The Psychology of your 20s - 297. "Lifelong health begins in your 20s" ft. Dr Mark Hyman

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

We often take our health for granted in our 20s, but this is one of the most crucial moments for investing in your long term wellbeing. Despite that, it's often hard to know what to do and where to start, so today we have on Dr Mark Hyman to discuss the best things you can do for your health during this decade, including:  The power of sleep How to curb your nicotine addiction  When to drink, when not to drink  The truth about processed food and how much should we be eating The value of social connection  The next wave of mental health treatment  Listen now! You can find Dr Mark Hyman here: https://drhyman.com/  Function Health: https://www.functionhealth.com/  Dr Hyman's podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@drmarkhyman/videos    Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail]    *please note the views of guests are not necessarily shared by those of our host. We invite open discussion and differing viewpoints, experiences and information.    The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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New listeners, old listeners, wherever you're. are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. Today's episode has a little bit less to do with psychology and more so to do with the 20s component. Our health in our 20s is kind of a little bit of a black box. We have a general understanding of how to be healthy and how to be well, but there is kind of a mystical nature to exactly what we should be doing, what we should be eating, what we should be consuming, how much exercise we should be doing, what is the right balance to strike between having fun and taking care of ourselves. And there's a lot of lingering health

questions. How are the behaviors that I am performing now going to show up in my health in 20 years? Is that something I should even care about? Simple answer is yes. But if you have ever wanted to just sit down with a doctor and say, tell me what to do. tell me where to start, tell me where to go. Today is that perfect opportunity. I had the absolute pleasure of getting to interview and talk to a leading medical professional, a leading doctor, Dr. Mark Hyman, on all of the best health tips he would personally recommend for people in their 20s. Without further ado, Dr. Mark Hyman, it's so nice to meet you. Can you introduce yourself to the audience? Yeah, hi, everybody. It's Dr. Mark Hyman. I'm a physician. I'm a,

a practicing doctor, a sort of advocate and practitioner of functional medicine. I'm an author, written 15 New York Times bestselling books and basically focused on addressing the root causes of disease rather than just treating symptoms. I spent my whole career helping people optimize their health through food is medicine, lifestyle changes, cutting-edge science, and my goal is really to help people live longer,

healthier, more vibrant lives, and understand how their bodies work and give them the basic manual for their body, which they didn't get when they were born, and understand when you understand how it, functions and functional medicine, you can make it function better. And that's really the whole goal here. I love that. They didn't get the guidebook when they were born. Certainly didn't get it in school. I feel like people are still kind of scrambling for how to look after their bodies.

And that's why we all get pulled in different directions by different information. But some things are definitely certain about what's good for our health. Can you give us like a little list of what is like approved like exercise sunlight i mean you know it's i always joke that i get paid a lot of money to tell people do the most obvious simple things that work and i and i i don't know why we don't realize like we we spend millions and actually maybe billions of dollars on pet food that just the perfect food for our dogs or cats and we understand that we shouldn't feed them mcdonalds and a big fries and a coke but we feed them to our kids and so we knew they knew exercise we i mean to take they're dodged to the park if you have a pet. And so we have this intuitive sense of what's good,

except somehow we think because we're humans, we're exempt from the laws of biology. And we're not. You know, our bodies are biological organisms. We need to treat them with respect. And when you give them the right food, the right kind and quality of exercise, get enough rest and the relaxation of the nervous system, when you get enough sleep, because there are different things. One is sort of a nervous system reset and one's actual sleep, which is basically made. medicine in itself, and you get some basic support from nutrients, which are lacking in our diet or in our food, then that provides the foundation for most of what you need. And the other piece I would say that often isn't included in these sort of basic lifestyle concepts around health

is the power of community, the power of connection and belonging and meaning and purpose, which are more kind of squishy. You can't just go, I'm going to go do a five-mile meaning and purpose run, and just snap your fingers and have instant connection in community. I mean, you know, a large percent of the population is very lonely. And the surgeon general in the United States recently actually wrote a report on the epidemic of loneliness. It's like smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. So that is a really important component of longevity and health. And the blue zones has talked about this. So it's really, it's an important piece of the puzzle. And the problem is Most people just don't even know what the pieces of the puzzle are or how to apply them

and they hear so much confusing conflicting information. They don't know what's going on in their body. They don't know how to assess it. The doctors don't know how to do anything about optimizing health. If you go to your doctor and say, I want you to help me create health, they're going to be very confused. You know, come back when you have symptoms. You've got a disease.

I don't know. Your tests are fine. You can't find anything on your exam. So you must be crazy. Here's some Prozac and come back when there's something really wrong with you. And they're missing something. You know, there's a whole syndrome, what I call FLC syndrome. That's when you feel like crap.

