Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #24 How To Be Well with Dr Frank Lipman

Episode Date: June 28, 2018

Dr Chatterjee talks to US doctor and functional and integrative medicine expert, Dr Frank Lipman. They discuss Frank’s philosophy of combining traditional Eastern medicine with nutritional science and the best of Western medicine for long-term health and wellness. Show notes available at drchatterjee.com/franklipman Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, my name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, medical doctor, author of The Four Pillar Plan and television presenter. I believe that all of us have the ability to feel better than we currently do, but getting healthy has become far too complicated. With this podcast, I aim to simplify it. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most interesting and exciting people both within as well as outside the health space to hopefully inspire you as well as empower you with simple tips that you can put into practice immediately to transform the way that you feel. I believe that when we are healthier, we are happier because when we feel better, we live more. I'm delighted to welcome onto the podcast today Dr. Frank Lipman. Frank

has been a practicing medical doctor for nearly 40 years now. He's respected all over the world. He founded the 1111 Wellness Center right in the middle of New York back in 1992 and he's known for combining the best of western medicine and cutting-edge nutritional science with age-old healing techniques from the East. As his very famous patient, the chef Seamus Mullen once told the New York Times, if antibiotics are right, Frank will try it. If it's an anti-inflammatory diet that I need, he'll do that as well. Frank looks at the body as a system rather than looking at isolated things. That is something I am totally on board with. So it gives me great pleasure to introduce today

Dr. Frank Lippmann. So Frank, welcome to the Feel Better Live More podcast. Great, great to have you here in New York at my practice. Lovely to meet you. Yeah, we've been communicating over social media and email for a few years now. So it's a real honor for me to be here in Manhattan in the 1111 Wellness Center, something I've been reading about for many years now. I've been following your work for a number of years and, you know, been a big fan actually. And, you know, I remember that we actually got mutually introduced, I think, pretty much around the time that my very first BBC series, The Doctor and the House, came out.

And we've been in constant communication since then, which has been a lot of fun. So, Frank, I think we're going to dive into your book because I find that incredibly fascinating. start just by asking, how does someone like yourself, who's born many thousands of miles away from here in Johannesburg in South Africa, end up here in the center of Manhattan? Right. Born thousands of miles away and thousands of years ago. So I qualified in 1979 in South Africa. And, you know, I grew up during apartheid. So I always knew I wanted to leave South Africa. But I had to pass American exams to get into America. I actually was interested in coming to London at one stage. And then I was told, don't go to London. It's not easy for doctors there. So America became my place of choice. But so I knew I wanted to leave South Africa.

And I got exposed to non-traditional medicine in South Africa, to African medicine, to Sangomas early on. And that was sort of my first exposure to non-traditional medicine, because when we couldn't help patients in the hospital, the family used to call in the Sangoma, the traditional healer. And I noticedoma, the traditional healer. And I noticed that sometimes the traditional healer helped these patients that we couldn't help. And then after my internship in 1980, I went to work in the bush. And once again, I got exposed to traditional healers again. And once again, I noticed that they were helping some of the patients that we couldn't help. And then I went to work in a GP practice before I came to the States. And when you go into a GP practice, you're seeing completely different patients in a hospital.

People coming in, they couldn't poop and they were tired and they were bloated. And I didn't know what the hell to do because I wasn't trained in the hospital to deal with these patients. And the doctor there, Paul Davis, said to me, Frank, your job is just to be there for people. People get better in spite of the medicine you give them. And, you know, you just support them and talk to them. And there was actually one acupuncturist in Johannesburg, and his practice was sort of the artsy community

and the lefty political community in Johannesburg. And they were coming into the practice and they had seen the acupuncturist and they had seen homeopaths. And I saw some of these patients once again were getting better with problems that we couldn't help in traditional medicine. And I started thinking, you know, what the hell is going on here? I'm seeing Sangoma's helping patients, Icon help, the acupun what the hell is going on here? I'm seeing some Gormas, some Gormas helping patients. I can't help the acupuncturist, the homeopath. These are helping patients that we can't help. Why is it all being called quackery?

So that sort of opened my mind a little bit. And then I emigrated to the States and I started it. I had to get a resident. I had to get three years in internal medicine to get a license. So I landed in New York in the South Bronx, which was pretty burnt out in that area. It was heroin and crack area. Wow.

But they would sponsor me for a green card. And I started doing my residency. And after about two weeks of my residency, I realized I didn't want to be a doctor here. Because in South Africa, like in London, you train very differently. You train to take a good history and do a good examination, not to do a million tests. And the part of medicine that I really

enjoyed was the relationship. And there was none of that in America. It was just what did the blood show? What did the x-ray show? What did the EKG show? And then you had to go read up and study and present it to the professor the next day. And I thought, this is not for me. read up and study and and present it to the professor the next day and I thought this is not for me there happened to be an acupuncture clinic in the south bronx next to to the hospital and I said oh shit I'm just going to check this out I don't want to be a doctor in America so I walked over in this burnt out neighborhood I walked in to this acupuncture clinic and I saw about 50 addicts sitting quietly with needles in their ears. I went, whew, this is interesting. These are the same patients that I'm treating in the wards

and they're pulling out their IVs and they're swearing at you and they're very difficult patients. And I walk into this clinic and they're sitting quietly with needles in their ears. So I said, okay, this is, I'm going to check this out. So I went to speak to the guy who ran the clinic and he, and he loved that I was an MD and interested. He said, you can come and check this out anytime you want. And you know, you, you welcome to learn whatever you want. This was 1984. So this was long before people were even interested in acupuncture. So for the next three years during my residency, I was spending time at the hospital doing my residency, and I was going to the acupuncture clinic. And I noticed that they were both helping completely different types of patients.

