The Bossticks - If You're In Pain Listen To This - The Nervous System, Wellness, Immunity, & Understanding The Lymphatic System with Dr. Dennis Colonello

Episode Date: July 7, 2020

#279: On this episode we are joined by Dr. Dennis Colonello D.C., P.T.. Dr. Colonello's training is unique in that he has the combined knowledge of a doctor of chiropractic and traditional injury rehabilitation training of a physical therapist. He has been a practicing chiropractor for over 25 years, and has treated a veritable who's who of Hollywood stars, athletes, and olympic athletes. On today's episode we discuss the nervous system, wellness, immunity, and dive into understanding the lymphatic system.  To connect with Dr. Denis Colonello click HERE To learn more about Peak Wellness click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by THRIVE MARKET. We use Thrive for our online grocery delivery on a weekly basis and we also now get our wine at Thrive! They provide the highest quality products and ingredients delivered straight to our door with unbeatable prices.  Be sure to grab our deal by going to to https://thrivemarket.com/skinny to select your preferred memberships package and start saving today! This episode is brought to you by Talkspace. We all have something we want to change or improve about ourselves. Talkspace is the most convenient and affordable online therapy that can help make a lasting change in your life with access to thousands of licensed therapists. To get $100 off your first month on Talkspace visit Talkspace.com and use code SKINNY to get $100 off your first month now! This episode is brought to you by FOUR SIGMATIC We have been drinking this company's mushroom-infused elixirs and coffees for over a year now. When we need a break from coffee but still need that extra morning jolt and focus the Mushroom Coffee with Lion's Mane and Chaga is the way to go. Lauryn also drinks the Mushroom Matcha which is a green tea designed as a coffee alternative for those of you who want to cut back on caffeine without losing focus and cognitive boosts. This stuff doesn't actually taste like mushrooms, it's delicious. All of these blends have a ton of nutrients and amino acids to give you balanced energy without the jitters. To try FOUR SIGMATIC products go to foursigmatic.com/skinny and use promo code SKINNY for 15% off all products. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. This episode is brought to by FourSigmatic, one of our favorite companies, one of our favorite sponsors. Four Sigmaics specialize in superfoods, medicinal mushrooms, and adaptogenic herbs, and they make drinking mushrooms and superfoods delicious and easy to do with their mushroom coffees, mushroom soups food blends, and mushroom elixirs. If you are looking for a coffee alternative to switch up your caffeine intake, Four Sigma has the blends for you.

They're all delicious. Just open a pack and add to hot water. They don't taste like mushrooms. And like always, we have a special offer just for him and her listeners. go to 4Sigmatic.com forward slash skinny and enter promo code Skinny at checkout for 15% off your entire order. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic.

And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Aha! The key in my opinion is to, to, activate the human body to do its own thing to create a correction away from the pattern that

it's adopted as its new normal. Hello, hello, hello, happy Tuesday. Welcome back to the skinny confidential him and her show. That clip was from our guest of the show today, Dr. Dennis Cornello. If you're new to the show, I am Lauren Everett's Bostic today and across me is my husband who is wearing blue light glasses, which is interesting. These things are saving my life. I mean, we're stuck in we're stuck in the house staring at screens all day on Zoom and I've been getting these headaches. These are, what is the R-A optics? Ben Greenfield told me about them. Okay.

It's a look. Google Ben Greenfield, blue light glasses and it'll pop up. And then he has a code too, Ben 10. And you're wearing a yellow shirt with it. It's a lot of yellow for me. Yeah, but my head feels way better because I don't get headaches. I highly recommend these.

You know, this is, I was influenced by him to get these. Speaking of you not getting headaches, a lot of that is attributed to Dr. Dennis, which was like a perfect segue. So Dr. Dennis, I met him through Anna of Pelicure. I've talked about Pelicure so many times. She basically has this major chic Korean spa and facial situation in Beverly Hills. And she is friends with this guy named Dr. Dennis. And she kept telling me, Lauren, you have to go to Dr. Dennis. He's absolutely

amazing. He works with everyone. People are addicted to him. They call and demand appointments with him. And so finally, I listened to Anna and I got my ass into Dennis. And this was after I had a baby. So my body was all out of whack. And the first time I went, I literally felt high. It felt so good and I felt so much release within my body that I couldn't shut up about Dennis to anyone. When you got back, it was one of the rare times that I was like, who is this guy? I was a little bit concerned the way you were talking about him.

I was like, you know, he basically like satisfied your every need. Yeah, Michael, he did satisfy almost all my needs. Like, I'm not going to lie. Anyways, so after talking with him and doing four sessions with him and realizing, that I was getting better and better at each session, I had to have them on the podcast. I noticed sometimes when I do treatments, I feel better for a couple days and then the pain comes back. For me, I had lateral whiplash when I was younger and so it's something I deal with every single day. And to have someone actually fix the issue instead of just do something that lasts a couple of days

has been really powerful. And not only has he helped with that, he's helped with my postpartum anxiety so much. And Michael and I have been talking about the system. weekend, all the different things that I'm doing to help with the anxiety. I'm still having it a little bit. I feel like we need to film or record a whole podcast on it. But Dennis is definitely a part of the puzzle that has helped alleviate the postpartum. Well, the problem with postpartum, in my opinion from a man's perspective, like, what if someone just pulled that sound clip? The problem with postpartum. The problem from my perspective is that I don't have the tools as a man to necessarily help you with it. So it's one of the rare instances where like, you know, there's a disconnect between

and you and I, because I'm trying to relate and trying to talk through it with you. And I think a lot of husbands go through this with their significant other and the woman in their life. We don't know what to do. We don't know what to say. And again, this is maybe going to give me a lot of times, like, what you're throwing at me sometimes sounds a little bit crazy to me. And so like, and I can't be like, hey, maybe except on the podcast, there's a little therapy

session for us. I can be like, hey, this is fucking crazy. You're acting a bit crazy. And the thing is, like, you know you're being a bit crazy because you know you're postpartum. But like, but I can't help it. But you can't help it. Yeah, and so that's the hard thing is like, we know that there's things going on that are not

