Dhru Purohit Show - How to Make It To 100 With A Sharp Brain And Good Mobility

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

This episode is brought to you by One Skin, Bon Charge, and Manukora Honey. As we age, many of us worry about losing the ability to move freely or manage daily tasks—and with Alzheimer’s on the rise, cognitive decline is a growing concern too. But here’s the good news: just as we can preserve mobility well into our later years, we can also maintain a sharp, healthy mind. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, we’re bringing you a special compilation episode featuring Dhru’s conversations with leading experts on how to live a vibrant life into your 100s. Dr. Dale Bredesen explains why cognitive decline is no longer a mystery—and why it’s not an inevitable part of aging. He emphasizes the importance of early prevention and shares seven foundational strategies to help protect your brain decades before symptoms appear. Juliet and Kelly Starrett join Dhru to share their practical, no-frills approach to promoting durability and mobility as we age. They cover simple at-home mobility tests like the sit-and-rise test. Their insights show how small, consistent changes in diet and movement can lay the foundation for lasting vitality and a body that recovers well from setbacks as you grow older. Dr. Dale Bredesen is internationally recognized as an expert in Alzheimer’s disease and is the author of several New York Times bestsellers.. He serves as the principal investigator for the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at UCLA and founded the Alzheimer’s Drug Development Network in 2008, which helped identify new therapeutics for the disease.  Juliet Starrett is an entrepreneur, attorney, author, podcaster, and professional whitewater paddler, winning three world championships and five national titles. Dr. Kelly Starrett consults with elite athletes and coaches. Juliet and Kelly Starrett founded The Ready State fitness podcast and blog, San Francisco CrossFit, and are co-authors of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Deskbound and the New York Times bestseller Built to Move.  In this episode, Dhru and his guests dive into: Cognitive decline and ways to reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s (1:30) Exposure to biotoxins that contribute to cognitive decline (5:02) The link between mold toxicity and Alzheimer’s disease (10:58) Foundational diet and lifestyle strategies for Alzheimer’s prevention (20:12) How the brain uses energy—and why it matters (25:37) Tips for improving sleep quality (33:17) How to manage mental stress and perceived threats (36:39) The importance of taking high-quality fish oil daily (41:17) Why the sit-and-rise test is a key indicator of longevity (43:58) Major milestones when declines in mobility typically begin (52:40) Factors that influence long-term mobility (56:03) Supporting mobility for everyday movement and independence (1:01:33) At-home tests to assess your range of motion (1:05:54) Final thoughts and key takeaways (1:12:20) Also mentioned: Full episode with Dr. Dale Bredesen Full episode with Dr. Kelly & Juliet Starrett This episode is brought to you by One Skin, Bon Charge, and Manukora Honey. Right now, One Skin is offering my community 15% off; just go to oneskin.co and use coupon code DHRU to save 15% and give your skin the scientifically proven, gentle care it deserves. Right now, Bon Charge is offering my community 15% off; just go to boncharge.com/DHRU and use coupon code DHRU to save 15%. Upgrade to the creamiest honey, packed with antioxidants and prebiotics. Just go to manukora.com/dhru to get $25 off the Starter Kit and boost your energy, immunity, and digestive health today! Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi everyone, Drew Prode here. When it comes to the topic of aging, there are two main things we want to protect to live well, well into our later years, our brains and our mobility. And on today's compilation episode, I sit down with Dr. Dale Bredesen, a pioneer in Alzheimer's research

to unpack why cognitive decline is no longer a mystery and no longer inevitable. We talk about how prevention starts decades before symptoms show up. And Dr. Dale Brederston, shares why getting a cognoscopy starting around age 40 might be the smartest move you can make for your brain. Then I also talk with Juliet and Kelly Staret, co-authors of the Wall Street

Journal bestseller Desbound and the New York Times bestseller built to move about how longevity starts at ground level. Literally, they explain why your ability to move freely and get up off the floor with ease is one of the best predictors of how well you age. It's crazy, but it's true. But first, let's dive in to my conversation with Dr. Dale Brenison. Everybody pretty much knows somebody that has had dementia. Unfortunately. And they're thinking, they might be in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and they're not having a sense that they know of right now,

that they are diagnosed with something or that they have a level of cognitive decline that is sort of seriously impairing their day. They may still have it. They just don't know that it's kind of going on. Yep. and at least they haven't been told. And they're looking for what are the things that I can do to at least, based on your experience, especially if I don't have access to one of these clinicians,

what are the things that I could be doing today that could be potentially reducing my risk of developing Alzheimer's? Yeah, it's a really important point. So if you're 40 or over, we recommend that everyone get a cognoscopy. So we all know when we turn 50, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to get a colonoscopy. and it can really reduce your risk of dying of colorectal cancer. Of course, pap smears did a tremendous job for reducing cervical cancer.

And by the same token, getting a cognoscopy if you're 40 or over, and especially if there's been any sort of family history, but in general, for all of us, because we are all at risk. It dwarfs the pandemic. We're talking about one million who've died in the U.S. from the pandemic. About 45 million of the currently living Americans will die from all. Alzheimer's if we don't do something about it. So again, nobody should get this. There's a tremendous amount you can do, get a cognoscopy, which is some blood tests and some in a simple online cognitive

test, as you mentioned earlier, and then MRI with volumetrics. And some simple things you can do, we talk about the seven basics. And before we go to the seven basics, just since we have you here, I want to tease these out a little bit more and really make sure we understand. So for the blood test and the cognition test and some imaging. Are people convincing their current practitioner that they want to get this done? And do you have a link or a resource or do they have to find a specialized physician, functional medicine, you know, somebody that leans heavily towards lifestyle medicine to run these tests for them?

It's a great point. And we see yes and no. So I would say what I'm seeing is about a quarter of the people. their doctor will say, sure, you know, I'll do these for you, no problem. Especially when it comes to the blood work. What's some examples of some of the blood work that they're running? Yeah, so they're running things, again, which makes sense when you look at what's, do it, what is important for innate immune activation and for energetics.

So they're running HSCRP and they're running, you know, homocysteine. And TGF Beta 1 is actually a very good thing to know about yourself, that or MMP9. Again, these are things that are responding to typically to biotoxins and other inflammogens. And then you're looking at your Homa IR. So you're looking at your fasting glucose. You're looking at your fasting insulin. You're looking at hemoglobin A1C. You're looking at your methylation.

You know, we're now, there are some new things so that you can now look at your epigenetics. And you mentioned earlier, the advanced lipid profiles. So you're looking at, you know, how are your lipids looking? and do you have an inflammatory pattern or not? And then you're looking at do you have toxin exposure? And we see this a lot where people will have biotoxin exposure, often in association with low platelet counts and or low white blood counts. And this is something that Dr. Joe Pizorno has pointed out many times in the past,

that many of us are exposed to toxins. And one of the things that we see and that we don't often pick up as physicians is that people will have often low white counts and or low platelet counts. And it's telling you there's something that is interfering with these. And what would fall into the category of biotoxins, right? What are some of the things that people have probably heard about on this podcast? Like what exposure would they have had? What kind of toxins are we talking about?

