The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Heavy Metals, Sugar Cravings, & Natural Flavors | Q&A

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Did you know that over 70% of Americans struggle with sleep issues? Discover natural solutions to this and other pressing health concerns in our latest episode of The Dr. Josh Axe Show. Join us as we dive into a range of audience questions, tackling everything from sugar cravings to air pollution protection. Dr. Josh Axe dives into: The truth about "natural flavors" and their impact on your health Sleep-enhancing strategies for parents of young children Safe, natural methods to induce labor Effective ways to combat sugar cravings and boost energy without caffeine How to protect yourself from environmental toxins like air pollution and heavy metals Gluten-free living and the potential pitfalls of processed alternatives Dr. Axe's top 5 recommendations for safeguarding your health in today's economy Tune in to arm yourself with practical, natural health solutions that can transform your well-being. Whether you're a sleep-deprived parent, an expectant mother, or simply looking to optimize your health, this episode offers valuable insights to help you take control of your wellness journey. Don't miss out on these game-changing tips that could revolutionize your approach to health and vitality! #naturalhealth #drjoshaxe #sleep #sugarcravings #airpollution #glutenfree #naturallabor #healthyliving #wellnesspodcast Want more of The Dr. Josh Axe Show? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok ------  Links:  Send me a voice message to be featured on the show → https://www.speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome the Dr. Josh Axe show. I am your host, Dr. Axe. And each and every week on this show, I explore the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be answering your questions, such as, what are natural flavors should you stay away from them? I'll talk about how to get young sleep with children. I'll be answering how to naturally boost your energy. I'll share my opinion on hormone replacement therapy and, natural ways to induce labor and so much more on today's episode. But hey, don't forget to subscribe to the show and hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single thing. And listen, if you're not subscribed, you're not going to see a lot of the great content we're putting out here. So subscribe. And thank you all of you who are on mission with me and have shared so much of this show and podcast across social media. Thanks to everybody for being a part. Also, remember, you could submit your questions to me on Instagram. I post question boxes regularly on my story, so follow me on Instagram at Dr. Joshax,

and you can also send me a voice message and actually be featured on the show. Just click the link right here that we have posted here, and you can be part of the show, submit a question, and excited to answer your questions. All right, first question here is a, audio message from Sayla on sleep. We're going to play that for you now. Hi, Dr. Ax. I'm a young mom. I just had my baby four months ago, and I've got a three-year-old son, so in the height of young littles and motherhood. And I'm really struggling right now with my sleep with my baby. And I'm seeing whenever you're talking about de-stressing, one of the biggest

things you're talking about is sleep. And it feels near impossible to make that happen with the four-month sleep progression and just, I literally haven't slept well in four months. So what do you do if you're a mom and you're not sleeping, but you're also really stressed and you're trying to de-stress, but sleep is not a solution that you can solve? I have been able to find nothing online to help me figure this out. So curious your thoughts. Thanks so much. Well, first, Ella, I can share with you that my wife and I have been in a similar situation. We have a six-month-old right now and a four-year-old.

So very close. And also, I am curious to know if you are married. if you have somebody who is living with you or if you are doing all of this solo. So my first, the first thing I would say is, listen, you can't be perfect in this situation. Listen, when you've got little kids, it can be hard to get sleep.

But there are some things you can do to improve the quality of sleep when you are sleeping and to help keep your stress hormones down, which will also allow you to live off of a little bit less sleep, generally speaking. So the first thing I would do is say, get help anywhere you can get it.

You know, if you are married, get more support from your spouse. If you're not from your partner, if you have a parent, if you have friends that, again, at a local church you connect with, or just friends in general. But whatever you can do, do not be afraid to ask for help. If you're surrounded by the right people, they're going to want to help you. And there are people out there that would love to support you. So oftentimes get plugged into a place of praise and worship, a religious community. they can often support you. So that would be my first piece of advice for you

is try and get some time for yourself, where maybe it's more difficult with a four month old, but with your three-year-old, have someone to be able to watch your child for even if it's for an hour or two, a couple days a week. So I would try and do that. The other thing I would say is go to bed earlier,

you know, trying to get to bed as early as possible. When you are sleeping, try and get more deep in REM sleep by taking a few supplements. Probably the supplements long term that are going to be the most beneficial for you. Number one would be magnesium. I'd recommend about 300 to 600 milligrams a day. You can get magnesium citrate or a chalet or a glycinate, but those sort of magnesiums are calming and relaxing to the body. Three and eight's another good version.