necessarily taking place in the most logical way, but we don't have the tools necessarily to help and there's no way we can relate to the feeling. And so it's a rare instance where I'm a little bit lost in how to help you. I'm sure there's a lot of people that like experience the same thing. But, you know, from a marriage perspective, I think a lot of couples can run into trouble with this because this is a rare instance where you and I'm like, I don't know what to do to help. I think why I get so frustrated is that for the whole 11 years of our relationship, you've been able to really help me with every problem because we work together. We have so much

business together. It's like we're very much like on the same page. And when I got pregnant, obviously there was a disconnect because you didn't understand pregnancy. And I had a very easy, lovely pregnancy. And then after I gave birth, I started experiencing postpartum anxiety. And you, like you said, you just don't understand it. And so that disconnect gets me frustrated. and I had to like really go to my toolbox because I couldn't you know utilize my husband. Well you're still I would say you're still in your toolbox. I'm in my toolbox. I don't know if we found all the tools yet.

We're still we're still we've done you've maybe found like a screwdriver and like a wrench. No I found a hammer. The hammer. Yeah. You hit me in the face with the hammer. Um, but this is conversations that we're having, you know, off the podcast about my postpartum because I have really been hit with it hard. And I also like I have talked about before, gained 55 pounds when I was pregnant.

So the weight gain aspect plus the postpartum anxiety plus quarantine has been a lot. I'll get through it. And I don't want to sit here and be like, whoa, is me. I'm very grateful and I have a beautiful daughter. But I just want to acknowledge that it is something that I'm going through at the moment. So if anyone has any suggestions, let me know. Drop into my inbox. Let me know on Instagram.

I would love to hear you guys' experience because this is totally out of my depths. Well, and it's completely out of my depths. I mean, I'm completely lost. If there's any women... He asked me the other day, he goes, can you just, like, get over postpartum? Well, and that didn't, as you can imagine, as you can imagine, listeners, that did not go well for me.

Sharpening my knife in the kitchen. I've had about 15 missteps with this postparting thing. I've probably said every wrong thing you can say. I'll be honest. All I literally want you to do is just listen and not give me a solution, which is impossible for you. It's hard for me. I know, listen.

Oh, my God. It's hard for you. I know that I could be a better listener. I know that, but it's hard because I want to help you. And I know that sometimes you're in pain with this stuff. And my instinct is to be helpful. But obviously, I'm not being helpful. No, you were helpful last night.

We had a conversation for like an hour. You know what I realized about having conversations with you, by the way? You're really good at conversations in the dark. No, I'm serious. You and I have our best conversations in the dark. You know what else I do well in the dark? Yes. Yeah, yeah, but you also do that well in the light.

but in the dark you're like it's very easy to talk to you. So I'm going to start capitalizing on the dark. You know what that tells me is that maybe when you're looking at me in the light, it's just like I have a face that pisses you off or something. Yeah, you might do like things with your face that I, that I'm not used to. Okay, so whenever we have a problem, we're going to turn off all the lights, we're going to go in the dark.

Yeah, and just lay and talk in the dark. It was very, great. We got you over postpartum, everybody. All right, she's done with it now. This is what he thinks. He thinks. It's just like one conversation. No, I know.

Listen, it's fucked up and I know a lot of women struggle with us. But the problem is, like I said, us men, we just don't know what to do. And so we sit there like a deer in the headlights. Yeah, because you guys don't have to do anything compared to women. And it's annoying. And it's fucked up. But like, and I know that like, I may get in trouble for this. But like, it's crazy behavior.

Like I look at you sometimes when you're going on the rails with this stuff. And I'm like, this is fucking crazy. But, you know, you can't say that. There's obviously something going on. But like, what's wild is that like you don't think it's crazy at the time until later. I kind of do know it's crazy when I'm saying it and doing it. I like, I know in my head. I mean, let's be honest.

You were already fucking crazy. crazy before, but this is just now you're even crazier. Yeah, I'm going to own it. I like crazy, though. But I think you've gone a little bit too crazy. Yeah, I've gone, I'm a little bit. I'm really anxious right now, things that used to not make me upset, upset me. I also noticed that I have sensory issues.

So, for instance, if we wake up in the morning and he opens the drawer to get his boxers and slams it too loud, oh. Well, what I figured out, what I figured out and why I'm just decided I'm not, I'm not, He's not, he's too high frequency, just be low frequency. I'm not going to be upset anymore because I figured out that like, I'm your outlet for rage right now. No, you aren't. I might be.

And if that's okay, like if that's my way of helping you, like if I have to take the beating and I have to take abuse, I'm recording this. Then that's what I'll do for you as your husband. Just walk a little quieter, like don't slam your boxer door. Don't breathe. Don't lick my lips. Don't blink my eyes. The fake cough drives me.

It drove me mad before pregnancy. Now, when you clear your throat in the morning, I just don't understand why you have to do that. So basically like don't breathe, don't blink, don't move. We stayed at his parents this weekend. And at 6.30 in the morning, your dad was clearing his throat just like you. And I thought, okay, this is where this comes from. Listen, we are all children of our previous environments.

I mean, the way your dad wakes up in the morning, he is making bacon, screaming. The news is blaring. He's coughing. I just, I'm a really low frequency person. You know, I want to wake up to meditation music. I want to open the windows and get some light.

When I was a child, we got up to bullhorns and glaring horns. I never seen anything like it. And the sheets being ripped off and light being turned on full blast. Okay. Well, you lower your frequency and I'll maybe go a little less crazy. All right.

That's our therapy session. So just get over the postpartum. I'm just kidding. I'm fine. Listen, I get it. I'm fine. I'm going to get some flack for this.

If there's any women out there that can help me with this that have been through it themselves and through it with their husbands. If there's any husbands out there that have been through this and say like, hey, man, like, you're fucking up. There's a better way to do this. I am open. Ears are open. Slide into my DMs.