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nightly routine and let the benefits add up effortlessly. Great point. So if you go back, the toxins that cause cognitive decline are break down into three groups. There's the inorganics. and that's air pollution and mercury and things like that, heavy metals. Because actually, not only does amyloid, not only is it part of your innate immune system, it is a metal binding protein actually quite tightly. So it binds zinc and copper extremely well. Secondly, organic toxins. So things like formaldehyde and glyphosate and toluene and things like that.

But then thirdly, as you mentioned, biotoxins. And these are typically things made by molds, although there are other organisms that make biotoxins as well, but they're typically trichothecines. Those are the ones that I worry about the most because these are made typically by stachybatris. So it's, you know, the five big mold species that you worry about with these are stachybatris, penicillium, aspergillia, espergellus, ketomium and wallimia. Those are the five typical bad guys. And so, and they are making things like trichocetines and okrotoxin A and gliotoxin,

and gliotoxin and things like that that actually turn out to impact your immune system. And, you know, the mold wants your immune system to be turned down so that it can live, so that it can stay there. And so it is trying to turn that down, unfortunately. And, of course, your immune system is saying, no, I want to recognize this and I want to get rid of it. So these are ones that I am most concerned about. Yeah.

The mold thing, you know, I'm not a physician. I'm not researcher. I'm not trained in any kind of classical way on any of these things. But from being in this world and kind of being somebody who knows people, I get a lot of friends that are asking me about mold because either they feel, you know, I think the estimates by the World Health Organization or that 40% of buildings have some sort of, you know, toxic mold exposure that's there, right? That's just like the standard estimates that are there.

And there's more and more people that have been talking about it. There's new tests that are available. People can test their urine and they see that this is an issue and they might feel they have one of the symptoms, which is tough because mold can pretty much cause any kind of symptom that's out there. And I find that, you know, mold is tricky in a sense that it's hard to identify in the home. There's like a whole debates on this topic. I'm sure you know all about it because most mold that people are looking.

for you're not looking for moldy food obviously nobody should be consuming moldy food you're looking for mold contamination from leaky faucets pipes drywall construction and often it's not visible it's not like you go into a room and you kind of you know pull a little bit of paint off the wall and you have bunch of black mold sometimes it's that yeah some most often it's a lot more complicated it's rotting wood it's tough to find and usually it's people who have had symptoms for a while and maybe hear a podcast like this and are like, maybe I should talk to a naturopathic doctor or a functional medicine doctor and that's somebody who helps them kind of dig into it a little bit. So finding the mold in the house is tough in the first place. And then on top of

that, especially if you're a homeowner, treating and deciding how to treat and remediate the mold is very tough too because it could sometimes be so baked into the building that people are literally deciding Do they move? Do they stay? Right? Because it's that difficult to remediate. All this is to say that, you know, I've found that it's very tricky to go down the mold rabbit hole. But that doesn't mean that people should not understand that it's a central part of cognitive decline for a lot of people.

That being said, for this category of people who are listening who maybe aren't diagnosed with something yet, I think that it's important that, you know, and please feel free to push back on this. by the way. I'm putting out a theory. I think it's important to remind people that in a good, in addition to like good ventilation and air filtration in the home, which only does so much, making sure that people actively are working out, that they are doing strength training, that they're doing, that they're avoiding ultra-process foods, that they're working on becoming not insulin resistant anymore and cutting them out of large pharmaceutical dosages of carbohydrates. because those things, even if there is mold exposure, they can't reverse it,

but they can at least minimize the impact to the body. And that's a lot more in people's control than the topic sometimes I find, as somebody who's in the space, of mold can be so complicated to dig down. It's such an interesting point. And it reminds me of these old movies you see, where there are 10 people and it's a rainy night

and they're in a hotel together. And then suddenly they're only nine. One of them gets killed. And then there's eight. And they keep looking at each other to say, who is the murder here? You're looking at this. Now there's seven. Murder mysteries.

It's like there's one with John Cusack years ago. And so the mold's a little bit like that. It's like we're looking around like what is causing this decline? Like could it possibly be this mold that like is everywhere? And you know, it kills me to say that it does see. to be a common contributor. I asked the physicians who were doing the trial, what percentage of your patients do you think mycotoxins are a contributor? The answer was 80%. I couldn't believe it. So now, that's not to say it's the only contributor. It's one of many.

Would they, would you, if you would ask them again, would you say that if you had to kind of really sort of stress test that idea, would they listed of all the insults that you know, of all the potential contributors, causes, et cetera, contributors, I don't want to say causes, would they put mold in the top three? Would they put in the top five? Yeah, for sure it would be in the top five. I think in many it would be in the top three. What we find, we published this years ago, that probably 15 to 20 percent, it's the main thing.

It's the main thing that you're really out of focus. But, you know, Dr. Christine Burke over here near Sacramento, I thought, made a really interesting observation and others have seen this, but I think she brought up a really good point, which is when she sees her patients and she does exactly the things you're talking about, she gets them to be metabolically flexible, she gets them to do the basics. We started talking about the basic seven. So when she does the basic things, she buys them nine to 12 months. They do well.

And then after that, if she doesn't find the specifics that are causing this, if she doesn't find, oh, there's pathogens that I need to deal with or there's mycotoxins. If they don't deal with those specifics, they won't sustain that improvement. But I thought it was a very important observation. And we've seen it before, and Julie G, who works with us and who herself is at APOE4, for, she's the one who founded the website APOE4.Info. And has done such a wonderful job and has taken herself from 35th percentile to 98th percentile. She's sharp as a tack.

and she's now over 10 years on this overall approach. She had about four years. So she was doing things really, really well, got on the right diet and did the right, you know, basically resilience, getting herself resilient. And she bought herself about four years or so. Then she started noticing a little bit of backsliding. This was now several years ago. And she contacted me and I said, well, you know, there are some things that haven't been checked on you. and you need to be looking into these other things.

So it turned out, and she kind of put it off for several months, and it turned out she had Babesia, so a tick-borne illness. And so that was treated, and she now improved once again. Which would be in the category of an infection that is sort of dampening and putting a lot of pressure on the immune system chronically so your body can't function as well as it normally could. Absolutely. And then she found out that she actually had a lot.

large mycotoxin exposure. And it was interesting, you know, when I finally convinced her to get a TGF beta 1, because that kind of tells you, are you fighting this ongoing inflammation? And you shouldn't have it. It shouldn't be more than 2,380. Hers was 40,000. So she had massive, massive ongoing inflammation. And it turned out to be due to both Babesia and to mycotoxins. And she's done a great job and she's, you know, she's doing well to this day. So unfortunately, yes, you've got to search. This is, you know, you've got to do a little Sherlock Holmes work here to figure out what's actually driving this decline. But the good news is exactly what you said. Everyone can do the basics. The basics. And everyone can get a response to those basics. But then you're going to want to

to sustain that response. You're going to want to then continue to target the things that are actually driving the problem. Yeah. And when you're doing the basics, I think also you are sort of buying yourself time for a lot of these technologies, these treatment protocols, these plans to become more widely available and the price for them to also come down. Even something as simple as like testing your home for mold is actually a little bit of complicated, right? There's a lot of different tests that are out there. They everybody, every lab has a different sort of reporting.

