Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Body’s Incredible Potential to Heal Itself | Andrew Weil

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

This week’s conversation is with Dr. Andrew Weil, an internationally recognized expert on medicinal plants, alternative medicine, and the reform of medical education.He is the founder and Director of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, where he also holds the Lovell-Jones Endowed Chair in Integrative Rheumatology and is Clinical Professor of Medicine and Professor of Public Health.Andrew is the founder and Chairman of the Weil Foundation, and the founder and co-Chairman of Healthy Lifestyle Brands.He is also a founder and partner of the growing group of True Food Kitchen restaurants.Andrew is an absolute pioneer in the field…In this conversation, Andrew shares why he’s such an avid supporter of integrative health and his philosophy on healthy aging._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I am Michael Gervais and by trade and training, I am a sport and performance psychologist. Now the whole idea behind these conversations is to learn from people who have committed their life efforts towards mastery. We want to better understand what they're searching for, how they organize their inner life, the psychological framework that they're using, the mental skills that they use and build and refine their craft so that you can use those same skills, those same practices and apply them in your own life towards the things that you're most interested in, whatever it is that you're working on mastering yourself.

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and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals on a demanding day, certainly I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike.

I love them. One a day. One a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell. Okay. All right, look, they're incredibly simple.

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teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N, dot com slash finding mastery. Now this week's conversation is with a legend, Dr. Andrew Weil. He's an

internationally recognized expert on medicinal plants, alternative medicine, and the reform of medical education. Now his mission is to advance a philosophy of health that addresses mind, body, and spirit, end quote. And his position that he's taking is that integrative medicine is the future of medicine and healthcare. So for some folks, integrative medicine might be a new idea, so we're going to get into the weeds of what that is. But maybe the top layer of thinking about it is that it's seem that way to some of you if you've been indoctrinated to traditional medical practices, and there's nothing wrong with that. Slow down all the folks that are going, what's wrong with our medical care system? Well, there's actually quite a bit wrong with it, to be honest. But there is something that is really solid about

the educational system that is producing highly trained people, yet there's some stuff that's missing. Now, I want to double click underneath of this to give some context, is that Dr. Weil, his undergraduate degree is from Harvard, and his medical degree is also from Harvard University Medical Center. So he's got some chops here, right? He's had the traditional training, and in my opinion, my humble opinion, he's taking it the next natural step to where medicine can go. And so he's the founder and the chairman of the Weill Foundation. And he's the founder and co-chairman of Healthy Lifestyle Brands. Okay, check those two out. He's also the founder and partner of the True Food Kitchen Restaurants. So not only is he well trained in tradition medicine, and then he's taking the next evolution as a pioneer, but he is

creating experiences for all of us to be able to understand what good food really can do as medicine. This is one of my family's favorite restaurants because it's like farm to table food and it is, you just leave feeling great. And just to ground his efforts even further, not that we really need to do that, he's the founder and the director of the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, where he also holds the Level Jones Endowed Chair in Integrative Rheumatology. I mean, how about it? And to top it off, he's a clinical professor of medicine and professor of public health. And in this conversation, we dig into his insights. He is eloquent. He shares very applied, well-grounded practices to work from.

And we also get into his philosophy on healthy aging. And with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with the legend, Dr. Andrew Weil. Andrew, how are you? I am very well. I bet you are. You are, in my mind, you are a pioneer. You're a legend. You are somebody who has influenced me in deep ways. Oh, I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, this is an honor, flat out honor for me to spend some time with you. So thank you in advance. Sure.

Yeah. You probably get that a lot though, don't you? I didn't in my early years. People know, people either ignored me or made fun of me or, but you know, it is very, it's been very gratifying to watch what I've been writing and saying and telling people about really becoming mainstream and accepted. Yeah. So, and in particular with a fine point is integrative medicine. Is that? Yeah, that's really been a lot of my life's work. I founded and direct a center of excellence at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, which trains health professionals. We've graduated now over 2000 physicians from

very intensive two-year fellowships that remedy all the deficiencies in conventional medical education. We train a whole range of health professionals as well. And I very much believe that this is the way of the future. Integrative medicine really looks at whole persons. So this is aligned with your field that we really look at the mind-body connection and the spiritual aspects of human life. We strongly believe that the human body has innate healing potential, and that's where good medicine starts. And, you know, we are willing to

use all methods of proven value that aren't going to hurt people to try to promote health and wellness. All right. So it sounds like, oh, yeah, I recognize that language. But 20 years ago, I don't know, you were a little bit of a freak. and it was when the economics of healthcare began to go south. So one lesson I draw from that is that no amount of ideological argument moves anything. It's only when the pocketbooks of institutions get squeezed that they begin to be open to new ways of thinking. And what squeezed them in that era? What was the squeeze? Well, it's what we're now seeing a continuation of, that medicine has become way too expensive. It's too dependent on expensive technology. And it does a very poor job at managing most of the lifestyle-related diseases that are epidemic in our society today. So we spend more per capita on health care than any other nation in the world by a long shot. And we have poorer health outcomes than any other developed country. So something's really wrong with that picture.