Let me know what to do. And if you're just like, hey, you're being a fucking asshole and sit there and listen, then I'll do that too. But I think it's a medley. Okay. All right. Dr. Dennis.

Who is Dr. Dennis? He is a practicing chiropractor for over 25 years. He's treated everyone of who's who in Hollywood. Okay? Think the most famous of the most famous. I don't want to name drop, but just think everyone that is like the most famous. He works on numerous members of the NBA, NFL, and Olympic athletes.

He works with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Dallas Mavericks, the Miami Heat, Oakland Raiders, and the Canadian Olympic women's basketball team. He also is a chiropractor for the L.A. Clippers. Dr. Canello's commitment to wellness and a healthy lifestyle has transcended him into a world of creating many successful health and fitness products. He created the abdominalizer, which sold 1.5 million units throughout the world. And he also worked on the Nordic Rower and the Nordic power for Nordic tracks. So he's done so much. He is a physical therapist and he works a lot on the fascia. So whenever I go to see him, that's what I notice. I notice that he's not cracking my neck all

the time. It's more working on the fascia and the functionality of my body. He can look at me, and tell me what's going on. He even told me that when I do my breath work, I need to hold my implants up because I'll get more breath in, which is wild. Dr. Dennis, welcome to the skinny confidential show. You guys can expect so many wellness and health tips in this episode.

Guess what? What? Guess what I have in the Thrive Store. What do you got now? I got a lot of good things. I just added more. So first, I have an organic coconut water that is so good with a little lime

and tequila. And then if I want to keep things healthy in the morning, I also have an organic apple cider vinegar. And then I have these organic corn flakes. You add a little almond milk on top, maybe some cinnamon. And then I got my dates. I got my avocado mayo. It's actually an avocado oil mayo. And my fiber gummies, I have raw almond butter. I have all the stuff that I order monthly on our Thrive Store. If you have not checked it out and you've been listening to this podcast, you are missing out. Thrive is an online membership-based market on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everybody. Enjoy member-only prices, 25 to 50% off traditional retail prices. We've been talking about this service for years now, guys. This is how Lauren and I have been

shopping now pre-COVID, four years ago, three years ago, too, like ever since we discovered Thrive, this is how we get our food. This is how we get our household supplies. This is how we get our cleaning supplies. That we get baby supplies. How we get pet supplies, everything, and wine. And if you have a hypoglycemic significant other, I have the sea salt pretzels that I get Michael. I have the very specific organic gluten-free non-GMO vegan crackers that we use with guacamole. You know what I like, Lauren, efficiency. I like that. I don't have to go to the store. And I like that I can go on there and I have all my snacks that I like. I just go in every month, hit reorder, get the same thing. So I get all my snacks straight delivered. Don't have to go back

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It pays for itself. And get that $20 in shopping credit. Again, thrive market.com slash skinny. All right. Let's get back to the show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. We have Dennis in the studio. I don't quite know what to call him.

We're going to get into this. But we're going to talk about the nervous system, hormones, lymphatic system, body manipulation, cortisol, the works. I guess we'll start out with getting some context of who you are, where you're from. Give us the background. Let's go back a little bit. We started talking about a little bit off air, but I want to kind of know how you found your way into this space.

Pretty much accidental, I would guess. The space of physical medicine, I think, largely resulted from a desire to help people, I think, deep down. And I grew up, you know, the youngest of my sisters were considerably older, but wonderful to me, great family, you know, good father, good mother. I learned how to work hard, but I didn't know what I wanted to work hard at because I didn't enjoy some of the things that I did. Shoes salesman wasn't for me. So, not that Knox shoe salesman, it just didn't interest me. And somehow I ended up in physical therapy.

and that was the beginning of really enjoying what I do. And so after that, I was disillusioned a little bit with what I was going to see myself doing. So I became a gyropractor. And I learned a lot about the importance of the nervous system in doing that. And I guess devolved over time, training a lot of people and learning.

What did your family do? What did your parents do for living? Oh, my parents were immigrants. My father worked in a sawmill. and my mother did everything. She worked in a farm in the Lower Mainland, hoeing, you know, the garden and what have you. She was a hard worker, really hard worker.

That doesn't surprise me that she was a hard worker. Yeah, my mother was solid. So when you went into chiropractic, did you know that you had this like intuitive ability to also do body manipulation or were you just going for chiropractic care? I think I first became a chiropractic because I wanted to have, you know, direct patient contact, whereas in physical therapy in those days, you had to be

referred to your, you know, by your family doctor. So I wanted to eradicate that. So I went into chiropractic. It was fun, man. I met a lot of great guys and there's great friends for 40 plus years. And I learned a lot about the power of manipulation. It's very powerful when it's delivered right. And then I just evolved from there. I just kept learning. You know what's the, What's different about, because I've been to different chiropractors, but what's different going to you is you really, I mean, you're just like go in there for a quick crack and then leave. Like, you really get into the muscle and you move, you move things around. Like, the way you work on my neck and my body, my head, just as like, it's something, I've never experienced before. So how do you,

how do you differentiate yourself from most chiropractors? It's just, it's not something that I've come across in general chiropractor. First of all, there's different approaches to chiropractic. I don't really practice chiropractic in the true sense of the word. What I, what I, what I, do is a long time ago, I kind of analyzed the body from a perspective of mathematics and geometrics and what have you. And really basic understandings of physics like, you know, Newton's third law and so on. And so I applied that. And my objective is if a patient comes to see me and they, and I can verify a structural fault that's correctable, then we undergo treatment. But if it doesn't make sense, like for example, somebody comes in complaining of abdominal pain,

and I can't find a structural reason for their pain. I send them to their doctor, their medical doctor. One thing that you told me that was so interesting that I wanted to ask you about on air is that you said that my implants were making it hard for me to breathe, which was making my postpartum anxiety worse because they were so heavy on the chest. Right. Well, not just heavy on the chest, but if I put your arm in a cast for three days, and I took that cast off, your arm would be very stiff. It wouldn't be as fluid as it was before it went in the cast. So we know that when you don't move a certain area, it's fibrosis. It becomes stuck down. And so what happens when you have the implant, especially when it's under the muscle, in my opinion, it can, over time, stop the ribs from moving in and out of respiration and cause more shallow breathing. So I get a lot of women that come in that have neck problems or upper shoulder problems

because, you know, I think it kind of hurts when you get this done. And if you don't get physical therapy or, you know, therapy afterwards, I think it can lead to more rounded shoulder because this tissue doesn't get released. And then, you know, when you're lying down, especially in your back, there is a weight against your rib cage, albeit not that heavy. But if you have really big breasts, it can really limit your ability to respirate when you're on your back. So one of the things that you told me to do is like when I'm in the shower, massage my implant and move it around. Right. So if someone's listening and they have implants, is that what you would recommend?

