The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 51. How to Heal After Lyme & Toxic Mold Exposure with Dr. Melissa Sonners

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Key takeaways you’ll learn in this episode: Five phases of self-synchronization to reduce stress and live a more joyful life. What impact does emotional stress have on auto-immune issues? Top tips for a healthy morning routine. Get weekly tips from Gary Brecka on how to optimize your health and lifestyle routines - go to https://www.theultimatehuman.com/ For more info on Gary, please click here: ⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/thegarybrecka Get The Supplements That Gary Recommends Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://10xhealthnetwork.com/pages/supplements?utm_source=gbrecka ECHO GO PLUS HYDROGEN WATER BOTTLE http://echowater.com BODY HEALTH - USE CODE ULTIMATE10 for 10% OFF YOUR ORDER https://bodyhealth.com/ultimate Are you struggling to manage your stress while juggling work and home life? In this episode of The Ultimate Human Podcast, Gary Brecka sits down with Dr. Melissa Sonners, the host of the Be Inspired Mama Podcast! Dr. Sonners has extensive training in prenatal, postpartum, and pediatric care. She’s sharing her journey of burnout and recovery from Lyme disease through holistic treatments and lifestyle changes. You’ll also learn her five phases of self-synchronization to reduce stress and live a more joyful life, as well as practical biohacks for morning routines and understanding your menstrual cycle! 01:00 - Who is Dr. Melissa Sonners? 02:00 - Why Gary Brecka won’t work with most products. 05:00 - What was Dr. Sonners’ breaking point with her own health? 11:00 - How did she treat Lyme Disease? 14:00 - What impact does emotional stress have on auto-immune issues? 16:45 - Self-Sync, why you should take intentional time to do nothing. 20:30 - Developing self-care habits through reading. 24:30 - 5 Phases of Self-Synchronization. 29:25 - Shadow-Sync, understanding the power of your emotions. 31:00 - Handling grief; reframing while acknowledging it. 35:00 - Cycle-Sync, how women’s cycles impact everything. 39:15 - Spirited-Sync, getting in flow by adding fun to your day. 45:50 - Slay-Sync, how to maximize everything you do. 47:15 - What steps did you take to treat Lyme Disease? 52:00 - How do Hyperbaric Chambers work? 55:30 - What causes flair-ups with Lyme Disease (and auto-immune issues)? 01:01:15 - Top tips for a healthy morning routine. 01:05:00 - Why do we lose curiosity as we get older? Connect with Dr. Melissa Sonners On Instagram: @BeInspiredMama https://www.instagram.com/beinspiredmama/ Connect with Dr. Melissa Sonners On Her Website (Book Club): https://beinspiredmama.com/ Gary Brecka: @garybrecka The Ultimate Human: @ultimatehumanpod Subscribe on YouTube: @ultimatehumanpodcast Books Mentioned: https://www.amazon.com/shop/garybrecka/list/FCJNQHDNI27C?ref_=aipsflist_aipsfgarybrecka The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My entire nervous system went into a massive state of fight or flight. It took over my body. I couldn't breathe my way out of it. It was like a systemic overhaul. I imagine it feels very similar to a panic attack. The doctor kindly told me, I'm just a tired mom of three and I should just go home and rest. I said, I'm not leaving your office

unless you will write in the chart that you refuse to test my blood. I needed to stand up for myself. I needed someone else to know that something was wrong. So we got my blood drawn. I had Lyme disease. And then we later found out that there was massive mold on our sailboat. Mold toxicity, microtoxins, and metals are becoming increasingly more prevalent. So I picture any other woman who went in there that maybe doesn't know her body

or doesn't know what labs to ask for probably would have gotten sent home. And what would have happened? hey guys welcome back to the ultimate human podcast i'm your host uh human biologist gary brekka where we go down the road of everything anti-aging biohacking longevity and everything in between as you know i've been on this little mini mission, thanks to Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Shout out to her. I was on my Instagram one day, and I was actually looking at Dr. Gabrielle Lyon's Instagram, and she had an influencer guest of hers that made a very good point and said, hey, if you follow Gary Brekka and Huberman and some of these other podcasters that are doing great things out there in the world, they seem to have a heavy, heavy focus on men and, you know, male hormone therapy and, you know, male-dominated audience and a lot of transitions between a lot of