But basically, buy a magnesium supplement, take that. Also, you could take Aschwaganda. It's an herb that helps lower cortisol levels, reducing stress on the body. Now, in general, you can also eat more magnesium-rich foods, foods that are calming, eating more healthy fats, getting some more wild organic meat. But healthy fat, healthy meat, not over-consuming the carbohydrates will also help you get better sleep. And not eating too late at night, trying to eat at earlier dinner. If you can eat dinner around 5 or 6 o'clock and go to bed around 9 or 10, that's going to be a much better option. Again, the earlier you can get to bed, even if you go to bed at 8, actually, that's the best.

and eating dinner around five would be the ideal scenario. And so, but, you know, those are the biggest things you can do. Again, I really think that getting support to where you can get some time yourself, I think eating a diet that's high in protein, fat, and lower in carbs. And then I think doing, and not no carb, you don't want to go keto. You just want to do some berries, some sweet potatoes, some rice. Those is your source of carbs and a lot of meat, vegetables, in healthy fats. avocado, coconut, and extra virgin olive oil. And then again, magnesium ashwaganda, and I think that

will help you the most. Again, I just want to say, listen, that's a difficult situation. Raising young kids, it's hard to get as much sleep as you want. But I do think if you're able to follow some of the advice I just shared, you will get better sleep at night. But again, here's the thing. Do not be afraid to ask somebody for some help and for some support. There are a lot of people out there I know that want to help serve you, love you, support you. And so make sure to lean on those people during this difficult season. Second question here, how can I minimize my sugar cravings? Well, if you are cravings, one of the best things you can do is embrace what I call the power of sour. You know, oftentimes we crave sugar and the secondarily people crave salt.

when really some of the foods you want to be getting in your diet are bitter and sour and umami. If you consume more sour foods, it will eliminate some of the sugar cravings. So using apple cider vinegar in your foods, doing things like Granny Smith apples, drinking kombucha, you know, eating foods that are just tend to be more tart and sour, adding lemon and lime to your beverages. So I think those are good options. I also would recommend probiotics. Oftentimes those sugar cravings are due to an imbalance of good bacteria in your gut. And oftentimes you have an overgrowth of candida. In yeast and candida, that bad bacteria in your system will crave sugar. And so in order to eliminate that, certain types of probiotics, especially soil-based

organisms, help clear out some of the candida. In that case, taking a probiotic supplement would be very beneficial. Also using natural herbs to eliminate sugar cravings, like using pumpkin pie spice, apple pie spice, cinnamon. Those herbs will help lower the amount of sugar you need and adding those into smoothies or applesauce or yogurt, whatever you're eating would be beneficial. You know, another big part of eliminating sugar cravings

along with the sour foods and the probiotic-rich foods is just generally getting more protein, fiber, and water. Do about 30 grams to 50 grams of protein per meal three times a day. Try and get about 30 to 40 grams of fiber per day. You're going to get that by eating. Again, eat more meat that's organic. Eat more vegetables. Eat more berries. You know, get fiber that way. Eat more beans or sprouted grains to get more fiber and then drink a lot of water. Drink at least your body weight or half of your body weight in water up to your full body weight in hours. ounces of water a day.

These will all help reduce sugar cravings. Also, sugar cravings can be connected to B vitamin deficiencies, so you might consider taking a B complex vitamin. And then here are some natural sugar alternatives. The reality is you're going to want something sweet. But you can always replace the added sugar with natural forms of sugar or things that are naturally sweet,

even with no calories. So the first thing I'd recommend is get high, quality fruit in your diet, especially berries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, so get more fruit. The second thing I would say is do monk fruit. So number one is fruit, the next thing is monk fruit. That's a very low calorie, natural sweetener from fruit. The other option is stevia.