Yeah, I mean, but you don't move the implant. You hold the implant still. and you breathe and move the ribs under the implant. In other words, instead of moving the implant over the ribs, hold the implant. You don't have to squeeze it, just hold it up at first, and breathe all the way out, and I mean all the way out, but don't let the implants drop, and you'll feel a little resistance there. Does Michael need to do this with his ball sack? I've never done it on a ball sack, so I don't know.

Listen, these things are fucking heavy, so. I want to talk about something that is like one of the main reasons we wanted to bring you on, which is the nervous system. I think it's not talked about enough. Can you talk to us about how the nervous system is related to the immune system, to the lymphatic system, to body manipulation? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because you said something yesterday when you were going on you said basically it determines everything. Yeah.

When we break things into systems, it's so we can understand them. But in understanding the systems, sometimes we forget the whole. This goes back thousands and thousands of years, and it's called the laying on of hands. And if laying on of hands is done in such a way that there is, and this is going to sound really kind of out there, but if there is a harmony that evolves between the patient and the therapist while they're undergoing a specific therapy, that's more powerful than the specific therapy. So there's more depth to treating a patient than just manipulating them over and over again or not falling through with, you know, creating a change.

That's what you really want. Because the body gets stuck in patterns. So, you know, if you talk to most orthopedic surgeons, they'll tell you that, you know, when they did a knee replacement that was bone on bone, so to speak, they'll tell you that there was still a lot of cartilage there, just not where it was needed. And so this tracking occurs, and bodies get caught in patterns because we do repetitive stress type things like sitting all day and so on. And so the key, in my opinion, is to activate the human body, to do its own thing to create a correction away from the pattern that it's adopted as its new normal. and some people call that mild fascial unwinding and so on and so forth.

But ultimately the goal is to get the body to react to the therapy in a positive manner. What's interesting right now is, you know, we have a five-month-old daughter. And I watch the way she can move her body, right, and the way she can bend and how flexible she is. And it's crazy to, you know, she can do everything. Like movements that she doesn't like, holy shit, I haven't been able to do that in, you know, 30-something years. Yeah. And so obviously over time, we're putting enough wear and tear in our body that we're losing a lot of our functions. functionality and movement. You don't think, you don't think about it until you observe something like that, and you realize how flexible we come out in the first place. Absolutely. But remember, we adapt to the stresses we're placed under. Now, it would be great to be able to walk down the street right now, fall right backwards onto my butt hat and get up as if nothing happened. But in fact, that probably concussed my occiput down into my neck and fracture four or five vertebra at my age. So,

That difference is that, you know, aging is normal. And what you want to do is optimize aging to maintain what is normal for that age. If you get my way. So how can we strengthen our nervous system besides body manipulation? Is there other ways or is body manipulation number one? Oh, no, there's so many other ways. We're learning a lot about the nervous system. Like, for example, we always had, you know, the gut feeling thing.

And most people know now that the brain and the gut are connected. and that's been proven scientifically, neurologically, that there are actually over, I think it's something like 100,000 nerve endings in the gut, which means it has a great influence to the brain. It has information highway that it makes it more important than some other organ that has less of an information highway. So now we know that not only is the gut,

connected in that manner, but it also harbors emotions and all kinds of other things that we didn't know that long ago, really. Not that long ago, if you think about it. And we're just learning, we're scratching the service on how the brain works right now. And so, and that's really important because, you know, I'm getting older, so I'm really kind of keen on what's going on with my brain and what we can do to improve that. Well, number one is lose your fear. You know, like Don't walk around like a deer in the headlights. That's going to increase cortisol levels, and that's going to play havoc on your entire health system.

Two, improve circulation. You know, I do this thing called EECP. It's a very unique therapy, which helps circulation, largely because I'm working so much, I haven't been as physical as I wanted to with this COVID thing, so I've been doing my EECP. That's something you can do. It's a form of increasing circulation through your health.

body. Walking is great and movement in general is great because your body is not designed to stay stiff still. My friend went to Shanghai and he said that everyone there is walking around hitting themselves, hitting their chest, hitting their arms, like moving their circulation. That makes so much sense. Of course, but that's not just moving their circulation. It's increasing sensory information. Your skin is the biggest sensor organ in your body. So it feels. So feeling, increasing feeling is an important thing. It puts us back in touch with right now. And the more touch with you are with now is the best thing you can do.

What about anxiety? I came to you when I had really bad postpartum anxiety. I know that I've had another friend that went to you for postpartum anxiety. Why does body manipulation help so much with that? There are a number of tissues that we know of in the body that harbor especially much more crippling emotional. looking blockages, let's say. And the pelvic floor, both in men and women, is one of the major ones. And we know that when we release the pelvic floor, some emotional reactions can occur.

Same with the respiratory diaphragmatic system. That, when you release that, of course, the solar flexes is sort of the seed of emotion. You can get emotional releases there. And emotional releases are good, but they're not the cure. The connection to what that emotionally is the cure. Is that why I felt high with the first, I felt high the first time I came to you. Like I was high on drugs. Yes. So like serotonin rushing through my body.

