathway, right?
So that vestibular system fires down to the spinal muscles. So this girl has this. pretty major spinal
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: curvature.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: And we started doing cold calorics, right?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Right. Absolutely.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: So what did we see from that?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So from that, so what cold calorics are supposed to do is balance out those, that vestibular side, right?
So you put the cold water in one side, down regulates that side up, regulates the other side. And then you see, you know, kind of this sequela of muscle tone balance that happens from that. So when you're doing the maneuver, you'll also see that the nystagmus that you were seeing at rest going to the left actually starts to switch.
And then you see a big nystagmus the other way, letting you know that, okay, now we're starting to achieve balance here. And then what further lets you know is, you know, we're measuring autonomics and seeing. How that response balances out as well. Heart rate comes down, oxygen saturation goes up. Okay, good, we're on the right path.
And then, you know, we do some additional stuff, focusing on some canal work. That then even further straightens out that curve, and it's amazing to see. 100%. Like, you know, scoliosis gets talked about again in the PT world as this set thing. Right. And I've seen it change before my very eyes here, so it's, yeah,
Dr. Brandon Crawford: eye opening.
It is. It's quite amazing. You know, you have to be very certain about what, what you're looking at in front of you, because you could, you know, put the cold water in the wrong year and that person is not going to have a good time. So there's, you mentioned the nystagmus, which is that rapid eye movement.
So you'll have a fast phase. Nystagmus towards the dominant vestibular side. Right. So we had a fast, a left fast phase nystagmus in this patient. Which is what you're referencing. And I've seen so many people come in, especially in the brain injury world. They'll come in with this huge spinal curve.
They're bent over almost at like a 90 degree curve. We'll do this in the spine literally right before it's just straightens out. And that's what we're seeing in this girl is that we're seeing that spine straight now. It's, it's quite amazing to do that. So did, did y'all get any court background?
I'm just curious. I don't know.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Not at all. Actually, this was my first exposure to it. I literally, I mean, it may have been mentioned like one little sentence in a lecture at one point.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah,
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: but wasn't talked about as like a therapeutic tool
Dr. Brandon Crawford: to write right in and that was the same for us in Cairo school And in chiropractic it was not until I got into functional neurology that we you know, really thoroughly got into it And so it's not just PT.
It's like the majority of professions. It's like why teach them that but you know here We're using it pretty intimately. So
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: yeah, absolutely
Dr. Brandon Crawford: okay, so I know that you really like to converse with patients. You do a great job of establishing rapport. So many people come through here and they end up loving you.
You probably don't even hear this, but we, we, we get a lot of you know, people telling us how amazing Trevor is. And I was just talking with someone last week and I completely forgot who it was. But they were saying, man, Trevor does a great job of pretending like he's playing with my kid, but he's actually doing therapy.
And so the kid is like. Having fun and they're involved in all this kind of stuff but you're actually doing therapy with them. But you have this concept of like wanting to really understand. That patient's story, right? And their belief system and in really, you know, trying to meet them where they're at
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Can
Dr. Brandon Crawford: you kind of walk us through a little bit of that?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Yeah. No, absolutely You know Everything in therapy is very context dependent. You've got to apply treatments under the appropriate context meaning I've got to be able to sit there and ask a person a question and actually hear what they're telling me And hear their story and hear where they think that their issues are coming from.
Cause I may have a whole bunch of ideas in my head about like, Oh, okay. I think I know what's going on here and you're thinking this way. So I'm going to do this. But if I don't hear them where they're at and kind of approach them with like, okay, I understand this is what you're believing right now. And it's totally valid because that's your experience, right?
So just that process of talking to people, understanding where they're at and focusing where they want to focus, but also taking them to the next step of what might actually be, you know, a new barrier that they break through with treatment. Absolutely.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: I love how you just explained that because so many times I'll be, and it's usually talking with a parent, right?
Because. And I'm usually talking to the mom just to kind of break it down. And I'll, I will literally say, what do you think is going on? Right. Cause I want to hear what's going on in their head. Right. But I mean, you're, you're talking about way beyond that. You know, it makes me think of another patient.
We were doing our V cell procedure which is a regenerative medicine procedure. And, and we do mind body work with that. And. Of course, I'm, I'm faith based. I'm I'm a Christian. I've got, you know, crosses in my office and everything and this was I believe they were Muslim. I think the patient was And, and you could tell they were almost kind of like, I don't know, scared or, you know, something like that.
And Dr. Jerry and I, we were talking with them and said, okay, what, what kind of music do you want to play? And she said, well, I'd like to play this prayer. Right. And we were like, great, let's do it. And they were like, really? You'll let it. I'm like, yes, absolutely. Like, come on. We're going to meet you where you're at, like, let's go.
