Mindstream Integrative

09/29/2026

Paraquat is a pesticide that has been largely banned worldwide, but not in the US until recently. California just did it.

After our recent Mindstream Brain Health Retreat, and then connecting with people like Megan Srinivas, Iowa State Representative, I am even more attuned to the threats we face from chemicals in our midst.

Did you know that farmers (the ones exposed to paraquat!) have 2600 times the incidence of Parkinsons, a debilitating neurological condition that can also have dementia associated with it?

Brain health is shaped over years and decades. As we learn more about how our surroundings interact with our biology, environmental exposure belongs in the conversation alongside the other pieces of our health story.

It’s one more reason I keep coming back to the same question... What can we learn NOW that may help us protect brain health for the years ahead?

09/21/2026

Food and agriculture is one of the most underleveraged pathways for climate, health, biodiversity, and community resilience.

That's why I’m speaking at Climate Week NYC 2026's premier funder and field convening focused on regenerative agriculture and real solutions to the very real problems we're all trying to solve.

I will be speaking tomorrow from 11:25-11:30 EST.

The Food Solutions Summit will bring together farmers, fishers, frontline organizers, scientists, policymakers, journalists, funders and investors, and other leaders to explore what becomes possible when food systems are designed to regenerate rather than extract — rebuilding soil, advancing climate resilience and adaptation, protecting health, strengthening rural communities, restoring biodiversity, and renewing public trust.

Watch live on September 22nd: https://vimeo.com/event/6165616/c5738649fe

09/18/2026

Yesterday was a pretty special day at Copper Beech Farm.

We spent the day talking about brain health, sharing a beautiful meal, and enjoying a little time away from the usual pace of life.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us and brought so much openness and engagement to the day.

And so much appreciation for the MindStream team and everyone who helped bring all the pieces together.

We’re grateful for what we learned, what was shared, and the chance to spend this time together.

A few glimpses from a very good day.

08/28/2026

A familiar MindStream space is getting a new life this fall.

Our gym has been available as a member amenity for several years, but with only a small number of members regularly using it, we saw an opportunity to rethink what the space could offer.

We’re happy to share that Grow Yoga & Movement is moving in!

Grow is the collaboration of , .clairyogaandmovement, and , who will be bringing 25+ weekly classes in yoga, mobility, strength training, calisthenics, handstands, and more to the former MindStream gym space.

While the gym will no longer be available as a MindStream member amenity, movement isn’t disappearing from our community. In fact, there will soon be many more ways to explore it right here in the building.

And Grow is extending a special offer to our members:
🌱 10% off regular weekly classes with code MINDSTREAM
🌱 Your first class FREE with code 1STCLASS

You can meet the Grow team, explore the new space, and even try a class at their free Open House on Saturday, September 12 from 3–6 pm.

We’re grateful to the members who have enjoyed the gym over the years, and we’re looking forward to seeing this space become a much more active part of the community.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Grow.

08/27/2026

When do we usually start thinking seriously about brain health?

Often, it’s when we notice a change in ourselves or someone we love. But there’s a lot we can learn about cognitive health long before that point.

On September 16, Dr. Neff is welcoming you to Copper Beech Farm for a full-day Brain Health Retreat exploring what we know about cognitive decline, the factors that shape our individual risk, and the choices that may support brain health over time.

We’ll look at genetics and personal health information, talk about the things we can influence, and consider both traditional and integrative approaches to caring for the brain.

And because this is a retreat, not a lecture, the day also includes conversation, a brain-supportive lunch, movement, and an optional sauna.

🧠 Wednesday, September 16 | 9 AM–3 PM
🧠 Copper Beech Farm, Nashville
🧠 FREE for MindStream members attending
🧠 Non-member community guests are welcome

If brain health is something you’ve been thinking about, we’d love to have you spend the day with us. Visit our website (under Services ➡️ Retreats) for more info and to register.

Register by September 9th. Space is limited!

08/27/2026

There is a particular kind of knowing that comes from seeing the pieces.

And another that comes from understanding how they belong together.