I was like fucking partying on Molly or some shit. That's how I felt after coming to you. Yes, that's very common. And then I have another friend that says that she almost had a reset from you. That like she almost blacked out and had a full body reset. She did. And I know you don't do that on a lot of people, but can you explain what that looks like? Well, it's not something that you do on purpose.

It's something that happens in the course of therapy. And what it is is, you know, it's hard to describe exactly what it is, but I think this is what it is what it is. Is that, you know, as we change, your body is full of information that your brain is assessing at all times. And this information comes from your feet and your knees and your hips and all these little joints in your spine. all these joints that bear weight send information back to your brain so your brain knows where you are.

And when we change that pattern by changing both tissue and joint balance, the brain goes, wait a second, where am I? It has to readjust to find this new normal. Like most people, my office is this gorgeous building, but it's older. and my office floor slopes downward towards the center about eight inches. It's quite a bit of a slope. Nobody ever recognizes that slope until they're balanced. And as soon as they're balanced, the first thing they say is, is this floor sloped? Do you remember that?

It's like you don't even know you're in pain until you're out of pain. Yeah, it's just like you become more aware for that moment. And hopefully that's our goal is to program that awareness more often. What about the lymphatic system? I'm so big on the lymphatic system. I would love to know your take on that. Yeah, well, I think the lymphatic system is very important. It's part of your immune system, for one,

and it's part of your circulatory system. That's how information also gets around in your body is through the circulatory system. Of course, through the fascial system and many of these other systems, all interconnected, all feeding information back, so that your brain can analyze the response and deliver it. to the right place. Sometimes it delivers it to the wrong place. And you think the pain is there when in reality it's referred pain. Why do you think that all these areas of medicine have not, you know, I don't want to say we've lost it, but I mean, they're not nearly at the front

of conversation as some other practices. And it's like, and obviously these have been practices for thousands and thousands of years. Like, what do you think it is in medicine where we've kind of lost a little bit of this information? I mean, we have to bring someone like you on to like Lauren and I, we have to bring someone like you on to reconnect and learn about this stuff. It's just not, there's not so many people talking about it. There's not, it's not as, you know, like if I go to a general physician, they're going to give me this prescription, this thing, this practice, but they're not going to start diving into the nervous system, the lymphatic system. It's rare. Hold up. I want to talk about something I recently

discovered. So I was talking with my friend Claire and she's really into the blood type diet. And one of the things that does not go with Michael and I is blood type. We have the same blood type, oddly enough, is coffee. Devastating. Devastating. Because we're both coffee junkies. Yeah, we love coffee. But I'm not too devastated because of four-sigmatic. Like literally, thank God for four-sigmatic because I can have my ground mushroom coffee with lions mane in it and feel healthy and also feel like I'm doing something good for my blood type. We are both on a coffee kick right now. We've kicked it out of our diet to see what happens over the next month. And at first, I was super scared because I'm like, shit, I need this caffeine. That's what I do.

do. This is how I get going. And then I remembered, we are sponsored by one of the best companies in the world for Sigmatic mushroom coffee, ground mushroom coffee with Lions Main. Guys, it does not taste like mushrooms. If you're sitting there being like mushroom coffee, that strange. We've talked about it multiple times on this show. They've been a partner for a very long time. The founder, Tara, is a good friend and he's been on this show. Here's how I make it. I froth up in my frother. It's like a $30 frother. I froth up unsweetened almond milk. And then I do cinnamon. Sometimes I add some nutmeg and then I pour it over ice with my four-sigmatic ground mushroom coffee. And honestly, like, you don't get jitters in a crash, which I don't know if that has to do with my blood type.

I'm into the mushroom coffee right now. And guys, it's so much more than just coffee. It contains Lyons Main, our favorite functional mushroom. It's the brain's best friend and supports focus, productivity, creativity. This is what we use when we podcast. You know, I've talked about the focus shot for a long time. It's organic, fair trade, vegan, keto-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, all the things, and of course, we have a special offer for all Skinny Confidential, him and her podcast listeners. Receive 15% off your 4Sigmatic order. Just go to 4Sigmatic.com slash skinny or inner code skinny at checkout. That's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C dot com slash skinny to receive 15% off your order. Cheers. You know, well, they have a different purpose. They're serving their purpose.

I think it's wrong for us to expect medical doctors who are trained medically. unless they, you know, venture out on their own. But, you know, they do what they do very well. And, man, if I have a medical problem, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to a medical doctor. Yeah, this is not a knock on medical doctors. It's more about, like, how do we find the stuff that you do? Yeah, I get it. But that's where I think it breaks down.

It's hard to find because everybody has a gift, everybody. And some people find that gift, whether it's in healing, whether it's in, orthopedic surgery, whether it's in the stock market, I don't know, whatever it is. And those people end up on podcasts like this and sharing that information. And I'm not to pat myself on the back, but that's what I've learned. I've learned, you know, I'm this small-town kid that, you know, kind of made it here in Hollywood a little bit. And I go, why?

Why don't I have these great people as patients that teach me so much? because I've also had farmers and so it doesn't matter about that but it matters to me that that if you share that information and you, like I have this young intern, Joey that's been with me for 10 years and he's killing it, he's doing great

because he's learned that it's more than just a manipulation or a massage or this. It's that whole package and sometimes you can't get it all in one place. Sometimes you have to add acupuncture and, you know, there are many alternative medicines out there that are spectacular, and people that practice that are really good. Yeah, I think people just need to know where to go and look for it.

Like, for example, Lauren, you know, recently just got her hormones checked. Right. So I think off of your recommendation. Off of his, he looked at my neck and you said my estrogen is dominant and there's something going on, go get your hormones checked. But my point is that it was your thyroid. Biroid, yeah. But the point was, is that if she would have just gone to a medical doctor,

they would have given, like, they may have not even mentioned it. And like, why do you think there's a discredit? Because I agree with you that I think you need both. I think you get your normal blood working for your general position. And then you should also do that. But it's just, you know, a lot of people just don't know to go and look for these types of options. Yeah, I agree. Look, there probably should be some form of, well, maybe this is it.