And it was cool. Like we did this, this Muslim prayer and played their song and all this kind of stuff. I know it's a little different than what you were talking about, but
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: I think it applies perfectly. Yeah, that's cool. Absolutely. You're
Dr. Brandon Crawford: right. I mean, you, you do really have to focus on the whole context of the situation and if you miss that.
Shame on you as a doctor, right? Because it can't just be a one way street.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Absolutely.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: So important. So how does that dovetail into a discussion of fear, right? Because that concept of fear is big. And I know it fits in here. So how does that kind of fit into patient care and like Really how you help lead a patient through this.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Yeah, no, absolutely. So again, patients are going to come in with their own beliefs about what's causing their issue. And in turn, that can lead to a fearful response to what may be potential triggers for them. So I can remember just in my, you know, old job PT world, I had a patient that had this hip pain.
And I would ask her, like we were working on stuff and she would feel pretty good during our treatments. And I would say, okay, you know, What is this pain flaring up for you? She's like, well, every time I go to the grocery store, I just, I mean, I can only walk for this amount of time, and then I've got to sit down with my pain.
I'm like, huh, I was like, does it happen any other time? She's like, I mean, you know, it comes and goes, but it really ramps up when I'm, Going into the grocery store. And I wish I would have been a little bit more seasoned at this point, cause I would have had a little bit better ability to kind of walk her through that at the time.
But it was something that was highlighted to me, like, man, this is a very particular trigger for her. It's going into the store. And kind of, unfortunately, but fortunately I was heading here about that same time that I was getting into that with her. But yeah, no, absolutely. It beer is a huge component.
With that speaking more to it though, I dealt with a lot of balance patients as well and that is where the fear, you can just see it on their face whenever you're trying to get them to do a new thing that's challenging for their balance. So whether it be just simply standing up, walking over a hurdle, standing on a foam pad, you can see those cerebellums kind of struggling a bit to turn on, but, and that kind of leads into you know, breaking through a barrier and getting them to do it.
And then all of a sudden you see. Some confidence start to build and once they break through that barrier, then it's like pretty, not immediately every time, but pretty immediately for a lot of people, they can steady themselves. And they push through that fear and that can apply to so many different cases.
It doesn't have to be a balance case. It could be me doing passive range of motion on a patient's arm who just had shoulder, shoulder surgery. And that's a, you know, big barrier to push through is letting me like passively move their arm.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah, no, that can be extremely fearful. Right. Are you kidding me?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Yeah. Like someone
Dr. Brandon Crawford: with adhesive capsulitis and you're telling me you're about to huh. Move my arm up like this. Right. Absolutely. I can trigger all kinds of fear responses. Well, what about like your own self? Have you had to push through some mental barriers and get to get where you're at?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Yeah, no, absolutely.
So for me, you know, social anxiety is something that I've kind of dealt with my whole life. You know, just different scenarios. I've always been like a super quiet guy, but also a very sensitive, kind of emotional person. So I would not
Dr. Brandon Crawford: have thought that
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: really, I hide it well. Yeah, just very sensitive to how others around me are responding to things and all that sort of stuff.
So that can put the brakes on my like ability to jump into a social scenario. And there's just been many different phases of my life, like going into college, going into PT school and all that sort of stuff where. Yeah, I really had to just kind of force myself into social scenarios because I knew that was going to be the path to the next level.
I knew who I wanted to be. I knew the kind of clinician, the kind of person that I wanted to be was someone that could talk to somebody back and forth and approach people and be, you know, appear confident and be confident. It's not just about appearing. It's about, you know, really getting into that mindset where you push through that barrier barrier.
And, you know, just put yourself out there.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Absolutely. Yeah. So you had the social anxiety and like I said, like, I, I, I can't really tell, right? Like everyone here, like you've done a very good job of overcoming this. So what would be some ways or what are some ways that you've. So,
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: you know, just kind of almost educating myself on the topic of social anxiety and what it is.
to, you know, a lot of people that help other people push through that sort of stuff. So, you know, you're Tony Robbins types. Yeah, just different people on the internet that you know, have really good advice for pushing through that stuff. I'm kind of a person I like to find out for myself how to do these things.
So seeking out that information and then just putting it into practice. I mean, there's no way. You can take in all the information you want about this stuff. You can, you know, do as many affirmations as you want in the morning, but if you don't go into those scenarios and really put yourself out there and make it happen, it's not going to happen.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Right. That's a very Tony Robbins esque approach, right? It's the concept of action, you know he talks all the time about how, you know, You push your body to train your mind, right? And that's essentially kind of what you're saying is like, you've got to do it, produce action, do it. And we can talk about this from various perspectives.
