The Dr. Josh Axe Show - The Cellular ‘Danger Mode’ Keeping You Sick (And How to Escape It)

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

What if your fatigue, brain fog, or chronic symptoms aren’t a malfunction—but a misunderstood survival mechanism? In this episode, you'll learn... What the Cell Danger Response is and why it...'s triggered by infection, trauma, or toxins. Why your body might be stuck in survival mode—and how that explains persistent fatigue, pain, or brain fog. How mitochondria signal danger and what it means when ATP becomes an alarm. The three phases of CDR: Defense, Repair, and Reintegration—and what it takes to move forward. How healing involves safety, not force: through trauma work, detox, red light therapy, and mitochondrial support. A hopeful framework for chronic illness that connects the dots between autoimmune disease, long COVID, autism, and more ------  0:00 Introduction 1:15 Cell Danger Response 2:48 ATP Release Issues 5:38 Phase 1: Danger Detection 8:07 Phase 2: Cell Defense 9:10 Phase 3: Recovery & Healing 9:55 Job of Mitochondria 11:10 Biggest Symptoms of CDR 13:10 Common Conditions Linked to CDR 16:52 Bloodwork Ad 18:12 Steps to Healing from CDR 35:10 Outro ------  Want more of The Dr. Josh Axe Show? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook TikTok Website ------  Staying healthy in today's world is an upstream battle. Subscribe to Wellness Weekly, your 5-minute dose of sound health advice to help you grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. Every Wednesday, you'll get:  Holistic health news & life-hacks from a biblical world view Powerful free resources including classes, Q&As, and guides from Dr. Axe The latest episodes of The Dr. Josh Axe Show Submit your questions via voice memo to be featured on the show → speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe Links:  https://aonm.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Cell-Danger-Response-IHCAN.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u028TAyB9S4 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10427836/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6627909/ https://tacanow.org/family-resources/medical-article-common-medical-issues/the-cell-danger-response-in-autism/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567724919302922 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567724918301053 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567724913002390 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028390815002129 https://watermark.silverchair.com/gkv1003.pdf https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(17)30428-X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022356524183231 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567724918301053 https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1607571113 https://www.mdpi.com/2079-7737/8/2/27 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11336094/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39495479/ https://advancedbrain.com/blog/the-listening-program-safe-signal-cell-danger-response/ https://ncintegrative.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Cell-Danger-Response-KING.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41433-024-03091-4 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7735836/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7963035/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5859128/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4988248/ ------  Ads: Even if your bloodwork looks "normal," your symptoms could point to Cell Danger Response (CDR). Discover how to break free from CDR and unlock your full potential at https://beyondbloodwork.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 What if you are fatigue, brain fog, or chronic symptoms aren't because your body's broken, but because it's stuck in defense mode? In this episode, I'll be diving into one of the most important and overlooked breakthroughs in chronic illness and healing. The cell danger response, also known as CDR. Now, whether you're a practitioner, a patient, or someone who's felt off for a long time without answers, this episode is going to help you reframe illness as a process, not a failure, and also understand your body is trying to send you. a signal. Welcome to the Dr. Joshak show. I was recently speaking at an event in Florida and I had somebody come up to me and tell me, Dr. Axe, I believe I was vaccine injured. They said I have had long COVID
Starting point is 00:00:58 symptoms for over two years now. I've tried numerous therapies. I've been doing infrared sauna. I've changed my diet. And I'm still not healing and getting better. Why is this? Well, what I shared with them is what the new science is saying about something called cell danger response, which is your cells protective mechanism against threats like infections, toxins, trauma, or even emotional stress. And the CDR, pioneered by Dr. Robert Naval, explains what happens when cells get stuck in survival mode. Now, during this response, cells shift from growth in connection and regeneration to defense and isolation. And this model is changing how we understand everything from chronic fatigue and long COVID. even to autism, autoimmune disease and anxiety.