And if you make that simple with your 40 years of really thinking about that, how do you simplify what led to this condition that we're in right now? Well, I think the whole health care industry is focused on disease management not health promotion and prevention because they don't pay and the diseases we're trying to manage as i said are mostly lifestyle related diseases that could have been avoided if people made better choices earlier in life about how to eat how to be physically active how to manage stress and so forth. But we don't do a very good job at that. Okay. So this is actually why I had a hard time with my early studies in clinical psychology, because it was the study of dysfunction. It was the study of disorder. It was born out of the medical model, which is like, Hey, there's something really important about the human condition we want to get better at, but then the gaze goes to what's not working.

And it was a fundamental challenge for me. And it sounds like that's been a fundamental challenge for you. Yeah, very much. You know, I've always felt that the main business of doctors is to keep people well and to teach them how to live in order not to get sick in the first place. I learned nothing about that in medical school. I hardly ever heard the term healing and learned nothing about health. You know, it was all about disease and how to manage it. So I think that's very parallel to your experience. So, okay. I want to share something with you that is, it's a little bit of a frustration that I have because it's, it's going from

knowledge to application and the knowledge is incredibly available, right? I mean, like eat well, move well, think well, like, and then the systems to know how to eat well are there. And the quote unquote experts are available and some are free and some are expensive. And you can, you know, the, the, if you wanted to get a nutritionist or, and somebody that specializes in nutrition like yourself or, or whomever, there's different levels and degrees, but you can go get help, or you could read your books and kind of call the internet and you'd find some really incredible strategies. All that being said, what is this gap between knowledge to application why is this such a hard gap and maybe you say mike i don't know what you're talking about like the gap this gap

is not hard for me you just have to be more charismatic you have to be a little smarter than you know like like what is the are you frustrated at all by the gap or is it like no i actually just understand it's hard no no, no, I'm very frustrated. I'm very frustrated. And what I see is that there are very powerful vested interests that don't want anything to change and that work against us. For example, if you just look at food, people eat what's cheap and what's available. We've made the unhealthiest food cheapest and most available. One way we do that is through federal subsidies of commodity crops. We don't subsidize fruits and vegetables, which are out of reach of many poor people in our society. And that's just one example. But, you know, wherever you look, there are people who are benefiting from the system as it is now

and don't want anything to change. The last I checked, something like 48% of U.S. hospitals have fast food restaurants on their premises. You know, What a great thing we're doing. Anyway, I got a letter from a first year medical student at the University of Pennsylvania who started a campaign to get a McDonald's out of the university hospital. He started a petition among his fellow students. They got publicity in the Philadelphia papers. And he was called in by the dean of students who told him if he persisted in this, he would jeopardize his medical degree. That is the problem. You know, the hospital had signed a deal with the devil.

It was money, and they didn't want anything to, you know, screw around with that. Okay, so are you a systems thinker, or do you prefer to drill down to the unique insights of individuals and then extrapolate up from there? Like, how is it that you work? I think I do both. I think I do both of those. Yeah, I think so. Because I didn't know, I've read much of your work and it's very much is about the individual

and you're speaking right to the reader. Yep. And then there are some systems thinking. The first place you went in this conversation was really about systems. And so I didn't know if that's just been on your mind lately because of this pandemic we're in or the healthcare conditions or other things. But that's how it works. I think I do, though I think I really do drill down on individuals and extrapolate from that and from my own personal experience. Okay. Here's something that I really want to understand because I see you as a

radical pioneer. And there's an idea in military phrases I've heard often, which is those who lead bleed. And I want to understand a little bit of the bleeding, maybe, like what has been some of the scar tissue or the hardiness that you've developed from leading. I do want to understand that. But before we get there, and the reason I want to understand that for you, Doc, is because it's hard. It's easy to sit on a couch and say, oh, he shoulda or she shoulda or the system shoulda, but you've actually put your money and your time where your mind is. And it's a whole different ballgame. And the arena is actually quite small there. So I do want to understand that. But I want to start, how did you get to Harvard? How did you get to Harvard MD or medical school? What are the early frames that led you to one of the best schools in the world? I was always interested in science and biology. I wanted to understand human beings.

I never thought that I wanted to be a doctor. I did think I wanted a medical education. I thought it would be useful to me. I thought the degree would be useful to me, which it has been. I studied botany before I went into medicine, and that's been very valuable. It was a real shock to me to get into medical school and see that the people teaching me had very little understanding of the natural world. Even the people teaching pharmacology didn't know anything about the plant sources of the drugs that they were teaching. So that gave me a great advantage. So when I finished my medical training, I was very disillusioned because I, as I said,

I had learned nothing about health and how to keep people well. And also the methods that I learned, I saw do much too much harm, especially things like adverse drug reactions. So that seemed to me not the, I didn't want to practice what I had learned, but I wanted to, I wanted to learn about health and healing. And I set out on my own and I traveled a lot around the world. I met with healers. I looked at all sorts of stuff. And then gradually I put together my own ideas and, and people started coming to my doorstep, wanting my, wanting me to treat them as patients. I didn't want to do that initially, but I gradually got drawn to doing that. Okay.