Maybe this is how you do it. But I met some really great people working in all fields. And I think there's just a lot of talent out there. It's just finding it. know, and what resonates with you? And I think that's what's important. How does someone know that they need to get their hormones checked and their thyroid checked? Because I now, obviously, based on your recommendation, went and did that and it was life-changing. I feel so much better. Is there, like, signs that they can notice that maybe they need to go get it checked?

Yeah, I mean, fatigue. I mean, there were certain words that you used when what I was talking to, and we were first met, where I, you know, it triggered, because I've been doing this for so long, it triggered, well, maybe we should look, and then I'd look at, you know, maybe saw a little, like, so I went, maybe thyroid. And so here's what's shocking to me is, you know, I'm an older man, and, and I grew up, everybody had a family doctor. Nowadays, it's amazing to me how few people have a family doctor. You really should have someone who knows you so that they can, when they see you and they take your history, they say, oh, well, last year you were there. These guys are really good. But so many of us, I don't know whether it's the insurance situation or what it is the cause of this, but I like the idea of having a family physician that follows your medical history. Now, my job when you see me is to listen to you and from years of experience and a little bit of knowledge, figure what you really need.

And if it's medicine, it should be medicine. If it's acupuncture, it should be acupuncture. If it's not in my territory, it should be, I should find you somebody that's in your territory, if you get what I mean. No, that makes total sense. So some things that you saw that my thyroid was low was my neck was swollen, fatigue. You said you had a little bit of enlargement in your thyroid. Uh-huh. And you saw me yesterday and you said,

wow, your, like your swamming of your face has gone down. A lot. You also saw water weight in my ankles. Yes. And so these were all things that signaled to you that I needed to get my thyroid checked. Yes. And is the thyroid, low thyroid, happen in a lot of women. Do you see it?

Is it very common? I think it's very common. I think it's more common than we realize because you could test as a normal, which for you may not be totally normal. So it's a real trick. Endocrinologists are really, it's a fascinating field, but it's a field that I can only say, hey, you should go there because it's complicated.

And I think it's more common than we realize, yes. When I went to the hormone specialist, they said a lot of people go to their general practitioner and get this very general blood test, and they're not actually looking under the bed. They're just looking at the bed as a whole. And what a hormone specialist does is they actually, look at the T3, the T4, all these different little ones that a general practitioner doesn't look at.

So right now I feel like I have this audience of women. We have this audience of women. And it's really important for me to let them know that if they are feeling fatigue or weight gain or any of these things that maybe they should go check with a hormone specialist. Yeah, but not just women. I think men, like there's actually now that you've done, I want to go check as well. Yeah. No, it's both. Well, look, but first of all, I mean, is it, Fair to say we're under a little bit of stress right about now. You know, that's going to affect you. It's funny that I think I read this story maybe two years ago.

It was a study done on male testosterone, and they were able to very quickly analyze how testosterone reacted in their body on a momentary basis. And so they had this gentleman walk into a room with a mother nursing a baby, I think it was, and his testosterone levels dropped. So it's natural all we think, what we see, because remember our eyes are part of our brain. They're actually, you see your brain when you look in your mirror. And so everything that comes in, whether it's through your skin, through your eyes, through your ears, through your breathing.

Everything that comes in gets interpreted. And that ends up with a result. And that result is what is determined what goes in, if you understand. Wait, why did it drop? Well, there's a book called Evolutionary Psychology. It's an extremely dry book, but it's a really interesting book on how we've evolved. And like, you know, back caveman days, we've evolved to, you know, when a man sees a pregnant woman, he knows right, he knows in his brain right away, like, okay, that is not

something that is not someone that I can impregnate, which means, you know, we become unattracted to that woman because we know there's no possibility to mate with that woman. I'm not saying that everybody does and we don't find pregnant women attractive. I'm just saying like how we evolve. No, I get what you say. Yeah, we realize like, okay, that is not a, that is not somebody that we could potentially mate with. And so it's interesting that it makes sense that you say that because that signal would point out to someone like, okay, that is not a viable option for mating. And it's just, it's in our genetics. Look, we're the most intelligent animals on the world as far as I wouldn't say men are, but

Yeah, good point. So I shouldn't breastfeed in front of you. We don't want your testosterone to drop. Well, yeah, well, that might have an effect. But look, that's just one example. We are reactive to our environment. So when you say, what can we do about our hormones and health in general? Number one, stop the fear.

because when you live in fear, you literally are harming yourself. To be proactive. Like, you know, find out what is it that really is ailing you? Is it circumstantial that you can fix? You know, I have this great poster in my office that says, basically, if there's nothing you can do about anything, then don't worry about it. Just let it happen. It has all the different arrows showing.

Yes. Yeah, I love that poster. Because it's true, you know. it's just the way it is. This is very relevant to this episode. We have partnered with Talkspace. We've talked about this many times. Basically, it's everything that I personally need right now.

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you know, talk to someone right now, talk space, completely anonymous, completely safe. Get out there, get your feelings off your chest, talk through it. Talk to a licensed therapist that has the answers that can help you out. Just navigate this stuff. If there's one thing we've learned doing this show, it's how important it is to navigate the issues that you're facing your life, to talk through the problems, to talk through stress, to talk to anxiety, make yourself feel better to protect your mind. I've talked to a lot of new moms recently, and we've all talked about postpartum anxiety and depression, and I see how many moms are struggling with it. It's affordable, so one month on talk space costs about the same amount as a single in-person

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and talkspace.com. Back to the show. I want to talk to you about cortisol because when I was in your office the other day with Michael, you had the shades down and Anna from Pelicure who both are obsessed with. Shout out to Anna who introduced us. She has the best gold CBD pen on the planet. If you guys want a CBD pen, check her out. The shades were down. And Anna said, put the shades up. And you were like, I don't like when the shades are up when I have a patient in because it triggers their cortisol. And when you said that, I immediately, and I told you this earlier, went to my newborns. When Michael wakes her up, Michael turns the light on as bright as it can go. That's not true. That's an exaggeration.