Starting point is 00:01:48 And here's a reality, your body isn't failing to heal. It's waiting for all clear signals that it's never received. So imagine like this person who came up to me where their body has some lingering, let's say, viral infection. And their body is sitting there saying, okay, well, we know that we've maybe cleared some of this invader, but not all of it. And so your body is constantly sending out warning signals and using your energy to throw up flares in the air saying, help me, rather than heal itself.
Starting point is 00:02:21 And so what happens in a cell danger, and this is why people aren't healing. So if you're one of those people and you've had long COVID or parasites or mold toxicity or autoimmune disease or some sort of issue or or autism and you feel like you've made some improvements, but you're not fully getting better. This is probably the single biggest reason why. And what happens during the cell danger response, it involves changes in your mitochondria and the release of ATP, which is cellular energy. In your mitochondria, we know, are known as your body's cell energy producers,
Starting point is 00:02:57 and they also act as sensors in signal hubs initiating this cell danger response. And so here's what ATP normally is used for cellular energy. So it's used to fuel all of your organs for your thyroid to release enough horn. hormones, for your liver to detox, for your lungs to breathe, for your stomach to digest food, your cells and those organs use ATP in order to function. However, this is key. When you have an invading organism, your cells start throwing up these signals saying, hey, I need help. And so where ATP normally is used for cellular energy, instead, now here's what happens. It's released outside of the cell. And when this happens outside of the cell, ATP acts as a danger signal. Now, this alarm
Starting point is 00:03:48 signal activates receptors in nearby cells, triggering inflammation and suppressing repair and regeneration of the cells and actually blocking communication signals. And mitochondria, they're not being dysfunctional, they're just stuck in this phase where they just keep telling the body over and over and over again, I need help. And that's what's happening. So for anyone that's stuck with issues like chronic fatigue or long COVID or chronic infections or Lyme disease where you're just feeling overrun and like your body is not healing, the problem is your system rather than regenerating and healing, it keeps sending off of these flares and saying,
Starting point is 00:04:28 I need help. And until you fully rid your body of the infection or the or the childhood trauma that your body's viewing as a threat, until you get rid of the threat, your body can't heal. And so this is what the new science is showing. And so one of the things we want to do is help reframe illness from something you need to fix to start listening to your body, these signals that it's giving you and trying to get to the very root of all causes in order to heal. And if you're one of those people and you've had consistent fatigue and chronic pain and brain fog, this is one of the biggest reasons why. And this also provides a sort of unified theory
Starting point is 00:05:09 across many complex conditions regarding your immune system, your nervous system, your metabolism, your hormonal system to where they're not sinking up. Because again, all of your energy is going towards just, I need help. That's really what's happening here constantly. And what I'm going to get into today is how to actually address and heal and break the cycle of the cell danger response. Now, there's really three phases of the cell danger response. The first one is defense. Now, this is typically triggered by an infection, a toxin, or a trauma, or a stress. So this could be everything from you've consumed too many foods with glyphosate, or you got bit by a tick and now you have Lyme disease, or you lived in a moldy home, or you got long COVID from, from, you know, a vaccination.
Starting point is 00:05:57 Whatever happened, it starts there, or it starts with, listen, you had a really bad relationship with your mom, or you were abused by a man in your life. And so you have this kind of constant thing playing in your memory, a memory that's traumatic over and over again. And you've never actually gone and resolved that childhood trauma or that stressor in your life. Okay, so it can be physical, it can be mental, it could be spiritual, but there's a stressor that's happening. And it's just on replay and your body's saying, please address this root issue. We have not fixed it yet. Okay. So then what happens is when you, when you have this phase one defense, your cells start releasing ATP energy into your extracellular space.
Starting point is 00:06:45 Okay. And this activates inflammation because now your body's saying, okay, well, I'm going to send immune, you know, I'm going to send immune signals and cells in order to take care of this threat. But it sort of gets there and it doesn't know what the threat is or the threat just never goes away. So your body lives in this constant state of inflammation. And this has been known to happen with autoimmune disease, for instance. So there's a lot of people with autoimmune disease that it kicked off with a viral infection or so much emotional stress or emotional trauma. A lot of it started when you were a kid, but then you have work stress and you have relational stress and all these things. And then finally, your body can't handle it anymore.