At the hospital, we were treating people with acute heart attacks and pneumonia and acute asthma attacks, and Western medicine was wonderful. But they'd come to the outpatient clinic, and they couldn't poop they were tired and they were bloated and we didn't have any tools. Whereas those same type of patients were going to the acupuncture clinic because it wasn't just a detox clinic. And I saw that acupuncture and Chinese medicine was helping these patients that we weren't helping. So I realized in 1984 that the future of medicine was going to be a combination of these two because they were helping two completely different types of patients. And the one was good at one thing. The Chinese medicine was good at the other.

And they both weren't really helping what the other type of medicine was helping. So it was pretty obvious for me then to see what the future was and that's what I decided I knew then that that's what I wanted to do to try somehow bring the two together and then after my residency I went on this journey started studying Chinese medicine and acupuncture got into meditation and yoga I started getting into nutrition and I met Jeff Bland in the late 80s and started learning functional medicine and that's the journey so for the last 30 what almost 40 years I don't I'm an old man I've been you know just refining and refining the tools to try and bring the best medicine to my patients wow I mean long story, an incredible story, really. And, you know, it just strikes me that you were so ahead of your time, really.

If you think about this, you're talking about 1984. You know, over 30 years ago, you as a Western-trained medical doctor and MD were open-minded enough to recognize the limitations of your training. And I just want to sort of delve into that a little bit. Do you feel that you've always been open-minded? Because there's many doctors, unfortunately, who, you know, even if this is going on around them, they will call this quackery. They will, you know, have tunnel vision in terms of what I've been trained is the way to practice because I have found, you know, have tunnel vision in terms of what I've been trained as the way to practice, because

I have found, you know, throughout my training, that there were some patients I could really, really help well with my medical school training. So many patients I couldn't either. So I was always interested as to what are those things? So I've always been very open minded. Would you say you've always been open minded? Yeah, I think so. You know, I come from a medical family, so I didn't get the open-minded in medicine from my family, but I came from a very left-wing family during apartheid. So I grew up knowing that the system is rotten. And to me, the medical system was as rotten as a political system in South Africa. So I sort of grew up questioning the system anyway. So questioning the medical system was just an extension of me questioning the system.

So would you actually say then, as a result of you growing up in challenging political times and apartheid era in South Africa, do you think, therefore, that that in some way has contributed to you practicing the way you practice today? No question. I think that's definitely part of it that I didn't trust the system. Questioning the system was something that was, you know, inbred in me. Yeah, but this is the key really, because you have, by virtue of your upbringing, this is the key really because you have by virtue of your upbringing um you will question the system and i i often wonder what happens to you know bright students at school they go to medical school and you know by one criteria of intelligence that society dictates is, you know, important. People who go to medical school tend to have good grades in their school. And I think that they start medical school and, you know,

they're free thinkers. They've got open minds, you know, really trying to figure out what's right, what's wrong, you know, how can I best progress? And I find somewhere along the line, I don't know if it's a medical school or in your first few years as an intern, for many of us, that questioning goes out the window and it's literally a case of what were we taught? What does the protocol say? You know, I will keep doing this irrespective of whether it's working or not, because I don't understand why more doctors are not questioning the fact that, as I did a few years ago, at the end of my primary care day, I looked back at my whole list of patients. And I think I'd seen nearly 50 patients. And I thought, honestly, I've helped around 20% of my patients.

The other 80%, I don't feel I've done much for. So it's incredible to think about the upbringing, how that plays a role here. I think it's pretty scary. And that's why I always say, is the medical system, are medical students and doctors part of a cult? Because you know what they do in cults, they deprive you of sleep, they fill you up with sugar and caffeine, and you're too tired to even question the system. That's what I think happens to doctors. They're so tired, they just don't have the energy to actually question what

they've been what's been shoved down their throat and that's basically what happens in a cult so I know that's a bit extreme but sometimes I sort of compare you know medical students in the medical system to a cult. Yeah I guess you've as you say you've been doing this for many years now so I guess you've had time to reflect back and think about, you know, why is it? Why is what you, I presume at some point in the 1980s, if you were practicing this way, you were combining the best of Western medicine with some of these more traditional Eastern philosophies. You know, how was that looked upon back then? You know, did you feel you were like a pioneer in some ways? Were you doing something that pretty much no one else was doing around then? Well, you know, in those days, I didn't really look at myself as a pioneer. I was just doing what I knew what was right. You know,

they asked me to be chief medical resident in my third year during my residency. And I said, yes, if I can spend time in the psychiatry department, because the acupuncture clinic was part of the psychiatry department, because theyupuncture clinic was part of the psychiatry department because they were making a lot of money doing detox for the hospital. And they said, sure. And they really liked me because I was a good resident. And then I decided to give grand rounds. Towards the end of my training, I was going to give grand rounds on acupuncture.