There's a lot of debate. Like there isn't a lot of different things of, is this test conclusive? Is it not? Then there's urine testing. that people can do from like labs, like real-time labs. So just doing the basics. I want people to just remember that the basics, not only are they supporting your hopeful reduction

and sort of increased prevention in developing Alzheimer's, but they're actually going to make your heart healthier. They're going to make you stronger. They're going to make you more likely not to develop circopinia when you get older. like Alzheimer's is one thing. It is the scariest thing, but there's a bunch of other things too. So I just want to make sure that people don't leave this conversation feeling like this feels so complicated. Where do I get started?

Because the folks that have been diagnosed or feel like they're rapidly seeing, when you start to notice that you have cognitive decline and I've had members of my family that have, your entire priorities change. Right. And you're willing to spend money, effort, time, energy to really make that the number one priority, at least if you have some sense of that. education. Then in the bucket of the people of prevention, I often worry about let's make sure we double down on the basics for everyone so that they remember that there's no need to get overwhelmed.

There's a lot of things that can be done right now. So let's talk about those seven basics. If you could walk us through. It's a great point. And you know, the only way for us to be efficient because you can't do a million dollar workup on every person. So my argument is, look, everyone do the basics. And then most people will never have a problem. A few people will fall through the cracks. Okay, now they need more evaluation. So let's start with the basics, as you said. And those are, start with diet, a plant-rich, mildly ketogenic diet with appropriate periods of fasting. And by the way, the most common thing I've heard is people say to me, well, you're telling me, I got to go figure out where to buy organic stuff. I got to figure out

what kind of grass-fed beef to get, where to get wild caught fish, how to prepare all this stuff. This is now getting simpler and simpler, and I give great credit to nutrition for longevity, of course, founded by Walter Longo and his partner, Jennifer Maynard. They did a fantastic job. So they have now, starting today, literally, put together the KetoFlex 12-3 diet. So, and this is a diet which is just based on synaptogenesis. How are you going to make and keep your synapses? And yes, it's heart health as well. By the way, it's also anti-diabetic because it's going to improve your insulin sensitivity. So you can now order meals. I've had them. They're actually delicious. I was impressed with the job that they did. And you mentioned before we started that you've actually been out to their farm.

Yeah, been to their farm in New Jersey. Yeah. And they've done a really good job, just building, you know, this organic agriculture, the assembly of all the different recipes by one just tiny, tiny little piece of thing that I would add for my listeners over here is that, you know, we've had Dr. Longo on and he's published some incredible research and his work. And he has his philosophy on protein and how excess protein has certain links to EMTOR and it's role in longevity. We've also had some people on that talked about maybe some of the nuances around that. Yes. I personally have been, this is my own bias. I've been convinced that, yes, plant rich, you know,

ketogenic forward, healthy fats, everything. And if we under eat on protein, then we don't have enough skeletal muscle. And skeletal muscle is the number one thing that helps us use up glucose inside of the body. And also as we get older, and we lose, from my understanding from the different researchers out there, every decade after the age of 40, we're losing about 8% muscle mass, 8 to 10% if we're not actively working out or eating enough protein, regardless of what source animal or, you know, vegetarian, if people can get the right amino acids. So that's my only component is that to supplement with the appropriate level of protein that you feel that you desire,

just so you can maintain healthy skeletal muscle mass and avoid sarcopenia into your later age. I couldn't agree more. And actually, you know, Volta is one of my colleagues all the way back from UCLA when we were both starting out. He was actually a graduate student. And I was a young assistant professor. And actually, he and I published some papers together with his mentor there, Dr. Joan Valentine. So I really enjoyed Walter from his first day. And it was interesting to me.

He was the grad student of all the ones I met over the years who knew from day one what he wanted to do. What experiments he wanted to do. Very impressive graduate students. So it's just great to see all the great work that Walter is doing. And I give great kudos to nutrition for longevity for coming out with KetoFlex 123. And as you mentioned, it's a different strategy. So I remember actually when I was at the, when I was on the NIH, counsel. Volter came and presented to us at the NIH and presented his idea, this was many years ago,

presented his idea for what became this longevity associated diet. And initially they were using it for cancer-related things. And of course, it has a nice anti-neoplastic effect. And this is something that you do intermittently, whereas Ketoflex 123 is something that helps your brain every day. So it's a different strategy. And you can do both because you can do the intermittent work, for with fasting mimicking diet or with a longevity related diet as well as doing this ketogenic mildly mildly ketogenic plant rich and yes it absolutely has protein it's there's a pescatarian option we have and a flexitarian option so it does have grass-fed beef and it does have it does have chicken and all that sort of stuff so that's great so it's fantastic yeah so it's got all

these things and we agree that you you do not you want to avoid sarcopenia at all costs. Would you say, are you familiar with the work of Dr. Chris Palmer at Harvard? Have you seen his work? I'm actually in the middle of reading his book right now. So brain energy. Yes. Very interesting work. And, you know, he makes a compelling case. And I know he's got data. I'm looking for that first big series to say, okay, we did this in X number of people and what percentage actually got better. Right. But I agree with you. And actually, Rob Lustig was the one who told me what a wonderful book that was. Yeah.

And so I got it and I'm reading it right now. So I know you're in the middle of it, but potentially, you know, he was a very popular guest on this podcast. He came on here when his book first launch. And, you know, a lot of Sympatico work. You know, I actually think if you guys aren't in communication, happy to put you guys in in communication. That would be great.

Very much this understanding that, you know, how our brain utilizes energy is central in how it's going to be working. And if our brain is overloaded from the. high quantity of calories from processed foods, primarily, you know, insulin resistance also inside of the brain, then you're going to have all these downstream mental health effects. But I was going to ask you, even though you're partly into this book, potentially that even somebody who's looking to adopt some of the dietary recommendations that he talks about, they could potentially be going on this program as well.

Like there's a lot of reasons in addition to Alzheimer's that somebody might want to eat this way that you're talking about. One of my favorite tips and home remedies for people struggling with symptoms of seasonal allergies like runny nose or a scratchy throat is honey. I'm not talking about the sugary stuff you squeeze out of a plastic bear, which honestly a lot of the honey in the market is adulterated or even fake. I'm talking about real honey, which to me is the brand Manukora honey. This honey is next level, creamy, rich, buttery, and loaded with natural compounds that support

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That's Manukora, M-A-O-R-A-com slash D-H-R-U. Seriously, if you're looking to upgrade your honey to the best that's out there, all you have to do is head over to manu-cora.com slash Drew to get $25 off their amazing starter kit today. Absolutely. And, you know, it's interesting to me, he looked at mental illness. We looked at neurodegenerative illness. We came to the same conclusions that there's a mismatch. And, you know, not enough supply, too much demand.

In my case, we're looking at demand for synaptogenesis. In his case, he's looking at demand for good mental health, basically. But, you know, you look at, for example, the studies in schizophrenia, there is a reduction in the number of synapses. there is a change in the structure of the neurons. So there are things just beyond, you know, DSM, I guess they're up to DSM-5 now, just looking at symptoms. There are functional and structural changes. And so energetics seem to play a large role in both the neurodegenerative side

and on the mental health side, as he points out in his book. And I think, you know, they're also going to be, turn out to me important in things like autism and ADHD, I mean, all these things are coming to the same conclusion. And I should mention, you know, we were talking about the seven basics just to not forget those. Yes. So diet, exercise, sleep, stress, brain training, detox, and some targeted supplements. Those are the basic seven things.