Starting point is 00:07:26 And then your body gets in this autoimmune cycle of inflammation. And so the cause of a lot of autoimmune disease is leaky gut, but a lot of leaky gut is actually caused by emotional trauma or chronic infection. infections. And what we need to happen is your mitochondria, what happens is when it's sending all of the cellular energy outside of the cell, it's not able to use it inside the cell and in order to run your organs. So this is why you're fatigued and tired all the time. Or this is why you get brain fog because you're just the communication signals are so off. Your hormones are so imbalance because the cell signaling is so off. So that's what happens in phase one. Now phase two is where your cells are trying to repair.
Starting point is 00:08:10 And if the threat resolves, that's what happened. Your cells begin to self-repair. Your body activates more to what's called autophagy, which is your cellular cleanup, and your body starts getting rid of more of what are called senescent cells. These are zombie cells that sort of live in the city of your body. And if they're there, zombie cells or senescent cells are kind of like,
Starting point is 00:08:29 let's say your body's like a city. And you have, but let's say the city is like this dystopian society. There's broken down cars. garbage everywhere and it's hard for an ambulance to even get through the street to go and save and rescue things that need saving. Well, autophagy is this recycling company and the waste management company. They're coming in. They're removing the cars. They're removing the garbage. They're cleaning up the city. So where now it's pristine, it's high functioning. That's what is activated in your body. And now your mitochondria begin restoring normal energy function. And now your cells and your organs can
Starting point is 00:09:07 Now, what happens in phase three is reintegration. Your cells reconnect to nerves to hormones to your immune system and normal function resumes for growth and repair and for optimal function. And this is where healing truly happens and you feel like you're finally healing. So many people today are living into phase one or somewhere in between phase one and two. The other thing I want to mention here is when people hear the thing mitochondria, we tend to think of that as the engine of yourself, the power plant of your cell that then runs your cell and then your organs. However, it actually does a lot more than that. Your mitochondria acts as the eye of your cell. So it's not just energy producers. They actually detect stress and launch this cell danger response. And so the job of the mitochondria
Starting point is 00:09:54 includes producing energy for ATP. We knew that one, but also helps regulate cell metabolism. It signals when cells are under stress or in danger. It supports the immune response. They help control inflammation. They play a role in cell growth and death. They aid in hormone production and detoxification. They communicate with the other cells in your body promoting good cellular communication. So think about the cell danger response like this. When your body gets in a fight or flight state, that tends to be happening when we talk about that at an organ level.
Starting point is 00:10:30 So multiple organs, it's your HPA access, your hypothalamus, so your brain, your pituitary. and then your adrenal glands. Okay, so it's called your neuroendricin, your nervous system, and your hormonal system are in a state of protection. Okay, so that's at the organ level. So danger response is that very same thing happening at the cellular level, okay? And to fully heal, we need to focus on healing that organ system, but also know what's happening at a cellular level in order to fully heal and repair that issue. You know, when I look at the biggest symptoms of cell danger response where your body is stuck in this fight or flight state, here's what they are. Ongoing fatigue is number one.
Starting point is 00:11:16 If you were fatigued all the time, your body is stuck in cell danger response. Chronic pain that won't go away, inflammation, and brain fog. Even when the original trigger is gone, the body behaves as this threat is still persistent. So this is another thing that happens. A lot of times these lingering or mysterious symptoms stay there. even though your test results are completely normal. And that's what was happening when I was meeting with this person in Florida. And they had long COVID from this injury that they had.
Starting point is 00:11:46 They shared with me. They said, Dr. Ax, the craziest part is I've been doing the sauna. I've been eating healthy. I've even been trying to reduce the stress. And I'm somewhat better after two years. But it's like my body is stuck in a cycle that I can't break out of. And they're like my blood work is totally normal. My doctor said, listen, they said, you're totally normal.
Starting point is 00:12:08 I think this is in your head at this point. It's not in your head. It's in your cell. It's in your bloodstream, right? You know, I think one of the biggest reasons why people start having this cell danger response and it doesn't get turned off is that there are just so many things they're adding to our toxic bucket. And this is called the barrel effect. Okay.