There's so much in here because was it a burn for you to want to travel, to get out of the contextual learning environment, meaning the Western world or North America? Did you want to get out of that? Or because you were compelled by something? Big time, big time. You know, I just felt so constrained and confined. And I often felt that I just didn't fit in anywhere. I felt like a man from Mars. And, you know, I thought, it seemed to me that I thought differently. I questioned everything I was being taught. And I've always struck out on my own. I think I've followed my own inner light and inner wisdom. And in the years when I had no support at all from the external world, in fact, a lot of hostility and criticism, I just kept on going because I knew that I was on the right

path, that this was my truth and I followed it. And it didn't matter to me if I didn't get external validation. And I was often in situations where I was confronted by people who were very hostile. I mean, sometimes in public forums, on live television. And one thing that I learned that's been very useful to me is that I'm not angry. And if I can maintain a non-angry stance, I can say the most outrageous things and it doesn't provoke reactions. And when people come at me angrily, if I don't respond in that way, it neutralizes that. So that's been a very valuable tool for me. Is that your nature or is that a skill that

you've learned? I think both. But what I've also observed, this is where I say I've drawn from watching individuals, I've seen many people get up in front of audiences, and they get a very strong hostile reaction. And they think people are reacting to the content of what they're saying. And it's not, it's to the emotional tone of what they're saying. And they don't see that. And as I said, if you maintain a non-angry emotional stance you can get away with saying things that are quite out there which you have done okay which i have done right yeah so okay i i've never asked this question before um yeah if there was an animal that you that that's the like the emblem what is what is the

emblem animal you know because i see you as like this wise man right like and you're probably more prickly as a young as a young kid and i want to get into i want to go backwards in just a moment to get to some of that stuff but like so what is this what it would be the animal well it's hard for me to just hang on that because i think I have a very strong identification with a bear. So, you know, and bears have two aspects. They can be, you know, nice, cuddly teddy bears or they can be pretty fierce. So I think I have both of those in me. You know, you look the part, too. The beard helps the whole thing.

All right. So bear. Yeah. Mama bear or papa bear? I think I shift back and forth depending on the circumstances. So that's like the health of the human is the anima and animus that, you know, both the male and female energy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. OK. You know, on an interesting note, this is really tangential. But I was speaking with a gentleman. He said, you know, and the conversation was about getting a bit older in his early 50s, and a bunch of his friends were really interested in the testosterone-promoting stuff and growth hormone. It was just this brilliant moment of brilliant of a genius. And he says, you know,

I think that if I do that, I'm going to miss the sensitivities of being an older man that I really do want to have. Like, I'm not supposed to have all this testosterone, like at like whatever levels. And I know I'm not going to look quote unquote the part, but I'm also going to miss, you know, this really important growth arc and to have a little bit of that softer anima energy. Just an interesting note in here for us to pay attention to. Have you phased into that balance or were you more prickly as a young, aggressive as a youngster?

I'm not going to drop my prickliness. You know, I get, I think if I don't stir up controversy, I'm not doing my job. So I'm always going to be out there, you know, on that edge. And I think I am probably more accepting of stars when I was younger, but you know, I'm, I still have my prickliness and I like that. Finding mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life.

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distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Okay. And mom and dad, let's go back before, you know, the 18, you know, was, were they a chap? Did you grow up in a challenging environment? Did they, were they laissez faire and you kind of found your way? How are you, what was, what was that early life like? Okay. I'm an only child. My, my family was a very middle, middle-class family. I grew up in a row house in Philadelphia. They had a, a shop in downtown Philadelphia that sold ladies hats. I could think of nothing less interesting.

They encouraged me to follow my own path and to be curious. And they always told me that, you know, that go follow your own interests. And, and, uh, they were very supportive. I mean, they worried about me when I went off and, uh, you know, in strange, you know, when I was 17, actually a year before college, I had a year off in which I traveled around the world and they, I really, that broke my tie with home, but they always supported me. You know, in my early years, I did research on cannabis and psychoactive plants. And my mother would leave little articles by my bedside about how marijuana destroyed the brain. She wouldn't say anything directly, but she'd just leave them. But other than that, I think they, so I'm sure they worried about me.

But they, I think the great gift that they gave me was to be curious not they did not snuff out my curiosity and they encouraged me to explore and experiment hmm okay so obviously you are one of the reasons you're a pioneer in my mind is that you have connected your head in your heart you've lined up your words and your thoughts and your actions, and you've done that across conditions. And let's go mind and heart integration for just a moment, because that's rare. And were you told as a youngster that you were smart?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I certainly got that message. Yes. Okay. So then where did you get the risk taking i get mom saying mom and dad saying hey follow your dreams but that's one thing to say it and another thing where you try it out and you scraped your knees a little bit and you're like yeah i i kind of like this you know where did you get that risk taking pioneering um stuff from i must have been born

with that because that's the only thing i can think and and i've done that in so many areas and i've had a lot of guardian angels you know working for me because i've done a lot of risky stuff and i've never come to harm just one area you know i got very interested in mushrooms uh at an early age and my mother was terrified of mushrooms. And I began, you know, learning about wild mushrooms and eating them and exploring them. And, you know, that was a lot of people considered that very risky. There were a number of years when I was one of the organizers of an annual Telluride Mushroom Festival, which was great. It was a really wonderful event. And one of the things we did there every year, we had an edibility unknown party in which we would take mushrooms of which there were no reports of whether they were edible or not.