It's pretty bright. That's an exaggeration. I mean, it's child abuse, maybe. It's how bright the light is. So it's, so I always say like, like, give her a little night light to give her a little upper teeth. Right. And then like, let's, let's move her in slowly to the appetizer and the audience.

Contrae. What are your thoughts on light and cortisol? Well, first of all, there's a big difference in those two scenarios. One, I want your body and your nervous system to be as still as possible so that I can influence it more directly. In other words, it just amplifies the laying on of hands if you want to call it that. And whereas in the case of your daughter, there's going to be times when the light goes on real bright. Yeah, I'm trying to, I don't want to put her in an environment where it's not realistic. Like, sometimes shit's going to happen.

Yeah, shit's going to be ready to get ready to go, you know? Yeah, I think they can adapt to that. That's a different aspect of being shocked with light than just reducing light so you can, you can quiet the nervous system. That's all. That's a big difference. Okay, so is there things we can do at home that quiet our cortisol when it comes to light or anything else?

So many, so many. All this is counterintuitive, though, because. you're like, listen, don't stress about losing weight because then you'll actually gain more weight. But at the same time, you're already like nervous about gaining the weight. So it's hard to, it's hard to, I mean, I get what you're saying as a general practice and I 100% agree with it, but it's hard to get somebody to not focus on, like if they, if their struggle is, hey, I want to lose weight and they're so stressed about it, to tell them, hey, don't stress about it and it'll fall up. It's counterintuitive in a way, but it's true. So how do you get somebody into that mindset?

Well, first of all, I never tell anybody to lose weight. Okay. I don't believe in that. I'll tell you why, because I know how hard it is to lose weight, and I know how much I love life, which makes it harder to lose weight. I don't talk about weight. I talk about movement and balance. If your body is carrying its weight effectively, I'm not worried about your weight. If your body is structurally weakened in any way, shape, or form, then I'm worried a little bit about your weight.

weight, but I don't use your weight. I'm going to strengthen the weakness and you'll learn that weight losing weight helps. You come to your own conclusion of that. That's smart. So what can we do? I have to ask you for specifics, what we can do at home to lower our cortisol? What are a few tricks? Oh man, there's so many. Let's see. Well, first of all, breathing is a major thing that we do very poorly. I don't know why that is, whether it's just all stress related or we get so busy. We forget. I think it's because we become mouth breathers and not nose breathers. That is true. And we, you know, again, if you look at babies, like they breathe with their nose. And over time, we're starting to breathe in our mouth, you get shorter breaths. Correct. Well, you don't get

some deep respiratory movement either. You don't get that diaphragm really bouncing. So, breathing's for one. Meditation, for some people, works great. I think it's, you know, you have to have the ability to do it, which means you've got to take, you got to be purposeful. I did it for a long time, and then I lost my purpose in that and I found it down the way. But I think meditation is great, and for some people, they just love it. You know, if you have conflict, you know, there's, like, for example, a certain patient of mine recently, some time ago I'd learned that they had a family issue that was abusive many years ago. And this young man had never confronted his parents with it.

Well, this week he did. and it was the best thing he ever did. And so when you hear that, if you can erase conflict, you shouldn't have any anger in your heart. It's not good for you. It's not good for your immune system. It's not good for anything.

It's hard to do. It's easy to have anger. Believe me. Driving here, I had a little anger. I had to let go of it. But things to help your immune system, reduce cortisol, and it's just find a way to enjoy where you're at

as best you can. is you don't have much choice right now. I think it's good. We're spending more time with ourselves. So do I. It's still. Yeah. We don't like to be still, do we? No, it's really hard. Well, I think we're as human beings, like we've gotten to this place where we're programmed to constantly think about the future. When I get there, when I do this, when it happens. And like, what happens is you're constantly putting yourself in a state of misery because either those things don't happen or as soon as you get there, it's the next thing. People have lost the ability, in my opinion, to be present. It's either you're living too far in the past,

which is a whole different story, or you're living way too far in the future. There's very little living in between. That's a big problem. That's a big problem. I mean, living in the now is really, I think, an important lesson to learn. It's hard. It's hard. It's really hard. But here's the thing. You know, you can't be perfect at anything. Perfect life would be lack of homeostasis because it would be a flat line. So homeostasis isn't perfect. It's an up and it's a down and it's an up and it's a down and it's an up and it's a down. And so, you know, if you take on anything, let's say you take on dieting. Let's say you decide you want to lose some weight. We're going to do intermittent fasting, let's say. You make a commitment. Now, you don't make that commitment until you're 82. You made it for a certain period of time. You, you know,

you accomplish something that makes you feel good. That's another way to reduce stress. Anytime you do something makes you feel good, it's great. So sex. Yes. Sex. Lots of sex. I knew you were coming that way. Speaking to that, though, our friend Ryan Holiday was talking about an author that we really admire.

One, he's a big study of the, he studies the stoic philosophers a lot. But there's an author that we all love that he basically, what was it, not intern, not. He basically apprenticed on it for a long time. And he said, instead of looking at life as, hey, I've lived 33 years or 35 years, he looks it as, hey, I've died 33 years. And when you look, when you understand that that's actually true, you're never getting in time back, it creates a framework where instead of thinking like, hey, I got all these other years to live so I can put things off and think about this later. It makes it so you're much more appreciative of the time you have today. It's just like a simple mindset to start just

enjoying life as it exists right now as opposed to waiting to enjoy it later. Yeah. Hey, listen, I had a call today actually from a friend I haven't talked to for a long time, right? she calls me out of the blue. So we're talking, and we realized how much time had gone by. And I told her, I said, I think I'm afraid to blink for missing part of my life. That's how quick time goes. So, you know, I'm going to hit 70 this year, and I go, whoa, where did that go? But when I look back, I go, man, I've done a lot.

You know, so you got to be appreciative of where you're at, make the best of where you got. And what else is there? You've helped a lot of people in four sessions. I mean, you went from seeing me for, it was probably 45 minutes to seeing me for 20 to seeing me for 15 to yesterday. It was like down to five minutes. And I have the same feeling every time I leave. I have the best sleep. Went to bed at 9 o'clock last night.