our male clients. And instead of taking that as an assault, I was like, you know what? She's right. And my role and responsibility at The Ultimate Human is to give a voice to the best products, to give a voice to the best practitioners, and to push people up through the noise that are doing great things for humanity. And today's guest is going to absolutely do that. And ladies, listen up because this podcast is going to be largely for you. So welcome to the podcast, Dr. Melissa Sonners. Thank you so much. I'm so excited. That was such a great intro. I'm so glad you're giving more voice to feminine power on here. It's so important. Yeah. You know, I really try to listen to the audience. You know, when

I had an interesting journey at the beginning of the Ultimate Human podcast. I signed this deal with a big talent agency. And I realized once we launched the podcast that, you know, I started getting all these ad reads for like energy drinks and CBD gummies and junk vitamins. And, you know, I told my crew, I was like, look, I'm not reading any of these ads. You know, I don't care if I'm under contract or if they've paid for the platform space. You know, this is not in service to my mission. And part of my objective is to give a voice to the best products. You know, you'll find if you listen to the podcast, I'll shout out competitors all the time. I don't consider them competitors. I consider us having the same mission. And it really dawned on me that I had not just a male-dominated audience,

but I had male-dominated guests on the podcast. I had a male-dominated transitions, you know, most of the life-changing, you know, Dana White, you know, Stephen A. Smith, all of these guys. And, you know, we looked at our stats and I have a large female audience. And so we got to give the ladies some love. Yeah, for sure. And I love what you're doing. You know, you're coming from a place of integrity too, just in talking about your ads. And in the age of information, there's so much free information out there that we have to, you know, when you have, when we have these platforms where people are relying on us for great free information, we've got to come from a place of integrity and stay in our mission-based hearts. I think that's so key.

I love that you're doing that. Thank you. Yeah, you know, we had a little bit of a legal kerfuffle, and I hired a great chief of staff. It's a woman named Kimmy Fisher, and she went in and negotiated us to buy the entire platform back. And now our, our mission internally is that we will not do an ad read, um, uh, for a product or service that I either don't use every day in my daily life, or I don't have firsthand knowledge of. Um, and you've kind of seen around the place. It's like, there's a graveyard of products tucked in the back right corner. And then there's the ones that I really want to give a voice to. And you're one of those practitioners that I want to give a voice to.

And I have this philosophy, and it's a big theme that runs through The Ultimate Human, that the people that are in the greatest service to humanity are those people that solved an issue. They went through a real struggle and their purpose came from their pain. So talk a little bit about your journey. Yeah, thank you. You know, my story is really powerful because it's really a universal story for every woman out there.

And probably for a lot of the men too, you can let me know. Yeah. But my story is something that happened because I stopped taking care of myself. And as women, I know that's such a relatable thing. It's like we put everybody and everything ahead of ourselves on our to-do list and guys really do this too, you know? Yeah. In the mortality space, we called this caregiver syndrome. It was actually a real syndrome, right? I mean, we know that when one

spouse passes, especially after a really prolonged marriage,, is, is quickly to follow. But in, in smaller ways, we, we would factor in this, this, um, comorbidity that we called caregiver syndrome. So, um, so I didn't mean to cut you off, but that's okay. And, you know, I got really sick and I'm really excited to share the details of that because it's really powerful. And, you know, a lot of women might hear my story and, and like dismiss it because they didn't get as sick as I got, or maybe they didn't get as tired or worn down as I got. But I will tell you that the choices that we make on a daily basis are either leading us towards sickness or health. You know, I mean, you talk about this all the time and especially as women, natural caregivers, if we're not careful, maybe you

won't find yourself as sick as I got, but you're probably headed pretty close to that. Right. And so in my story, what I had to do was create a strategy to make self-care easy. And I know we're going to get into that, but basically, you know, I'm a mom of three. Um, my husband who's here, so husband's in the background here right now, they're 13, 11 and seven. We have two boys and a little girl. 13, 11, 7. Okay. Yeah.