And most people walk around without knowing they have these subtle imbalances or dysfunctions that we're seeing actually with my new company, I co-founded called Function Health, where we actually can see the level of deficiencies and nutrients. At one moment today, she had low vitamin D. I was talking to her like 20, which is very low. And I, you know, I was just saying, you know, it can make you tired, have brain fog, seasonal depression, can cause muscle aches, can cause even things like it. increased susceptibility cold infections.

And she's like shaking her head like, yep, yep, that's what I got. And here she was walking around as a 30-something-year-old thinking she was great and healthy, living in New York City, trying to live a healthy lifestyle. It was a health reporter, actually, but just had no clue that she had. A health reporter, that's so funny. Yeah, but they just don't know unless you test. You know, you can't guess. You have to test.

And so I think it's really important for people to understand that they need to know what's happening with their bodies. They need to know how it works. and basically, you know, at any point in life, you can hit the reset button and get yourself back to health if you know what to do. This really, listening to you say that is just, A, incredibly powerful. B, I love that you talk about community because obviously this is a podcast for people in their 20s and we talk about it a lot. But C, you can't just start focusing on your health the moment you're diagnosed with cancer or the moment you're diagnosed with some life-threatening thing. and I remember like having something similar kind of happened

where I had this huge health scare and I was like, why is it only a priority now when I could have done so many things that were preventative? Yeah, exactly. That could have stopped me from getting here. Yeah, and the truth is, you know, that the disease starts early on, even in childhood. So whether it's bone loss or cardiovascular disease or dementia or diabetes,

which now, unfortunately, is one and four teenagers, have pre-diabetes or type of diabetes. Yeah, it's pretty scary. What you used to call adult onset diabetes when I was in medical school. And they changed the name to juvenile diabetes and from juvenile diabetes and adult onset to type 1 and 2, which, you know, basically because type 2 is occurring in little children, as I was 2 years. So, you know, these things start early and there are dysfunctions that then don't become, let's say, a disease until later. Let's say you're low in vitamin D your whole life. You might have a little

low energy. You might be a little depressed. You might have a little muscle soreness. You might have you know, it's just some cognitive issues, brain fog. But it's the thing you think would be like a disease. But then at some point, you know, if you go long enough with low vitamin D like that, you end up with osteoporosis and you break a hip and that's, you know, a serious problem. Because half the people who break a hip when they're older don't make it out the rest of the year. The mortality rate's about 50%. It's worse than cancer. So this is something you could have prevent it if you knew when you were 20, but if you wait until you're 50 or 60, it's a problem. We're even seeing, you know, cancers in the young people now. We're seeing it in 30-year-olds

and even 20-year-olds are getting colon cancer and things that we never saw before because the change in our diet and the antibiotic use and the toxins in our environment and it changes our microbiome. So, you know, it's never too early to start paying attention to your health. Because when you're 20, you feel like you're invincible, you know, and you can just do whatever you want, you can eat whatever you want, you can stay up all night and party, you can drink, you can smoke, you can vape, you can take drugs. And in a certain degree, you have some resilience when you're younger, but you're basically borrowing off your future self. And at some point, your bank account's going to be empty. So, you know, like if you just have a certain amount of

money in the bank and you keep spending it, eventually you'll run out, as opposed to keep making deposits in your health bank account on a regular basis, you'll have plenty of health equity left in there. You know what? The perfect example of this I always think about is my parents and my parents are like the my mom's like 60 and the woman still has a six-pack like she is so fit my dad just set a p-b on his on his marathon time also like 60 and I look at them and I'm like how and I think I compare them to you know other people in that age and all the things that I that my parents have now that make me not have to worry about them started when they were in their 20s and they implemented such a holistic lifestyle.

And back then, that was really difficult. Like to eat organically 30, 40 years ago. Really hard to avoid alcohol. And they're from Australia. You know, everyone's drinking down here. Everyone's smoking. Like, it was really difficult. But it is such a long-term payoff.

And it's such a perfect segue into this huge question I want to ask, which is during a period where a lot of us take our, health for granted. And I used to be someone that was included in that. What do you think is one thing that people in their 20s really need to start doing early to see the most successful long-term results? Well, I think, one, I think, you know, all the behaviors around what you eat, exercise, sleep, stress management are critical. I think one of the things that people do when they're younger is they tend to cut back on sleep. They want to party. They want to. They want to party. They want to. They want to stay up all night.

They want to just not sleep because they can get more done or they're more functional or be more productive. But at the end of the day, they're borrowing off their future self. And that causes low-grade inflammation, immune dysregulation, can increase your risk of cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and memory loss. So I would say don't skimp on sleep. You'll be more productive.

