The Dr. Hyman Show - 4 Tricks To Reduce Stress, Anxiety, And Depression

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health and ButcherBox. Stress is almost synonymous with our modern lifestyles. We experience external stressors from our jobs, family responsibilities, financial worries, and many other places, then compound them with unhealthy lifestyle choices. The result is an epidemic of stress and increased risk for chronic diseases.  In this episode, I talk to Wim Hof, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and Dr. Elizabeth Boham about how to take control of our minds and bodies through cold therapy, breathwork, and mindset and meditation techniques that can help us tap into our innate inner power. Wim Hof, also known as “The Iceman,” holds multiple world records for his feats of endurance and exposure to cold, include climbing Mount Everest in nothing but a pair of shorts, running across the Namibian desert at 104°F without drinking any water, and sitting in an ice bath for 1 hour and 52 minutes. He has proven in eight university research studies that he can consciously influence his autonomic nervous system, measurably reduce inflammation, regulate his internal pH levels and body temperature, and activate his immune system to resist the effects of poisonous endotoxins. These studies also show that Wim is able to teach others to achieve similar accomplishments in as little as four days through the Wim Hof Method. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee is regarded as one of the most influential doctors in the UK and wants to change how medicine will be practiced for years to come. He hosts the biggest health podcast in Europe, Feel Better, Live More. His first book, How to Make Disease Disappear, is an international bestseller all over the world and has sold over 250,000 copies worldwide in just 18 months. Dr. Chatterjee is known for finding the root cause of people’s health problems, and he has highlighted his methods in the ground-breaking BBC television show, Doctor in the House, which has been shown in over 70 countries around the world.  Dr. Elizabeth Boham is Board Certified in Family Medicine from Albany Medical School, and she is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner and the Medical Director of The UltraWellness Center. Dr. Boham lectures on a variety of topics, including Women’s Health and Breast Cancer Prevention, insulin resistance, heart health, weight control and allergies. She is on the faculty for the Institute for Functional Medicine. This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health and ButcherBox. Rupa Health is a place for Functional Medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty lab tests from over 20 labs like DUTCH, Vibrant America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. Check out a free live demo with a Q&A or create an account here.    This holiday, ButcherBox is proud to give new members 2 pounds of ground beef in your first box plus $10 off. To receive this offer, go to ButcherBox.com/farmacy.

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. We are very able within 20 minutes to feel a different condition of the mind. Just do this breathing. First take a cold shower. And a cold shower does wonders, miracles. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. I know a lot of you out there are practitioners like me, helping patients heal using real food and functional medicine

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plus $10 off. Now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hi, this is Lauren Feehan, one of the producers of the Doctors Pharmacy Podcast. For many of us, chronic stress is unfortunately a part of our daily life. Work, family obligations, financial responsibilities, and a range of other sources can leave us feeling depleted, anxious, or even depressed. Add to this any unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and it can be a recipe for disaster. On today's compilation episode, Dr. Hyman talks to Wim Hof, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and Dr. Elizabeth Boehm. You'll learn how to take control of your mind to reduce stress using cold therapy and breath work,

as well as other stress-reducing techniques to shift your mindset. Are you ready to de-stress? Let's dive in. So you talk about cold being your only master, your only teacher. Why is cold so healing? Cold is because it shuts up. It's not complicated. You just have to adapt. Learning about the mind is learning how to let go of your fear, anxiety, too much thinking, overthinking, complicated being. No, in the cold, you learn to let go so the body is able to respond, to adapt. And then you get into the adaptive mode of the immune system. You get into the adaptive power of the body and you learn about it and with that because when you go into the cold and you learn to do that on regular basis then the neurology changes and you get

neurological pathways to the adaptive power of your own body the way nature equips you with very logical and that bacteria and a virus and anxiety mood regulation all those things chase they happen naturally yeah because that's the way we are built we are built to be not in anxiety because we have to judge and to be alert we have a system for that insight. So depression, bipolar, and all those things, we are doing the studies now with San Francisco and Michigan on bipolar and depression to show that we have found keys to equip people with a higher control within their own brain. Using cold therapy or using just breathing?

Breathing. Most of it is breathing. Because what do you do when you go into the cold? You learn to breathe deep. So the deep breathing influences part direct the biochemistry. And the biochemistry changed is learning how to suppress the inflammation. And then it doesn't go through the blood-brain barrier or the brain-blood barrier and affecting

and deregulating the hormonal homeostasis over there, a call to depression or feeling bad or feeling confused or anxiety or anything like that. We have a natural ability to rebalance our biochemistry through breathing. Within 10 minutes. So what happens when we're exposed to cold like to really cold conditions what are the benefits why why should we be even thinking about it because a lot of people like last thing i want to do is jump in an ice cold bath or maybe an ice water i say always

gradual cold exposure gradual first take a cold shower and a cold shower does wonders, miracles. Our biggest enemy within our Western society, the killer number one is cardiovascular-related diseases. And anything that has got to do with the quality of life is a bad blood flow, too much stress inside because of the condition of the millions of little muscles in our 100,000 of kilometers, like 70,000 miles of vascular channels and capillaries, they contain all these little muscles. When they are stimulated through cold showers, they help the blood flow go through. Then the heart rate goes down 20 to 30 beats a minute, 24 hours

a day. That means stress is out and the blood flow is guaranteed going better to all cells. So oxygen, nutrients, vitamins get better into the cells. You get more energy. You get more energy and less stress. That's what the body wants. That's the natural state of our body, to have sufficient energy for anything. Because that's the influencing into the mitochondria, the energy factories, through aerobic dissimilation. Oxygen. Oxygen didn't get them because the blood flow is being helped through the stimulation of those millions of little muscles.

And a cold shower a day keeps the doctor away. In this case, the doctor is arrived. Okay. So how long do you have to stay in the cold shower? It begins with 30 seconds. You got to take the shower anyway to cleanse yourself and, you know, to be clean. So at the end, just put the cold on. Yes, 30 seconds. And naturally, you will feel a boost.

Naturally, you will feel the effect of the stimulation on the millions of little muscles inside the interior of your this is the greatest vascular fitness exercise ever a cold shower and 30 seconds then it goes very fast because the condition of the vascular system it goes very fast to its natural state, which should be much better than the way we are because of our de-stimulative behavior, wearing clothes over our biggest organ all the time. Yeah. For the body, it's not logic. So a cold shower a day is the best exercise to train all these little muscles.

Then you get a lot more energy. You feel a boost of energy, yeah, because it gets better into the cells. And it produces more molecules, more energy, ATP. It's all logic. logic yeah and then naturally people are very fast able to prolong in inside the cold shower go for 45 seconds to one minute so when it arrives at three minutes now you you got so much more outcome in energy in the day than the investment is by far it's nothing and. And you know what? A cold shower is addictive. Yeah. Well, I like the cold bath. So I do the steam, then I jump in just the

cold water in the bathtub, and I lay there for a bunch of minutes. And it's incredible. You literally feel your whole system come back online, your brain come back online, your energy increase. It's pretty amazing. You know, so you created this Wim Hof method, Activate Your Full Human Potential. The book is incredible. I encourage everybody to get a copy. It's really not just about a simple technique to jump in cold water. It's really about reclaiming your health, your life, your happiness, your control over everything. I mean, it's not, it's not just a little technique to get in cold water. That's sort of the side effect of, of, um, doing that is, is your life, right? So you've learned how to control your breathing, your heart rate, your circulation to withstand really extreme temperatures to actually be injected with like infectious agents that would kill people and subdue them with your immune system under your conscious control. And you've developed this into a teachable method that everybody can learn.

So it's not, oh, here's this cool guy who can do these party tricks. It's like, this is a gift you're giving to the world. It sort of seems like a little bit of a shortcut than living in a cave and meditating for nine years and sort of cheating, but it really isn't. And you really develop these three simple pillars, cold exposure, conscious breathing, and the power of your mind. So can you talk about the method and how it works and what we should be doing? First of all, in the new book of Scott Carney, he is an investigative journalist.