I'm a fan of stevia. It's been used as an herbal medicine to sweetened teas for thousands of years in Asia and South America. So I think stevia's a good option. Alulose is another good option. That comes from things like, figs and raisins and jackfruit. So that's another very low calorie natural sweetener. And then a little bit of raw honey. Even though those things are sweet and have sugar, they will satisfy your cravings

without doing harm to your body if you do them in moderation. So again, fruit, monk fruit, stevia, alulose, honey, also doing some of the sweet herbs like cinnamon are good options. And then also one other thing that may be helpful in order to keep your blood sugar balanced, taking a herbal supplement like berberine, which comes from bayberry leaf, would be another good option for you in how to naturally reduce those sugar cravings. All right, we got a question here from Chelsea. Let's listen. I'm curious what your thoughts are on natural flavors and if they're harmful or beneficial for our bodies. Hey, great question, Chelsea. Thanks. And I know you've asked questions before, and this is a great one.

So here's the thing with natural flavors. If you go and flip over a pack of protein powder or a natural product you'd buy at a local health food store, you're going to sometimes see on the label made with natural flavors. Now, here's the reality. Those could be good and very healthy or they could be bad for you.

It's a really hard thing to answer. I can share with you. I own a supplement company, and we do a protein powder and a collagen powder. And our natural flavors are made of things like cocoa, cacao, and sea salt and basically other just natural flavorings like a cinnamon derivative. And they're very small amounts, but they're all part of one formula. And I know that ours are truly just natural herbs and flavorings. However, some companies might put in flavorings that are natural, but that maybe might not be that healthy.

Now, I think generally the natural flavors are fine. I know that there's a company, a few companies over the years, when you go and find out their natural flavors, they tend to be maybe made with something that's a type of a gum or a very processed form of sugar. I mean, there's all kinds of things there. Maybe dairy, maybe even MSG. I mean, there's a lot of things.

It could be. Well, of course, MSG couldn't be because it's a natural flavor. a yeast extract or something. But I would say generally speaking, I think natural flavors are fine. I think there's a lot of Instagram or social media influencers that say, all natural flavor is bad. They're evil. But that's not true. Those people are just trying to get hype with their videos. So again, natural flavors, the majority of the time are fine. However, sometimes they can also hide ingredients that you don't want in there. Basically, I think the moral of story is buy from a brand you really feel like you can trust that tends to be very open about what they're putting in their products.

But when somebody is using that on an ingredient label, it can be hard to know. But generally, natural flavors are just what they say. They're natural flavors. Next question here, how can I protect my health with bad air pollution in my area? Well, the best thing you can do is, let's say you're spending 70% of your time indoors. We'll make sure your indoor air is clean and get a high-quality indoor air filter. There are brands like Intelapur, Air Doctor, and others that are great home filters that you may consider using,

that just, again, that will keep your indoor air clean because you can't change your outdoor air. You can't change that, okay? You have no control over that. However, you do have control over your indoor air and keeping one in your bedroom where you're spending probably half of your time in your home, and then the other half in your main living area, I would get two air filters.

You can also get whole home filters that actually connect to your ventilation system. But I would at the very least get air filters for where you're sleeping in the room, typically the living room or kitchen, where you're spending a majority of your time. And that will help keep your air clean. So even if you go outdoors for a couple hours a day, you know, at least when you're indoors for probably, you know, sleeping eight hours and probably maybe even another five or so, the majority of your day, you are breathing in clean air. Because your lungs are created to deal with some toxicity.

I mean, they can deal with it. You just don't want that all the time. Because if your outdoor air is toxic and your indoor air, then you've got even bigger problems. Here's the reality, most people's indoor air is far worse than their outdoor air. I know people oftentimes say, well, my outdoor air, there is air pollution in the air today. Well, if you've been using VOC paint and you've got carpet in your home, and you have lots of other things, cleaning products.