You'll be happier. You'll be healthier. You'll less likely crave carbs and sugar, alcohol and have addiction issues. So really important to make sure you get plenty of good quality sleep. And you know, you don't sleep 10 hours a night, but you can sleep seven to eight as opposed to like sometimes people going as a badge of honor. I'm only sleeping four hours a night. And that's like a value proposition for them somehow. But unfortunately it's not. The other thing is, you know, understand the harm of sugar and starch. These are just two things that unfortunately are just

ubiquitous in our society, whether you're in Australia or in America or any Western developed nation, even developing nations are now more and more exposed to the American food supply. And what's happened is that, you know, that's led to an epidemic of obesity globally. There's over two billion people who are overweight. It's more than twice as many people who are hungry every night. Yeah. I mean, think about it. There's more than twice as many people who go to bed obese or overweight than who go to bed hungry every night, which is still a lot. like 800 million people, but it's like, you know, it's like what? We got the math wrong in that.

Like, we could have dispersed that a little bit. But yes, I'm sorry, continue. No, it's true. And so I think, I think just understanding that your health is like your bank account. And if you want to, for example, have plenty of money when you're older, I do this for my kids. When they were little, I put money in a retirement account for them. When they were like, you know, babies and, you know, in elementary school and junior high school and high school. and even stopping when they left home,

even then it's grown to an astounding amount of money just by the power of compounding interest and investment over time. And so, you know, you put little deposits in early and you get big dividends on the back end. And so I'm 65 and, you know, when I was young, I don't know exactly why maybe because my sister was in college and I looked up to her and she took me to the veggie room in Amherst College in Massachusetts

and they had peanut butter, crunchy peanut. butter and holy bread and honey and I'm like oh this is good I'm going to be a health nut you know so I think I basically started eating healthier I started eating more whole foods although my mother did do a lot of that because she missed the 50s in America she lived in Europe for the whole time and so she didn't really get the whole ultra-process food thing that got happening in America and we just had a garden we had a garden and fruit trees in her backyard in the suburbs when I grew up literally in the suburbs wow and and so I I kind of grew up with that, but then I started running.

I did yoga. I made sure I didn't abuse my body with excess alcohol or drugs. And so I ended up having, you know, those investments when I was young pay off now in terms of the level of my health, the lack of any chronic diseases like high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, diabetes. You know, I mean, most people my age are on like two, three, four medications and have you know, 40% have more than two chronic diseases, probably more over 65. That's the average of the population.

So I think it's like 83% of people who are on Medicare have some type of chronic disease. You know, that's a lot of people who have these issues. And I don't because I just put in these health deposits. I think it's so valuable because when you are at that age, you know, we're in our 20s now. Assuming most people listening to this, you're in your 20s. of course you're going to feel most of us a baseline level of like stamina and an ability to bounce back and all the good things. And then when you're 60, you're still like you're going to be very present at that age. Yeah.

Yeah. That you had done things earlier. And it's this weird thing I do sometimes in my head where I'm like, would I rather have fun for longer or have really intense fun times now that might not even feel that great? you know, like abusing alcohol. Like really, how, how fun is it to be blackout drunk? You know, how fun is it actually to feel disgusting the next morning? Like, it's actually not that fun. And I want to talk about alcohol consumption because obviously it's such a huge drug.

And I have to remind people of this, like alcohol is a drug. And I still drink. I love a little glass of wine. I love a martini. But what should we be wary about in terms of alcohol consumption in our 20s? Well, you know, it's one of those things that we thought was fine and maybe it prevented heart issues and was good for your heart health.

And we had a whole story about it. But that was based on population data. But when you start really looking at the science and there's been reviews of the science, and again, the Surgeon General, they'll kind of head doctor of America. But I report on the linkage between alcohol and cancer, which is increasingly clear that there is some link among many common cancers. I mean, just for women alone, if you have one glass of wine a day, which is not excessive,

just one glass of wine a day, increased your risk of getting breast cancer 40%. And I can't tell you how many young women can breast, I mean, in my practice in Massachusetts in Lenox, Massachusetts, you know, the doctor who I've been working with there for 25 years, she's my medical director, she was 30 years old and she got breast cancer, you know, so this happens and younger and younger women. And I'm not saying she was a heavy drinker. I'm just saying, you know, it happens because the environmental toxins, because the sugar nerd diet or a good microbiome because of the level of alcohols consumed.

And when you consume alcohol, for a woman, you're going to increase your estrogen. You're going to create more stimulation of your breast issue and overall estrogen issues. You might affect your periods. It might affect fertility issues. Certainly it affects fertility for men and women. If you're younger and you're drinking, you want to have kids, you know, just be aware that it can certainly affect fertility. and, you know, obviously, aside from all the normal issues of, like, you know, driving and drinking and things like that, which people take to do when they have poor judgment.