And he wrote that book, what doesn't kill you right which has been sold in 34 languages all over the world very successful new york time bestseller blah blah the whole thing and he was to debunk me six years ago good luck with that yeah he's an anthropologist and and an investigative journalist he was paid to debunk me and then two days later he was standing in the snow barefoot doing he's standing you know like a like a clown he was standing in the snow. He was making himself ridiculous almost. No, he saw there that it is real. It is real. And in his new book, he tells, and he was investigating a lot of doctors,

and one of them is a psychiatrist doctor who's into brain scans and all, and he tells, that's Professor Muzik, and Professor Muzik states, Wim Hof has found the secret of placebo. What we see as mind power, but we don't know where it is, placebo, now it is a tool, it's an entity. And we are able to connect with our will, with that power of the mind, and to intensify even the placebo effect and to make it even stronger. Even for people whose minds aren't disciplined or trained,

you're saying this is possible. Yes, yes, absolutely. because they are born with it. Only if you are schooled all the time saying, hey, that you are not Mark Hyman, but that you are Peter Franklin, then at a certain moment, you become Peter Franklin, because Mark Hyman is not accepted. It's not the way. You cannot do this. You are crazy if you are Mark Hyman. And accepted. It's not the way. You cannot do this. You are crazy if you are Mark Hyman.

And all those things, you know. We have been schooled that we are not able to tap in at will with our mind into our bodies and to deal with stress. And that's the way we are taught. And now I teach the people within one weekend. Within one weekend, I teach them to change the paradigm. Man, you can do whatever you want, but you are built to be able at will, at will,

to control yourself so much better inside your own body. And it's only logic. It's only logic that our will, which is already inside of our body, that is able to control systems in our body to push buttons whenever is necessary. That is, of course, is a completely different paradigm than up till now we thought is possible. We are made to be dependent on pills, medicine, pharmacy, on McDonald's, on television, on all that. That is our system. Yeah.

And that system, it has to change. Because that system is polluting the world, sodomizing the planet, exploiting the planet. And we become insensitive to ourselves and to others. This is the time for awakening to our inner mechanisms, our potential, the way nature meant it to be, the way nature gave it to us at birth. And we have to listen to that. It seems like there's little doorways that you've created, right?

The cold exposure, the breathing techniques, the meditation mindset that you use in the book. These are the sort of doorways that people can access these abilities that help them manage their own minds and manage their own happiness and well-being and their health in ways that are pretty striking. And I think, you know, I want to just chat with you for a minute about this experiment that you did, which I still find mind-blowing, which is you willingly let doctors inject a known biotoxin from E. coli into your bloodstream, knowing that this is something that would kill a normal person. And yet you were able to

overcome this using your techniques and manage your immune system. What I'm curious about is, did you consciously go, okay, I'm going to direct my immune system to fight these bacteria or these toxins or neutralize them, or were you just dropping into a state of meditation? How did that work? I mean, particularly in this time of coronavirus, we're all wanting to strengthen our immune system. We're all wanting to make sure we are able to fight whatever we're exposed to. How can this play a role for us? And what did you do? And tell us about that study because it's so fascinating to me. Exactly. The same inflammatory markers that are the damaging factor in COVID,

in COVID, what is happening now. The cytokines, right. Yeah, the cytokines, number one, number six, number eight, and number 11. I suppressed them within a quarter of an hour. And this was known not to be possible by humans. I did my breathing. I changed my biochemistry, and I do it willfully. And of course, I know, oh, the doctor is going to inject me with endotoxemia now, the E. coli. Okay, then the E. coli is working now. Not the effect after one hour, then you begin to notice, I began directly to fight the E. coli's reaction upon my immune cells,

the immune system inside, the cytokine storm and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I began to fight it directly by alerting my body through my mind, that was one, and through the breathing, breathing, specific breathing exercises. And they are within the method. They are very accessible for everybody. And they are very effective, not only with me.

Then I said, oh, but you are the Iceman. You can do this. You can get the side scans down where 16,000 people could not. You are the first one to show a complete different picture. Oh, you have gone into the autonomic nervous system. You have been influenced into the endocrine system, into the immune system, thought of all not possible. And you have done that. But you are the Iceman. Then I said, no, no, no done that but you are the Iceman then I

said no no no no I'm the Iceman no at the most maybe you can say I'm a nice man that is nice for my ego but I'm just a simple man nice man but let me tell you we can do so much more than what you guys are thinking of in the science. We are built to be able to tackle disease, to prevent from disease. For that, we have our will and our ability through our breath, manipulation of our breath, to go deeply within and to change the biochemistry to be on the alert to activate the adrenal axis to the utmost and then danger can be emotional danger emotional stress mental stress bacterial stress viral stress any stress in the end is cell biological stress, which is danger.

And then the adrenal axis activation takes care of that. Wow. There it is. That's what I did. But you also, you said you did also the study with people who weren't you. And I read that they actually were also able to do the same thing you did, even though they weren't the Iceman. They were like four other volunteers who agreed to be injected with these toxins.

Exactly. 18 other. Oh, 18 others. Wow. Yes. And 12 randomly chosen of those 18, after four days of training, were exposed to the E. coli bacteria as well. And they all showed 100% being able to control and suppress the cytokine storm,

the inflammation. They all felt good. They made jokes. They said they didn't inject the dose with E. coli, but with sugar water. That's unbelievable. And they measured the cytokines, and they measured all of that, and they saw that change in your biology, which we only see often with medication or not at all.

I mean, it almost seems like this is such a simple technique to everybody to learn to help fortify them against coronavirus, right? I mean, even if you have coronavirus, do you think you could actually help to reduce the inflammation as a result absolutely especially when you feel the symptoms and i heard many already but it is not medically researched i don't know why maybe they are not interested, like yourself in your position with integrative medicine. You cannot make their money out of that. But it doesn't matter. Let's go past and let's get back to the facts.

The fact is that the cytokines, the interleukin number one, number six, number eight, and 11 are the damaging factors of the COVID. And we showed in 2014 in a comparative study within groups, we showed to suppress it within a quarter of an hour. When you feel symptoms of COVID, then get into the breathing and you will be effectively able to suppress the cytokines. Share with us what a technique of breathing that you teach us. You just lie on the sofa or in bed and then relax and a relaxed body is able to store up oxygen in the tissue so relax there's nothing going on nice then you take a full breath in from the belly just and you let it go and once again and once again we do it 30 times fully Let it go.

Keep on going. I explained what is happening. Yeah. We are blowing off the carbon dioxide, but it becomes very alkaline, more than normal. And that is a sign within the brain, too alkaline, too alkaline, adrenal axis activation. And the adrenaline pumps in,

it peaks, and anything that should not be inside of the body is going to be eliminated, suppressed. And what is it in COVID? Cytokines. So if you activate the adrenal axis through doing this 30 times then we go after 30 times because the oxygen trigger the trigger to breathe is carbon dioxide but it's blowing off body is very alkaline. Biochemistry is great.

It's great. And you just exhale. You hold after the exhale. So only a residual amount of air is left in the lungs. And you stay in that condition. And then easily you are able to go one minute one and a half minute maybe two minutes if you have done well the 30 deep breaths two minutes without with a residual amount of air in your lungs for two minutes without breathing and that what happens of course the brainstem the the primitive oxygen parameters they say there is no oxygen no oxygen and they just shoot into the adrenaline it's all reactive

so the brainstem the reactive part of our brain is just's just the buttons are pushed. And then the adrenaline shoots out, epinephrine shoots out over all the body. And this is very good to detoxify. So people with a hangover, if they do this 20 minutes, they detoxify. They can go for a drink again. So the idea is you do 30 breaths, then you hold your breath for a minute or two, and then you do it again. After the exhalation. After the exhalation, and then at the end, when you feel the urge of breathing again, you take them fully in,

you hold for 15 seconds. Fully in, hold, and squeeze a little bit to your head because it's nice you bring in cerebrospinal fluid to the head then it gets into the brainstem and into the limbic system into the midbrain where we normally don't have so much blood flow because we always think think think is where the blood flow goes now we push push it from the inside, inside the deepest part of the brain. And then suddenly it begins to become neurally alive. And then we are able to connect at will, because that's neurology. And then we get a sense of control over our mood. That is mood, absolute mood regulation.

In case of people with depression, mostly it's caused by inflammation and stress and emotional deprivation. All that creates a biological or a biochemical deficit. And through doing this, you feel you're filling up the tank. And you feel that you are in control. And nobody wants to feel bad. Then they feel good again. That's incredible. So basically the technique is 30 breaths, hold for a minute or two,

take a breath, hold for 15 seconds, and then repeat? Yes, repeat. And you will see, find out that every time it goes and easier and longer. So do this for 20 minutes a day is what you're saying. That's it. That's what we do right now in San Francisco. Big study on the DNA with this method, with this breathing. And it's amazing.

The results are amazing on the DNA. So let's say two or three minute cold shower and 20 minutes of breathing and you can give up all your winter clothes. You can hit the road anytime without a car. You can fight coronavirus. You can feel happy, empowered and controlling yourself. You feel the connection. And then when you need it, you know what to do.