You've got a good spread too. Yeah. I've got them 25, 23, and 19. Yeah. Yeah. So you'll be there soon. Yeah. I feel like we're in that golden age right now where like they still love us.

They want to be with us. Oh, they might still love me too. I'll tell you, it just gets better and better and better. Yeah. That's how I feel. I love when people say that. Yeah. My kids are my best friends.

They're my ride or die. They work with me full time. They're in school full time. You know, they really just caught the bug. And it's a it's the greatest blessing in life. I really I love that. I mean, our kids watch. They are involved in all of our business conversations. It's like we want them. They're a family, right? Yeah. I love to hear you say that because so many times as a mom, I've heard enjoy it because this is going to pass. And it's like, it feels like you're trying to hold sand in your hand, right? Like I am enjoying it. And sometimes it's hard and it's not always enjoyable.

Right. And then the mom guilt comes in. Well, you know, I actually was listening to Peter Attia on a podcast. I think it was a humor podcast that he was on. And he was talking about a statistic, really just was eye-popping to me and he said you get 19 years um as a parent with your children the first 18 are when they live with you when they're when they're with you full-time the last year is spread over the entirety of the rest of their life oh wow and I was like how sad is that and if i'm bastardizing that comment

i apologize i should have probably gone back and made sure it was accurate but it was something along those lines that the last year was literally spread out you know amongst the balance of your life you want to get them in here welcome to the set all of your kids. Anyway, so when our kids were little, a few years ago, we had a six-year-old, a four-year-old. The boys were six and four. They're pretty close in age. They're like 20 months apart. And our baby girl was a year old. And we have a sailboat, or we had a sailboat when we lived in New Jersey.

I love seeing the sailboats out here. And we spent a lot of weekends on the water as a family, kind of like getting away from work and the office and just being together. And we were on the sailboat. We spent the night on there. Oldest son had a friend sleeping over. So we had four kids, six and under with us in the middle of the water on a sailboat. And we're like getting ready. I'm tucking them all in.

And all of a sudden I basically, my, my entire nervous system went into a massive state of fight or flight, like took over my body. I couldn't like breathe my way out of it. Like a panic attack. Like a panic attack. Yeah, I would imagine it just, it was like a systemic overhaul. I imagine it feels very similar to a panic attack, which I had never had. I tried to have a glass of wine, which would normally calm, I would think,

and it did the opposite. So, of course, being like a good woman that we put on ourselves to be that way, I didn't say a word to my husband and I stayed up all night trying to figure out what the hell was going on with my body. So the next morning I was like, Jay, there's something really wrong. Like my, I could start to feel my vertebrae lock up one by one. Like I was getting really stiff, massive headache. Um, I was like, something's not right. I don't feel good. He's like, how about you go home and rest? So you take the four kids home

and rest. I love men, male power right there. I'm going to meet my dad for a fishing trip. I was like, where can I get a big enough coffee that I can make this 45 minute drive home? He had no idea. Cause I didn't, I minimized it. Right. We're so good at doing that. There's a hundred thousand women looking for your husband right now. He is the best support. He had no idea. Cause I was like, something's not right. Instead of something is massively wrong. I need you to drive me home right now. And we do that as women. Right. So fast forward, you know, we're back to the work week. Things are getting progressively worse. Our clinic, we have a

beautiful integrated wellness center in new jersey we had built it 15 years prior it's two miles from our home i spent nearly every day there i was driving to the clinic and literally had to pull over i was lost thank god i could remember the address i literally had to plug the address into my map to find my way to a place I had been every day for 15 years. Wow. So I knew I was like, something is very wrong here. I went to urgent care. Our phlebotomist wasn't in that day.