I mean, there's a reason you can't rent a car until you're 25. The insurance companies know that you're not mentally an adult until you're 25 years old, then you're going to make poor judgment and have poor decision making, which is going to reach a risk of having a car accident. So they don't want to have that. Yeah. It's so absolutely true. and I always like to tell people about this study. So I'm sure you remember back in the day when they were like one glass of wine, the antioxidants, it actually makes people healthier.

And they talked about this. Yeah, and they talked about this study of like, we compared 10,000 people who don't drink and 10,000 people who do drink. And the people who do drink, they're healthier, they're living longer. You should drink alcohol. Firstly, that study was funded by an alcohol lobbying body, so let's get that out of the way. And secondly, the other huge thing to note, the people in the non-drinking category, have a thought, just a quick ponder, why people would not be drinking at all. Either they don't like alcohol, the abstinent maybe for religious reasons, or they've previously really abused alcohol and now they have to go back to zero.

And so they didn't actually limit their sample to remove these individuals. So they were basically, I don't want to say spoiling, but yeah, let's just use, for lack of a better word, spoiling that second, that first group and pulling down the average health of the first group. So it looked like the non-drinkers were less healthy. But it was actually because some of the people in that group had been abusing alcohol for so long. And now it's such a, it's this study that is like huge, you know, you hear it even referenced in pop culture. Like there's an episode of the office where they talk about it. There's an episode of parks and recreation.

It's one of those studies, you know how every now and again a study will just like enter the psychobabble and like enter our collective dialogue? And we're being like, oh, have you heard about this? But I think when I really started looking at that study, I was like, oh, so alcohol is this like huge thing that no one's telling me about. And it's so funny because it links so much with community. Oftentimes out. It's like social, right. Social drinking. What advice would you have there?

You know, for 20-somethings, so much of our socializing revolves around booze. It's interesting to say that because, you know, I think there's a growing movement, and I don't know if it's occurring in Australia, but it's certainly the United States of a psychedelic renaissance, which is. that have very low toxicity or no toxicity. You know, like you basically can't kill yourself on them. Although, you know, a friend of mine literally just sadly told me that his wife, his ex-wife, well, soon to be his ex-wife, just drank herself to death, literally just poisoned

herself with alcohol. You can't do that with psychedelics, whether it's LSD or psilocybin or MDMA. there's a lot of renaissance in terms of both research and the application of these compounds, both in a therapeutic setting, but also in a social setting. I'm seeing more and more people who are moving away from alcohol and more towards these substances, which are in theogens, they're connecting drugs. They're not things that are, you kind of get into a depressive stupor. I mean, alcohol is a depressant.

You become stupid and you become depressed as opposed to these other categories of drugs, which are fun and you can enjoy a great time. and you can also use them for therapeutic reasons for post-traumatic stress disorder depression. I mean, psilocybin major papers published in major journals like the New England Journal or the Journal of the American Medical Association or their key journals showing that this is a better therapy

for resistant treatment problems like PTSD or depression than any drug ever discovered or studied. And by orders of magnitude, not just by like 10%, but like two or three times better. you know, when we see a big effect, go, oh, it's a 20% improvement of this or a 20% risk of that, that's fine. But like when you talk about a two or 300% increase benefit, then that's something real. So I think we have to sort of rethink how to have fun.

And alcohol is, I mean, I was lucky because when I was 18, I went out West and Canada to work on an oil rig kind of exploration company. and, you know, I was young, I was 18, and I never really drank much at all. And I had a few times in high school, but, and these guys were sort of egging me on the bar in the middle of nowhere and the Bloody Union Reservation in Alberta. And they were egging me on to just drink more and more beer and some kind of stupid game they were playing. And I just did it. And I got so ill that I was vomiting blood.

I was vomiting all night. I had the worst hangover the next day. And I literally didn't drink a single thing from 18 to in my mid-30s when I had to start having a little wine. Because I was like, I don't, that was like the most powerful deterrent. So I think, you know, I think everybody has to sort of find what that sweet spot is for them. Yeah. Occasionally if you want to have a drink and you're otherwise healthy, if you have a tequila

or glass of red wine, you know, every few weeks, I don't think it's an issue. It's the consistent, steady use over time. That's the problem. And you feel it. When I was in college, I felt it. Like, I feel healthier now than I did at 18 because I don't drink as much. I just think there are other ways, healthier ways of achieving that. Even like Neutropics, like as well, also amazing.

Even just like this is going to sound just have a diet Coke. I know we don't want all that processed junk, but a diet Coke versus binge drinking or like a Coke versus binge drinking. or like a Coke versus binge drinking, if you want to pick your evils, you know, and you still want to feel like... I wouldn't do that too often either, but yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe because you just get a soda addiction.