You just go within. And then you learn about the lost connection within because of our exterior way of gaining information, control over the world, et cetera. And the control inside, we lost. And now it's back. And we don't need to sit for nine years in a cave. That's incredible.

That's incredible. It's incredible to me because I've always thought that you need to practice and practice and practice and meditate, meditate, meditate for decades in order to deal with that. practice and meditate, meditate, meditate for decades in order to be able to. You know what, Mark? They compared 10 minutes of this breathing, specifically breathing, it brings people deeper in the brain than people who are exercising for four hours, a mindfulness a day for years.

Wow. All right. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. Anybody can do this. I'm starting today.

I'm starting today. I'm so excited about your book because your book, The Wim Hof Method, Achieving Full Human Potential, is exactly about teaching you how to do this. It's not just the theory. It's not just all the stories of how you had these superhuman feats, but it's really about how you as an individual can overcome some of the challenges we face as human beings that feel us, make us feel powerless over our own minds, over our own happiness, our own life, our own wellbeing, our own health.

And this is a very, very empowering idea. Right now, especially right now with all the turmoil, the confusion, the anxiety and the helplessness against the COVID. Man, there is so much more

within us and it's time to wake up. Yeah, it's so beautiful. It's like you're the unlikeliest guru. I love

this crazy guy from the Netherlandsetherlands is just like found some doorway into something that was obscure to most of us for thousands of years and i'm just so grateful for your work and your commitment and you know i know you got likewise i i i'm honored i'm honored to be your guest on your podcast thank you very much of course of course you are a great bloody

great guy thank you we have fun together when we're together yeah that's for sure that's for sure and I'm coming

I want to go as soon as COVID lightens up I want to go do one of your week-long what is it week-long

workshops in Poland you go to the ice in the winter it's like four or five days and in the end you will be exposed to the elements of cold wind and that is wind chill and and all for five hours in your shorts and you're going to have a great time oh my god i need it you? Because I love swimming, and there's lakes here. And I went in yesterday. It was a little chilly. I was like, I came out freezing.

I was like, oh, no, Wim's going to be mad at me. I was so cold. I had to come and take a hot shower. Man, I don't like, yeah, I love hot showers. But I also love the, you know, the cold. The cold gives you such a power. And if you do the cold on a regular basis, like daily, you become, when you get older, and you know, so many people get older and get so many inflammation and deterioration

of their condition and this, you will never get sick no more. It's amazing. Yeah, I know. Speaking of that, I think looking at the studies you've done and combining cold exposure and breathing, meditation, and your mental attitude has had huge effects on people's health. And there are many students that you've had who are practicing this method for years and have been able to reverse diseases, things like diabetes and Parkinson's and lose weight and do incredible feats of athleticism. Rheumatism, arthritis. I mean, how does that work?

I mean, can you share some of these stories? Because this seems like a revolutionary approach to treating illness. Yes. Autoimmune diseases is inflammation based on inflammation, cytokines, cytokine storms, an overreactive immune system, and we had no control over this. So when you begin to do this, you learn to tap into the adaptive immune system. You learn to go into the innate immune system, both. And suddenly, your rheumatism, arthritis, psoriasis, disease of Crohn's, Parkinson's, all these things begin to become within your control.

You sense it. You feel it. You don't need to know what is all happening. You simply sense that you are in control over the inflammatory markers. The inflammation doesn't happen anymore. How is that possible? Now, that is what is happening and that it needs to be researched. I'm into the research right now with the Radboud University here on rheumatism,

on arthritis, because hundreds of people with arthritis and it's gone. They control it. It's incredible. Without medicine, without pills, they just control it. And the doctors say, spontaneous remission. No, man. Look into the healing power we are born with. Well, I'm very close to the rheumatology department at Cleveland Clinic, and the doctors there are very interested in opening these ideas.

It would be amazing to do a study. I love that. Yes, please. Let's go. Because autoimmune disease affects 80 million people, more than diabetes, more than heart disease, more than cancer together. And the treatments we have are only somewhat effective and often have a lot of side effects and costs. So I think it's a really important idea. I love this idea. So we're going to figure this out. Now, one of the other things, you know, is really relevant. Mark, this is very important. I know. Studies, non-speculative evidence-based trials is what we need to show. I agree. Because 80 million people relieving of their suffering by autonomy within themselves, that is love. Yeah. All right. You just said it. It's love. That is exactly what this is all about.

You're so full of love. You're so giving. You're so on a mission to teach people how to be happy and be empowered. And, you know, right now is one of the most challenging times in a long time in human history. And we're all facing the threat of economic loss, the disruption of our social fabric, the incredible fear and disease, the depression and loss of autonomy. I mean, there's so many things that are taking us down. And I know this is a very tough time for a lot of people.

And what you're saying is that a lot of this is in our minds. I mean, there are realities externally that are real. And yes, there's loss and there's all sorts of things. But how we handle that is up to us. And using these methods and this power of learning how to regulate your own biology and your own health, that actually you can relieve things like depression and anxiety. Yes. And talk about how that works because we sort of hinted at it, but I think it's worth spending a minute talking about how these techniques, the Wim Hof method that you describe in your book,

Achieving Your Full Human Potential, which everybody should get, and I'm excited to have my copy and go through it and practice it. How can we use this method to help us with this difficult time? And how does it work to relieve depression and anxiety? Exactly. Depression is directly related to a deregulated biochemistry, inflammation, a deregulated immune system caused by oxidative stress, could be stress from mental stress, emotional stress, bacterial, viral, doesn't matter. It's all cell biological stress. Are we able to have a cell biological stress influenced positively by us at will? Yes, we have. Before you go on, I just want to make a point.

For those listening, depression, from the traditional scientific perspective now, we understand is a disease of inflammation in the brain. So if you're depressed, your brain's on fire. And that's why what William is talking about is so important. So continue. I just wanted to make that point. Yes. So that is deregulating the hormonal balance of dopamine,

serotonin in the brain because of the inflammation. The question is, inflammation is the cause and effect of actually any disease. But let's get back. Are we able to bring down inflammatory markers or inflammation? And I say, yes, within a quarter of hour. Within a quarter of a i mean a very developed stage of a disease takes more time of course it takes healing it takes energy it takes plasticity and all we are all able to influence

therein vigorously if we just take up the techniques well. I've seen so many people with so many diseases thought of, incurable without the aid of pills and medicines, and now these people took on these natural ways, and they cure. They get a control, a sense of control within their own bodies, and then it all starts. But for prevention, I tell you, and depression, which is inflammation, we are very able within 20 minutes to feel a different human condition

of the mind within 20 minutes. Just do this breathing and then find out and feel because feeling in the end is the real understanding. The first one I think is really important, love. So the research on this is super clear. Regularly doing things that you love makes you more resilient to stress. So you mentioned a lot of americans are struggling that they don't have control over their life and this is the interesting thing about stress mark is that sometimes we can't as physicians change the stressors in our patients lives right no no you can't change what's happening out there you just but we can make them more

resilient to this yes and regularly doing things that you love makes you more resilient to stress. At the same time, being chronically stressed makes it harder for us to experience pleasure in day-to-day things. So one of my recommendations to my patients is have a daily dose of pleasure, even if it's just for five minutes. You know, can you each day give pleasure the same priorities you might give to the amount of vegetables you have on your plate or whether you go to the gym this could be going for a walk it could be reading a book listening to a podcast it could even be coming home from work putting on youtube watching your favorite comedian for five minutes and laughing yeah that is very important and very valuable and it makes a huge difference i mean mean, I'm now in California doing my public television show.

And I was at the hotel. And I was right on the beach. And I went out to the beach. And I jumped in the water, swam a little bit. And I came back. And I literally just laid there in the sand doing absolutely nothing. And I can't tell you how pleasurable that was to just be unplugged for a minute and stop. And most of us just keep go,

go, go all day long and distract, distract, distract. Well, there's obviously the nature piece there as well, which is very impactful for stress. But let me say about a patient I saw recently. I think you'll find this interesting. 54 year old chap, I think he was, certainly mid fifties. He was the local, he was the CFO of a local plastics company. And, you know, he was in a good job, earning good money, married with two kids. He came in to see me and he said, Dr. Chastity, look, I'm struggling a bit. I find it hard to get out of bed sometimes in the morning. I find it hard to concentrate at work. You know, I just feel a bit indifferent to things.