Starting point is 00:12:25 So imagine your body is a barrel. Okay. And once it overflows with water, that's when your symptoms show up. So for a lot of people, you've got childhood trauma. Okay. you've got emotional stress. You've got toxins from glyphosate, right? There's toxins in our air, our water, our soil, nutrient depletions.
Starting point is 00:12:43 There's all of these things that are adding up and adding up. And then you throw chronic infections in the mix and mold and in long COVID, all these things. And then finally it just overflows, right? And so your body is just expressing these symptoms constantly. And until we can finally drain it of the things that are causing issues, the toxins, the emotional traumas, the viral. infections, the parasites, those sort of things, you're going to stay sick. Now, here are the most common conditions, according to the medical literature that is linked
Starting point is 00:13:14 with CDR, the cell danger response. Number one are autism spectrum disorders, okay? And this is especially those with the more severe autism symptoms. The second is chronic fatigue syndrome. After that, mold toxicity, Lyme disease, post-traumatic stress disorder. autoimmunity like Hashimoto and lupus, long COVID and post-virus symptoms and syndromes, mood disturbances like anxiety and depression, chronic pain, food sensitivities, cognitive disturbances, and poor recovery from illness and injuries.
Starting point is 00:13:52 These are the biggest conditions and symptoms associated with cell danger response. When we look at chronic fatigue syndrome, for example, this is where your mitochondria remain in hypometabolism mode, right? Energy production is suppressed. Your body's just not producing enough energy. That can cause it. Autism spectrum disorders. This is where developmental cell danger response pathways fail to fully resolve.
Starting point is 00:14:16 Ongoing inflammation and neural inflammation and gut microbiome inflammation. Never fully resolves. Long COVID, this is incomplete resolution of this viral insuffection where your body is continually putting out these ATP danger signals saying, I need help. Right. And think about mold and lime, a very similar thing. Your ongoing immune activation despite the removal of the trigger where your body just gets stuck in a response. And so what we need to do is we need to go and break this response that so many people are having. Listen to this.
Starting point is 00:14:47 As many as 30 to 40 percent of adults with COVID-19 developed long COVID symptoms. Think about that. During long COVID, during COVID, spike proteins and viral RNA activate the CDR. Okay, do you hear that? It's the spike proteins in viral RNA that activate the cell danger response. And so if you're living with something like long COVID in these symptoms and you've heard a spike protein, this is due to that that's what it does. It kicks off the cell danger response. And for most, the cycle completes and they recover.
Starting point is 00:15:21 But for some, especially those with trauma, prior illness or mitochondrial vulnerability, they remain frozen. Again, it gets frozen. Your cells get frozen in protection mode, not here. healing and regeneration mode. And so what's essentially happening in the body is this. You have decreased AT production inside the cell and for your organs. You have altered amino acid and fat metabolism, so your body's not absorbing nutrients, creating nutrients, and utilizing them properly. You have mitochondria dysfunction in the brain, in the muscles, an ongoing immune activation without even maybe a present viral threat. Here's the other big thing about spike protein.
Starting point is 00:16:01 spike protein can disrupt mitochondria and the heart, the brain, and the immune cells. And this is why so many people are getting myocarditis with long COVID. Is these spike proteins and cell danger responses causing chronic inflammation, which is causing myocarditis and pericarditis and heart issues. Now, when it comes to healing and breaking the cell danger response, listen, here's the reality. It's not about forcing the body into healing itself. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:28 We just want to gently nudge the body and do the things to get to the very root of what's going on. Here's the thing. You don't want to force your body. The goal is this, to make the body feel safe enough to move forward through the CDR phases. That's it. You want your body to feel safe and protected and secure. So we need to remove the threats. Let me ask you a question.