And so everyone came because they had to be polite. At the hospital? At the hospital. At the conventional? This is in 1987. I gave grand rounds on acupuncture. and so everyone came because they had to be polite at the hospital at the hospital conventional this is in 1987 i gave grand rounds on acupuncture and guys guys just someone say for those of you listening who are not familiar with medical system grand rounds is very prestigious certainly in the uk it's very prestigious somebody maybe once a week or once a month will give an academic type lecture to the rest of the hospital you You know, medical students, professors,

MDs, you know, everyone, research professors, everyone turns up. So just a bit of context for you. So Frank, you were giving a grand rounds on acupuncture. Right. And they let me, they didn't know it was going to be on acupuncture, but they let me do it because I was chief medical resident. And they sat there politely. Some people got up and walked out but almost every professor came up to me and said frank you're such a good doctor what are you doing you're going to be ostracized are you crazy this is nonsense not one of them supported me not one they all came up to me and being nice they were trying to be supportive they kept you know they said what are you doing are you crazy but you know i knew I knew I was so clear

in my head that what I wanted to do and what the future would be so um you know that was quite funny but I was also lucky enough part one part I left out was I had really good teachers on the way you know I had Jeff Bland in functional medicine but i had amazing an amazing yoga teacher who actually was sort of he's like a philosopher actually an english guy an older guy who's been a mentor for me and my chinese medicine teachers ifrin kormgold and harrod binefeld they wrote between heaven and earth a guide to chinese medicine were unbelievable so i had amazing guides and teachers which were really helpful because they really taught me a different way of thinking about not only medicine,

about life. So I was very lucky. I mean, I must say, I mean, I knew what I wanted to do, but I was lucky to come across people who sort of took me in, my Chinese medicine teachers, my yoga teacher, and Jeff Bff bland who was also a big influence on and on all of us with functional medicine yeah frank it's an incredible story you know something really caught my ear there which was you gave the grand rounds in

acupuncture right and you know acupuncture actually is pretty well you know i wouldn't say well respected but now there's a lot of acceptance now within the medical profession that it has value certainly for some conditions i mean i i think we'll find out more and more we'll get the research that we need to say that actually it has a widespread use but the medical profession are in a way that they probably weren't in the 1980s are certain certain parts of the medical profession are embracing acupuncture, that's for sure. But you said when they came up to you after the talk, you know, said, Frank, you're a great doctor, but you know, they were trying to dissuade you, but you said you were very clear in your mind, you had clear

purpose, you know, and that really struck out. And I think that's a really good way of segwaying into your book, How to Be Well, The Six Keys to a Happy and Healthy Life. So, you know, many of my listeners are familiar with my book in the UK, The Four Pillar Plan, where I talk about these four key pillars of health. You've expanded that to six pillars. But I wonder where that whole piece of having a clear mind and knowing your mind and knowing your purpose, what sort of a role does that play in health? I think that has a huge role to play in health. I mean, I think, you know, I'm not saying how you eat and how you move and how you sleep and how you chill out or your four pillars are not important. They're essential. But what, you know,

what you notice over the years is when people have meaning in their lives, when they have purpose, the non-tangible aspects of life are so important in healing. So purpose is one of those things. I always tell a story. I don't know if I've told it. I've told it in a book before, one of my books. I had a patient who had what we were calling chronic fatigue at the time. And she would come in and we tried everything.

I tried all the tools. We changed her diet. We gave her supplements. We tried to get her to sleep right. She was exercising. We got her to meditate. She just wasn't getting better. And I threw up my hands. I said,

why don't you just go to Africa and do some nonprofit, just do some charity work. Just get out of your life here. Part of it, I just didn't know what the hell to do with her. And then I didn't see her for a while. And a couple of months later, I got an email from her, a thank you note, thanking me. I'm in Africa, I did exactly what you told me to do, I'm working for this non-profit, I'm loving it, I'm really happy, I'm fine, I'm 100% cured, thank you for changing my life, and that was something that was, I just, which is, I didn't know what to do with it, so I threw up my hand, I said, go to Africa, that was, I just, which is, I didn't know what to do with it. So I threw up my hand, I said,

go to Africa. And over the years, I've seen that over and over again. You know, what I, you know, the point of the book is, the small things we do, the ordinary activities that we do on a daily basis, have an extraordinary effect on our health. And we take those for granted, whether it's having gratitude, whether it's being kind to others, whether it take those for granted, whether it's having gratitude, whether it's being kind to others, whether it's listening to music, whether it's taking a walk in nature. We take those little aspects of life as not healing or not necessarily as medicine. To me, that's all medicine. You know, everything we do, it can be beneficial to our health or detrimental to our health, but we don't see it that way. And so over the years, I've realized that these little aspects of our life that we