Is this what depression is? I started to chat to him. We did some tests. I was looking into all aspects of his lifestyle. But ultimately, one thing was quite clear to me is that he never did anything that he loved. So I asked him, you know, how's your job? He said, yeah, it's fine. You know, I don't really enjoy it,

but it pays the mortgage, pays the bills, feeds the family. I said, okay, how's your relationship with your wife? Yeah, so-so, you know, I don't really see her much, but it's, you know, it's fine, I guess. He was very, very indifferent. I said the same about his kids. And I said, do you do, you know, have you got any hobbies? He said, don't judge me out of time. My work's busy. At the weekends, I've got to do all the chores. I want to take the kids to their classes and their sports games. I don't have any time. I said, did you ever have any hobbies? And he said, yeah, sure. When I was a teenager, I used to love playing with train sets. I said, okay, fine. Do you have a train set at home? He said,

well, yeah, I've got one in my attic, but I haven't played with it for years. And I said, what I'd love you to do when you get home this evening is get your train set out. Now, look, Mark, I appreciate this may not be the advice. You put that on your prescription pad? Yeah, well, kind of. I'm all for lifestyle prescriptions, right? Play with train set three times a week for 15 minutes.

I'll tell you what happened. What was fascinating is that- Refills unlimited. Exactly. But it may not be the advice that he was expecting from his daughter but he said yeah okay sure i'll do that then this was in a conventional medical practice these were 10 minute consultations this is in the in the national health service in the uk i we don't get the chance to follow up all our patients we see see maybe 40 to 50 patients a day. We simply can't follow them all up. I didn't know what was going on with him. Three months later, I finished my morning surgery

and I was in the car park about to go and do my home visits. And I bumped into his wife and I said, hey, how's your husband getting on? She said, Dr. Chastity, I cannot believe the difference. I feel like I've got the guy I married back again. My husband comes home from work. He's pottering around on his train set. He's always on eBay looking for collector's items. And he's now subscribed to this, you know, this magazine. I thought, okay, that's incredible. I still hadn't seen him. Three months after that,

he comes in for a well-man checked to office and he comes in with his with his blood tests i'm about to go through them with him and i said hey how are you doing i feel incredible i've got energy um my mood is good and i feel motivated i said how's your marriage marriage is great i'm getting on really really well with my wife how is your job love it really really enjoy the job so why is that so powerful mark is this did he have a mental health problem or train set deficiency or did he have a deficiency of passion in his life and when he corrected that passion deficiency it's true everything else starts to come back online so i want to expand the conversation about stress to go yeah sure breathing nature meditation exercise these things are fantastic.

And of course, I talk about them and I go into the science and the practical implications of people. But what about something about passion, doing things that you love? It's just as important. It's true. You know, I often talk about what are the ingredients for health? And one of them is meaning and purpose. And I was just shocked a number of months ago to see an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that people who lacked meaning and purpose had a higher risk of death and

disease I mean it's just striking it turns out in the research that that it's not just smoking or bad diet or lack of exercise but lack of meaning and purpose that increases your risk of death I mean that's a very striking finding. Yeah, it's amazing. And obviously the way we look at health, we're looking at all of these multiple inputs that play a role in someone's health. And of course, I'm just as passionate about food, physical activity, sleep, you know, all these things that are critical.

But we've also got to think about those social pieces, you know, our community, the relationships we've got um you know what why do we get up each morning do we feel that we've got control over our life or do we feel you know do we do we sit in traffic for two three hours a day in a job that we can't stand for a boss who doesn't value us the reality is that that is the case you know we've got to have to think about with our patients how we tackle that of course not all our patients can leave that job right so i'm passionate and i you i've used these tips that i've you know that the book is full of so many tips so people can literally choose the ones

that are relevant for their life but i have worked in deprived areas in the uk for many years and these tips also work for people in deprived areas on low incomes. Because the common criticism of wellness is that it's just for the wealthy. It's for the middle classes. And I'm passionate to say it is applicable to everyone. You give people these tools of nature, of passion, of a quick five-minute workout. Even if you're living in a lifestyle that you don't enjoy, that there are lots of stresses in your life,

you can help process that stress. You really can. And it can make a huge difference. And one of the things that people don't realize is they think stress is subjective, but it's subjective, right? It's the perception of how something impacts us it's our beliefs about something right so i think if if if that's true then how do we sort of create a different mindset

so that when something happens you know it's not stressful i was talking to my wife this morning you know she's putting on a show a a comedy show called The Consciousness Show. And she had some issue with the tickets and she was getting stressed about it because she thought the one that were on the waiting list were actually given tickets and she was kind of freaking out. And I'm like, that is not really a big stressor. I mean, it's your belief about it. It's not a big deal. Like there are things to really be worried about. And I think for most of us, we get caught in this vicious cycle of stress and worry about things that are not really worth worrying about. And I think it's our beliefs about it that make it seem so.

And I think there are real things to worry about. If you have income issues, if you have real trauma in your family. I mean, there are real things that are going on that are stressful. My dad died last summer, and that was very stressful for me. But I think there are ways of looking at changing our mindset. So can you talk about how that works? Well, I think there's a couple of things to say there. I think when it comes to stresses, I think we need to think about what we can control and what we can't control.

Many of us, I have for years spent time and energy worrying about things I have no control over. And that's something that I've changed a lot in my life. I've really had to work hard on that. And once you get into that mindset, it's amazing how your stress levels just come down because so many of those things like traffic, I can't do anything about traffic. I just don't let it worry me anymore. I'm just like road rage, Dr. Chatterjee hey you know I if I'm honest seven eight years ago you know when I was a carer for my dad's when I was working a busy job when my kids were very young and wasn't sleeping very much you know what if I was driving to work and someone would come in front of me or cut me up I'd probably get quite agitated if I'm

honest um but now I just don't I'm like ah they're probably having a bad day if they're sort of screaming at me from the window. And I'm just a lot more chilled and relaxed. I mean, you give your power over to other people if you let them affect you that way. Yeah, for sure. But it's something we have to work on. And I think the reason why many for struggle with this is because of time. Now let's explain what I mean by that. I think one of the biggest stressors in the modern world today in the 21st century is our lack of downtime. So the modern world has stolen downtime from us. It's gradually been eroded out of our lives. I'll give you an example. We're here in Santa Monica, right, in California. I bet 10 years

ago if we were here and we went into a local cafe to buy a coffee i bet people would be standing in line they'd be looking around they might bump into a friend they might be looking at all their all their sweet treats and they might be thinking which one am i going to have you know they'd be daydreaming a little bit now if you go to any cafe what's everyone doing on their phone computer yeah and look to be clear i not criticizing. I will do that as well a lot of the time. Okay. But my point is... Just to be. Just lack of time. You know, it was fascinating. I just went to give a talk at the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency. And it's a highly secure building, Langley. And there's no technology allowed. So you can't bring in a phone, computer, nothing. Not even a Fitbitbit and what was striking to me is that everybody

was present i gave a lecture to 300 people and nobody was on their phone i was in a room giving a talk to 30 or 40 doctors and health professionals nobody was on their phone and everybody was focused and paying attention it was the most remarkable thing it was like it was like going back on a time machine but only a time machine of 15 years yeah that's how quickly things are 10 years 2009 yeah that's and i don't think we've realized how toxic that is because you may you may say well why does that matter you know what's the problem that we're using this downtime to get ahead you know we're sending an email we're quickly updating our instagram well i'll tell you the problem with that there There's many problems with that, but we used

to think that our brain went to sleep when we switched off, right? When we stopped focusing on a task in front of us, our brain went to sleep. Neuroscience shows us that's not the case. When we stop focusing on a task in front of us, there's a part of the brain called the default mode network or the DMN that goes into overdrive.rive now what does that part of the brain do but there's many things but two things i think listeners will find really interesting is that part of the brain helps us solve problems and helps us be more creative so this is why so many of us get our best ideas when we're out for a walk out for a run or we're in the shower i don't know if it's just me or you do you get i get my best ideas when i'm in the shower totally when i go for a run or a bike ride and i can just wander

and this is because mark our brain is trying to solve problems for us if we give it the downtime to do that and i think showers are one of the few places still where our phones haven't you know we don't i don't know about you i certainly don't take my phone into the shower with me. I'm sure that will change very soon. Yeah, now the new phones, they go down to four meters underwater. So yeah, I mean, this is why I'm a huge fan of swimming, actually, because I think swimming is, again, one of those sports now where you can still do without technology. You know, even in the gym now, people are posting selfies of them doing their workout, updating their feed, you know and and the dmn is a really important part of our brain and i i go into a lot of companies now to talk to them about employee

well-being and one of my top tips for them is take a tech free lunch break digital detox even if it's just for 15 minutes take a tech free lunch break lunch break. And last year, actually, I made, actually it was earlier this year, I made an ITV documentary on stress. And we got to take three or four people, we got to measure their stress levels minute to minute throughout the day for three days. And one chap in particular, he was a manager of his local company. He took his job seriously. He wanted to lead by example, but he was complaining of stress. He was complaining that he was drinking too much alcohol. His relationship with his wife was under strain and he was always tired.