And for each of them, we can optimize them. And there are things that, you know, we've talked about before and you've talked about with others as well. So as you mentioned, you want to have strength training. You want to make sure that's included. As I mentioned earlier, I like EWAT because it's giving you that not just the aerobic part, but it's also giving you profusion with oxygenation. So I think that has tremendous opportunity. And where would somebody go if they wanted to learn more about that or do that practice?

So, yeah, you can actually look up, there's a number of these. You can look up Live-O-2, L-I-V-E-O-2 as an example. That's one of them. And it's a facility that you go to? And you, well, so you can actually have them at home. Okay. Or you can go to facilities. And actually some clinics are now starting to put them in their clinics because they seem

to be so helpful. Yeah. So what it's basically doing is you are pedaling a bike or, and then you can use it with cross-country if you want. But the typical story is you're pedaling a bike. But instead of being your typical peloton, you're now pedaling a bike while you're, while you're breathing 100% oxygen. So it has similar effects to hyperbaric oxygen.

without the hyperbaric part of it. You're essentially, you're using the exercise part of it to get the perfusion. And this all goes back to increasing blood flow and getting to the farthest regions of the brain. Exactly. If somebody had access to hyperbaric, is that something that you would recommend for people? Absolutely. Yeah, that's another way to go. That part doesn't give you the exercise part of it, but it does give you the increased atmospheric pressure.

Now, some people have claustrophobia issues with that in some. And again, some of these things are huge. But in the small ones, some people can have some claustrophobic issues and others don't. So that's another way to go. It's EW. O-T. O-T. So it's exercise with oxygen therapy.

Okay, great. And live O-2 is one example. That's one example. We can put that in the show notes if people want to check it out. And there are others out there as well. You're getting hyper-oxygenation, but you're also getting a workout in. Absolutely. Do you do it?

Do you do it with like a bike? So I've been doing it without the oxygen just because I haven't gotten to the point where that was a concern and I'm just now looking into getting this. Okay, great. My age is getting advanced now and I'm looking at adding that part of it. So I think it's a good idea. So going back to the basics, you know, we covered the dietary component, really cleaning up the diet, getting off of ultra-processed foods. And if people have room instead of their budget, you now have this partnership available with nutrition for longevity. And I should say they can go on, you can look at KetoFlex-123.com. Ketoflex-123. And I think it's a

It'll be fantastic for people, whether it's someone in at home, someone at an assisted living facility, someone who's at an independent group like the villages, someone who's in a nursing home for any of these people, it's a very simple way and much less expensive than going out for food. And in fact, in many cases, it's going to be less than going and finding all those things yourself and preparing it yourself. That's great. That's a great solution.

We need more of those solutions out there. Also, another low-hanging fruit because it goes back right into the work that you, Dr. David Perlmutter, Dr. Richard Johnson did, which is, you know, people getting off of liquid forms of calories. If a lot of your calories are coming from liquid forms, primarily soda sweetened beverages, sugar-sweetened beverages, that is immediately going to be a win because it's going to help your waistline. But it's also going to reduce this exposure to fructose as well as the bloodshunded. sugar roller coaster that comes from the glucose inside of it as well. Absolutely. So that's the dietary side. Yeah.

We just want to touch on sleep because I think that more and more people now are putting like sleep number two or number one right up there with diet, right? Because of and sleep is one of those things that the more that you learn about it, the more that you realize that chronic sleep issues are tied into so many different diseases that are out there. Yeah. cancer exposure, Alzheimer's. You mentioned something the other day that was really interesting on Twitter.

People who have restless leg syndrome are more likely to develop Alzheimer's because it seems that restless leg syndrome is something that disrupts your sleep quality. Yeah, absolutely. I found that very fascinating. So do you recommend that the first step on improving sleep is for people to get like an at-home sleep study? Yeah. Or just even oxygenation.

Even you can get an oxymeter put it on your finger. You can get an Apple watch and wear that. You can get an aura ring. Now, even fit bits and things like that, all of these will measure your oxygenation. You know, in a perfect world, you'd have an SPO2, your oxygen saturation that would remain 96 to 98% while you're sleeping at night. For many of us, it starts to drift down, and it can be from sleep apnea, it can be upper rareway resistance syndrome. It can be for waking and sleeping. a lot of us will have bursts of adrenaline while we're sleeping, which interferes with deep sleep.

You could spend hours. And I know Matthew Walker, Professor over at Berkeley, has done a beautiful job with his book, Why We Sleep, and looking at all these issues, because your ability to get that deep sleep is huge for detoxification for your brain. Your ability to get enough sleep and to get enough quality sleep, get enough REM sleep. All of these are different. pieces that are critical. And so many of the things we do from, you know, poor sleep hygiene, staying up too late, having exposure to EMFs all night, to watching TV late at night, getting activated. I know I am definitely guilty. I'll be doing emails late at night and then try to just shut down the email and go right to sleep. And it does not work very well. So we want to take some

time to ease into sleep. We want to make sure that it's dark enough. We want to make sure that it's quiet enough. We want to make sure that we have enough sleep. So many of us, again, you know, you're going to get more work done if you only get four hours of sleep a night. The very first patient, patient zero came in and one of her big problems was she was working like crazy for the government and getting four to five hours of sleep per night. That was one of her many issues. And definitely improving that has really helped her. And by the way, she started in 2012. She's now 11 years into this and she's now a brain health coach and doing great. That's amazing. Incredible. So bottom line, prioritizing sleep. And if there are any kind of conditions, disorders that are interrupting,

don't see it as a light thing, really tackle it and get the help that you need. Yes. Because it's so critical. And so many people will ignore that. And that's an important part of getting getting optimal outcomes. So we talked about a diet, we talked about the sleep. You mentioned some of the other seven. Let's just kind of quickly go through them and any kind of action items that would be there with you. Yeah.

And so stress, and again, that's another big one. One of the interesting things is as long as you see that threat. So we talk about the biochemical threats and the microbiological threats, the P. Gingervalis that's worked its way into your brain, the herpes simplex that's gone up your trigeminal nerve into the ganglion and gone up into your brain, the candida that's circulated, the Lyme disease, all these. these things. But what we tend to forget is there's also a mental stress and threat. And this is equally important. As long as your brain is saying, I am being assaulted, whether it's by

organisms or inflammatory, or whether it's by concern that, oh my gosh, you're going to get fired from your job, or someone's pushing you to have something due by tonight and you're going to be up all night working on it. I think about all the times as it. I think about all the times as it, intern when I was up two and three nights in a row without any sleep whatsoever and how horrible that was for me. So that sort of thing is going to give you a problem. So managing the stress. And look, check your heart rate variability or HRV. Easy to do. And let's see how you do for your age. And by the way, notice you can see your heart rate variability jump two or three fold by one minute of slow, deep breathing. It's,

striking. So telling your amygdala, I'm not dying, I'm not under that much stress. Things are going to be okay. And yeah, short periods of stress with resolution, fine. It's that chronic, oh my God, I've got something due every day and just keep going. It's a problem. Then we've got brain training. This is Professor Mike Mersenik, who is the father of brain training, who did a great job, started posit neuroscience, has developed brain HQ and has worked with Tom Brady and so many others who want to improve. In his case, it was improve his visual field, and it worked very well for him.