Starting point is 00:16:55 Are you tired of being passed from doctor to doctor or being stuck with no answers? You've had your blood work done, maybe more than once, maybe even you got put on a medication. But deep down, you know, something is still not right. Your energy's low, your brain's foggy, you're gaining weight or losing sleep, and no one seems to have real answers. Well, here's the truth. Traditional blood work only tells you what's happening in your blood at the moment. But health problems don't start in the blood. They start in your cells.
Starting point is 00:17:24 What you need is a deeper look at what's happening at the very foundation of your cells. mitochondria, the cell membrane, these are the issues causing your hormone imbalances and your stress and the reasons why you can't fully heal. Not more blood work. That just changes with what you ate for breakfast. Let me show you how to expose the real reason your symptoms aren't going away. If you're ready to stop guessing and finally get answers that go beyond regular conventional bloodwork, go to beyondbloodwork.com and I'll show you what your cells have been trying to say all along and how you can finally heal at the cellular level. So let me go through this overview on the steps to heal. Okay. Number one, remove persistent threats.
Starting point is 00:18:12 You want to do root cause work. Okay. And in order to do that, you want to look at your spiritual, mental, and physical health. Let's start with the spiritual and mental. Okay. Writing down memories that still bother you today, were you ever abused? physically, sexually, verbally in any way. Did someone say something to you at some point in your life? And you still remember it. I've shared with you before I had a teacher tell me I wasn't smart. It almost kept me from becoming a doctor.
Starting point is 00:18:45 Really just, it was sort of this mental torment for years that I wasn't smart because one teacher said something to me. Okay. And you might have had that person or something much more severe than that happened in your life. And you're still living it with it. I remember reading a study a few years ago on fibromyalgia and how over 50% of people with fibromyalgia were abused in some way in their life,
Starting point is 00:19:08 oftentimes sexually, oftentimes physically, some sort of major abuse. And so you need to one look at, is there some sort of abuse or did you do something wrong to someone? And you're been living in a state of guilt and shame or maybe you're just living with regret of something that happened in your life. But you need to go to the past and say, what are those things from your past that still bother you today? and you need to work through them, whether it's with a licensed counselor, preferably somebody that is very deeply religious and spiritual and excellent at their work, so they're actually getting to the root of the problem,
Starting point is 00:19:41 and you're not just ruminating and wallowing more in the actual problem itself, getting to the root of that. So finding a good Christian counselor, pastor, or Christian psychologist, that can again help you heal the deep roots of what's going on. So that would be my first suggestion. You know, there's a lot of value in writing. there's work by James Pennebaker. We're right down, what are those things that still bother you today?
Starting point is 00:20:03 And then praying through those, what can you give to God? What can you actually go and ask forgiveness for, forgive somebody from? But really going to those things first and foremost, okay? Those are sort of those mental and some of those spiritual things. Maybe there's, you know, I want to tell you, here's another example of one. And the Bible talks about this frequently as well. It says a lot of times these things will happen and impact the third and fourth generation. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't.
Starting point is 00:20:29 break that cycle or that spiritual sort of bondage or that epigenetic thing that's been passed down to you. I have a friend whose father made a massive mistake in their life and they feel like that's on like it reflects so much on them that it's become part of their identity in a big way. Listen, you need to be able to go and resolve that with yourself. And think about all the people who had fathers who had gone and done things that are wrong and they went and redeemed the family name, right so so i think there are things there that you need to be aware of spiritually as well in terms of family ties and things that your family did in the past and going and speaking over those things and in letting those loose i did this in my life you know when i was in college i went through
Starting point is 00:21:15 this program it was called the bondage breaker and it was a book by this uh this christian psychologist called neal anderson and i went through and i thought about everything i'd ever done wrong in my life anything i wasn't proud of anything in every phase of of life that you're I could go through. It could have been my relationships with my family. It could have been with with people I dated. It could have been, you know, if I ever said anything, just mean to somebody or if I was harboring unforgiveness towards somebody else.
Starting point is 00:21:42 I wrote in every one of them, everything I could think of that I could, I know I'd done wrong in my life. And I went and I did this with another man, amazing man. I remember what I think he was in is like 60s or 70s, amazing Christian guy. And I did it with him. And we prayed together that I would be broken from and released all of those things. things or anything even my family members had done wrong that I felt reflected on me, prayed over those.