Now we measured his stress levels. It was HRV, heart rate variability. And we could see that actually on his work day, his stress levels would climb throughout the morning. At lunchtime, he would work through his lunch and they'd keep climbing. And all afternoon as well, they were just constantly elevated. He would go home late. He would drink alcohol to unwind. He wouldn't be present with his wife.

That would cause issues. He wouldn't sleep well. And the cycle would continue. All I changed with him, Mark, was I said, okay, look, I want you to take a 15 minute break at lunchtime. I want you to leave your phone in your drawer and go outside for a walk. He was very lucky he had a river nearby and we can maybe touch on why nature is so important. So all he did was for 15 minutes at lunchtime, he went for a walk in nature without his phone. Now, when we remeasured his data,

objectively, his stress levels were right down. But subjectively, what did he say? He said, Dr. Chachi, I feel like a different person. I'm more creative in the afternoon. I enjoy my job more. I'm leaving early now rather than late. It's not just on time. I'm leaving early. I'm drinking less alcohol. And my relationship with my wife has improved. So this is what I call the ripple effects, right? One small thing. It's powerful. So when we say that wellness is for the middle classes, but hold on a minute, who doesn't have the ability to have a 15 minute tech free lunch break, right? That is free. That's not, that's not asking a lot it's true and i'm not trying to underplay this but i'm very powerful i mean i i think the whole digital detox movement's really growing and you know for my wife um for our anniversary i got her a little

box and and and i said here honey here's your anniversary present and she's like oh this is such a nice little box i said no no that's not the present the present is i put my phone in the box friday night and i don't take it out till sunday night and she's like started crying like that was the best present i could give her to be present with her right the presence of presence right and and then i did it and i thought oh this is for her you know but my experience was so transformational i was like laying on the carpet playing with the cats listening to jazz just daydreaming relaxing not grabbing my phone every second and it was the most wonderful experience for me i i love it and it's like a regular habit now. It's so important. We leave our phones at home.

We go for dinner. We don't. We, on Sunday mornings, my wife and I will go out with our kids and we'll both leave our phone at home. And, you know, ideally I do it for the whole day, but often it's like four hours, four or five hours. And what's incredible is that you come home and I feel like I've been on holiday. Yeah. Like we don't realize how much this constantly checking our phones is draining us. And I got called out by this, by my daughter a few years ago. You know, I was playing with her in our living room and I can't remember what was going

on, but you know, I kept nipping out into the kitchen to keep checking my phone and she said to me daddy you're not really here are you and that really really struck me i mean kids really can teach us how to be present and live in the moment and i thought wow she's right i'm not really here because yes i'm in the room playing with her but my mind is actually not quite there it's thinking about what's going on on my phone and that really that really changed my behavior. That'll get you. That did get you. That got me big time.

Right from the mouth of babes, right? Yeah, but I think it's a very powerful lesson for all of us. And I think people need strategies because these things are designed to be addictive. So I will not charge my phone in my bedroom anymore. If I bring that phone into my bedroom, right, I can't resist it. I simply cannot resist.

It's too addictive. So I charge it in my kitchen. And so I say to people, you need to try and create a bit of tech-free time in your day. Sure, lunch break is a great time to do it. But if you can have some time, ideally a golden hour in the morning and a golden hour before going to bed. If a golden hour is too much, start with five hour in the morning and a golden hour before going to bed. If a golden hour is too much, start with five minutes in the morning, five minutes before you go to bed.

Well, if you can't figure out how to do it for five minutes, there's definitely a bigger problem in your life. Yeah, there is. But you know, and also when people are commuting, right, that's a time when often people are on the train, on a bus, you know, what you want to do then is instead of trying to catch up on those emails, use that as a way of unwinding, you know, listen to some music, do 10 minutes on your meditation app, like calm, headspace, listen to an inspiring podcast that feels good, like my one or your one or anyone that they like, right? Use that time, really value your mental space. What information are you feeding it if you watch the news and you're putting toxic information right into your brain the whole time that is going

to impact the way you feel your stress levels i said take the news app off your phone in fact another tip i say to people and this is probably one of the most impactful things notifications take them off your phone and how do i guess hey it's one of the most it's one of the most powerful things but mark i would challenge anybody listening to this podcast for seven days to switch off their notifications which simply means you know if someone likes your instagram post you're not going to get a notification if you have a new email you're not going to get a notification etc etc try it for seven days if you don't feel better fine go back to it and then people are on their phone so much they don't realize there's a new screen app where you can look on your iphone

and see how many times you pick up your phone and i was sitting next to this friend of mine we were at a lecture and she was picking up her phone doing instagram whatever and i'm like give me your phone and i grabbed her phone and i'm showed her like, she picked up her phone a thousand times in a day. And I'm like, that is a lot of time picking up your phone. So let's talk about some of the strategies that you put in the book. You talk about the importance of a morning routine. Because yes, we know the harm of stress and we can go into that more, but I think people

get it. What are the three M's you talk about that you can practice every morning to start your day and actually kind of get ahead of the stress? Yeah. So I call these the three M's of a morning routine. The first M is mindfulness. The second M is movement. And the third M is mindset. So I say, look, I'm a huge fan of morning routines because they give you a period of calm in the morning that's just going to make you a bit more resilient to cope with those stresses that will come up in your day. It's not if they're going to come up, they will come up. But I think the 3Ms provides a very valuable structure to help you think about what are you going to put into your morning

routine. And it works if you have an hour in the morning, it works beautifully well. If you only have five minutes, like some of my patients, it can still work really well. So the first time mindfulness can be, it can be meditation. It can be breathing. You know, it can be a practice of mindfulness. Whatever you want can go under that umbrella of mindfulness. I personally, currently I'm doing the Calm Meditation app. So first thing when I get up in the morning I'm plugging into the calm meditation app I put my phone on airplane mode so I can't see any of the

incoming noise that might be on there and I do 10 or 15 minutes meditation some days mark I hit the zone and I feel really really calm other days I just go through my to-do list but what I've learned to do is not beat myself up about it on those days where I'm going through my to-do list. But what I've learned to do is not beat myself up about it on those days where I'm going through my to-do list. I'm accepting that, hey, you know what? My mind's a little bit busy today. That's okay. Whereas even 18 months ago, I would get slightly frustrated. Oh, I can't switch my mind off. I can't clear my mind. So I think that's a great practice for people to do. Then I move on to movement. Again, movement can be anything depending on what you like. I do a lot of hip stretches, maybe some yoga moves, maybe some workouts on a step, maybe some press-ups, whatever I feel like for five or

10 minutes. That is all I do. And then I'll move on to mindset. So mindset can be anything to put you in a positive frame of mind. So it could be reading a book that you find very uplifting for a few minutes with a cup of tea in the morning. It could be doing affirmations. And actually, you know, like many people listening, I've got young kids, right? So my daughter, who's currently six, has a sixth sense when daddy is up, right? So I try and get up before them and get my morning routine done, But she can sense when I'm downstairs doing it. And often she'll creep down in. Often it's in my second M, in my movement, which is fine because she just does the movement with me. But if she's there with me for the third M, which is mindset, I'll do affirmations with her. So we'll sit there together. I'll hold her hand. She'll hold my hand.

And we will say for about two minutes, I'm happy, I'm calm, I'm stress-free. I'm happy, I'm calm, I'm stress-free. And we'll just repeat that for two minutes. And at the end of those two minutes, she's got the most beautiful smile on her face. I feel totally relaxed and calm and that calm continues throughout the day. That's the beauty of it. It's not just in the moment. I'm more resilient to the stressors in my life now for people who are thinking i don't have time for that because i've got a lot of patients who are single moms who might be working two jobs i managed to persuade them to give it a go even for five minutes and one of my patients simply does this she does her morning routine

with those three m's in just five minutes she gets up and for one minute she will do deep breathing she does a breath that i taught her called the three, four, five breath. When you breathe in for three, hold for four and breathe out for five. Okay. She does that for one minute. Then she does two minutes of some yoga moves that she learned on YouTube, right? So this is super accessible. She didn't have to go to a class, even though I recommend yoga classes. She learned some moves on YouTube, which she likes. And then for the final two minutes, she's got about three or four books that make her feel good. And she literally, for two minutes, she reads three or four pages from that book. And she has reported back that actually that has really, really helped her. In fact, she thinks

it's helped her eczema get better, which is remarkable because there are many things that can cause eczema. Ecz is remarkable because there are many things that can cause eczema eczema we know ultimately is a slight dysfunction of the immune system stress impacts the immune system so for her doing that morning routine she feels is helping her with her skin for somebody else it may not do that right but i just want to really get across how powerful these small intentional moments of calm are. So again, I hope people listening think, maybe I'll try that 3M morning routine for about seven days or so and see how you feel. Yeah, no, it's so powerful.