Medicine gives us an extraordinary number of pieces now. Laboratory values, imaging, genetics, diagnoses, medications, specialist opinions, histories, symptoms, data.

Integration is what happens as we begin to understand the relationships among them—and the person whose life holds them all.

That takes time.

It takes conversation, context, continuity, and the willingness to stay curious as the story changes.

I keep coming back to this because healthcare so often meets us in moments: an appointment, a test, a procedure, a decision.

Health keeps moving between those moments. It develops across seasons and transitions, through our relationships and environments, through what happens to us and how we adapt.

There is an arc to a human life that no single encounter can contain.

I wonder if one of the great opportunities in medicine now is to become as thoughtful about integration as we have become sophisticated about information.

To create the conditions where all that we can know has time to become understanding.

That feels like a worthy direction for the next ecology of healthcare.

08/25/2026

A lab result never arrives in isolation.

It arrives on a Tuesday morning before work. Or after months of wondering what is wrong. It arrives for someone who has already read twelve things online, or someone who has been avoiding reading anything at all. It may bring relief, fear, validation, confusion, or several of those at once.

This is part of the ecology of being human in healthcare.

We have access to an astonishing amount of information about our bodies now. We carry health data on our wrists. Test results appear on our phones. Specialists, podcasts, social media, online communities, and AI all contribute to the conversation.

And still, every piece of information has to be received by a person.

A person with a nervous system. A history. A family. A set of values. A certain amount of energy and attention available that day.

Medicine can measure blood pressure, cholesterol, hemoglobin A1c, and what appears on an image. I’m also interested in the things that resist easy measurement: capacity, context, meaning, regulation.

These shape what happens next.

Perhaps that is part of what it means to think ecologically about health... to remain curious about the whole environment in which a piece of information lands.

08/21/2026

Medicine has entered an age of extraordinary abundance.

In the span of a generation, our ability to see into the human body has expanded in ways that still amaze me.

Thousands of laboratory tests. Molecular diagnostics. Genetic testing. New medications, biologics, imaging, data streams, and increasingly sophisticated ways of understanding human physiology.

Every new layer gives us another piece of the picture.

And every new layer asks something of us.

It asks clinicians to interpret, connect, contextualize, and decide what matters for the person sitting in front of us.

This is one of the quieter changes in modern healthcare.

The volume of information has grown enormously. The human work of making sense of it still requires attention, thought, relationship, and time.

Perhaps information abundance brings us to a new kind of question:
How do we cultivate the space to understand what we know?

Because somewhere between gathering the pieces and seeing the whole lies the work of integration.

08/19/2026

Healthcare has an ecology.

It has a rhythm, a structure, a way of organizing time and attention.

Care moves through visits, tests, procedures, studies, referrals, messages, and moments of decision. Each one holds a piece of the story.

And then there is the life in which all of this is happening.

Health unfolds while we are working, raising families, sleeping, grieving, adapting, aging, changing our minds, and becoming different versions of ourselves.

It unfolds across years and decades, shaped by biology and experience, relationships and environments, choices and circumstances.

This is the space I find myself (Hi, it’s Dr. Neff 👋) increasingly curious about.
The space between an episode of care and the arc of a human life.

The ecology of healthcare has changed. The ecology of being human has changed with it. And somewhere in the relationship between the two, there is something worth understanding.

Over the next few posts, I want to spend some time there.
Observing. Asking questions. Following the threads.

Before we decide where healthcare goes next, it’s worth understanding the environment we are already living in.

I hope you will read and engage with this information. I would love your take, ideas, and thoughts.

05/25/2026

My dear colleagues, Chris Joseph and Dale Weber, and I are at it again. If you, or a close one, are affected by cancer, this retreat may be for you! Chris and Dale, both The Radical Remission Project certified coaches, and all of us trained in metabolic approaches to cancer, come together for both Radical Remission Factors and spacious healing at my farm here in Tennessee. Connect with us if you have questions!

Healing Terrains offers expert support for chronic illness and health improvement through a metabolic approach, serving patients, caregivers, and health advocates.