Starting point is 00:22:03 And I had such a sense of freedom afterwards. That's what you need. Your cells, your body, your spirit, your mind need to be set free from wrongdoing and from past mistakes. Or even if you feel like you've gotten past it, going and addressing it is so, so powerful. So again, you know, I think for a lot of people, we just want to dive right to the, what supplement can I take? What medication can I take?
Starting point is 00:22:27 What diet can I follow? therapy can I do some more red light therapy those things are good I'll get to those but overall one of the greatest things you can do to actually heal and get your body out of this psychological state listen the cell danger response is an organ system it's in your cell but most closely it's connected to that HPA axis and it starts in your brain that starts in your mind it starts in your spirit so you have to go and do that work along with all the other work okay and and there are some great books on that but again seeing a counselor going to a church doing a retreat, doing those things to address those past failures and mistakes or those things
Starting point is 00:23:04 that still bother you today, the abuse that was done to you, you got to address that. That's number one. Number two, we want to reintegrate the nervous system via, you know, looking at doing things to sort of build yourself spiritually. So one thing you want to do is you want to release and let go of all things from the past. But now you want to move forward and upwards and have a deeper connection with God. with your true identity and your purpose in life. Okay.
Starting point is 00:23:32 So let go of the past and then start moving forward and upward. Okay. Who are you? Go read the Bible, see what it says about you. Go and build that strong identity. We're the unique gifts God has given you that no one else has. Now you know your part of your identity. Now you know your purpose and now going and get to work.
Starting point is 00:23:50 Getting part of a really positive community. If you have toxic people in your life, getting those people out of your life and now focusing on being around a like-minded, purpose-driven people in doing good in the world. Okay. So you're letting go of the past. You're moving forward and upwards and connecting with God with other people to do good in the world. Okay.
Starting point is 00:24:07 And that's part of spiritual growth and then using your gifts for good. Okay. Those things. That's number two. Number three, you want to do mitochondria support. Okay, we want to change your diet. Getting a diet that's highly anti-inflammatory. We want to calm your nervous system first and foremost.
Starting point is 00:24:23 The best thing to do that is lots of omega-3 fatty acids and lots of magnesium. Okay. So wild caught salmon would be great. Grass-fed beef. Oregon meats would be wonderful as well. But doing a lot of those nutrient-dense wild organic meats, walnuts, again, fatty fish. And then also foods that are going to be high in,
Starting point is 00:24:44 and other healthy fats, by the way, as well. Lots of extra virgin olive oil would be wonderful as well. And then we want to do some foods rich in magnesium, steamed vegetables like steamed spinach, caul flour, carrots. We want to be doing certain types of fruit. Apples and berries would be good. Pomegranates.
Starting point is 00:25:03 And then healthy fats, avocados would also be a great food. A little bit of dark chocolate would probably be good. So doing a lot of these types of foods, high protein, high healthy fat, very nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables, along with the organ meats and organic meat, a very healing diet like that. And then along with the diet, you want to do mitochondria support. We want to do very specific supplements that support the mitochondria. When we look at the mitochondria, I would say first and foremost, most people wouldn't think of this, but I would think probiotics are very high on the list. You're going to do higher dose probiotics. I would look at doing an NAD plus supplement or a methylated B vitamin supplement with NAD plus.
Starting point is 00:25:41 Very healthy for the mitochondria. Coenzym Q10 is wonderful for the mitochondria. Vitamin D and magnesium are very, very therapeutic. Now, I also like red light therapy. infrared light infrared sauna this helps activate and heal your mitochondria as well so lots and lots of benefits there now i'm going to retouch on this in a minute but i want to go over a few other things first again we need to remove the persistent threats here's why the body won't exit phase one where your body's in this defense mode unless the perceived threat is gone or significantly reduced okay if you've
Starting point is 00:26:16 got a chronic infection like epstein bar virus or lime or candida these keep the immune system them on high alert, H. Pylori overgrowth. Okay. Now, you can get functional testing like a GI map where you're looking at your stool, we're looking at your, or your physicians looking at your stool test and being able to identify the mycotoxins or the microbial overgrowth that's damaging your body. We know mycotoxins like mold can be a major issue here, heavy metals as well, mercury lead, cadmium, but we want to see what is bothering your body. And then what we want to do is we want to go through and detoxify your body. So if you've got a parasite, we need to do a parasite protocol to rid your body of parasites.