I mean, you're breathing in way worse air than outside. So the best thing you can do is buy an air filter for your home. Again, the two brands that I know I've used in the past, right now we've got Intelipure and we have air doctor, both in our home that we're using to cleanse the air. Also, there are some herbs you can take that are good for your lungs. Echinacea is one of those primary herbs. It's very, very good for lung health.

So I would put that at the top of list. You could take echinacea. Cordyceup mushrooms also tend to be pretty good. Rodial or rosaya, but echinacea, I would put at the top of the list for lung energy. And then foods that are white and yellow in Chinese medicine are known for being good for lung health. Horse radish, miso, chicken bone broth, garlic and onions tend to be very, very good for lung and respiratory health. So again, like horseradish, garlic, onions especially are going to be very good for sort of cleansing and strength. your lungs, but those are the things I would do to help combat the air pollution in your area.

Keep your indoor air clean. Here's another question. How can I reduce or avoid heavy metals? Well, the biggest way is to eat and drink out of primarily stainless steel and glass. So I would do that in your home, stainless steel and glass. You know, in the past, a lot of our heavy metal exposure was due to lead-based, paints. That was a major issue. Amalgam fillings. Those had mercury. That was another major issue. If you stay away from the lead-based paints in the silver fillings, that alone will help tremendously. You know, we also have heavy metals like arsenic and cadmium in a lot of our food supply rice. If it's not organic, tends to be very high in arsenic. But so do apples. Really, a lot of the foods that

come out of China, if you are buying foods from China that are non-organic especially, they tend to contain heavy metals, especially arsenic. So I would say buying foods that are certified organic will also help reduce your heavy metal toxicity. And those are the big things you can do. Again, eat organic, stay away from foods from China. And again, be careful of the lead-based paints, never get silver fillings.

And to naturally support your body detoxifying, doing greens like a lot of vegetables, steam vegetables on a regular basis will be helpful, doing spruillina, Chlorella, is also beneficial probiotics, support the detoxification

of heavy metals, chlorophyll, I think, is good. Humate, which you can find in some probiotic supplements. All of these will help bind and eliminate

heavy metals from your body and even herbs like milk thistle can also be helpful there. All right, next question. Are there any natural ways to induce labor

that you recommend? Did your wife Chelsea use any. Yes, both of my wife's pregnancies with Arwin and with our daughter, Alyn, Chelsea wanted to, you know, it was ready to have the babies as soon as possible. Our daughter, Arwin, was 10 days past due date. Our daughter, Alyn, was about a week early for our second child. And so, but here's what she did. And she did the same thing for both. She did all of these things. The second one, even more, okay, when we had a little early. So one, we walked a lot. We walked and we walked and we walked, especially, even before, but really the, you know, the,

the couple weeks before the due date, we just, we walked a lot. Walking is beneficial because it really supports lymphatic flow. That's a big part of, of prepping the body for pregnancy, is making sure the body's, you got a lot of blood flow, a lot of lymphatic flow that the liver is being supported. So walking outdoors in nature especially is very good for supporting labor. Eating foods that are more warming and spicy, that's very, very good for the body. That helps with prepping for labor. I like ginger and garlic especially for this. So ginger, a lot of ginger, a lot of garlic and foods can be beneficial. Acupuncture. My wife was getting acupuncture weekly the last month prior up to her giving birth.

And before that, she was doing acupuncture probably at least every month. Herbs like black cohosh and blue cohosh tend to be very good for this. Evening primrose oil, my wife took that, her entire third trimester. And then things like raspberry leaf tea. And then my wife did dates. I want to say she did three dates a day. She would do three dates, just dates, just eat those. a day. She would tend to do this around her workouts to also deal with the sugar. But

yeah, she would do dates. I mean, that's a lot of things. She we walked a lot, spicy foods, acupuncture, black cohosh, evening primrose, oil, raspberry leaf tea, three dates, all support inducing labor naturally. You know, one other thing I do want to mention too is sometimes if you know that your baby is breach, you can see an acupuncturist in a kite. You can see an acupuncturist in a chiropractor. Some of them do a technique called Webster's technique, and they can sort of prepare the body in the pelvis for birth. So another thing you may consider, along with the acupuncture, is doing chiropractic. I think those two things together can also help prepare the body for labor. All right, question here from Trina. Hi, Dr. Axe. I have a question. I recently went and got a blood test. I was having some issues with digestion. The Blood test came back as probable celiac. So positive. My family doctor suggested I get a biopsy, but I understand that there is risk with biopsy. Also, it terrifies me to have a tube in my colon,