So improving your cognition and reducing risk for decline, things like Brain HQ and stimulation, and by the way, other forms of stimulation, photo biomodulation, great. Things like V light and neuronic and in groups like that have done a really nice job. Mild stimulation in appropriate wavelengths and with appropriate frequencies has been very successful.

Even in that category would be being regular about getting your morning sunlight. Absolutely. When you first wake up in the morning, going outside, not necessarily looking directly in the sun, but looking towards that direction and getting that morning sort of reset on your circadian rhythm. And then seeing evening sunlight, if you can, as well, that seems to be an important part of protecting our mitochondria and photo biomodulation. Yeah, and your circadian rhythm's huge. And then there is detox. And, you know, again, you could spend a lot of time just talking about detox.

but there are some basics from filtered water to your, you know, elimination, you're sweating. The study that's always quoted out of Finland, people who did saunas six days a week versus those who only did them two days a week. Huge issue, a huge difference in the risk for dementia for that group. So the people who did more saunas, much lower risk of dementia. And the effect was large. And then so, you know, all these sorts of things for detox and making sure that you don't have exposure to toxins. And again, to go back to Robert Lustig in his excellent book, Metabolical, much of the food that we eat really could not be classified as food. It should be classified as poison because it doesn't have nutritive value and it does have toxicity in it. So as he pointed out,

it's more correctly classified as poison. And so, you know, doing, just getting that detox, getting rid of that, getting on, you know, whole foods, plant rich diet, very helpful. And then finally, some targeted supplements and, you know, improving your BDNF with things like whole coffee, fruit extract, actually first mentioned me years ago by David Burlmutter. So thanks to David for that. I think it was an excellent suggestion. And many, many people, of course, have used that strategy. Of course, you can also increase it with things like exercise.

And then for many of us, we're too low in magnesium, too low in zinc, too low in iodine, too low in potassium, making sure that those are optimized. Many of us are too low in chlorine and vitamin D as well. So making sure that we're okay there. And then many of us too low in B12, for example, which will, you know, increase your homocysteine, which is, again, another risk factor for cognitive decline. So again, the Armentarium is huge. On the topic of supplements, because people always want to know, you know, you didn't mention fish oil.

If you can have access to a good high-quality fish oil, especially when it comes to the mega-3 to mega-6 ratio, would that be? be in your top five? I take it every day. Okay. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and I think the key is a high quality one.

Look for brands that are reputable that haven't been oxidized because I think there's different debates about, is fish oil even healthy for you if it's been oxidized? Yep. Which typically is going to be the lower quality fish oils that people are buying from like big box brands or, you know, not reputable brands or things that are imported in from overseas that might not have the high standards that are out there. Absolutely. And so a good multivitamin that would cover a lot of the ones that you were mentioning.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. Maybe you need to add a little bit of magnesium to get to the threshold. Yeah. And again, you can check your RBC magnesium. So again, you kind of want to make sure that you are in the right range and an optimal range. So those are the basics.

And even for a lot of people, just getting good at that and mastering that, like, that can be a whole life's work in itself. and it can be a life that will keep you from having cognitive decline until you're 100. I mean, that's our goal is to make everyone get to 100 with good cognition. And you're right. Look, if we just optimize their energetics, get them so that they're doing good exercise and that they have insulin sensitivity and that they don't have chronic inflammation and don't have chronic stress, most people are going to do very well.

And then the few people who begin to have symptoms do not wait, do not let, do not let, your doctor tell you it's normal aging because you don't you don't have to have this with aging. Get in there. Get evaluated and then you know get optimized for those things. And that way, most people won't need a lot of evaluation. They can do some basics and do quite well. Just like the brain, applying the basics can also be the most important thing to do when it comes to your mobility. And in my conversations with Kelly and Juliette Starratt, we dive into this powerful connection between simple movement patterns and longevity, Kelly and Juliet, break down how just a little bit of targeted daily movement can be a game changer in how

you live and how you age. And they share why it's never too late to get started. Let's listen in. Kelly, Juliet, welcome to the podcast. I want to jump right in on something that actually blew my mind when I read your book. And it's the connection between longevity and something so simple that I think Everybody should be paying attention to, but they may not know this connection, sitting down and standing up. Who wants to start off by explaining what that connection is? So I'll start. We opened the book with something called the Sit and Rise Test, which is based on a 2017 Brazilian study that showed that people who could get up and down off the floor without putting a knee or hand down live longer. And we also know that people who end up in nursing homes, the number one reason that happens is they've taken a fall.

or they can't get up off the ground. And there's been a ton of press lately. In fact, we just saw this article in the New York Times that hip fractures in the elderly are expected to rise by something like 30% over the next 20 years. And, you know, anybody who's been paying attention to the news knows that, you know, once you fall as an older person and then fall and break bones, like that starts to be the beginning of the end. And so one of the reasons, though, we wanted to start our book with this was not to scare

everybody and say, okay, you're going to die if you can't do this. but because this thing that's called the sit and rise test is a really good window into your basic hip mobility and overall mobility. Can you lower yourself to the ground and get up and down off the ground? And then secondarily, the reason that we thought it was so important to start the book with this is that is that the way to get better at this test is to do something that humans have been doing for a millennia, which is actually just sitting on the ground, and then doing the thing, which is getting up and down off the ground. Yeah, it's so basic.

I mean, anybody listening, you just heard it. You sit on the ground. Crisk cross apples sauce. Criscross apple sauce, which, by the way, we were just talking a bunch about my Indian culture before we started recording. I've been sitting on the ground since we were like basically could actually sit. And everyone in your family, your aunties, everybody, my family. My grandmother would, would regularly prefer to sit on the floor.

And actually, when, you know, we moved to America, we got vacuums, we got other stuff. my grandmother still would prefer to squat and kind of clean the floor with this thing that's kind of like this weird broom stick. Yeah, I can envision it. And she enjoyed it. It was part of her life. But anyways, I got excited because I was like, oh my gosh, I've been training for this my whole life and I could actually do this test.

You know, we talk about VO2 max in this podcast. We talk about grip strength. We talk about a lot of other predictors of longevity. But here is one of the simplest ones that anybody can do. In fact, if you're listening, you can pause right now and just try it. sit on the floor and see if you can get up without any assistance. Yeah, and it's from that cross-legged position. And the reason the cross-legged position is notable is that it's a real mid-range position.

It actually doesn't require full hip range of motion or ankle range of motion. Those things are sort of put to the side. It's a test or expression of your range of motion of your hips and how easy they move. And ultimately, as we point out, it's difficult to get people to care about the range of motion until they can't do something. And so by opening the book, what we've given people is, hey, here's something you've been doing since you were a child. And every child around you,

you've practiced this thing, I don't know, 100,000 times, 200,000 times your life. And now suddenly you're struggling to get up and down. What if you're sitting there and I'm like, here, hold my baby. Can you get up? You can't? I'm like, here's two cups of coffee. Here's a great glass of wine and a cigar. You still can't stand up.