take for granted are really important. Yeah. I mean, what a great story. And I think, you know, it really broadens out this whole idea of what is medicine, you know, medicine. Yeah, food is medicine, but our lifestyles are medicine. Our can be our medicine you know it's about absolutely 21st century right we need to change what that term means you know we need to bring it out of the 20th century where medicine had that particular role didn't it you know you go see a doctor he gives you medicine but i think in the 21st century we need a new definition of what medicine is um you know that story you mentioned you know i think i like you frank we we learn from our patients right we we we read stuff we read the science we we try and apply it with our patients but then things

happen and they report things back to you and if you're open-minded you're okay why is that works and i in my book i detail the story of a lady with crohn's disease who had been under her gastroenterologist she'd been on immunosuppressants you know she didn't like the way she felt on them her symptoms weren't getting better then i'd been seeing her for a little while for a period of time we did some things with her diet you know and yeah we got some improvement but then went off. I didn't see her for a little while. And she came in really frustrated that she'd plateaued. And as I was talking to her, I thought, well, you know what? This lady has no time for herself. She does nothing that she loves. She's like many of the female patients I see in my practice who are, you know, they don't feel that they can justify time for themselves she would do everything for her husband for her children for her elderly parents she did nothing for herself and so I said

to her what I want you to do for four weeks is I want you to have 15 minutes a day where you do something just for you and you alone that doesn't involve your your smartphone um and I want you to find one thing a week that you do that you love, something you may not have done before. She came up four weeks later, and I said, what did you do? And she said, well, for 15 minutes a day after I drop my kids at school, I go for a walk in the park. Okay, and I said, what was your passion?

She said, you know, I've always wanted to learn salsa dancing, but I've never done it, so I've joined a salsa dancing class. And after four weeks, her Crohn chrome symptoms had gone down by 50 percent just from those changes yep and i i thought just as you're saying wow you know all these things interplay together we can't separate them out absolutely you know i in in my four-pillar approach i i've tried to cover sort of connection and the social piece under the whole relaxed piece. But I love the way that you've actually put them as six separate pillars. So I wonder if we could just delve into them a little bit, Frank.

Sure. Yours are eat, sleep, move, protect, unwind and connect. Right. And I wonder if we could maybe start with protect, unwind and connect. And I wonder if we could maybe start with protect, unwind and connect, and whether you could explain, you know, what you mean by those terms. And what can people who are listening to this maybe do, you know, in their everyday life to start getting a bit of this into their health? Sure. So also the context I put it in, I sort of also, for many, many years, I was trying to understand Eastern medicine from for many many years I was trying to understand eastern

medicine from a western perspective I was trying to understand what is qi what you know um you know which is now I believe the meridians and and the fascia is where where the energy runs through I was trying to understand Chinese medicine from a western perspective but what i did with this book is i took my my china or my eastern understanding of medicine and my eastern um influences of of a mandala i'm like as you've seen this office i have a mandala i have mandalas everywhere um and so i try to overlay the western con you know context on on the mandala And there were six rings surrounding you in the center. And that's how the six rings work. The most material eat to the least material connect because that people don't, it's not material enough.

But so, you know, protect, unwind and connect are the three least material. Protect is why I put that in there is if we had, if I'd written this book 50 years ago, there wouldn't need to be a protect. But with the amount of chemicals in our food, in our water, in the environment in general, I think one needs to be aware of how to mitigate that. How do you decrease the amount of chemicals you put into your body? And how do you protect yourself from all the chemicals out there? It may be less of a problem in England, but it's a huge problem in America. I mean, on a daily basis, we're exposed to thousands and thousands of chemicals, from the cosmetics we put on our skin to the food we eat is full of chemicals, the water, there are hundreds of chemicals in the water.

the food we eat is full of chemicals or water. There are hundreds of chemicals in the water. So the protect ring or the protect aspect of my book is really becoming aware of all the chemicals that you're exposed to without becoming crazy about it and not becoming too obsessive, but just becoming aware and the little things that you can do to to help prevent you from being exposed to as many and dealing with the chemicals that there's nothing you can do about and and would would this involve things like you know organic versus non-organic food for example the non-organic foods that we know like the dirty dozen list where these are the heavily sprayed and heavily pesticide laden foods does that come under your protects absolutely so that's that's

you know in fact i mentioned the environmental working group and their work and and and that in the book because the book is actually a real how-to book so it's not only telling people about these ideas or about what's out there it's how to actually deal with the problem. So when it comes to food, if you can't buy all your food organic, it's crazy that we have to have organic food. Food was always organic. Now it's like normal food is non-organic and we have to look for organic food. But yeah, if you can't afford to buy organic food, you look at the environmental working group list and these are the 12 foods that have the most chemicals those would be the foods that you try by organic so yes that would fit under there also