so I decided to not get that done. And I've just gone gluten-free. A lot of gluten-free food is not that healthy. It is processed food. As you know, so I'm just wondering if I should continue gluten-free seeing as it was not confirmed that I have celiac and how important is it to get a biopsy done after testing positive for celiac. Thank you. Yeah, a great question, Trina. So I would say, one, I'm not your current physician. So for me to tell you to not or to get a biopsy, I'd say if it was my wife or family, or let me say if it was me personally, I would just do everything right. And I wouldn't feel like I personally needed to get a biopsy. And that's not what my wife would probably get done either.

We would just say, okay, let's eat as healthy as possible. As you mentioned, a lot of packaged foods that are gluten-free are healthy. So my advice for you would be don't eat packaged foods. I would say eat food. Just eat real food that's been unprocessed. So an ideal diet for you is going to look like, do a lot of meat or specifically organ, Grass-fed beef and bison, chicken and turkey, wild-caught fish, you know, venison, do eggs. All of that is fantastic.

Do bone broth. So get a lot of protein. Do some healthy protein powder. It's like a bone broth protein and a collagen. So get a lot of protein that way. Get a lot of healthy fat. I'd recommend avocados, olive oil, and coconut oil or coconut-based products like coconut yogurt.

Those are going to be great for your gut health. So get those healthy fats and maybe even walnuts. would be good as well. So I would really focus on those. And then in terms of your carbohydrates, do more fruit, do pears, do applesauce, do blueberries, do blackberries, do raspberries, but eat a lot of fruit, okay? And then in addition for your carbohydrates, I'd recommend sweet potatoes, rice, and oatmeal. Those are all gluten-free. Those are all great sources of carbohydrates. Again, rice, oats, and sweet potatoes, or regular potatoes are fine, too, and make that in terms of your carbs and starches. And then you can also do beans and legumes. Uh, as you,

well. So just eat real food. If you feel like you have to have bread, then do a 24-hour fermented sourdough bread. You make yourself or you buy at your farmer's market or from a local baker where you know this is true sourdough. It's been made a long time because even people with celiac can tend to do sourdough bread. But if the bulk of your diet is what I first told you should be, you're going to do well. Now, you can go to a health food store and often buy rice-based breads and products. For instance, there's a, I want to say a rice and corn-based English muffin that my wife, Chelsea and I have bought before. But right now, Chelsea makes all our bread at home via sourdough process. So we don't really buy bread out ever. But if you feel

like you had to have it, then buy that gluten-free. But I'd say just stay away from the package foods. If you just eat real food like I shared with you, you're going to be golden. Also, I would say there are some things that would be great for you to take gut-wise. Number one is going to be a probiotic supplement, I'd recommend taking 100 billion CFU daily of a high-quality probiotic. So if you can only afford one or to take one supplement, take a probiotic. The second best supplement for you to take would be a bone broth protein powder. Doing that as part of a smoothie in the morning with some coconut milk and berries would be wonderful for you as well. And those are probably the top two I would recommend you consume on a regular basis as a probiotic, a bone broth

protein powder. Drinking herbal teas like ginger herbal tea is also great for the for your gut or a gas and bloating tea is really good for your gut health. That's probably going to be a blend of something like ginger and peppermint and cardamon and caraway and fennel, you know, those sort of herbs that are very good for that for your digestive health. But I think if you just share what I just, if you do what I just shared with you, you're going to see, you're going to see tremendous results. And not only is that going to help celiac, it's also going to help you just heal and be your absolute best in terms of your health. One other thing, if you want to see a practitioner acupuncturists tend to do a great job with treating gut inflammation, so I think that would help you as well.