I was going to go in the direction of cold plunges, but I know that you're a huge cycler. So which direction you want to go here? Which topic you want to talk about first?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Let's go with cycling just because it's so personal to me. Yeah, so I've been a cyclist my whole life. Started out mountain biking with my dad from like the very ripe age at five years old.
And that's always been something that's been a big part of my life. And if you've never done like an extended bout of cardio, you don't really know what people are talking about when they talk about the runner's high or whatever. But yeah. Doing those sort of things, you know, there's a point where it sucks, right?
Like it's hard. It's just no way around it But you feel as you go through that you kind of push through that physical barrier of like, okay, this is hard I kind of don't want to do this right now. Like this is sucking in this first five minutes of doing it But then all of a sudden you hit like this certain flow state where the blood gets to your muscles the endorphins start running through your body and then all of a sudden you're kind of Just in this flow.
And you know, that is just, just speaks to the barrier that you push through physically and really gets you to a point where you just feel really good, honestly, like and then, you know, doing that sort of thing prior to going into like a social scenario has always been really important for me.
I know I've got a workout. I know I've got to do my cycling and all the things to kind of really push myself. Pass that physical barrier and then it kind of makes the rest of it easy because you feel good first of all, but then you know I did all of this really hard stuff before this. I can do this social scenario.
I can sit here and talk to this person like this is no big deal.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Right. So, you did a great job. I would describe it as sensory drives motor, so we already talked about that, and motor drives cognition. Right. And that's exactly what you just described, because you're right. Once you get the body moving, it gets the mind moving.
Huh. And then you can create with your mind, you can, you can do all kinds of things. It's amazing. So would you tell someone in, we both have to acknowledge that there are extreme cases of social anxiety that we would suggest, you know, working with a psychiatrist or, you know, someone like that. So we're not telling people, Hey, just go out and do hard things, period.
Right. Right. We understand that there are scenarios where. You know, we definitely want you working with qualified health care professionals, et cetera. Absolutely. But setting that aside, if someone is kind of struggling, whether it be social anxiety or just fear in general, do you think that approach of, Hey, prepare yourself, prepare your body, go through the actions, rinse and repeat?
Is that something you would suggest?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Oh, absolutely. 100%. It doesn't have to be cycling. It doesn't have to be running. It can be going outside and just taking a walk. Right. I mean, that's, you know. Something that most people can do. Again, you know, there's extreme cases where some individuals may not be in that place, but doing something physical that's extended that, you know, makes you kind of push through a barrier.
For example, this morning, I was nervous about this podcast. Like, I was nervous about coming here and sitting down and talking, and I could feel it in my chest first thing in the morning. Immediately, I said, okay, I've got to get up. I've got to go for a walk. Like I've got to prep my mind to do this and, you know, two minutes into the walk, I felt the anxiety come down and I was starting to think about, okay, this is what I'm going to talk about.
This is how I'm going to say it.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Nice.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So yeah, no, absolutely. It's something I would suggest.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Just for the audience, Trevor's walk is more like. A light sprint. If you see Trevor walking and I'm doing air quotations through the office, it's like, it's like my jog. I mean, this guy is like flying through the office.
So it's not a slow, leisurely walk that you were talking about. Oh my gosh. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So, so cold plunges, we brought this up. Sure. I think that, you know, I, I'm a, Huge fan of cold plunges. Hated them in the beginning, like everyone. And honestly, look, I, before I get in a cold plunge now, I'm like, yep, this is going to suck.
I'm, I don't really want to do this, but, but that's the whole point is the pain. Pleasure response, right? And that's really what you just went through. Describing is this concept of how pain and pleasure are connected. And we're talking about the dopamine systems, the reward system. And if you experience this pain, like you were talking about pushing through a barrier, getting in a cold plunge, Then when you get out, you'll have this reciprocal Pleasure or dopamine experience, right?
So would you well, first of all, tell us about your experience with cold plunges
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So I ran cross country and track all through high school and even through college up to my senior year. So ice baths is kind of what we called them initially have always just been just kind of a part of my life just because it's like, oh, you got to do it for recovery.
Right? But beyond that, you know, The feeling that you get afterwards and why it's so good for pain Is that you do push through that mental barrier and you get those? Neurochemicals flowing through your body and it does such a positive thing for you And then you get all the cytokines and everything else that just helps with the muscle recovery as well But yeah, that's always just been kind of a mainstay of my life because I was in that world of you know being a high performance athlete and You know just kind of doing those consistently and then even when I got into PT school I'd kind of gotten away from a lot of that stuff.
So. If anybody knows going into graduate school, you kind of take a hit to your, you know, physical or your ability to do like the physical exercise stuff and then you start neglecting some of the other things that, you know, are good for you. And sometimes you don't even realize that you're neglecting it.