cosmetics women in particular and men but men don't wear as many cosmetics women are not aware of all the chemicals that they put on their skin and and these chemicals stay all day on someone's skin and and the skin's very permeable. So these chemicals can enter into your skin. And the problem is, you know, the studies are done on one chemical at a time. But we're exposed to so many chemicals. And it's how do all these chemicals work together in the body? And we know a lot of these chemicals have endocrine effects or affect our hormones in some way. Some have, you know know other effects on the

body but it's the amount of chemicals and how they all work together that we don't really know what's happening so the best thing you can do is try and decrease the number you put into your body on on your body and also help your body deal with with all those chemicals frank you say it's not you know it's probably more of an issue here in the u.s and actually i think you're probably right i think everything you know i i come several times a year to america now and i tend to find that it's harder to find good food sometimes um i think you do have more issues probably with pollution and chemicals in the environments but but i i see many patients uh in fact i could think for a middle-aged lady i saw recently who's got horrendous

skin problems and breathing problems and she has a cleaner that comes around once a week yeah and we we sort of delve deep into her history and we found out you know every week on the day that her cleaner comes as she comes back from work her skin flares up and her breathing gets worse and she asked a cleaner to stop using the typical cleaning sprays that she was using or to at least drastically reduce it and she'd actually suddenly didn't have that flare up anymore so i think this is a problem and these products are so endemic now in our culture that we don't even think about it we do think about exactly you know food and sleep but we're not thinking about the chemical so i think that's a great point and guys for those of you listening you know you have to take notes here right there

will be everything we've spoken about and the links to all these resources will be at drchastity.com forward slash frank litman so you can get a link to all frank's books including his new one there and everything we're speaking about is all going to be there guys so I know there's a lot of information coming up no need to worry you can access it all after the episode okay Frank so that's uh protection I wonder if you could talk about unwind which I I suspect is quite similar to my relaxation pill yeah unwind is basically relax um and I think, especially in New York, because those are the patients I was seeing, most people have a nervous system that's a little bit too hyperactive. And, you know, there's just, there's too much yang, as we say, and not enough yin. So the unwind is, you know, how do you relax?

And what can you do to relax? And relaxing may be, once again, taking a walk in nature. It may be sitting around a table with your family. But you need to take time out. You need to get out of your head. Most of us live in our heads all the time. So there are lots of tips on how to breathe, breathing techniques, different meditation techniques, listening to music. To me, listening to music can be incredibly helpful for relaxation and it's a simple way to relax. What do you say to people here in New York who I'm assuming are coming in and they're busy, busy, stressed out? Say, Frank, you know, this all sounds great.

You know, yeah, I know I need to unwind, but my job's busy. I've got to get my kids to school before I get to work. Then when I get back, it's just go, go, go. I don't have time, Dr. Lichtman, to relax. What do you say to those patients? Well, those type of patients, you usually have to scare them a little bit. You say, if you don't make the time, you know, there's more chance of you developing, you know, not necessarily chance of you developing you know not necessarily alzheimer's disease but all sorts of problems so there's always a little bit of fear you put in them and then inspire them to do something and say you know i'm a big proponent of meditation so we always encourage our patients to we start we actually have one of the head one of the apps

we recommend is an english at the headspace app, but we recommend different apps. But I really make a point of making 15 to 20 minutes of time a day and meditating because, you know, it depends what type of patient it is. But a lot of the time I explain to people that it's like an athlete. You want to be a mental athlete. You want to stay on top of your game you need to control your mind because most of the people i'm seeing are burning out very quickly and they don't know how to control their mind so i you know i'll bring in the athlete metaphor and if you want to stay on top of your game the younger guys are are catching up with you taking over you need to be sharp. You need to meditate.

So it's always a little bit of fear, teaching or showing people that it's not that difficult and inspiring them to make the changes. And I often use myself as an example, what a difference it's made for me. It's life-changing, isn't it, meditation? It really is. So meditation is something simple that I think everyone should do. Now it's a little bit difficult in the beginning and it's,

and it's a, it's a practice. That's why it's called the meditation practice. But I say to people, if you do it every day for a month, I can guarantee you, you will feel a difference. You won't be so reactive. You'll be a little bit sharper. You know, people have to do it. And you know, I say do it every day for a month and then come back and tell me how you feel. And it's very rare that someone will do it every day for a month. If they do it every day, that they don't feel a difference. I totally agree, Frank. It's just incredible, the benefits for people.