All right, question here from John. He said, I am constantly tired. What are some ways I can naturally increase my energy without caffeine? Well, the The best way to boost your energy without caffeine, there's several things. Number one, get better sleep. Go to bed earlier. Before bed, one hour before, no light whatsoever. Listen to an audio book or read a book with just more of a yellow light. You get a light bulb that doesn't have that blue light. So read or listen to an audio book before bed. Once you get to sleep, have a weighted blanket. Make sure your room is pitch black. Make sure it's cold as well. and that's big for boosting energy is sleep. The second thing is diet-wise, don't over-consume carbs and don't eat a big meal late at night.

Eat a big breakfast, eat a big lunch, eat a moderate dinner, and the earlier you eat dinner, the better. If you ate dinner at 4 o'clock, perfect, 5. But try and eat dinner, try and give yourself about three hours before you go to bed. So try and eat an earlier dinner on 5, the latest, ideally 6. So if you can eat dinner earlier, that's better, and don't overeat. You want to consume mostly protein, some fat for dinner, not overconsume the

carbohydrates. That would also be helpful. And then there are natural energy boosters that they don't necessarily work like caffeine automatically and that strongly, but they will help over time. My favorite natural energy boosters herbally that aren't caffeinated are going to be, number one would be Ashwaganda. Then I would say Panx-Ginseng. Now, Panics ginseng, you don't want to do like for years every single day, but for short periods is fine. Now, ashraganda, you could take pretty much every day. But again, ashwaganda, for men ginsing, for women, don quai is great for energy. I would also recommend rodeola rosea and cordisept mushrooms. If you just have to pick three for men, I would recommend ashwaganda, rodeola, and

cordeseps. For women, I would recommend aschwanda, don quai, and rodeoctiola. And then I also like Rishi Mushroom. But if you could do an adaptogenic blend like that that supports adrenal health, I think that's long term one of the best things you can do for energy and walking, just around your meals before and after, also is a great way to naturally boost your energy levels. Question here from Melissa, what are your thoughts on HRT that stands for hormone replacement therapy?

I'm generally not a big fan of hormone replacement therapy. here's what I would say. I like it better than some things, if you're doing like a compounding pharmacy, I like it better than maybe taking, I like it better than taking a drug or a medication. But I would much rather if you are, let's say for instance,

your postmenopause, we're going through menopause, and you need support with estrogen progesterone. I would rather you first take a food approach, lifestyle approach and an herbal approach. So from a lifestyle approach, walking outside more and getting more sunshine, spending time in a garden, you know, that can be wonderful for supporting your health. In reducing stress, spending time with praise and worship, having a closer friend group,

all those things are good. And getting better sleep. From a food standpoint, you want to eat more protein and more healthy fat and reduce excess carbohydrates. Now, the one carbohydrate, the carbohydrates that are the most beneficial will be sweet potatoes or yams, along with some berries, like blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, goji berries. Those are also good. But those that should be your primary sources of carbohydrates. And then doing avocado. By the way, avocados look like a uterus. Olives look like ovaries. So eat a lot of extra virgin olive oil and olives and do a lot of avocado and a little bit of

coconut oil. So do a lot of those fats, also some walnuts, chia and flax. Actually, chia, flax seeds in particular, in terms of a nutter seed is the best for menopause. So doing some flax meal and a smoothie would be good for you. And then, yeah, wild caught fish, you know, grass-fed beef, those sort of things, those are all going to be beneficial. And then from an herbal standpoint, I would recommend black cohosh is better than hormone replacement therapy, ideally. So black cohosh, wild yam, and don quai. Those three in particular I really like in place of hormone replacement therapy. Now, another thing I like better than hormone replacement therapy is peptide therapy. There are peptides that help balance hormones, BPC-157, TB-500. Now,

those tend to be for regeneration if you need to heal and reverse. certain injuries and conditions, but there are peptides that are great for women's hormones. One other, if you also have thyroid condition, Oshuaganda tends to be wonderful as well. But I would say, listen, if you exhaust what I just shared with you, you change your diet, you walk a lot, you reduce stress, you get better sleep, and you take those herbs I mentioned, along with probably a probiotic supplement and a B complex, and your hormones are still off, then consider hormone replacement therapy. Okay, that's, so again, there's a time and a place, but it's not the first thing I would jump to.