It's just building the structure of that into your day. And I think, you know, when I do it, it makes a huge difference. And like yesterday, again, I was preparing for my show and I'm like, oh, I got, you know, 300 emails. I don't have this to do and that to do. And'm like no no i'm just gonna stop i'm gonna do a little meditation in the morning i went to work out a little bit i went to the beach and just sat on the on the on the beach went in the ocean for a little bit and i just my mind was clear i felt calm it was like and it set me up for an amazing day which you know often don't give myself that i mean i i usually meditate in the morning for 20 minutes and uh will exercise when i can can i

can i ask a question mark do you ever feel you know how important meditation is for you in the morning but do you like many of us sometimes feel i'm too busy today i don't have that 20 minutes i just want to get ahead with my emails i don't have that 20 minutes i just want to get ahead with my emails and if you do that i mean i think it'll be interesting for people to hear that is do you fall prey to the same pressures that we fall absolutely i absolutely you know i've got the stuff i gotta prepare for i don't have time i've got to finish this i gotta do that and yeah but i'll usually fit it in somewhere else yeah and i think you know it's probably a false notion it's probably not even

true that if i did it i'd feel better and when i do it especially when i do it regularly like twice a day i don't feel stressed about anything like i'm resilient i'm calm i'm more productive i'm more focused and it's and it's like well how do you have that much time every day to meditate well turns out i don't have the time not to because of the impact it has on the quality of my life, the quality of my happiness, the quality of my experience, the quality of my relationships, and my overall well-being and my productivity. So I think I've learned that it's something that's essential. And it's not just an add-on. It's as important as eating well and exercising.

Yeah. And I think that's one thing we really work on with people when they're really struggling with this is getting them in some pattern and rhythm of, you know, getting a good sleep cycle, getting a good eating cycle, you know, not grabbing and going, you know, not skipping meals. I mean, there's a lot to be said for fasting. You know, you've done a lot of podcasts on this and there can be really a lot of great things with fasting. But sometimes when people are really, when their HPA axis is really underactive and it's not working very well and they've got the signs of burnout or adrenal dysfunction, right? We, fasting sometimes for too long can be more stress on their body. Or some extreme diets can be more stress on their body.

And they might not be at a point where they can do it, they can feel good with it, right? They can't get all the benefit from it. So they can still fast for 12 hours, but we might not be fasting them for 16 hours or 18 hours during that time. Well, it's really important what you bring up about food because there are certain foods that actually cause stress in the body independent of your thoughts. And there are certain foods that reduce stress in the body independent of what you're thinking, right?

So it's actually food can be a stressor or a relaxer depending on what you're eating. Can you talk about the foods that tend to cause more cortisol, adrenaline, and stress in the body? And then some of the foods that we would be thinking about that might help reduce that. That's such a great point. You know, if we eat a donut with coffee and sugar, I'm going to an extreme here for breakfast, right? That's not that extreme.

It's probably the breakfast of most Americans. Dunkin' Donuts or coffee. That is really stressful on the body, right? Why? Because it causes this spike in our blood sugar. Because it gets digested and absorbed really quickly. Our blood sugar goes up quickly. And the body goes, oh, no, right?

That's a, it gets stressful for the body. The body produces a bunch of insulin to help lower it and and then what happens is the blood sugar drops afterwards and so those ups and downs and blood sugar like that are really stressful for the body and and in when the blood sugar is dropping it's a life-threatening emergency you got to go get food right right so those you know if you're if you're you know eating a lot of foods that cause your blood sugar to go get food. Right, right. So those, you know, if you're, if you're, you know, eating a lot of foods that cause your blood sugar to go up and then drop with, you know, those, those easily to digest and absorb, you know, you have a can, a can of soda. I mean, we're,

you know, those things really are stressful for the body. They create this stress. They create the cortisol response. It's one of the reasons we get a lot of weight gain around the belly when we eat those kinds of foods, because they are stressful for the body. And so instead, we want to be really balancing our blood sugar. And- Before you get into how to fix it, I just want to point out this study that was just so mind-blowing when I read it years ago by a friend of ours, Dr. David Ludwig from Harvard. And he took kids that were overweight and fed them three different breakfasts, right? Oatmeal, steel cutouts and omelet. Same calories, okay?

Same calories but different carbohydrate, protein, different fat. What he found was that the kids who had the regular oatmeal, like the quickly absorbed oatmeal, we think oatmeal is healthy, right? It's not like having a donut. Their insulin went up, obviously their blood sugar went up, but their cortisol went up, their adrenaline went up. So the body perceived it as a stress. Whereas the kids who ate the omelet didn't happen. And then the kids who ate the oatmeal were hungrier and wanted more food. So we know that starch and sugar create a biological stress response in the body.

And that's bad. In addition to the fact that the sugar create a biological stress response in the body and that's bad. In addition to the fact that the sugar causes a problem, your brain chemistry and your neurotransmitters are talking to your fat cells and they're telling them when they're under stress to store more fat. So literally stress makes you gain weight independent of what you're eating. So it's really, it's fascinating when you look at weight and other issues, it's so connected. It's so connected. It's fascinating. So I mean, so really balancing blood sugar is so powerful. It's, you know, I mean, people, sometimes we say these things again and again, like, you know, balance your blood sugar, have a good source of protein, healthy fat and fiber at each meal. And sometimes we say it so much that I wonder people

just, Oh yeah, it's the same thing. They're just saying eat healthy, but it's really critical to have a good source of protein, healthy fat, and great source of fiber at every meal because it's, it's, it, it is not allowing for that stress response to happen in the body. It's, it's, it, it is not allowing for that stress response to happen in the body. It's, it's nourishing the body and that's exactly what the body needs. So. Yeah. And so I think, you know, using food and having the right quality fats, low glycemic diet, lots of fiber, phytochemicals, these are all messenger molecules that help reduce the stress

in the body. Yes. So, you know, so we always start with food first, and this is a great place to start in this area, you know, really working to balance the blood sugar, preventing those spikes in blood sugar, preventing that stress. We often work to pull people off of caffeine for a period of time. You know, if they're in that state where they're really anxious, they don't need the caffeine. If they're in that state where they're really anxious, they don't need the caffeine. If they're in that state where they're burnt out and exhausted, they might feel like they

need the caffeine, but that's actually a little bit of a stress for their body. And so when the adrenal glands or the whole HPA axis isn't able to handle that stress at this point in time, you don't want to add to it. So we often will pull people away from caffeine or really lower their levels or keep it to a little bit of green tea and just not excessive amounts. How about alcohol? Is that going to relax you or is it going to cause a problem? You know, I mean, so, you know, it's really with alcohol, it's all about moderation, right? It's really all about moderation. We know that too much alcohol is going to wake us up in the middle of

the night. We know that when it wears off, it's, you know, alcohol is a depressant. When it wears off, we get that rebound stimulating effect. We really need to be working on sleep during this period of time, all the time, but we need to get good restful sleep. So we just have to watch the amount. I mean, that's really, really important. And so for some of our patients, we take them off of most of the alcohol for a period of time. And, you know, it also wears down your B vitamins and B vitamins are really important for- So when you drink, you deplete your B vitamins. That's what you're saying. Yeah. And B vitamins are critical for the functioning of our adrenal glands. So, so things that you might've been, you know, people will say to me, well, I, I've always had

two cups of coffee in the morning and it's been fine. You know, why can't I have two cups of coffee now in the morning? And, you know, when you get to that exhausted, burnt out stage, that's just too much for your body at this period of time. You know, we just have to be a little more gentle. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I also think what you said before, I want to come back to because it's such an important point, we jumped right over it. You said something that I think is worth underscoring, which is that infections or any physical illness can cause a stress response. Yes. So let's say you have Lyme disease or you have a virus or whatever. Independent of all your thoughts or feelings or perceptions, it can cause a stress.