And I've got a memory, actually, and I think this is true. I think five or six years ago when i was reading your blogs you know before i actually got to know you personally i'm pretty sure you had a guided meditation on youtube that i i maybe used to do i'm going to check it out if i can find it i'll put it in the show notes but i'm pretty sure that i listened to one of your guided meditations it's possible i don't know anymore to be it's possible possible. Yeah, but I'll check it out. If it's there, I'll put it in the show notes, guys, because I found it incredibly useful,

and it's something you guys can start off meditating. And there's so many apps now. I mean, you know, Headspace has become very popular here. But there's Calm, there's Headspace, there's Buddhify. There's so many apps that make it so easy for people. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great. Connect. Right. there's buddhafire there's so many apps that make it so easy for people yeah absolutely okay great connect right when you say connect i know we covered a little bit on meaning and purpose but what do you mean by connects and what can people do about improving their ability to connect

right so to me connect is about connecting not only with yourself but connecting with your family and community because we've lost that in america and connecting with the environment with the world at large so there are many sort of layers of the connect in terms of connecting with oneself it's as we talked about earlier it's about about being kind and being grateful because what you realize, you know, when you're kind, when you're grateful, you actually start, you realize that the benefit is actually more for you than for whatever you're being grateful for or whoever you're being kind to. But then there's a connect, which I feel very strongly about because in America, and it's so different to the way I grew up, I'm noticing more and more it's become a huge issue. The family is breaking apart. There's a loss of community. And I think, you know, feeling part of a community, having the support of a family is really important. And we need to give that to our kids. We need to sit around a table and eat dinners. Here, everyone's eating separately and they're on their phones.

You know, you go out to eat and everyone's on their phones. It's crazy. So that community, that loss of community, I think, is a huge, huge part of why we're seeing so much dis-ease in society. For people, Frank, who have moved for work, they don't live near their families and don't have maybe many friends nearby. Are there some tips you've got for those guys and how they can get a bit more connection? Yeah, I think ultimately you want to try to create some type of community where you love people who believe in the same things as you, who you feel listened to and heard, who you feel completely comfortable around. Now, if that, you can't do it in a local community. There's so many communities online now that you can sort of become a part of.

And I always say to people, it may be worth driving for a couple of hours to be part of that community. I do feel most people can find the people that they feel comfortable with. It could be your local church. It could be any community, any community where you feel that you feel that you are part of the same belief system or you feel like you're all on the same page. You're so important. I guess this would even be, for those people listening, is I guess, Frank, I'm sure this would qualify for you. Let's say a weekly yoga class. Exactly. So you can either do yoga yourself at home or you can do it on YouTube.

You can do all these things and that's great. But if you join a weekly class, then once a week, you're going to be meeting people who have got like-minded interests. Exactly. Perfect example. And then there's connecting to the earth at large, which I think is important. Whether you believe in the concept of earthing, which I'm quite intrigued by, whether it's real or not, the idea that you're getting the electrons and the energy of the earth

through you. If you're walking around on the beach barefoot or in nature barefoot, there's something about the energy of the earth going through you. I'm quite intrigued by that. Me too, I'm intrigued. Because I know when I walk barefoot on the beach how much better I feel. But the idea of connecting with the earth at large I think is important. Why do people feel so much better when they go to the beach or when they go for a walk in in the forest there's something about this um

this not necessarily belief but this feeling of of awe that there's something bigger than you which i think is is quite powerful yeah the japanese have even got the term forest bathing yes exactly there's a tip in there shinrin it's shinrin yoku yep there's forest bathing in there absolutely i guess i've got to say it's a really good book it's over a hundred tips on how to be well i mean it's yeah that's my best book of all of them and it's a real how-to book i've got some of your previous books this is incredible it's not only full of incredible information guys it's so beautifully designed this book you know you really want to pick it up and take a look through it um yeah it really is frank it's it's it's i think looking at it it's a great book yeah it's yeah it's just even if i say so myself yeah hey well it's good to be proud of the work that you've

done right um what about if we sort of go just for the the final bit of the podcast now if we go on to eat sleep and move um obviously three big topics right um but i wonder if we could just sort of briefly touch on each one and go you know in your over 40 years experience now i think i've seen patients certainly a very long time you know in fact one level, it's remarkable for me that with all your experience, you know, you were chief medical resident here in a hospital in the 1980s, with all your sort of worldly experience, your medical experience, I find it remarkable that you have released a book which actually boils a lot of health down to these fundamentals. And, you know, I certainly share that, you know,

are you finding more and more as you go through your career, it comes down to these basics, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. The more I do it, the more I realize it's these basic little things that make such a huge difference to your health. Yeah. Yeah. So what are some of those things in food, in movement and sleep that people listening to this can sort of get an overview of, and then also some sort of top tips if you can. Right. So when we talk about food, I don't think there's one right diet for everyone. I think we're all a little bit different.

But I will say by far the majority of people I see, especially as they get older, do better on a low-carbohydrate diet. I'm not saying that's right for everyone, but the majority of people I see in my practice do better on a low carbohydrate diet. And that means eating basically tons of vegetables, tons of vegetables, as I say, can be 70% of your diet, and well-sourced know protein so i'm not against animal protein i'm against what they've done for instance meat in this country all the meat is factory farm most of it so i'm not recommending factory farm meat i'm recommending grass-fed grass-finished meat i'm

recommending organic chicken i'm recommending wild fish that's what we've done you know we talked about protect we put all these chemicals and hormones into these animals and that's what we've done. You know, we talked about protect. We put all these chemicals and hormones into these animals. And that's what's unhealthy about the meat, not the actual meat itself. So I'm not a vegan. And if someone's a vegan or vegetarian, I totally respect that, especially if they're doing it for philosophical reasons. If they're doing it for health reasons, I'm not quite sure if that's the right thing. For everyone. Yeah, exactly. But some people do fine as vegetarians so you know wouldn't change your diet but i do think it's important there's no one right diet for everyone everyone's a little

bit different but by far the majority of people do better on a low carbohydrate diet and that's because we we eat you know we're exposed to and we eat so many carbohydrates in our diet you know there's so many grains and there's so much sugar out there um and we demonize fat for so many years that it's become a problem so can we just say on that on that because i think it's a an interesting topic you mentioned a low carbohydrate diet now you said even 70 of your diet could come from vegetables yeah which again i think it's for me I was trying to clarify that, you know, we're primarily talking about these highly refined and processed carbohydrates that are everywhere because vegetables are full of carbohydrates.