So I think what's interesting is that when we started with that, we got people's attention about saying, Oh, I wonder if I have blind spots because your hip range of motion for no fault of your own suddenly become a blind spot. And that influences potentially what your knees do, how your back functions, the movement choices that you have, the amount of ability to regulate your range and balance. All of those things start to come together. But by starting with that conversation, it's easy to say, okay, okay, okay, I got what you're

saying now. Where do we go on? The other thing is, I think in America or Western countries, we really think that the way we've set up our environment is how everybody lives. But it turns out something like half the world actually sits on the floor, sleeps on the floor, toilets on the ground, you know, really is like operating in their whole environment is very floor-based. And it turns out in those countries, the amount of orthopedic injuries is much lower. And the fall risk in the elderly drops to almost zero. just simply because those people actually are practicing the thing. They're practicing getting up and down off the ground.

And I want to tell you one quick story that I think you'll appreciate. Kelly was just in Japan traveling with some friends on a ski trip in February. And they got to a hotel and turned out there was like not enough rooms. And so Kelly didn't have a room. And the hotel staff was getting really nervous and sort of freaking out. And turned out what they didn't have, when they got to the bottom of it turns out what they didn't have was a Western room where the bed was off the ground, the table was off the ground. The toilet was off the ground. And they had plenty of more Japanese-style rooms where, you know, there was a futon on the floor and a table on the floor.

And, you know, even things like, you know, the thermostat were like at squatting height, not at face height like we would have. And Kelly was like, yes, like this room was made for me. Like, I am the American who can manage this room. But they look, they took one look at me and we're like, no way. They took one look at him and they're like, oh, he's going to complain. This person's going to die. They took one look at him and they're like, we do not have a room for this. guy. But it turns out that, you know, he was totally comfortable in that environment,

but it just gives you kind of an idea of like we get so accustomed to thinking that the way that we are in our environment here is how everybody is in their environment. And you really hit up two pieces that we're trying to set up with the book. The first one is people do not need another listical, right? They don't need another. Here's 17 ways to optimize. Here's your checklist. Here's how you're not, you're going to add in complex behaviors without really understanding anything about your life. And what we know. know is that we need to think differently about where people are going to engage with behaviors that turn out to be well evidenced, easy, practicable to change their lives. And sitting on the

ground while you watch TV is an easy thing to do. And instead of, you know, having to go to a class or talk about these things or take some course, all I need you to do tonight is sit on the ground for 30 minutes while you're watching TV and fidget. Find all these different positions. And And as you hinted at, it's interesting, your grandmother said, hey, I like to do it this way. There is some thinking, Philip Beach is a great writer about these things, but that sitting on the ground, all these ground-based positions are one of the ways the body tunes itself. And once you become accustomed to having access to that range of motion, things function better. And that when you take them away, your grandmother might have said, I don't feel as good

when I don't bend my knees all the way or change my ankles all the way or sit in a way. these positions or load my connective tissue in this way that's just in the background of doing something that human beings have done for a long time. Yeah. You know, Julia, you were saying about we don't want to scare people, but in a way when we look at the world and chronic disease and how unfortunately people spend usually the last 15 years of their life, especially in American society, which is being exported around the world, right? Like India is one of the fastest growing rates of diabetes anywhere in the world, you know, the Middle East isn't, you know, shambles on health-wise as people get more money. They want to live like Americans do, which

usually means a lot more sugar, more sedentary life. So there's a little part of this, which is that we don't want to leave it at fear, but we do want people to be scared enough because often what I find having taken care of my grandparents, like I kind of had two sides of the equation. My dad's parents had a lot of mobility in their life. And my mom's side of the family, her parents had less so and I saw that decline when I was taking care of them and anybody who's taking care of somebody elderly who's losing their mobility losing their body and then they start to see that the entire body and the brain starts to decline because they can't move it's scary and you wouldn't want that for even your worst enemy and it happens quickly right and it happens quickly yeah so

it's almost like you fall off a cliff you fall off a cliff so part of this is also understanding you know when you look at a child you look at a baby they're doing a lot of of these movements that you're talking about in your book, Bill to Move, link in the show notes, people, everybody go buy it. It's a fantastic read. They're doing these things naturally. At what point of the major milestones that either of you want to highlight, do you start to see big decline in our American and Western society?

We wrote a book about running. And one of the things that we noticed because we had school age children at the time was that all of the kindergartners run like Usain Bolt. They all run beautifully. They sprint on the ball of their foot. Their mechanics are good. They're springy. And we got to first grade and we watched at Christmas around the holiday, half the kids came back and started heel striking. And so if you're listening, what that means is they fundamentally altered a running movement pattern. They went from running and landing. Like if you were jumping, you'd jump and land on the balls of your feet. You wouldn't do that with your heels and all of a sudden half of the cohort of the kids that we observed started putting their

heel out to to initiate a running kind of position. So just so everyone knows, if you take your shoes off and go run, you cannot run with your heel slamming into the ground. You'll immediately get feedback that that doesn't feel very good. So what is it about the environment and the human interaction that changed? That's like saying, okay, we're going to develop your writing skills with your right hand and halfway through your first grade, we're going to switch the left-handed writing. That's the equivalent of that. Or you've been throwing a ball with your right hand, we're starting to throw it with your left hand. You'd be like, why are we doing that? That's a really interesting question. Well, if the whole world started to shift you into only left

handedness or left footedness, you suddenly would say, hey, this is something's going on here, the environment's shaping us. And I think when we start to view that way, we start to then, it's easier to understand the thousands of small choices that are made for us. We talk about environmental constraint a lot. When I was a first-year physio student, I was working next to the occupational therapist. And they were working with people who had some head trauma, people who had cerebral vascular accidents, strokes. And people would have a more affected side and a less affected side. And on the, they would come in and what they would do is if your right hand was your dominant hand that was less effective, they would actually tape an oven mitt to that hand so you

couldn't use it. And they would force this other hand, the more affected side to do all the work. And so that the brain had to work and learn how to reuse that sort of injured side. And I came home and I was like, Juliet, I think I found the key. I have to get all the cookies out of the house. Then I won't eat the cookies. Like, this is environmental constraint. And suddenly that idea of how the environment is shaping us in hidden ways really started to become clear to us, especially when we started owning a gym and started becoming really the touch point for so many people's wellness and fitness,

we realized that so much of what we needed to do to actually help people engage with health, engage in control their lives was really about how they were being shaped by their environment. So if you and I all sit down and the only place for us to sit culturally makes sense as a chair, that's what we're going to do. Yeah. And not that sitting is bad, but the idea is if this is the only option I have, that's the only option I'll engage with. And now you can basically start to apply that across a thousand different variables. and we start to see it have real changes in how you move in your environment.

Run through a little bit of a list of some of those variables, just so we can connect the dots for people, right? You're talking about at a young age, kids, they're running like Usain Bolt. You know, are shoes part of the equation and kind of how that plays into it? Of course, you mentioned sitting as well. Like run through a few of these things that if we contrast, let's say, how my grandmother grew up and how I grew up, you would see that it's not that she's training at CrossFit or that she's trying to get better.