It is an issue. I mean, you know, I think the advent of the wearables and things like your aura ring, I think it helps people see how alcohol harms their sleep. And I think from my friends and colleagues, it's something I've heard a lot. It's like, oh, I noticed that when I got my wearable, it really affected the quality of my sleep,

my deep sleep, my REM sleep, my heart variability, my nervous system was adversely affected by this. And then, you know, when you, when you look at, do that over and over again, you end up with really damaged sleep architecture. That lack of sleep leads to, you know, things like cancer and dementia and heart disease and diabetes and just is bad for your brain. Yeah. I think it accelerates aging when you drink. It can increase risk of liver disease, gut damage, the microbiome gets affected. It's not something I encourage people to do that much of it.

Explore some of these other things. Some of them are illegal. Some of them are not. But I'm not going to recommend anybody doing anything illegal. But I think people can sort of choose what they want. And that's really important to understand that there's a renaissance happening. Yeah. And I love that.

People can choose what they want. Like it is still at the end of the day, your body, your health, your choices. Just know what you're doing. Yeah, know what you're doing. Do I have ice cream sometimes? Sure. Do I know it's like got a lot of sugar and stuff? Yeah.

Am I willing to do that? Because life with ice cream just seems so sad. Yeah. Of course. But do I have ice cream every night? No. I mean, do I have it maybe once a month or every couple of months or twice a year? Yeah.

I mean, I don't really worry about it if it's in the context of overall healthy life. Yeah. The 80-20 rule. We're going to take a short break here, but we will be back very shortly with Dr. McIman. 2%. That is the number of people who, take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness,

fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-Persent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country. girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield. And in this new season of the girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people.

I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack.

I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah.

For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing.

And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Or are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions.

mentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keer Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. So, the question everyone always asks me when it comes to the health in the 20s is about nicotine. We've talked about alcohol. Let's talk about alcohol. Let's talk about. about vaping. Now, this might be, let's just get your general thoughts on vaping because I know, at least in Australia, it was kind of promoted as this way to stop smoking. Yeah. I mean, it's not a cigarette, so it doesn't have some of the harmful things that are in the burning of tobacco. And it's marketed sort of as a healthy alternative smoking, but it's not safe at all. The chemicals and vapes cause all sorts of issues.

Lung damage, you get serious pneumitis, and people have ended up in the hospital and had severe permanent lung damage from this. It leads to systemic inflammation your body, cardiovascular risk. Plus, nicotine itself is highly addictive. It disrupts your brain chemistry. It leads to more anxiety and dependencies.

You become addicted to it, and you only feel good when you're taking it. you know like a friend said he had a nicotine spray or a nicotine pack that he put in his mouth for you know being alert for something he had to do that's fine once in a while but but vaping is not safe um and it also gives a quick dopamine spike in the brain which creates a cycle of craving and reward and um they're kind of easy they're socially acceptable they babe constantly throughout the day it actually makes you probably smoke quote smoke more which makes the addiction worse And so it's a pretty toxic habit.

And the key is really, you know, looking at how do you get over that? How do you kind of stop a vaping addiction or even use a vaping? Well, you've got to support your brain chemistry. You know, you've got to break the habit. So get rid of the triggers. If your vape is in your pocket, you're going to reach for it. Don't leave it there. You know, you can replace the habit with other habits, right?

Things like deep breathing or going for run or chewing gum. And then also you want to make sure you to support your body. brain chemistry. You can take things like tyrosine, which is an amino acid. You can, you know, you support your brain chemistry with healthy fats, amino acids from protein, B vitamins, often very helpful in repleting a lot of things that get damaged during, during use of nicotine. Sometimes behavioral therapy helps or nicotine replacements like Patch is going to help you sort of transition off. Those aren't permanent, though. You don't want to keep doing that. But, but it's definitely not safe. It's definitely not safe. And it's not, I would say it's not even not safe.

it's harmful. It's very harmful. And I've seen many people and patients with serious issues as a consequence of vaping on a regular basis. And that's the things that you don't really see as much in the media, right? It's scary, but it's not something that's like coming to the surface. I was speaking to someone the other day who was also an MD, also a doctor. And I asked him, I was like, oh, you know, what do you think is going to be the thing that we look back and go, that was such a terrible idea the same way that we look at Spokey and he was like well it's it's vaping and I have I have

friends who was so addicted to it I had one friend and she has now quit but she was telling me this compelling story compelling slash scary however you see it of how she would wake up in the morning and the first thought she would have was to find her vape and the first

breath of air she would have in the morning was a vaid and she would fall asleep and the same thing so she And she was just like, it was just every, every single day I was so addicted to it. And to the point where she even said, when she knew she needed to quit, was she would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and feeling like I, craving nicotine. Because her body literally couldn't even do the seven, eight hour withdrawal of sleep. And that's just the thing. It's so addictive.