Exactly, yes. But you're not sort of talking about those. Yep. Yeah. I mean, you know, we were talking about, you just did a podcast with Rich Roll. Rich Roll is a good friend of mine. He's a vegan. Philosophically, we're almost on the

same page except he won't eat the animal you know i'm eating a sort of a similar diet to him he'll have a couple more grains i don't have the grains and i have some animal protein but for the most part we're eating a similar diet there's more similarity between exactly people doing a yeah you know good quality diet from different exactly exactly actually there's a huge amount of crossover and i sometimes wish we'd focus more on what we all agree on rather than having these big fights over where the disagreement is yep okay so that's some some good tips in food a ton of vegetables really really cut down on those refined and hardly processed carbs which are frankly everywhere uh these days which is why i think right when you cut those out you automatically ramp up the quality

of your diet almost instantaneously um what about in movements so movement is you know once again there's no one right movement for for everyone and especially as you get older you've got to adjust to your body's needs i do think most people probably when it comes to movement i mean i talk about in the book is important to to have the yin part of the movement too people push themselves too much it's important to rest you know if you look in in yoga a lot of the yoga classes, push, push, push, and then there's relax. It's push and relax. So I'm into the intermittent, you know, type of movement where there's push and relax, push and relax. And now we know high intensity interval training has become such a popular thing. But I think it's important to realize that you've got to watch how much you push yourself because you always need to balance it with a little bit of rest. So great to exercise, but it's important to rest as well.

Do you see people as I do? Because I don't actually work in the center of a big city like you do, particularly a city here like New York. I see people who are over-exercising. I would imagine some of your patients might be the sort of A-type patients who are working hard, they're performing well, but they're also maybe exercising too hard. Yep, that's exactly what I was saying.

I see that all the time. It burns out the adrenals and I see the consequences of it. So it's very important to tune into your body and see how you feel after exercise. You should feel good. If you're feeling feel after exercise you should feel good if you're feeling exhausted after exercise that's not a good thing and you know exercise of all the tips is probably my weakest area personally um well i was going to ask you that actually in fact well let's go to that question because it's it's a it's it's one i tend to ask my guests which is when i talk

about these four pillars food movement sleep and relaxation i at the moment i'm struggling with the relaxed pillar that's my sort of weak pillar if it were um you're saying well let me ask you the question what pillar do you struggle with i'd say exercise i mean i love riding my bike outside but in winter here you know for january february and march it becomes tough but i love riding i hate indoor exercise so i ride my bike i do a bit of yoga not as much as i used to um but i don't do enough weights and i need to especially as i'm getting older i need to do more weights and and and strength training um so have you got a plan to introduce that yes i do have a plan but i'm lazy yeah i do have a plan i need to i mean stretching Yeah, I do have a plan. I need to.

I mean, stretching is, you know, I've done yoga for so many years. I tend to be better with that. And the aerobic with the cycling is good, and I walk a lot. But the strength training is a big thing in my core. You know, as you get older, you realize how important these things are. So my mission this year is to sort of work on that work on my core and some strength training in my in my book which i've got a copy for you here today in new york it's there's something called a five minute kitchen workout that literally was

designed for patients who used to come in and tell me that they don't have time they're not getting their strength training and i thought right forget about the gym i've got to find a way that i can bring it to their house to their office and this is what I do as I'm traveling it's five minutes so I'm going to open the page for you and show it to you and see I hope that helps you okay let's just briefly touch on sleep sleep is one of those underrated aspects of our health that most people don't take seriously enough and the example I give to scare people all the time is we have a glymphatic system in the brain. And it's a cleaning crew in the brain that only works when you sleep. So if you don't sleep, that cleaning crew doesn't work.

And it's the same as if you have a party one night and there's a mess in the morning and you don't clear it up. And you have a party the next night and you don't clear it up and you have a party the next night you don't clear it up after a couple of days there's this huge mess in your dining room or wherever the party was and that's what's happening in your brain if you're not sleeping you're not clearing out all the chemicals the breakdown particles that that you create during the day with your thinking and all your activity. And over time, that's just going to wear out your brain, and over time, it's going to affect your memory and affect your cognitive function. So it's important to see that that cleaning crew works every night,

and the cleaning crew will only work when you sleep. So the glymphatic system is an important system that we're only now starting to realize the importance of and so that's an you know one thing i always speak about with my patients because when people realize that is you know that this cleaning crew is only working when you sleep they get they get scared enough to make those changes. Yeah. And do you find here, I imagine that, well, I often say that in the 21st century, if you're not prioritizing sleep, you're probably not getting enough. Just because of the infinite temptation that there is now, right? Yep.