I would jump to these other things. Start off with what I just mentioned before you jump into the hormone replacement therapy. Next question here, what are the top five things I can do to protect my health in this difficult economy? If you are trying to optimize your health on a very, very low budget, my first piece of advice to you would be buy and buy. bulk by organic meat and your food in bulk and at places like Costco. I would go to, again, like Chelsea and I did this when we were first married, we bought like half a cow and we had a freezer. And so we, you know, we bought a really high quality organic animal.

And that's what we used for almost all of our meat products. So we bought that in bulk. That was really great. We bought, you know, we bought Costco. So we bought organic vegetables. in bulk and a lot of our snack, basically all our foods in bulk at the biggest discount possible. So that's the first piece of advice. The next thing I would say, have a garden, an herb garden you have at home where you're growing all of your own herbs or start gardening

in your own yard. I mean, the soil costs money and take some time to do that. But if you can grow some of your own food, you're going to save a tremendous amount of money over time. I mean, there's some homesteaders that live on half an acre or a quarter acre land and just have, and basically, it supplies 80% of their food. Their husbands maybe go out and hunt and that, you know, provides most of their meat for the year. So there are ways if you want to be healthy to really save big time on your meat, on your vegetables, buying in bulk. Those are things that are going to tremendously help your health. The other thing is walking. You don't need a gym membership. Just walk a lot. Maybe order a couple dumbbells or bands to have at home. Just exercise. There's so many YouTube videos.

You don't need to sign up for a gym membership or fitness class. Just follow the YouTube or doing all the free videos at home for your fitness classes. And then I would say connect to a good community, okay? Be part of a community of praise and worship, build strong relationships. There was a study done at Harvard that found the number one factor for health and longevity is your community. If you have a, if you have great friends and family around you, that's the number one thing that will make you healthy. And then after that, it's walking and after that it's eating healthy organic food that you make at home. Those three things I just mentioned will radically improve your health more than any supplement, any therapy, any medication, anything else you can take.

Those things will move the needle the most. And so you can be healthy, even in the most difficult economies with what I just shared with you. Again, buying your meat, getting those in bulk, doing a home garden, having great community. And again, I mentioned walking there as well. would bring you tremendous health. I want to say, hey, thanks so much for asking these incredible questions. Hey, if you're watching on YouTube, let me know if you have any additional questions and your thoughts

and we'll try and make it part of a future episode. Also, don't forget, you could submit your questions and make sure to follow me on Instagram at Dr. Josh Axe on a regular basis on my stories. I will post things where you can ask your questions there, and I love answering your questions. And sometimes I'll answer them right there and sometimes we'll make them a part of the show. And also, I just want to say thanks to all of you who are sharing this show. You know, I see many of you on your Instagram feeds.

And by the way, if you share on Instagram or Facebook, we'll try and reshare anytime you share anything that we post, we will try and repost for you as well. So thank you all of you who have been sharing this content on your social media feed. Also, thank you all of you that are subscribing. We've got thousands and thousands of people subscribing every single week to the show. I mean, it's growing in popularity like crazy. And by the way, when you subscribe and share, it allows us to bring on even more high-profile guests. Because you subscribed and shared, I was able to bring on incredible guests like Carrie Underwood and Vani Hari and Dave Ramsey and some amazing medical physicians.

I mean, having them on the show here, we got coming up. I know I've got John and Lisa Bevere here in the first. future, these amazing spiritual gurus. We had, again, Craig Rochelle. We've got, you know, we've had Sean Johnson East the Olympian. We've got Mark Hyman coming up, Tim Tebow here in the future. I mean, we've got some amazing, amazing guests coming up in the future, all because you continue to share and you've subscribed and you've been part of this community. So again, I love having you part of this community. And I love being able to change the world and lives together with you. Thanks so much. And remember each and every week on this show, we're diving deep into how to truly be healthy.

Remember, health is body, mind, and spirit, which is why we cover all those topics on the show and more. Hey, thanks so much for tuning in here to the show. I'll see you on the next episode.