Starting point is 00:27:01 If it's heavy metals, we need to rid your body of heavy metals. But there's a lot of values in working with a cellular medicine or a functional medicine practitioner that can help walk you through that. If you want to meet with someone about that, you can go to the Health Institute or the Longevity Institute. And you can meet with one of the, you know, one of the practitioners that I've tried. trained or you can look up Dr. Axe, you know, virtual clinic or Dr. X clinic. But I've trained people in order to help people with these very things. And listen, there's a lot of great practitioners out there. There's also a lot of bad ones.
Starting point is 00:27:33 So you want to go and find that top 10% of practitioners and see those. So make sure who you're ever seeing is very good because you want to make sure you're, you're doing the right process to getting rid of the chronic infection and the trauma there as well to what's going on your body. You know, as part of your nervous system regulation, as I mentioned, you want to be able to address the things from the past. We want to be able to start to grow spiritually, find your identity, find your purpose, and also just create a rhythm in life that's healthy. So many people are living in a fight or flight state because you just pack your schedule full every single moment of every day. I see moms do this the most. It's like, okay, you wake up and you're taking care of your kids all day, you're running to soccer practice, you're volunteering at the base, whatever you're going to church you're doing this this and this and literally every second of the day you've
Starting point is 00:28:25 got something you need to schedule several hours a week a few days a week where you're just able to take a breath read a book do a fitness class you know do lunch with a friend take a nature walk okay you've got to be able to have a little bit of that rhythm in your week men and women okay and if you say well i don't have time for that that that's the problem or again have a family member of a friend, listen, you need to ask for help as well. So many people are trying to go through life alone. We're meant to go through life in a community. So we need to reset this nerve system.
Starting point is 00:28:58 But the first thing is you need to give your body a rest. You need to get good sleep and also have downtime in your week to just be able to just be and relax and do things you love to do. Breathwork can help this. Okay. This activates your parasympathetic nerve system like your Vegas nerve, shifting the body out of fight or flight mode. Simply just five seconds. Hold two seconds. Breathe out five seconds. Do that 10 times. It's that easy. Cold exposure can actually help. Getting in a cold plunge. Now listen, if you've got a chronic infection or sick, you don't want to do too
Starting point is 00:29:31 much of this or not at all. You're better off getting in an infrared sun and doing deep breathing. But if you feel like you have a fair amount of energy, doing cold plunge along with infrared sauna, trying to do both together can help somewhat. There's also things like somatic therapy. There's techniques to reduce stored trauma from the body like TRE. or SE therapy. Again, these somatic therapies can help. Humming, prayer, and singing. In fact, humming.
Starting point is 00:29:57 Have you ever, you know, I remember Monty Python in the Holy Grail. Okay, I loved Monty Python. And they would be, I remember this is, and I had really know, the church I grew up in was very, you know, nobody was ever humming or chanting. But you look at the monks throughout history, they hum and they have certain chance that are very, that are, you know, under Christ. done to God and honoring them and doing something to help with meditation. And so there's actually something that happens when you hum. It's a very similar thing. You ever noticed in nature when you're walking in nature? Have you ever just been stressed and all of a sudden like you go to the beach or you walk in a forest and all of a sudden you're just stressed just goes down? Isn't that amazing? Like your
Starting point is 00:30:37 cortisol just goes, your stress hormones just drop. Sometimes that's just sound. There are so many studies on sound being able to do that. The sound of the ocean waves crashing. The sound of rain. of the bugs or the bird just chirping there, okay? Well, you can activate that yourself when you're actually humming or singing. So just, mm. So there are things you can do with just humming that. And if you do that like I do, and you do that in a state of just thinking about God and his love for you
Starting point is 00:31:15 and his just love just pouring over you and just thinking about how much you're loved, how much you're cherished that God gave his only son for you. If you're just living in that state of just love and humming, it actually just, you'll see it just starts to drop down and just living a state of gratefulness. Just thinking about all the wonderful things in your life. Okay. So, so, so help. So, so helpful.