I mean, we know the deadly ones and you avoid those. And we cook them and serve them and tell people, you know, you do this at your own risk. But in the years that we did that, there was not one serious reaction. I mean, we found some mushrooms that just were awful. I remember one that tasted like a rubber tire. And we found a few that were quite good that nobody had ever noted that were edible. But that's an example. You know, I was not foolish about it. You know, as I said, I know the deadly mushrooms. I don't experiment with those. And then you have a lot of latitude. The worst thing you're going to get is a stomach ache of one degree or another.

And I never got that. Okay. Were you looking for, what were you looking for in that? Were you looking for, um, the buzz of the adventure? Were you looking, were you more of a, a scientist? Like, I want to know what this thing does. So I think it was, it was, it was all of that. I remember at one of these events, you know, there was a woman that came and I was trying to explain to her why we did this. And she said, I like thrills, but not in my food. And anyway, but you know, I experimented with a lot of stuff. And I've, you know, I've made mistakes, but I've really never come to serious harm. I think I've followed my intuition. You know, I'm sensible about things that I do, but I do experiment and I do take risks. By the way, in most languages derived from Latin, unfortunately, this is not true in English, the word experiment and the word experience are the same word.

In Spanish, experimentar means both to experience and to experiment. And I have always used, experimented with my experience, and I've drawn my conclusions from that. It would drive my medical colleagues crazy when I would say, in my experience, and then say, this is what I believe. Because that's not the way you're supposed to do it. You're supposed to do controlled experiments in a laboratory. But I think your is you know one of the best sources of information and then you can always add to that like yes it was completely random i had no idea what i was doing right yeah it was i had no controls but it was ran it was a random selection yeah right okay so yeah all right um and were you was this more, let's stay on the mushrooms for a minute,

was this more about the psychedelic or the healing properties? It was all of that. I think first it was food mushrooms. I was interested in unusual food mushrooms, some of which are just great. Then I became interested in the magic mushrooms and psychedelic mushrooms. That was still in the 1970s, so pretty early. And then I got very interested in medicinal qualities of mushrooms because I had been learning about traditional Chinese medicine. And in Asian medicine generally, mushrooms are very important as medicines and remedies. And in the West, they've never been looked at as sources of new medicine. And that struck me as very odd. So I began learning about medicinal properties

of mushrooms and that now has become a very huge field as you know and many of these probably touch on some of your areas because a lot of these things enhance performance or immunity and you know and that's all stuff that I discovered in my explorations yeah you were on it then because yeah obviously the the the benefits of some of the mushrooms are extraordinary. Like I take mushrooms every day. Yeah, I do too. Yeah, not magic mushrooms. Yeah, I do too.

Right. Yeah, reishi. What are some of your go-tos? Reishi, definitely. Lion's mane, which has a really interesting record, cognitive enhancement. Um, uh, my talkie, she talkie oyster mushrooms, you know, all of those I think are, have really interesting properties. And are you eating them or you, uh, are you taking them in powdered form? Both when I can, when, if I can eat them fresh, I do, uh, sometimes I use a dried ones and then

I also take extracts. Yeah, same thing. Same exact thing with me. And, you know, we are nerds, officially nerds right now because we're talking about like the health benefits of food, you know, that like. But you and I are in the same kind of lane in this that those choices that we make, I feel are one for health. I want to understand how you think about aging, but one for health and second for performance. Like I want to be the animation of potential in this moment. And then again, in this moment. And, you know, it's actually, you wouldn't know this, Andrew, but it's, that is my purpose in life is to help others live in the present moment more often.

And to increase the frequency of people living in the present moment. It's not just training the mind. That's a big part of it. Because if our mind is undisciplined, it's really hard to be locked into the present. But also if our body is sending signals up, like a bottom-up approach that's saying I'm in pain, I'm agitated, I'm irritated because I'm undernourished or overnourished, or I don't have the right macro or micronutrients in

place. Those bottom up signals are problematic for a sense of peace or a sense of being on time with the present moment. So for me, it is a bit of a hand in glove, nutrition choices, lifestyle choices with, you know, the conditioned mind, if you will. All right, so let's, I know we're jumping around a little bit, but I want to get into this place where, what did you learn from the Eastern ways of living? Well, first of all, I learned that, as I said, that the body has incredible potential to heal itself, and that the focus should be on prevention, not on treatment. You know, that it's much easier to prevent problems than to deal with them once they've developed. I also really learned about the importance of mind and spirituality, that dimension of human life.