And there are certain foods that drive inflammation that cause a physiologic stress response. So anything in the body that causes inflammation, either your thoughts, which can cause inflammation, or gluten, or dairy, or food sensitivities, or sugar, all these can cause a stress response. So sometimes getting rid of not just the junk food, obviously, and the sugar, but actually potential food sensitivities, or gluten gluten, dairy can be enormously effective. And with the point about the infections, I think that's something that we see a lot of people who've become debilitated over time from dealing with whether it was Lyme or Epstein-Barr virus or some other chronic infection. And they're just really having

a hard time rebounding from it. And it's important for us to support the adrenal glands during that time, because, because that's a really important part of healing because over time, you know, they, you know, if we were to do their saliva test, we often see it being very on the lower side and that, and that's an area that we have to support. We're supporting their immune system. We're supporting their digestive system. We're supporting their detoxification system. But we also have to support them hormonally too. It is important for us to pay attention to. All right. So what are the other things we have to do? We diet and clean up our diet. We cut down the alcohol, the sugar. There's certain other lifestyle things that are really important. You mentioned sleep.

And that's a whole other thing. Because if you're stressed, it's hard to get the sleep regulated. And we know how to do that. But there's some other things that are really important. What are the favorite techniques or tools for discharging stress? Because my view is that we can't eliminate stress from our lives. Right. It's coming at us, whether we like it or not. But can we do a Tai Chi move on it and actually not have it really overtake us?

And how do we discharge that stress? Tai Chi is a great way to do it, actually. All right, Tai Chi, okay. What else? Right? Mindfulness activities, right? Meditation and yoga and just throughout all those practices, we get to recognize how crazy our mind is and how much it can be, you know.

You call me crazy? Thinking the wrong things that are making us really exhausted and wiped out. And so, you know, that's where the power of mindfulness and meditation is, is because helps us really stop and and identify these things that are are taking us down the wrong path absolutely so the symbol like i i you know i've so much stress in my life over the years and i've really learned techniques that i can use to change my physiological state right so i use like yoga knee dress I put on like headphones and lay down and have a guided relaxation for 20 minutes. I'll do meditation twice a day. I'll do yoga.

I'll take a steam or a sauna and an ice bath. That literally changes all your hormones and adrenaline. I will get a massage sometimes. Oh, I love that. And exercise. Body work. I love body work. It works very well for me.

You know, acupuncture, hands-on body work, you know, neuromuscular therapy. Yeah. Getting out in nature. Yeah. Yeah, nature, right. And so all these things, taking a walk. And exercise particularly is important. Because when I think about exercise, I'm like, well, we never really exercised when we were

hunter-gatherers. We'd like run from a tiger you know yeah and we do normal physical work but when you when you look at um this this book uh written by robert sapolsky it's called why zebras don't get ulcers which is this whole research that he's done he's a neurobiologist from stanford he's a crazy guy but anyway he studied you know the stress response in his book why zebras don't get ulcers he talks about the fact that they literally will like uh run like crazy to from the tiger or the lion or whatever yeah and then one of them gets killed then they all just go back to eating the grass right and and they have this

massive discharge of the stress response through exercise and then they just can go relax while their whatever cousin is getting eaten and doesn't bother them anymore so but we just have this chronic state of stress and we don't discharge it yeah so i know for me exercise i can be really stressed and i can go for a run or i can go bike ride or when i come back and i just feel like it's i literally burned off all the adrenaline yeah and and you know i think i think other aspect other things that are really great for this from a lifestyle perspective are journaling, you know, writing down your thoughts and your concerns and your worries. The gratitude journal, really shifting our thought process.

You know, sometimes we can shift our thought process on our own. Sometimes we need a little support to do that, whether it's a, you know, a health coach or a counselor or, you know, because we've got to work to change some of how we're viewing the world around us is really important. That is true. I think that's a very important point, Liz, because many of us have a habit of listening to our lower selves and not our higher selves. And you all know what I'm talking about.

And so sometimes you just got to like shut that lower self voice up and listen to that higher self that knows better. Yeah. And all of us struggle with that. Me included. I think you have to learn to not let your mind run your life. Absolutely. It's not always very friendly.

There's a lot of negative self-talk and a lot of fear. And understanding that. And meditation can be really helpful with that. Journaling can be helpful. There's all kinds of approaches, life coaching. Let's talk about, we've talked about exercise. We talked about diet. We talked about sleep. We talked about stress reduction. We talked about getting out in nature. Let's talk about the role of nutritional supplements because we use that a lot in helping people to recover. And partly because during times of stress, you really get depleted in nutrition

and nutritional supplements. And I remember reading this paper years ago about Kosovo, which was a war zone back in the 90s. And what they found was that the people who were in this chronic state of stress in this war zone had tremendously depleted magnesium. They literally collected their urine and they found the magnesium was just pouring out of them, which is the relaxation mineral. Yeah. Magnesium is wonderful. And when we're low in magnesium, you know, we also feel more

depressed. There's been interesting research on that too. So it becomes this vicious cycle. And so magnesium, we get a lot from our foods, our whole foods. But sometimes when there's been a lot of, when you've been going through this chronic stress period of time, sometimes we need to really give people extra magnesium. And so we use that a lot as a supplement. We use B vitamins, good quality, methylated, Bcomplex helps support the body during this time. We use a good multivitamin and just some of the basics. Zinc is really important. Yep.

And sometimes we'll use things like adaptogens, ashwagandha. So what are adaptogens? Adaptogens are herbal substances that really help the adrenal glands. It's supposed to support them herbally. So, and they can can they call them adaptogens because they help us if if we're overstressed they can help us feel more calm but if we're if we're if we're depleted they can help support us so they can adapt to what we need in a sense i guess i mean they've been used even in you know in space exploration the russians cosmonauts

always took these adaptogens to help their stress resilience. And I personally take them because I live a fairly high stress life and I want to create as much resilience. So what are the top ones that we use? Ashwagandha, rhodiola, Asian ginseng. Siberian ginseng, you know. Siberian ginseng. Yes. Yeah. So those are really supportive to the adrenal glands. And there, you know, there are, we sometimes will use things like licorice if somebody's really depleted in their adrenal glands. But you have to be a little careful if you're doing that on your own. If your, If your adrenal glands aren't really low, sometimes that makes you feel more anxious.

So that one you have to be a little bit more careful with. If you have low blood pressure, if you're dizzy when you stand up, if you have palpitations, then you probably will benefit from it. Yeah. But it can definitely raise up the blood pressure. So if blood pressure, if you run a little high with blood pressure, you need to be careful with regular licorice. So why don't we go into a few cases that you've had? Because I think it's really

instructive to learn about how this affects real people. The first one was a nurse, an ER nurse. Yeah. So she was a 39-year-old woman and she came to see me because she had fatigue. And she was frustrated because this was new to her. She had never really had a lot of fatigue in her life. She was a go-go person. She was a nurse and lots of energy, worked in the ER, really loved her job, and really got a lot of personal reward from her job. And so was really, really frustrated and concerned

where she was feeling so tired, she didn't want to go to do her job anymore. And it would overwhelm her now. And she couldn't really respond to some of the stresses at work as easily. And she was feeling sad about that, you know, and concerned about that. And so she had seen her primary doctor who had said, well, maybe this is depression and should we start some medication? And she wasn't ready to do that. And she wanted to look at things a little bit of a different way. So she came to see us. And when we, you know, when we delve deeper, we found out that, you know, she was, she worked the evening shift. So she would work in the evenings. She would, she was kind of not always that careful with her diet. You know, she'd grab a couple cups of coffee. She'd grab some food here or there.

She would eat in the cafeteria at work. So, you know, she tried to be healthy, but it wasn't the, you know. I mean, when I went to overnight shifts in the year, I would have like a quadruple espresso, a giant chocolate chip cookie and a half a pound of ice cream. And I'd head to the ER for my 11 at night to seven in the morning shift. Yeah. Yeah. So, and so, and so she'd gained some pounds. She'd gained like 20 pounds over the last couple of years. And so she was frustrated with that too. And she was so tired. She just couldn't exercise anymore. She didn't, she didn't have the energy to get up in the morning and to exercise before she went on her shift. And then when she came home from work, she was feeling, she was more, she had a hard time calming down after the shift

and getting a good night's sleep. And so she was having a hard time getting to sleep at night. She was feeling that wired feeling at night when she needed to go to sleep. So we did her saliva test. We did the cortisol awakening response with saliva test. And what we saw is that the morning that cortisol awakening was low, she wasn't able to mount

that cortisol response in the morning. She was burnt out. She was burnt out. Exactly. She was burnt out. And it was a little bit high in the evening. So, you know, I mean, you know, we talked a lot about, you know, it just can build up with people. You know, they kind of have been just living their regular life and making it through and feeling fine.