She just has to operate a particular way to function in her world and her environment. So I think you brought up shoes and that's a really good point. And this is another thing we talked about in our book Ready to Run. But the American Academy of Pediatrics actually recommends that the best shoes for toddlers is no shoes. And then the second best option would be a shoe that basically disrupts the foot the least. and really just acts as a protection from the environment, like from stepping on rocks and so forth. Like a ballet slipper. Like a ballet slipper or something that has a very wide towbox that gives the, you know, the foot plenty of room to move around.

So I think shoes are a big part of it. I think the chair is obviously sitting and the chair becomes a big part of it. You know, we read this, when we were doing the research for our book, Despawn, we read this really obscure book called The Chair by this UC Berkeley professor named Galen Crants. And she actually said that the way that modern schools were set up were really actually, designed to train kids to work in industrial facilities, right, in sort of the sitting position so that we could train them to sit like that and work like that so they could move on to work in industry. And then I think the third big thing is the rise of technology.

I mean, you know, sometimes people have said, hey, you know, what's the deal? Like, we didn't have to do a standing desk when we were in the 80s or 70s. Like, we were fine in the 60s. But, you know, I think the big difference is that we didn't have technology, you know, computers phones. Computers phones, even television. Or they weren't widely used. I mean, computers. At the most, you know, in the 80s, we would come home and watch like an hour of love boat from eight to nine.

But that was kind of the extent of it. Everyone used to say, I'm getting on the computer. Yeah, I'm getting on the computer. So I think, you know, and, and I think it's become so prolific. And I think the third thing that people don't think about a lot with kids actually is homework. So homework, the amount of homework kids are given has dramatically increased over the last 30 years. And so in a kid population in particular, you know, most kids, again, because their environments are set up to be sitting, they're given a lot more homework. So between technology, sitting at school, doing homework, and then the other key thing is in kids, in particular, they're being driven to school.

So it turns out that most, something like 90% of American kids live within two miles of their elementary school. And when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, it was like 75% of kids walked or a bike to school. And now it's down to something like 10%. It's just a given that if you take your kid to school, you pack them up in the car and drive. And so, you know, I'm talking a lot about all of these environmental experiences for kids, but I think we learn those things as kids and then that translates into our adult selves, right? We've become accustomed to learning and learning while sitting and reading while sitting. And then we're on our phones and then we have commuting.

And right, I just think it sort of becomes this cascading effect related to our environment. And then we talked a little bit about the session cost early on. we mentioned that we could look at an athlete's sport or skill or training session and sort of assign how expensive was that on the physiology how it was able to manage that workload and still be able to do more work well we can take a kind of a window back and say well what's the session costs for sitting not on the physiology but access to your range of motion and what we find is that people who do a lot of sitting end up lacking or missing their ability to to extend their hip.

So the problem is, and I mean taking your knee, she's laughing because I'm obsessed with hip extension. I literally was like, I wonder, Kelly's obsessed with hip extension, and I was like, I wonder when he's gonna find an opportunity to talk about hip extension. The idea here is, take a shot every time about you.

That's right. You need to be able to have your knee come behind you, like in a lunge position. And it is a fundamental reason. It's actually a meme on the internet about split squats or rear foot elevated split squats or Bulgarians, are the worst exercise. It's the number one exercise

that everyone hates the most to do. And the reason is that getting your leg behind you in a loaded lunge position is the hardest thing we do because we're so conditioned to what? The exact opposite position. So what... You're not saying don't do them.

You're saying that people hate doing it. They hate doing them because they're used to having their hip flexed all the time. What this allows us to do is not say, you shouldn't sit because it'll hurt your back. I'm like, your back may hurt just because you're that person

and then you're super stressed and your dad didn't love you. Whatever. I don't know what the reason is your back hurts. But what I can say and measure is, wow, you did all this sitting and now your hip extension sucks. You've fundamentally altered just like those kids in the first grade who started heel striking. We're starting to see that, hey, we have a society that is not able to extend their hip. I wonder why your knee hurts.

Oh, and also, I see you're also missing hip extension. I wonder why you have chronic back pain. I don't know what the mechems are, but I also see you're missing hip extension here. So what we want to start to say is just like that sit and rise test, a lot of the movements that we engage in or don't engage with start to shape our ability to access our native ranges of motion. And I just want to, because we just have, we've talked a lot about the behavioral chapters and then a little bit about the sit and rise test. But there's two things I want to say on this sort of mobility piece. I first of all, I want to define what we mean by mobility because I think it's poorly understood or people have never even heard the word. But what we mean by mobility is it is the ability to move your body freely through your environment

without pain and to be able to do the things you want to do physically. So if people are asking, do I or do I not have mobility, those are the questions. Are you out of pain? Are you able to do the things you want to do physically? And that second piece is really important because for anyone who's physical in any way, worst case scenario, especially from a mental health standpoint, is to be able to be told by a doctor or physician or physical therapy, stop physical therapist, stop doing the thing you love because you're in pain. That's everyone's worst nightmare, especially people who are physical and like to use their bodies. And the other thing

we want people to think about and hope they care about their mobility a little bit and range of motion is that if you think about your physical capability as a human is this wide open hallway, and as we age, the hallway starts to narrow. And one of the ways that hallway starts to narrow is if we don't keep an eye on our range of motion. We can't move our body freely through its environment and we can do it without pain. With its native range. With its native range of motion, that hallway is going to start to constrict. And the reason people should care is they are going to not, their movement opportunity is going to start to narrow. They're not going to be able to do the things they want to do physically. I don't want to hike. I don't want a bike. And one story I'll tell us, I have a friend

who's a financial advisor. And he meets with people about retirement planning. and, you know, all the things to do to get ready to be able to retire and enjoy your retirement. Turns out that he spends like 90% of his appointments, not talking about the money piece at all, he talks to people about what it is they want to do when they retire. And nobody ever says what I want to do when I retire is get into my lazy boy and watch CNN for the rest of my life. That's not something anyone ever tells him. Everybody comes to him with things they want to do that involve movement. That could be totally varying, right?

It could be like Kelly and I, our movement goal when we're 80s to be able to still comfortably be able to ski and mountain bike. But for many people, they want to be able to travel or play with their grandkids or be able to manage walking around Disneyland for a day, right? Everybody has these movement goals. And if you haven't kept an eye on this key thing that is range of motion, this wide open hallway, and your hallway is constricted to the point where you can't get up and down off the ground or extend your hip or put your arms over your head, you are not likely going to be able to do

those things you want to do as you age. And now maybe you think you don't need to care about it because you're 35 years old. But having that native range of motion is going to help you do more, work harder as an athlete, feel better in your body, hopefully experience less pain. So there's a benefit now, but there's a huge benefit to keeping that hallway wide open. And muscles and tissues are like obedient dogs. They always come around. What age did you, when your great grandmother got a cut, did she healed? She healed a little slower than the 12 year old, right? But you always are healing and turning over. So there's no reason why we can't reclaim this range of motion, especially if you keep an eye on it, especially if your grandma likes to squat and kneel and

sit on the ground. That's one of the things we're trying to do is where do we put this formal movement practice in that's a second, that's a side or separated from exercise. because that's what we think. I've done the peloton. I'm good. Right. And basically you haven't moved your ankles. You haven't moved your hips in a full range of motion.