I think also the importance of living in harmony with the natural world and not being disconnected from it. All of those things. How do you translate that to living well or healthy aging? I'm 78, so I'm an old person now. You know, when I was younger, that would have been ancient. I am absolutely not interested in anti-aging. And I think that whole movement is flawed. You know, in my view, aging is a natural process. Everything in the universe ages, plants age, mountains age stars age if you if you make your goal anti-aging you're putting yourself in a very wrong relationship and that's not a good

place to be so i think the goal is to accept aging and to learn how to to stay as healthy and well as possible while managing the changes that occur in your body. And I think the first issue is how can you delay the onset and reduce the risk of what we call age-related diseases? The big ones are cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases. It is not natural or normal to get these as you grow old. So I think it is possible to live long and well and then have a rapid drop off at the end. I think that's what we'd all like to do. That's called compression of morbidity. You're squeezing the time of disability decline at the end of life into a shorter period as possible.

And so, you know, I think that trying to stop the aging process or reverse it is a waste of time. And it also distracts you from what's really important, which is how, you know, what do you need to know to live well in order to achieve that goal of compression of morbidity? So that has to do with learning, you know, what you need to know about how to eat, how to manage stress, how to sleep, all the stuff that we know and talk about. I wrote a book called Healthy Aging, and in it I had a chapter called the positive aspects of aging. And I asked people to think about areas of experience where we place greater value on what's old than on what's young. Things like

wine and whiskey, cheese, violins, trees, you know, and to think about what are the aspects of these that get better with age. You know, it has to do with things like depth of experience, you know, wisdom, smoothing out of roughness. I mean, it's interesting to think about that because there are things that get better as you get older. I know many people that I know who are old tell me that they have greater emotional equilibrium than they did when they were young, that things that would have thrown them off balance

when they were younger now don't. I mean, that's just an example. No, it's great. It's a powerful reminder because cell phones when they get old or computers when they get old or cars when they get old are discarded. They lose their value. And that's kind of the modern commodities, if you will, some of them, at least the technology ones.

And you're reminding us, like, wait a minute, there are some really beautiful tones and tenors to things that have age. And was that from your Eastern influence? Because there is a different respect. When I was doing research in that book, I made a number of trips to Okinawa, which at that time had the highest concentration of centenarians in the world. And everything's different there. It's a tropical Pacific paradise. The food is amazing. People are physically active throughout life. So it's really hard to disentangle all that. But one thing that was so striking to me was the

different value. In traditional Okinawan society, a common cause of sibling fighting is over who is going to get to take care of the aging parents. It's a little different from what we see in our society. And, you know, I met with a lot of people in their hundreds, hundred and one hundred and two. They, they looked old. I mean, they hadn't used Botox. They were stooped, but they had a glow about them that I don't see here. And they all were the whole villages make efforts to include these people. They're considered living treasures and they're included in all community activities.

Totally different value. In our society, you know, everything, media, products, are all targeted to a younger and younger demographic. You know, people in their 20s and 30s. And when you get out of that, we lose interest in them. You know, and I think that's one of the most toxic things in our society today. So I'm in Southern California and the amount of Botox that like,

it's startling where you can't really see emotions because of the frontalis muscles are completely numbed. I read a story recently that directors of the stage directors in New York were having a very hard time getting young actresses because they couldn't emote because their facial muscles are paralyzed. So what do you think, from a medical perspective, what is the damage or is it minimal for Botox? Probably minimal. I mean, there certainly are consequences, and I don't know that we've seen all the long-term consequences. You're also shutting off sweating, and, you know,

who knows what this does long-term. But it seems to me that the real problem is that the attempt to deny the appearance of aging, it's all part of the denial of aging that leads people, you know know to do all this stuff that's that's not wise as well as distracting you from what i said is the real goal of learning how to stay healthy as you get older finding master is brought to you by cozy earth over the years i've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep it starts with how we transition and wind down and that's why i've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day.

And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night, and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine. Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous

system starts to settle. They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating. If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone, use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Caldera Lab. I believe that the way we do small things in life is how we do all things.

And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for

high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. So what do, what are some of your routines look like that when you're really on it? Because I don't want to put a, put you on a pedestal if like, because, you know, because I think that you are on a pedestal, but it's not like you are perfect with your routines, you know, and I'll speak for me. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. I can speak to my for myself about that. But so what are some of your more favored routines? And when you say when I'm doing A, B, C and D, like I know that I'm on it and I'm really taking care of myself. Well, what are some of those routines? And when you say, when I'm doing A, B, C, and D, I know that I'm on it and I'm really taking care of myself well. What are some of those routines? Well, I've always eaten well. I'm a very good home cook. I grow a lot of my own food. I have a fabulous garden at my place here in British

Columbia. I walk every day. I have three dogs who take me on long walks. I try to swim every day, and I've been swimming increasingly in cold water, which I have gotten to like very much. The ocean here is quite cold, and there's a lake that's chilly. The ocean is really cold, and I don't often stay in very long, but I try to always get in every day. I sleep. I'm pretty regular. I go to bed early. I get up early.