And it, like, it tastes great. they smell delicious it's fruity it's like what's not to love and it's not like a smelly old cigarette an ashtray right it's like yeah um yeah and i've even seen this this strange trend of people going back to smoking to get rid of their vaping addictions which not sure that's a good idea i know so dr mal chyman's advice i'm going to paraphrase you is stop with the vapes. There's no, they're not a healthier, they're not a, they're not a healthy option full stop. They're not like a healthy version of smoking. They're an unhealthy version. It's just creating even different issues. You know, I think, you know, long term we don't know, but for sure in

the short term, you know, usually people have to smoke for decades to get permanent lung damage. With vaping, it can happen very quickly. And it causes this inflammatory in the lungs that puts people in the ICU on ventilators. So you don't hear that, but I hear that because I'm a doctor. But it's quite a concerning habit. And I would recommend if you're at all care about your health and well-being, there's lots of ways to have fun. There's lots of ways to get dopamine.

You know, personally, my favorite dopamine addiction is exercise. You know, it's like I love to be outside, riding my bike, playing tennis, working hard, sweating. I mean, that just makes me like feel great. And you can get high without having to do a bunch of drugs. Yeah, fantastic advice. Or breathwork even. Breathwork is breathwork.

Let me just say this. Breathwork, the first time you do it in particular will make you feel high, drunk, whatever. Like it's actually so insane. I remember the first time I did it. And now it's quite a regular part of my routine. I was at this yoga event. and they brought in this practitioner who does it. And I remember coming out of it and being like, ooh,

I actually feel so like weird. Yeah, and so alive. And I was like, wow, like this is look at my skin, look at my hands. I was like, when was the last time I intentionally breathed? It's so funny you're saying you get paid a lot of money to just tell people really simple things and what is more simple to being a human than breath. I want to take a quick pivot. first thing we do and it's the last thing we do.

Take a breath. There we go. That's going to be the quote of the day, I think. Quick pivot. Let's talk about mental health for a second. How do you think our mental health and our physical health intersect in our 20s? What's important about that relationship? It's so huge.

I think there's so many people that struggle with mental illness, whether it's depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar disorder, or OCD, I mean, the list goes on, eating disorders. And, you know, our understanding of mental health has really changed. And I just maybe take a minute to dive in here because I think it's such an important topic. But, you know, classically in psychiatry, we diagnose people based on their symptoms, not the causes. So if you're sad and hopeless and help us and have no interest in normal activities and can't sleep and don't have sex and don't want to eat or you eat too much or whatever, we go, I know what's wrong with you. You have depression. but depression is not the cause of those symptoms. It's the name we give to groups of people who share those symptoms.

And the cause of depression can be many things. It can be because your mother just died or because your boyfriend, you know, left you or because something horrible happened. We kind of taken a completely twisted view of mental health over the last, you know, 100 years. And now it needs to change to not sort of blame the person. I mean, if you have an inflammation of your joint, we see of arthritis, we don't, it's not some kind of moral stain on you. But if we say you're mentally ill, there's a stigma to it. There's

sort of a moral or sort of, you know, judgmental view of this. It's something wrong with you, right? But as opposed to, wow, this is something that, yeah, there's something wrong, but it's not in your head. It might be in your body. Yeah. And that more and more we can start to tease out these things through lab testing and through medical history. And that's really why I love it. Hormones play a big role. I mean, you can have women know this if they're going through their menstrual cycles.

If some women have premenstrual syndrome, you know, it's not you. What is it? Right? You know, you get depressed, you get anxious, you can't sleep, you're irritable. And then, you know, you have your period and everything goes back to normal.

Clearly there's a link between your biology and your psychology, right? Yeah. And what we've missed is that link. And then that's what I spent a lot of my work doing is helping to advance both treatments of the physical body, but also the brain and mental health by really addressing these underlying root causes.

So your gut health, your diet, sleep, exercise is so important. And any inflammation from any source, whether it's environmental toxin, and sometimes it's not your fault. Sometimes it's like, you know, you're living in a place where there's no sign, you don't get vitamin D. Or you're some doctor recommended,

an acid, you have locking truck because you have heartburn and then you don't have vitamin B12 or you don't like fish and you love omega-3s or maybe you love fish and eat tuna all the time and you have mercury poisoning. All those things cause depression, right? And so you kind of have to individualize treatment based on the root cause. And that's really what we do at Function Health. It's what I do. I've been doing for 30 years with my patients with functional medicine. So it's a really important moment where our whole psychiatric shift, has happened and just completely flip people upside down. I mean, you know, right now it's Stanford University as a whole department of metabolic psychiatry. Chris Palmer at Harvard has, you know,

done a lot of work on this, wrote a book called Brain Energy, very much similar to the book that I wrote Ultramine Solution years ago, but that was a little bit more in depth around all the various factors to not just metabolic or mitochondrial health. And so, you know, there's a real understanding now at these major academic centers that there's a problem with our psychiatric paradigm and then we need to challenge it. Mayo Clinic just got $3.3 million as a donation to study the effect of ketogenic diets

on mental health, including things like schizophrenia and bipolar disease and even more mild, I would say, called mild. Mild if you haven't, but like, you know, not as serious mental health issues like just depression. So the, the, the, The body has this amazing way of repairing and healing if you allow it to.