And then it sort of just adds up over time, especially having a stressful job like that and not being able to or not taking the time to take care of herself every day and calm down. So we really focused, we focused a lot on her lifestyle. We worked to, to, she ended up shifting and starting to work more during the days. She was able to do that because she had been there long enough. So she was able to shift her, her time. Um, she started, uh, uh, uh, getting up in the morning and doing some calming exercises, some meditation first thing in the morning. She started to pack her own food and bring her own food to work. And we worked to clean up her diet, take away some of the caffeine for a period of time, really worked to balance her

blood sugar, you know, make sure she was getting that protein, healthy fat and fiber at every meal, you know, really some of the basics there. You know, we also gave her a little bit of an herbal support that had some licorice and ashwagandha first thing in the morning, just to help give her the energy for the day and a good B-complex. And really focused on her getting, and getting some sunshine in the morning and getting her exercise in. And we started sort of gentle with her exercise because she hadn't been doing very much and she was tired. But over time, she was able to kick up the intensity and start to do more intense exercise.

I think that's an important point you bring up because a lot of people have adrenal exhaustion. They don't tolerate intense exercise. They just can't. Because when you're exercising, it's like you've got a mouth distress response. They don't tolerate intense exercise. They just can't. Because when you're exercising, it's like you've got to mount the stress response. It's very difficult for them. And I had a terrible flashback when you were talking about her. I worked in Idaho in this small town and worked as a family doctor probably 80 hours a week, delivering babies on top of my regular schedule, off and up all night, ran the ER as well. We had to rotate through a night or two a week delivering babies on top of my regular schedule off and up all night ran the er as well

you know we had to rotate through a night or two a week so we were like on this 24-hour shift and i had babies on top of that and after like almost four years i decided to stop working there and i took like a few months off and i was ready to go visit my friend and drive my car with my family to go from like Idaho to California. And I literally, when I finished work, I literally could not pick myself up off the floor. I was so exhausted in such a deep and profound way. It took me like three months to recover. And I, you know, I didn't have chronic fatigue or anything back then, but I was just so burnt out. And I thought, oh, you know, I'm a doctor and that stands for medical deity and sleep is an option. And I would just literally go

for days with very little sleep. I mean, I was, I was same way. I feel like I've learned the most about this whole HPA axis on myself because I've been burnt out a bunch of times. Um, and, and the, the biggest one was after I went through all my cancer treatment and I had my two kids, you know, I finished all the treatment and then I had my two kids. And it was kind of like at the end of that whole process where I had gone through all the treatment when I was 30 and then actually had two children, which is exhausting for the body. And then I was the same way. I was just burnt out. And, you know, there's nobody, especially when people go to the doctor, there's often not a lot that happens conventionally. You know, we're just not training our physicians sometimes, I think, to recognize that. And so we often go to the depression place

first, right? Or the medication place first, where it's just we really need to have that time of self-care and shifting our mind process and everything. So the first case was sort of like, in a way, a physiological problem. It was her schedule. It was her rhythm of her life. And it was some of her bad habits. But the next case is a woman who really suffered from psychological trauma. And we know that adverse childhood experiences we call ACEs are highly linked to this chronic stress or PTSD,

which is an extreme version of it. And that sometimes it's very difficult for people to get out of that state of alarm or hypervigilance that comes from being in an unsafe or unstable environment they grew up in, whether it's an alcoholic or abusive parent or financial insecurity or worse. You know, people grew up in war zones. And so we don't really do a good job with helping people with that in medicine. So tell us about this young woman who really suffered in this way and how you helped her to reset not only her biology, but her mind. Yeah. I mean, so she was 28 when she came to see me. And the reason she came in was her digestion.

I mean, she was frustrated with her irritable bowel, right? So she had a lot of digestive issues, bloating, cramping, diarrhea, and she was anxious. And as we delved into things, I mean, we did, of course, clean up her diet and help her with some digestive issues. But really, as we delved into things, we realized and we learned that this was more her hormone balance in her body and that HPA axis. She had an abusive, her father was an alcoholic and her mom just living with her father being an alcoholic, right? Her husband being an alcoholic, you know, had a lot of stress in her life. And so

she often overreacted with her kids, which we see, right? And she was, you know, just not to blame her, but she often overreacted. And we know that that impacts. We know that how the mom reacts impacts the kids and the offspring, even when they're a fetus, but definitely when they're young too. And when the mom overreacts, then the kids learn to overreact in that same way. And of course, the stress and trauma with her dad. And she was very successful. She had a good job, but she was just feeling anxious all the time, feeling anxious all the time. And that anxiety was kind of going into her,

her diet, you know, this diarrhea that she had this urgency that she had. And she would she tried to she knew she was anxious, and she knew she needed to calm down her body. But when she did some breath work or meditation, she couldn't shut down her mind. And so it just wasn't she would say, I just can't do it. We get that all the time with our patients, right? They say, oh, I just can't, I can't, I can't shut down my mind. Meditation doesn't work for me. So, so, you know, that was when she came in, we did that, the saliva test. Yeah. And what we saw is her levels were high. So she was still in that just high cortisol through the day. So her body was, you know, just continually pumping out a lot of excess cortisol. And, and that was making her feel really anxious and unsettled inside and contributing to her

overall health. So then we got more information. She was, you know, having, she was also a two to three cup coffee in the morning. She often skipped breakfast. She skipped her lunch many times or just grabbed whatever she could. And, and, and so we really, we really worked in, in many aspects with her. We have a woman, Suda, who works in our clinic and works with people to teach them mindfulness, different exercises and meditation. And I think that can be really helpful. You know, there's a lot of great apps out there. But sometimes people need a little more handholding than that. And so, you know, I had her work with Suda, who works in our clinic. And that was very helpful. She worked with her for a long period of time, but just to do some regular weekly meditation sessions together. And some people-

Sometimes you need a little help from somebody else. Yeah. You know? Energy work, breath work. Yeah. I had her work with a Reiki specialist as well, because many times some of those ACEs, those adverse childhood experiences get stuck, that trauma gets stuck in our body and energy work like Reiki really can be helpful at releasing some of that struck, oh my goodness, stuck trauma, which is important sometimes to, we have to get let go of. Well, it's interesting right now, there's a lot of research going on, um, around psychedelics

and stress and trauma. And in fact, just a couple of days ago published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, psychiatry, I think there was a, a study on psilocybin, which is mushrooms called they call magic mushrooms, that was four times as effective as antidepressants. And it's used for PTSD, for war veterans, for people who have cancer. And it's not legal yet. There are a lot of research trials going on. So sometimes people can get enrolled. I think Oregon just legalized it for therapy, which is amazing. There are states which have decriminalized it as well. So it's really, I think, going to be an emerging therapy that often works really well to help break down that sense of fear and separateness that makes us stay in this chronic state of trauma.

So we're learning a lot about how to deal with trauma and there's so many different techniques. And I think what you underscored was that you know often the doorway into healing from chronic stress is through your body not just your mind through your diet exercise circadian rhythms the right supplements various kinds of stress reduction techniques meditation yoga reiki whatever maybe even some of these newer therapies that are being used out there, like psychedelic assisted therapy. And I think that we, you know, we're sort of on the verge of, I think, a real breakthrough and understanding how to help people with this because it is so rampant. And I think now given the phase of the world and COVID and the economy and politics and yada, yada, yada, it's like enough already. And I think all of us feel it. And I think it's really important for us to learn how to manage our stress response. And I often say, we think the opposite of stress is relaxation. But I think for most people, relaxation is like, I'm going to sit and have a beer and watch football or watch my sitcom. That's not relaxation. We're talking

about an active process of relaxation. So it's actually active, right? And it can be meditation or yoga or other things. And I think these are really things that people can access that are available to us that are mostly free. And for people who are really struggling, there are sometimes a need for more advanced therapies. And in functional medicine, we do the cortisol testing. We do all these other therapies. We can address the underlying physiological causes of stress, whether they're heavy metals or an infection or allergies. And also, I think we understand that sometimes people need some adrenal support. And for very few patients over my career, I've used very, very low dose hydrocortisone, which is a treatment that's not normally used in traditional medicine, but can really help

rescue people from this complete state of crash until we sort of build them up. So I think there's just a lot of options for people. And I encourage people to check it out. Come to the Ultra Wellness Center. We're seeing patients virtually now. Go to ultrawellnesscenter.com. Liz, you've been doing this forever and so have I. And it's

really gratifying to see these patients. I should give them the guardrails and teach them how their bodies work that they can learn how to do this. And for me, if I didn't have these tools, I'd be a mess right now because I've had so much stress in my life and I learned how to actually discharge the stress so I can actually function and have a good life. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. One of the best ways I can actually function and have a good life. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. One of the best ways you can support this podcast is by leaving us a rating and review below. Until next time, thanks for tuning in. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do

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