I'm a very good sleeper. I get seven hours of sleep a night. I do breathing exercises. There's a relaxing breath that I teach a lot that I think is very helpful. I do some meditation every morning. I'm not great at it, but, you know, it's something that I've practiced for a long time and I think is important. I spend time in nature.

You know, all of those things are, you know, and I take a good regimen of supplements and things like mushrooms and all that. And I try to spend time in the company of people in whose presence I feel good. People who make me laugh and are positive. I try not to hang around people who are depressed and sad and anxious or angry. How about it? So the way you move, the way you eat, the way that you have community, the way you interface with other parts of nature, you know, because we are nature. It's not like nature's that lake over there. Like we are, we are nature, you know yeah so okay um do you use any technology to check in like on our heart rate variability or any some of these really cool artifact no i don't and i think it

for me it's too much information uh i see i see people for whom i think it creates anxiety uh it becomes obsessive i i'm very tuned into my body. I mean, I can tell what's going on in my body. I don't need that. So that's just my sense. I'm digging some HRV metrics right now as feedback loops. I'm probably less attuned. I think I'm pretty highly attuned, but less attuned than you are, right? So I can, so I started playing this feedback loop game. So I've got an objective data that is taking a look at HRV and, you know, all that good stuff. And I can almost predict it in the morning, what range I'm going to be in. So I'm like getting into a really cool place there, but I will, I think you'll appreciate

this. The days that I go to the beach, I live by the beach, the days I get my feet in the sand and I get in the water, my HRV is so high. It's like, thank you. You know, like, yeah. So that's, that's something. Not surprising. Not surprising. And there's a term that I'm sure you've heard called nature deficit disorder. It's not an official diagnosis, but it's been, you know, talked about a lot, especially with kids, that I think this is something we need. We need exposure to natural sounds, natural light. It's all part of being healthy. How about this?

Right now, kids are obviously homeschooled. And even if you're in the city, first thing that a kid does is they go outside. They get on a bus or in a car and they go to their, to the school and then they're outside for a little bit and they're playing, even if it's on concrete, but they're getting some sunlight. Well, right now kids are sleeping longer, so that's probably a benefit. And, but they're waking up and staying inside all day, right? So we're going to see something happening here in the next whatever number of months, years, where there's this circadian thing in the brain that's probably going to be influenced in some way by not getting direct sunlight in. I think we're going to see something,

some dysregulation there. But not to be doom and gloom, I don't want to spend too much time on that. I do want to talk about your breathing cadence is it um mine is really about a double exhale and so i'm spending longer time on the exhale than the inhale to be super simple that's important i think you want to you want to focus on exhalation because that's the one that you have greater voluntary control over the particular exercise i teach is the four seven eight breath in which you inhale through your nose to a count of four hold your breath for a count of seven and then exhale blow air out to a count of eight so the exhalation is the longest phase of that extremely real yeah that's exactly and you're using three parts and um because i've been using four parts i used to use three and now i've been using four parts like in hold or pause, exhale, pause, like, um, you know,

box breathing is the way that, yeah. There's so many variations on this. I think, you know, whatever works for you is, is, is right. The one, the one that I particularly use really, uh, it strongly increases vagal tone over time. That's what I'm looking for as well. Yeah. If you practice it regularly, heart rate drops, blood pressure drops, you know, it really activates the relaxation response and it takes no time and no equipment and it's very powerful. Yeah, and for folks that might not be familiar with vagal tone, we're talking about a nerve that runs throughout the body. It's called the wandering nerve. And when you have a longer exhale, what ends up taking place is it triggers the vagus nerve in a way that's like, hey, okay, so we can actually relax

here. We can suppress our sympathetic nervous system. I don't think, and tell me if I have it wrong here, but it's not the activation of parasympathetic,'s the suppression of uh sympathetic and is that how you're understanding it probably both at the same time it's probably both yeah yeah okay there's some really interesting research around um uh carbon dioxide and triggers of anxiety yeah have you seen some of that for panic attacks i have yeah that's pretty interesting you know that we've got these in, um, in breaded, that's not the right word, like these, uh, these tripwires, but it's really maybe not anxiety as we think about it. It's just a, uh, out of balance CO2 oxygen type, um, tripwire where it's like, whoa, I feel anxious.