And I think, unfortunately, we get in the way with drugs. And Chris Palmer actually tells a story about how we had a patient with schizophrenia, who we think is one of the most intractable problems we see. And there's no cure for it. And nobody really quite understands it. And yet, we really have this incredible understanding that, that the brain is a metabolic organ. And when he said to this patient of who is schizophrenic,

who took drugs that make them get diabetic and obese, the patient was like, I want to lose weight, I don't like being fat. And he's like, well, just, I don't, and he wasn't going to see anybody else. He wasn't seen a nutritionist, another doctor. He wouldn't go anywhere. And he'd only see this one doctor.

It was a psychiatrist. I don't really know, but I've kind of heard that, you know, as ketogenic ice might be helpful. And he recommended him for weight law. and then, you know, it was like the guy came back and all his voices were gone his head, all his schizophrenia symptoms were gone. Yeah, it was pretty remarkable. I feel like that's going to be the new wave of psychology and mental health.

But I'm conscious we only have a few more minutes. I want to ask you two final questions. Yeah. That's a big one. You can keep it short and simple, or you can keep it short and simple, or you can elaborate. That's my favorite flavor of ice cream? Yeah.

Well, actually, yeah, we'll leave it at the end. Mine's poisonberry. Oh. What do you think is the biggest risk to our health currently as a population, but specifically for 20-somethings, specifically for a younger age demographic? Yeah. So I think, you know, we've come to sort of accept our food supply as safe. as something that has been approved by the government,

as something that we shouldn't really worry too much about. But the truth is, the biggest threat to our species, aside from the changing climate and nuclear war, is the obesity and diabetes epidemic that's a result of the amount of ultra-processed food that is in the market. Now, in America, it's 60% of Americans diet. It's 67% of kids' diet.

And essentially, think of ultra-proseless, cost of food as a bucket of food that you wouldn't make in your kitchen, right? You wouldn't make a Pop-Tart or a lunchable or you wouldn't make Doritos or, you know, like, or Cocoa Colos. Gummy bears. Yeah, I mean, maybe I don't know if you can make them. I think if you can listen, my view is like, make French fries, make them at home. You know, like if you want to eat something like that. And so we basically have a food system that is designed to create very, very cheap calories because they're subsidized, both on the front end with subsidization of the agriculture and on the back end by paying for the consequences of people eating that food

with health care dollars. But it's ultra-processed food essentially is a vehicle for massive amounts of refined sugar and refined starch. And it's also the repository of inflammatory oils, also the repository of additives and chemicals, things like emulsifiers, which we shouldn't even think about. that are almost all the processive. They basically make food a little bit like, you know, kind of creamy and that thickness that they'll put in,

even thing like almond milk. You go, that's healthy. But if you look at the label and there's emulsifiers like gums, guargum, and, you know, carotene and these things that seem like they even come from natural products, they're harmful. They cause leaky gut.

They damage your microbiome. They cause inflammation in the body. They lead to prediabetes. They spike insulin. They make you hungry. They cause depression. They cause inflammation. And so you think, oh, it doesn't matter if I'm eating junk food, whatever.

I'm just, my weight's okay. It doesn't matter. It does matter, you know? Like, you know, a lot of times it'll cause you to gain weight and create obesity, but for some people, it won't. But in and of itself, it's probably one of the biggest threats to humanity. I love that answer. Thank you so much.

And when you eat, when you're 20, she's like, I can eat anything. Like, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I would have grape nuts and ice cream for breakfast in college, you know? I don't even know what a grape nut is. It's kind of like a healthy-ish cereal. It's like, but it's kind of like a, you know, it's refined grain, essentially.

Yeah, yeah. And so I think, I think we need to sort of understand that we're setting the ground for our future selves. And you don't want your future self to regret what happened in the past. You want to set up yourself for success. And that means success at every level. Because if you feel like crap, it's hard to be successful in school. It's hard to be successful at work and pay attention. attention and focus or something called presentism, which is being at the job and not on the job.