Is that something you're seeing a lot as well? Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. I think sleep is probably one of the biggest challenges for people, especially high performers, my New York City type patients. Sleep to inspire people so they literally, you know, they come to the end of it and they feel, yeah, you know what? I'm going to make a change in my everyday life immediately. Not next week, not when January comes around. And so I normally ask people for four tips,

but we don't, you know, we don't want to be prescriptive on that. I know you've got these six keys to a happy and healthy life, but I wonder, you know, are there three or four top tips that people can apply? You may already have talked about them, but things that people can now really think about putting into action? Sure. Make sleep a priority. And they're all tips.

There's tips in the book, there's tips all over. But I think make sleep a priority. Eat as close to nature as possible. So try to find local farmers, try to find food that hasn't been injected with chemicals, hasn't been sprayed with chemicals. Food that isn't altered is the best food generally that you're going to get. I think awareness of your family and community and being part of something and having the support of that community is really important. Don't take it for granted. Use music as a tool for changing your moods and for healing.

You know, I always tell people, you know, Bob Marley or reggae music beats at about 60 beats per minute. When you're listening to reggae, your body entrains at a slow rhythm, same as if you're at the beach and your body, your pulse slows down to the rhythm of the waves. If you put on Bob Marley in the background, your body entrains at that slower rhythm. So if you want to chill out, put on some Bob Marley. I love that one. I love that tip. And move your body as much as you can. It's not about going to the gym.

It's about moving. Just move your body the way nature intended it. So I think don't get obsessed about going to the gym, but just move as much as you can. Frank, these are great tips. I mean, certainly my big takeaway is I'm going to the gym, but just move as much as you can. Frank, these are great tips. I mean, certainly my big takeaway is I'm going to go and purchase a Bob Marley CD today. I know people will be thinking about downloads, but I actually made a decision about 18 months ago. And I went and bought an old school CD player for my house that much to the dismay of the guy in the shop, I wouldn't get the one with Wi-Fi connectivity.

I said, no, I just want something where I can have my phone off and listen to music. So I'm going to go and buy a Bob Marley CD and listen to it tonight. So thank you for that recommendation. And Frank, I've got to tell you, that was fantastic. I think there's so many tips you give my listeners. I really appreciate you giving up some of your time here in New York to be on the Feel Better Live More podcast. Thanks, Frank. Thank you. Thank you, Rangan. Thanks for having me. And it's great to meet you in person. That concludes today's episode of the Feel Better Live More podcast. Remember, everything that Frank and I discussed will be available on the show notes page on my website at drchastity.com forward slash Frank Lippman. I'm spending a lot of time and energy, guys, into putting together the show notes page on my website at drchastity.com forward slash frank litman i'm spending a lot of time and

energy guys into putting together this show notes page so that you can continue your learning experience after the podcast is over there's lots of resources and clickable links there so do check it out and let me know what you think some of you may be aware that just earlier this week i announced i've just completed a brand new book which will be out in just a few months. It's called The Stress Solution, The Four Steps to Reset Your Body, Mind, Relationship and Purpose. And you may recall actually that Frank and I discussed purpose in the conversation that we had today. Frank mentioned how important purpose is for our health and our well-being. Frank mentioned how important purpose is for our health and our well-being.

And he said that the ordinary activities we do on a daily basis have an extraordinary effect on our health. And we take those for granted. I absolutely agree. And actually, a whole quarter of my upcoming book on stress is dedicated to meaning and purpose. And how important it is for our health and what steps we can take to start finding meaning and purpose in our everyday lives. So if this sounds like something that will interest you, you can actually pre-order the book now by clicking on the link on the show notes page. Don't forget that many of the topics that Frank and I discussed today are the topics that I write about in detail in my international bestseller, The Four Pillar Plan. If you are

listening to this in the USA or Canada, my book, The Four Pillar Plan has come out there about a month ago, but it's got a brand new title there and it's called How to Make Disease Disappear. Again, you will get a link to that on the show notes page, or you can just Google it and find it at one of your local bookstores. Guys, if you want to support this podcast, which I really hope you do, it's actually pretty simple to do so. You can just share this episode with a friend or with a family member or take a screenshot and put it on social media, on Instagram, Insta stories, Facebook, Twitter. Do tag me, do tag my guests. When you do this, it helps me interact with you. You can also press subscribe, which is a great way for me to raise the profile of the podcast.

And if you haven't already, I'd be so grateful if you go onto your podcast platform and give this a five-star review. It helps raise the profile of the podcast, which means I in turn can hope to attract better guests for you in the future. Once again, guys, thank you so much for listening. Please do think about putting these tips into practice because when we feel better, we live more. I hope you guys have a fantastic week. I hope you can join me next time. Thank you.