And if I get a long exhale, Andrew, and I'm really holding at the bottom of the pause for like, let's say a 20 exhale and like a 15 pause. And at about, I'll do, let's say it's 10, 10, 20, 10. Just start with that. I'll get about seven, eight breaths in and I can feel some anxiety start going, hey, you need to breathe. You know, and I can feel those tripwires. Yeah, so that's cool. All

right. So all right. And then meditation, is there a particular type of meditation that you're exploring or found valuable? I did some training in Zen and then Vipassana meditation, but mostly, you know, it's focusing on the present moment, on breathing, body sensations. It's practice of keeping your mind in the here and now. And I don't think the goal is to be able to sit for long periods in meditation. It's to be able to carry that state throughout the day in everything that you do. For me, cooking is a meditation. No chopping vegetables. I'm totally focused. I have a vision, visualization of what I want to make and I manifest that in reality. It's very good training. But I think the goal is to be in that state, that totally present state in whatever you're doing. to me that mastery is when you are able to do something completely right without thinking about it. It's like you are completely focused and it happens and you know you're in the groove and you know that the result will be just what you want. Are you driven by purpose? Are you driven by

a vision of potential? Are you driven by money? Are you driven by fame? I know I'm laughing because I know the answer is there. But what are the drivers for you to be able to produce at a prolific rate, to make a global imprint, and to live well? What are some of the drivers for you to work as hard as you have? With regard to medicine, you know, I went through this medical, these medical institutions, and I just, it seemed that so much of what was being done was not right. This was not the way

that you should treat people. So I felt a real mission to try to correct that. And that was a big thing to take on, you know, I could give you many, many examples, but I just saw it was not right. And it felt that it was my job to help correct that. And that was a big thing to take on. I could give you many, many examples, but I just saw it was not right. And I felt that it was my job to help correct that. In terms of the way people eat, you know, I started these restaurants called True Food Kitchens. I've always tried

to convince people that there's no contradiction between healthy food and delicious food. You know, when I talk to people about eating well, most people think it means giving up everything you like, and that's just not true. But many people have never had the experience of eating well-prepared food that looks great, tastes great, and happens to be good for you. So I felt it was my mission to sort of give people that experience. Okay. I want to hit True Foods here because it's one of my favorite restaurants. And my family loves, we have one here relatively locally, and we love what you've created there. Did they come to you or did you create a group? How did that happen for you?

As I said, I'm a very good home cook and people have said to me, you want to open a restaurant. I was smart enough to know that I knew nothing about the restaurant business and it looked like a very tough business. So I was never tempted by that. About 12 years ago, a mutual friend introduced me to a very successful restauranteur in Arizona. And I proposed him the idea of a restaurant that would serve really good food that was also healthy. He didn't get it. He said, health food doesn't sell. And I think he thought I meant tofu and sprouts. And I engaged him in conversation. I cooked for him. He slowly got interested, but was very skeptical. But he was

willing to give it a try. So, you know, from the moment True Food opened, it was incredibly successful. I think we now have, I don't know, nearly 40 of them now. And I don't know, it's like people go in there and they can't believe it. And they come, there are people that eat in them, you know, many days a week. You know, I think it really has, has been a force for change. And it's, it's great satisfaction to me to see people eating the kind of food that I love. And you know what I also like about it is you got the vibe right. You know, it's got a hip, organic, like not hippy dippy. It's really sophisticated in a way that's like, oh, this is like farm, farm modern. There's a great culture around it. The people that work there, it has drawn and self-selected people that are into healthy lifestyles. And we've had many people that have been servers there.

So they've waited for years to find a place like this that they could work in. So it's, it's got a whole wonderful culture about it. Yeah. Nice job there. And then, so, okay. Mushrooms, food and tea. Right. Okay. Now you got a tea brand now. Okay. So I'm going, damn it. He's he's there every step I turn, you know, and it's really good quality. Yeah. It's really good quality. All right. Let's talk about matcha. Why? So a lot of, I discovered matcha when I was 17 years old, I went to Japan. I lived with Japanese families. This was in 1959 and I drank matcha. You know,

I came back here and nobody had ever heard of it. And whenever I go to Japan, I'd bring some back and turn friends on to it. And I just thought this is beautiful. The color is beautiful. The taste is beautiful. This is before I even knew about the health benefits of it.

And then as I watched matcha becoming popular here, which is interesting to see, I was disappointed that most of the matcha available here was very low grade. It was often looked yellow, green, brown, bitter. And I thought I would love to be able to introduce people to very high quality matcha. So I made contact with good matcha producers in Japan.

My business partner and I managed to get the URL matcha.com, which was a great coup. And, you know, we have a wonderful website that sells, you know, really, really good matcha and a lot of good information about it. And I think, you know, I was one of the first people to really talk about the benefits of tea in general and green tea in particular. When I was growing up, tea was what old people and sick people drank. And the only

tea that I knew was, you know, Lipton's, and I mostly drank iced tea with a lot of sugar in it. And it was really a, it was a revelation for me to discover the world of real tea. And I still think there's a long way to go here. I'd love to see a tea culture become more robust in North America and displace some of the coffee culture, you know, which is now. Absolutely. I drink about three glasses of tea a day, like loose leaf. I don't know, like a blue people, a Oolong, a Pori tea, you know, a little bit of white tea. So I'll drink about three glasses. I want, I actually went down the business lane to develop a mastery tea, you know,

like, like whatever, develop a mastery tea, you know, like, like whatever, like a finding tea. And we didn't actually crack it because I couldn't see the business model quite as clearly as I would like to. So I feel like I needed a little bit more of a community, but I'm coming at some point with it. Like, I think, I think what you've done is really cool. That's fun. So check out the matcha.com. It's a really neat. Yeah. No. Oh yeah. It's well, your product is great. So, you know, folks that are on it. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Okay. And then, you know, I also wanted to talk to you about what did you, so I wrote my, my first book compete to create And I didn't, it's an Audible original. So it's not a print book. It's only available from an audio experience. And I did that for nature. I did that for like, those are some of the reasons. And like now I'm actually wishing I could hold something because I'm missing that kind of tactile, tangible thing.