You haven't extended your spine. You haven't put your arms over your head. You can start to ask, well, what is it the body's supposed to do? And suddenly you're like, whoa, that sun salutation practice, that made a lot of sense. That was like, how do I have a little breath and a little bit of movement? And how do I, how do I touch some of these positions for 10 minutes in the morning so if the day gets away from me, I have at least taken, my hip through a full range of motion. And what we're seeing is that the average person is basically

living in a little tiny movement window with like three words. Meanwhile, the body is capable of Shakespeare. And Kelly mentioned this earlier. I mean, you know, I think we have been told that aging is just this sort of like downhill. Like we're all just going downhill and then we die, right? But range of motion is actually something that shouldn't have to change as we age. If you keep an eye on it, unlike, you know, everybody's going to lose a little bit of muscle mass. Like, there are some things that are going to happen at the rate at which they happen. We can certainly control with our behavior. But range of motion actually should be able to stay constant throughout our lifetime.

Can you imagine? Would there be human beings for two and a half million years? We're like, well, you're over 60. You don't get up and down off the ground. Yeah, I mean, like your grandma being case in point, right? Like if she can squat and get up and down off the ground and, you know, her preference is to do ground-based things like sweeping on the ground, you know, she's been able to maintain that range of, of motion by doing those things. But the other key point I want to make is it's actually not too late. That's a question we get often as people think, well, am I lost cause? Yeah, I'm listening to this podcast. It's too late for you. Go on without me. I'm 55 and I've been working a desk job for the last 30 years and I can tell that I've, you know, I already can't do all the things I want to do physically

and I've, you know, had some kind of pain or whatever. It's actually not too late to start and people can make a massive difference in the range of motion by starting whenever and just paying attention to it a little bit. But we haven't given people clear benchmarks. and clear vital signs. And explain to them why they should care. Yeah. You know, so I think that's what we have tried to do is say, hey, look, I think a lot of us are getting the message around some of these other key behaviors, keystone behaviors

like nutrition, sleep, et cetera. But those people are still not looking at range of motion. They still have an establish what it is I should be able to do. Those things are always in the context of exercise, not movement choice, movement freedom, balance, those things. So when we've at least put this on the radar and we're like, look, you really like to engage in some strange esoteric practice, let's test how well that's doing. You do Peloton and yoga. Let's test how that's doing. You do CrossFit. Do you have access to your range of motion?

When we have third party benchmarks and vital signs, we become agnostic about how you want to do that. But now we can begin a conversation about, hey, the thing that you're engaged with, maybe there's a hidden cost to that in your inability to move or expose your tissues to positions. Regarding range of motion, just to kind of close the dots on that, is that there's the sitting crisscross on the floor, right, cross-legged. Are there other tests that people should be thinking? Is there just one or two that you want to mention right now? Sure.

I mean, since Kelly already teed up hip extension, his favorite subject of all, we have in the book something called the couch test, which is based on a stretch we've been recommending for years called the couch stretch. But basically, you know, you put your knee to the wall or to the question. corner of the couch and your shin is sort of along the wall and then you want to try to get into an upright position and we have demonstrations in the book so people can better visualize it. But what it is, you can Google couch stretch. What it is is a test of your ability to extend your hip, this sort of critical range of

motion that a lot of people are missing largely because we're spending most of our day sitting. Yeah. And, you know, what's nice then is, again, the test is the practice. The practice is the test. Yeah. And oftentimes the real process. problem we've seen is that people want to be heroic. Show me the, I'm going to go to range of motion boot camp. I'm going to hire this expert and do remote Zoom coaching. What we need to figure

out is how to get these little small doses into every day's practice. Practical, regular experience with them in their life. Yes, yes. And so we started, for example, by saying, hey, let's sit on the ground for 30 minutes tonight. I just want you to watch TV while you're sitting on the ground. We went to, we have this story in the book, but we went to the Olympic club in San Francisco, a very storied, you know, social club, athletic club in San Francisco. And they were like, you're going to talk to mobility with all our people. And I was like, great. No chairs.

And they were like, oh, well, that's weird. And I made like 300 people sit on the floor. And these are like squash players and tennis players and like athletes and men who styled themselves as the captains of industry and athletes. And no one, I had eventually had men in half hour laying down. They could not sit up. And I was like, what do you think the problem is? What sophisticated elite program do I want to drop into? You can't even sit on the floor, sir.

So one of the things we love is that when you start to figure out, when am I going to do this? Again, I'm not just, I'm not, I don't want you to kick anything else out. Well, one of the things that we know, we love sitting on the ground because Juliet talked about the positions, but guess what's, oh, look, what's that right there? That's my roller. It's right next to the couch. And if I'm already sitting on the ground watching TV, I might as well engage in a little soft tissue work. And now I'm conjoining what happened to me during the day. with a little soft tissue mobilization.

What's stiff? Oh, my feet, my calves, my back, whatever. Hey, I'm a little sore. If you have a ball and a roller, you can get so much net positive input. You can make yourself feel better. You can restore your range of motion. And as little, I sound like infomercial, 10 minutes a day.

But the key here is that it's 10 minutes a day, five to seven days a week. That aggregates into so much input into your body, where we really see holistic wholesale changes in people's ability to access their range of motion, to develop force, to have less pain. And if you really, it's like, what we found is our minimum dose is five minutes. Five minutes on the left side, five minutes on the right side, work on something that's off tissue work.

Yes, soft tissue work. And since you're already sitting on the floor, it's right there. And if we can start to stack those behaviors where, well, I sit on the ground for 30 minutes on watch TV and then the roller's there and I do my 10 minutes. What you find is that you get all these ancillary benefits. Like, not only do you feel better, but you start to train your brain, well, first I sit on the ground, then I do the soft tissue, then I go to bed. And what we know is that that soft tissue work has large paristh sympathetic input.

It helps you to relax. No one jumps off the massage table and is like, let's fight. No one does that. And if you can get a little soft tissue input on the ground, chances are you're going to fall asleep and stay asleep because that's what the data supports. And now we have this pretty holistic. system that really you can be consistent with and work into your busy life because anyone can sit on the ground and a foam roller is like it's like toilet paper you can buy a target the point one one quick

thing though i want to say is that we again i know i said this earlier but we like to do our soft tissue work before we go to bed at night but there are plenty of people who find that the window of opportunity they have is in the morning or maybe at the tail end of their training session i mean we really are totally agnostic like we like to do it we enjoy it because it also helps us sleep But again, the goal is to get that 10 minutes in a day and when you do that is totally up to you. We know how our brains and bodies are not separate. In fact, cognitive resilience and physical mobility are two sides of the same coin. So whether it's getting a cognoscopy to assess your brain health or simply reclaiming your ability

to sit and stand from the floor with ease, these are real measurable actions that give us back control over our long-term health and vitality. If you liked what you heard in today's episode, be sure to check out my full-length conversations with Dr. Dale Reddison and Juliet and Kelly Staret. You can find the links for those episodes in the show notes. And if there's someone in your life who you think might benefit from today's episode in conversation on mobility, aging, and brain health, please share this episode with them. Until next time, thank you for tuning in.