So once I got into PT school and was kind of feeling that I realized, oh, shoot, I was doing, I was running every day of just not like. Five months ago, and now I'm not doing that anymore. I'm wondering why I'm feeling so anxious and. So I had to build that stuff back into my life. I had to go do the cold showers.
That's kind of how I started back into it. And then nowadays, yeah, I'll go get the ice from the store. Unfortunately, I don't have like a super nice cold plunge. I would love one. But yeah, no, at least, you know, once a month, I mean, honestly, if I could do it once a week, that would be, you know, ideal, but
Dr. Brandon Crawford: right.
Yeah. I, I personally shoot for three to four times a week.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Yeah, no, I would
Dr. Brandon Crawford: literally do it every day, but I want to prevent habituation, right? I, I don't want to. Not get that bump in noradrenaline I want to make sure because you either have to continue to make it colder or go longer.
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Right?
Dr. Brandon Crawford: And at some point you will habituate.
Right? And so I want to prevent that. So I try not to go more than three or four times in a week just because of that. But. Yeah. So, would you suggest, like, so we talked about pushing through and doing hard things and you can do it through exercise physically and everything is cold plunging or cold showers or something like that a good strategy for someone?
Let's just say social anxiety. We already talked about it. Is that potentially a strategy that someone like that could use?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Oh, absolutely. 100%.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Do you think it helped you even though you didn't even know it back in the day? Do you think that helped you get to where you're at?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Oh, 100%.
Yeah. No 100 percent all of those Experiences kind of set me on a path and taught me a certain level of discipline that You know later applied to other things in my life going through PT school and knowing okay Studying sucks, but I'm gonna do it because I have to do it,
Dr. Brandon Crawford: right?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: You know going into this practical level This sucks.
I'm anxious, but you know what, we got to do this and we've got to perform right now. So yeah, no, all those early experiences set me up really well for everything else that came in my life. So,
Dr. Brandon Crawford: and of course, growing up in Whitney, Texas,
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Oh, 100%. Yeah.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Which has a pain pleasure balance. Yeah. Cool. Well, so something interesting, you know, in, in, we were able to speak with Dr.
Cordell about what you guys are developing. That was a few months ago, maybe two or three months ago. So you, so you, Dr. Cordell Miller and Dr. Michael Larson, y'all are developing. An app and this is for development or can you tell us about what you're doing?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So it's a childhood developmental tracker app.
So the idea behind it is developmental delays are on the rise. We know this is the CDC is reporting it, but. At this point, there's not a whole lot of answers as to, okay, what do we do about it? Obviously, we know some answers because we work with it so intimately day to day. But parents don't know these things and sometimes these delays are caught so late that, you know, you really miss a huge window to make a big impact super early on.
So the idea behind our app is that we are developing this developmental tracker that's going to track your child's progression. You're going to be able to monitor their milestones, primitive reflexes, and all these things that are super important for development to check and see if you have any delays in them.
And then if a delay pops up, then there's going to be some answers for you. We're trying to build a whole clinician base around this. So a clinician base of pediatricians, OTs, functional neurologists, PTs that are really in line with our thinking that we can improve these things if we catch them early and trying to get these parents to the appropriate provider for their child so that they can, you know, basically just optimize their child's future.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: That's great. And what's it called?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: It's called path childhood development. Nice. And
Dr. Brandon Crawford: when do you anticipate this will be available?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: So we're still working on it at the moment, but I anticipate. Maybe end of summer, but more likely fall this year.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Cool. Awesome. Yeah, I know when we were speaking with Cordell, I think he said early to mid summer.
So obviously, I fully understand developing something and it getting pushed and everything. Right. Absolutely. That's just how it goes. So well, that's really exciting. Glad you guys are doing that. It's going to definitely be a big contribution to the world. Is there anything else that you'd like to inform our audience about any other clinical pearls or fun stories or anything that you'd like to go into?
Dr. Trevor Montgomery: Oh, I just really appreciate you having me on. I thought this was a great conversation.
Dr. Brandon Crawford: Absolutely, man. Well, thank you so much for coming. I thought this was a great conversation, very, very productive conversation. So obviously we talked about a few different things. If there's anything that. You feel someone that you love or know could benefit from, please do share this podcast with them.
That's why we're here. We're here to help people. And so please subscribe, please share. And thank you so much. And we will see you next time.
Voice Over: We hope today's episode has inspired you to take that next step towards your best self. Remember, the path to longevity is paved with small daily decisions. Your journey is unique and every step, every choice brings you closer to your ultimate vision of a healthier, happier life. For more insights, tips, and resources, visit drbrandoncrawford.com.