But anyways, when I wrote it, it took a little bit of time from kind of the ink to dry, so to speak. And then when it released, and when it released, I was like, I would, I would, I think I, man, knowing what I know now, I might have tweaked, you know, 20% of whatever. So you've had 15 books. So here's the question. What have you learned from book number one, The Natural Mind, from book number one, that you say, man, I had some stuff wrong. What I've learned over the 15 years is this. So what's that been like for you? Well, I don't often go back and read my books, but when I do, I'm really impressed that they hold up you know

there aren't too many things i was wrong about and if i was you know i have revised the number of them uh i put out other editions and i've corrected some stuff and i'm very willing to if i do say something and it turns out that new there's new there, I say that I've changed my opinion. Yeah, there you go. Okay, so your newest book, Mind Your Meds, When Drugs Are Necessary, When Alternatives Are Better, right? And so talk to us about that a little bit. I think that overmedication is a tremendous problem in our culture. And I think also that many people are unaware of how ineffective and how dangerous many

of these common medications are. So I went through in that book, the categories of medications that I think are most misused and overused, things like benzodiazepines and proton pump inhibitors for gastroesophageal reflux and the psychiatric medications, sleep aids, and really tell you what you need to know about them, what's okay about them, what's not okay. And then in each chapter, I give an integrative treatment plan of showing how an integrative physician would manage this condition. And, you know, we're not opposed to using medication, but I think when medication is used, it should always be part of a treatment plan that focuses on lifestyle modification,

and that you start with the lowest dose of the least potent agent, and then you can work up from there if necessary. But it is, you know, many people that I train are very surprised to learn how so many common conditions can be very effectively managed without medication at all. And I think there's great advantages to that. Not only do you save money, but you really avoid a lot of the risks of these drugs. The other problem is that long-term use of many of these medications actually prolongs or intensifies the conditions for which they are meant to be used. Just one example, the antidepressants, the common SSRI antidepressants. With long-term use, when you give a drug that increases serotonin at neural junctions, how does the body respond to that? It makes less serotonin and it drops serotonin receptors.

So if you try to stop it or get off it, you know, the depression persists and is worse. So, you know, maybe you use that short-term, but, you know, long-term use of these things, not a good idea. If somebody does have a serotonin reuptake challenge, are you starting them with some basic like, hey, get outside, move a little bit, volunteer, get some talk therapy rolling? What do your green leafies look like? Are you starting there or are you saying, hey, maybe that's for the mild depression. But if they've got moderate to severe, where would you take that? You know, increasingly, the latest research fails to distinguish these SSRIs from placebos. Initially, that was done for mild depression. Then it was for moderate depression.

Now, even in very severe depression, they look useless. So how do the pharmacologically-minded people respond? Now you give an antipsychotic drug along with the antidepressant to make it more effective. So, yes, I don't start with that. I mean, there are a few instances in which that SSRIs might be useful for short term, not for long term. But I would start, the best research we have is for physical activity. You know, you get out and exercise for supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids. I mean, that's very well, very good evidence for that stuff. And then looking at an anti-inflammatory diet, at various supplements that you can use,

the whole field of positive psychology, I think is very, very relevant. You know, I'm a great fan of cognitive therapy, for example. There's so much out there in the world. There's very interesting research on gratitude, something like keeping a gratitude journal, just like you make mental notes during the day of things to be grateful for, and you keep a little notebook and you write down when you go to bed three things that you're grateful for. It's been shown that doing that for one week can boost mood for several months. I mean, amazing. Yeah, and it's so simple, but it is a reorganizing. So it's a reorganization that takes place and andrew like this is one of the things i just want

to make sure i say out loud is that uh with you there's no shortcuts there's no hacks there's no tricks and tips there's a fundamental arrangement of your life that you've committed to and that really is healthy and that's what we're that's the that's the bell to ring, right? There's no shortcuts here. It's like a fundamental commitment. And it's actually not complicated. Nope. Yeah, brilliant. Listen, one more question.

Yeah. Where can we find you? Well, I have a website, drweil.com, D-R-W-E-I-L.com, which has great resources for health information. The center that I direct is at the University of Arizona. That website is integrativemedicine.arizona.edu. Great resources there.

All my books are available from Amazon. You can go to a True Food Kitchen restaurant near you. Go to matcha.com. Matcha.com. That's pretty findable. You're a legend. Thank you for your time and your insight and what you represent in the world. So thank you.

Sure. Enjoy talking with you. All the best. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already,

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