It's hard to have a good quality relationship because you're disregulated. You can feel gross all the time. Yeah. So there's an immediate dividend. It's not like you're just doing this for your 60 or 70 year old self. You're doing it for yourself now so you can feel good now and not walk around with what I call FLC syndrome. That's when you feel like crap or a more serious version.

It's called FLS. That's when you feel like shit. So, you know. Very daily. And those are real things. And I think it's important for people to sort of try. You know, we created the 10-day detox diet, which is really great. And you can go to 10-day detox.com, just the number 10-day detox.

And it guides you through a program that is just remarkable. Just read the testimonials. So I've done this with tens of thousands of people over 20 years. And essentially takes it all the bad stuff, puts in all the good stuff. And then you see, like, how do you set your body back to its original factory settings? do you have rashes all over your body? Do you have migraine headaches? You have irritable bowel syndrome.

You can't sleep. You're depressed. Whatever the symptom is, there's been a 70% reduction of all symptoms from all diseases when people do this for 10 days. Now, sometimes people don't get all the way better because, you know, they might have serious. Like they might have Lyme disease or they might have mold or they might have mercury in their system or some more significant thing they need to treat.

But for most people, it's like, boom, hit the factory reset. And when your computer's not working, you just restart it and it works, right? Yeah. Or in the appliances and working, you unplug it and plug it back in. And so it's sort of like that. And then you can decide, oh, this is how I could feel. I could feel really great. I could cure my FLC syndrome or FLS syndrome.

And, you know, I really like ice cream. So I'm going to, I've noticed that dairy causes me to have issues. But I don't really care because if I get pimples and a sunny nose and my stomach's upset, it's worth the tradeoff for a once or twice. a month or something. So then you can be educated about how this stuff's affecting because most people have no idea the connection between what they eat and how they feel. And I think it's so important for people to make that connection. So that's why I recommend that. And I'll also recommend for people to start to learn about their bodies early on and track it over time. We've got one more question.

This is the question I ask all of my guests. What is your biggest piece of advice for people in their 20s that has nothing to do with what we talked about today? So nothing to do with physical health, just advice in general. You know, in my house today, my best friend came and we met on top of a mountain when we were 18 years old and been my best friend for almost 50 years. And we invest in our friendship. We invest in time together. We stay current. And I do this with many people because I think our social relationships and connections are so important. And I don't mean like on social media or by text. I mean, in-person, deeply connected experiences

where you put your phones away and you show up and you're present in the moment with people and get the true experience of what it is to be in connection and community because that's medicine. And I worry that the younger generation is just stuck on their phone like this

or on TikTok or Instagram or chatting with their friends and don't even know how to pick up the phone to make a phone call. I mean, you can FaceTime someone, that's okay, that's better than, you know, not, but actually in-person time that you invest in is going to pay off so much in the future. And I see so much loneliness, so much isolation. So many people have prioritized their careers and their work over their friends and their family.

And at the end of the day, you know, in your deathbed, you're like, you're not going to go, well, I'm glad I emptied out my inbox. You know, or, you know, I'm glad I did that extra whatever was at work. You're going to remember those special moments with people. And I think life is really about creating happy memories. And so invest in creating those memories with your friends and your community. Oh, I'm in a hundred percent agreement. I've got to ask, what's your favorite ice cream flavor?

For the people who've made it as far. It depends. It depends. I had one and now I got a new one. So my previous one was Chunky Monkey, Ben and Jerry's. I love Chunky Monkey because I love the banana and the walnuts and the chocolate. I love Chunky Monkey. Yes.

There's a version of ice cream in America called Van Lewins. It's kind of a premium ice cream, but they have a Sicilian pistachio, which I really like. That's so bougie. Those are my guilty pleasures. I'll have to try that next time. I'm in the U.S., but Chunky Monkey is my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor. And it's not the same as Benofi Pie. It's not the same.

No. Like the Benofi Pie flavor. Well, if you made it this far, drop a comment of an ice cream emoji below so that we know that you know the fun fact of the day. And I just want to thank you again, Dr. Mark Hyman, for coming on the show and for giving us such invaluable advice for free, which is just crazy. My pleasure. My pleasure. I'll link everything below your podcast.

And I really would recommend following Dr. Mark on Instagram. If you just want some, like, really great facts on your feed for how to take better care of yourself, it's remarkable. And health hacks, are you still doing health hacks? Or is it just as Mark Hyman? The Dr. Hyman's show, and we created the Hyman Hive, which is a community where people can actually support each other and change their behavior together and learn together. And so it's called the Hyman Hive. There's something for everyone.

I honestly, I promise you that, but I'll make sure that's all down below. And lovely listeners, make sure that you leave a five-star review. Follow along. Follow us on Instagram at That Psychology Podcast. And until next time, stay safe. Be kind. Be gentle with yourself. And we will talk very, very soon.

2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the signs of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO.% on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

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