Starting point is 00:31:37 So again, we want to do some of these things to regulate your nerve system. As I mentioned, we really need to focus also on healing your mitochondria. Coenzyme Q10. Now, you can get this from a heart glandular supplement or a coenzym Q10 supplement. Typically, 100 to 200 grams a day. I mentioned NAD plus. Plus, also known as NADH is a great thing to look for. You know, ribose, magnesium, you know, doing about 300 to 600 milligrams daily.
Starting point is 00:32:02 Alcarotene. By the way, all these are found in heart glanulars are very good for mitochondria or organ glanulers doing those are all helpful. Now, in addition to the mitochondria, the other area of the cell you want to heal is your cell membrane. Okay, oftentimes it becomes hardened and stiff. Ways to do that is higher omega-3 intake. You want to do like wild caught salmon or fatty fish, I mean, twice a day or at least once a day. And you could also do a quality fish oil supplement and walnuts, but really go high in omega-3s. That's going to help the cell membrane, extra virgin olive oil, as I mentioned.
Starting point is 00:32:35 And then phosphatidylcholine is a great supplement for the cell membrane as well. All of these things are very, very helpful. So there are many things that can be helpful. But overall, remember this, the cell dangerous response is this. Your body is being invaded. and your cells are trying to send you warnings and those your body's not doing things wrong. Your body's doing the right thing because if your body doesn't take care of this, it's going to cause more damage in your body somewhere.
Starting point is 00:33:02 So your cells are saying, listen, I need help. So I'm making you tired. One, because you need to maybe to help sleep more, repair more, because I'm just using all my energy elsewhere. But your cell is trying to send you a signal. I need help. And typically the threat is, a past memory or past trauma you've never dealt with, some sort of spiritual issue you've never addressed,
Starting point is 00:33:28 an issue with a chronic infection, mold, lime, parasites, heavy metal, something that's still lingering in your system. Or maybe there's a massive deficiency or toxicity somewhere related to one of those infections or something else there. But there's a threat, and you need to find out what it is and remove it. There are ways to do that. You can do some good blood work.
Starting point is 00:33:50 You can go. But you can do this without blood work often as well if you follow a lot of the advice I shared with you in this as well. But blood work and then going to a counselor or doing some sort of exercise with someone where you go and find the root of all things that are still bothering you mentally and emotionally and spiritually and addressing those things. And then do the right diet, do the right supplements and the right protocols for healing. If you can do those things, you can break the cell danger response.
Starting point is 00:34:17 you can heal at the cellular level. So if you're living with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, autoimmune disease, if you have family living with certain severe symptoms of autism, you know, a lot of these different conditions we talked about, then you need to go and actually get to the root of the issue where it will never fully heal. And that's body, mind, and spirit focus on healing and all of those areas. If you do it, you can experience a breakthrough. If you need help, then you can go to.
Starting point is 00:34:47 to the Longevity Institute or the Health Institute and find a practitioner. Just search Dr. Axe clinic online. And I'm happy to help or my practitioners are happy to help you discover the root. And listen, you still probably need more of a personalized approach and or find a really good practitioner that's that top 1% top 10% to help guide you through it. Okay. Hey, I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe show. Make sure to subscribe like and share.
Starting point is 00:35:12 By the way, every time that you subscribe, this show is able to bring on higher profile guests and I'm able to get out more content to you. So just so you know, the greatest thing you can do to support this channel is to subscribe and to share. The greatest things you can do. So thank you all of you who are on mission, who are subscribed and sharing this. We've got so many great interviews coming up and things that are really going to be more in-depth nutrition and healing advice. So I'm so excited about these coming up in the future. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'll see you on the next episode.

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