Like, I just feel so much better. If there is someone like, let's call her Sally in Wyoming that doesn't. have access to you to you because you truly are. I've been to a lot of doctors and wellness centers. Right. And you're like the best of the best. Is there some things that they can look for that because maybe someone's struggling with postpartum anxiety or anxiety or they're feeling like Michael's neck is off like or they just got in a car accident? What should they look for if they're looking for someone like you? Well, the first thing you need is a good diagnosis. So I believe in the I believe in the And the ladder is the first step of the ladder.

Because if you don't play this, let's say it's a car accident. If you don't play this game, you're not going to be that happy because they'll keep you sick. You know what I mean? So the first part of the game is your family doctor or a doctor that can make sure that you have no serious medical issues. Okay. Once that's out of the way, that makes my job a whole lot easier because he took all the heat. He took care of anything that I don't have to worry about this person dying unless I'm stupid. So I've got to go get that physical one.

Yeah, I think it's important. I really do. I'm really old-fashioned that way, to be honest with you. The next layer is depending on, you know, the diagnosis, the diagnosis is the key. Depending on the diagnosis, because this medical doctor will probably not understand pathomechanics. In other words, you know, architecture of the body and things like that. He'll just go, she hurt her neck, right? get an MRI, make sure there's nothing there,

whatever they decide to do. They may not need that. You leave it up to the doctor. Eventually, she should look for somebody that fits what's wrong. Now, I'm going to tell you, if you've been in a car accident, you definitely have some spinal issues, you know, unless it's been a really tiny one, like you hit a mosquito or something. Right?

But, you know, so there it's important to see either a physical therapist or a chiropractor. Those two people will help you in terms of determining whether there's structural issues. Now, if you have to keep getting, like the treatment should never be the same treatment two times in a row. That's the key. If you do the same thing twice in a row, then why would it work three times in a row? There has to be some kind of change in the body in between treatments. And then you mold the next treatment according to that change. that's what you've got to look for.

If it's just, you know, three times a week, there has to be more than just rote therapy. There has to be some intelligent concept behind it, in my opinion. So what are some words that they could look for? Like, is not myofascia release a good word? Yes, it's a very good word. Okay. Myofas release because that, you know, can do no harm.

the less my philosophy is if if manipulation is needed it should be delivered because it's it's a powerful instrument but it's in my opinion it shouldn't be delivered routinely the same way every time because there has to be something that changes that sometimes happens with that's a good piece of advice because in the past and I won't name anybody by name it felt like every time I was going we were doing the same thing over and over. And I felt like I just, the only way to feel normal is I had to keep, I had to keep going over and over in order to feel the same, to get a little bit of relief. Right. And the way that we're working, it's obviously a little bit different. Before we go, can you tell us about your back chair? Because the back chair, I've been using it for my Skype calls, my Zoom calls. You guys have seen it

on my Instagram story. Dennis made me a pink one. But there's something about this chair that makes me sit up straight and it makes it easier to breathe. Can you just kind of tell everyone about this? Because I get a lot of questions on Instagram. Oh yeah, absolutely. I thought about this idea for so long, but I never really could figure out how to do it until I met my partner, Jim Grove, who's a brilliant designer and has been designing chairs forever. And together, we created this phenom thing that really kind of works. So it works really well, actually, to be honest with you. And we've been doing well with it. The concept of the chair is that everybody tries to, like, they'll say put a pillow behind your back.

And yeah, that will work for a while, but only because you're conscious of the pillow there. And then as soon as you get busy, you forget it's there and you slump again. Because the real issue is how your pelvis lines underneath your spine. So by moving your pelvis in a pelvic tilt maneuver, you can literally change how the spine aligns right to the, literally to the top of your head.

So what we did is created a special check. where the back and the seat pivot as one over where your hips would naturally be. That's what you need. Yeah. So when you're standing, you know, you can swivel like Elvis Presley because your hips are balls and sockets. But when you sit, you're sitting directly on those bony bumps, and now the weight instead of going, you know, translating in through your hips and up your spine is going straight

up your spine, which causes compression. and that's what leads to disc problems and back pain and neck pain and all this crap. Basically everything I have. Oh, it's like epidemic. So what this does is it stops that. I'm obsessed with the chair. I've been using it all the time being in quarantine.

Where can everyone find the chair? Then go to backstrongchair.com, I believe it is. Okay. And Instagram. Or they can also go to our corporate one, which is all 33.com. All 33.com. And if people can, if you want to check out,

peak wellness, it's at peak wellness on Instagram, right? Yes. Okay. I believe. You know, I'm not very good at social media. It's okay. Dennis is a god. I had to bring him on the podcast. You guys, he's changed my life. He turned the lights on. I feel like in my... And we're in the process of turning my lights on. Yeah, Michael's in the process because Michael has like something that takes a couple more times. Lauren used to think that she had a worse neck than me, but I'm convinced this thing is, this thing's a mess. It's a fight. I'm convinced it's from your boxing days. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Maybe. Too many hits to the head. Too many hits. No, I'm just going to tell her to hit the other side. Yeah, yeah. Guys, if you're in L.A., check out Dennis. I'm telling you he is amazing. Thank you so much for coming on.

Oh, my pleasure. Anna, thanks for setting this up. We love you. We love you, Anna. Bye. Little different. Why don't you guys head over to my Instagram and give Michael a tip on dealing with postpartum anxiety. Please help me. And someone from the Skinny Confidential podcast team will drop into your inbox and send a few of you, some new chicie pink stickers. Give any help. Anything helps, okay? Any tips? If this was like a deserted island,

I would be writing the SOS in the sand with a stick. So make sure you've rated and reviewed the podcast. We appreciate it as always. And we'll see you on Friday. This episode was brought to you by Four Sigma. Guys, did you know mushrooms can prevent and treat many diseases and boost overall health? They are known to be super healing.

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