So I got my labs. Well, I went to get my labs drawn. The doctor kindly told me I'm just a tired mom of three and I should just go home and rest. Yeah. And like, there's no way you're going home to rest as a mom of three. So luckily being a practitioner, I'm a chiropractor, but at least I know the insides that I said, I'm not leaving your office unless you were right in the chart that you refused to test my blood.

Like I needed to stand up for myself. I needed someone else to know that something was wrong. So we got my blood drawn. I had Lyme disease. And then we later found out that there was massive mold on our sailboat. So that is what kicked me over. That was like that final straw for me. We see a lot of mold and mycotoxin. I heard on a previous podcast guest of mine, a practitioner out of Tampa told me that the mold capital of the world, if not of the United States, and I don't know if there's data to support this, is Miami and Malibu, California.

I'm like, well, crap, I live in Miami. But we see so many new patients a month in our clinic, but mold toxicity, mycotoxins, and metals are becoming increasingly more prevalent. Maybe it's just that we're testing more for it. And a lot of these chronic conditions, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, these sort of catch-all diagnoses, irritable bowel syndrome, these sort of spherical diagnoses that catch everything are probably a lot more mold and mycotoxin and metal related. And so you find out that you have Lyme. Yeah.

That was actually pretty, I'm kind of surprised that an urgent care would give you a Lyme titer test. Or did you ask for that? I asked for that. Okay. I was going to say, because normally they wouldn't have any idea. That's where I said it was, you know, thank God that I knew. Because I picture any other woman who went in there that maybe doesn't know her body

or doesn't know what labs to ask for probably would have gotten sent home. And what would have happened? You know, you just continue to work yourself into the ground. Yeah. But at least you have an enemy now, right now. Yeah. And what I realized in the process, you know, I got really sick and I watched what happened to our family when I went down. So I had, I was the one taking care of our staff, right? I was managing our team, hiring our team. I was obviously my husband plays a major role in our family, but I was also breastfeeding and co-sleeping. So like, there was a lot of things that I had to do that I was struggling to get done. I had a fully load of patients. So I watched my husband's

stress increase as he watched me start to dwindle. Right. Right. And so in that process, while we figured out how to get myself better, which thank God, once we knew it was Lyme and once we knew it was mold, we pivoted into all the tools that we have in the office, the hyperbaric, the sauna, the red light. And I want to talk about that because there are a lot of people listening right now that may have it, don't know they have it, but are going to identify with your story or have it and don't really know what to do because conventional medicine doesn't offer a lot for mold mycotoxins. Yeah, we can definitely talk about that. And I also found, you know,

what was really important to me, Gary, is that, you know, as a chiropractor, we're trained to look at the body, you know, as this incredible healing machine. And so it's basically stress that pushes us into disease or dysfunction. So whether it's physical, chemical or emotional stress, I we see stress as like a bucket, our ability to manage stress as a bucket. So our stress accumulates. And when that bucket gets full and overflows, there's your symptoms, right? Right. You know, you know this, you talk about these things all the time. So I had been pregnant, breastfeeding, and co-sleeping for seven years. So I was doing everything right in the physical world. I was doing my CrossFit workouts. I was fasting. I was living a low-carb lifestyle. But my emotional stress had gotten so high that that mold, you know,

you ask the question, like, are we seeing it more? Are we testing for it more? Has it always been in the environment? And maybe now we just can't handle it because our emotional stress is so high. I think that's a big piece of the puzzle. And as a woman, when we think about what can we do to address our emotional stress, that I think in the past has gotten really overwhelming to women because we think about self-care, a massage, these things that we have to like duck out and escape from our lives in order to incorporate. So I knew I needed to create a system not only to help me, but to help women that we could do self-care while we're driving our kids to school. We could do self-care as we're getting ready to hop in that room with that patient or on that Zoom meeting. And I think

there's sometimes for a lot of women, there's a lot of guilt around self-care. They think self-care is selfish, right? They think that putting themselves first is putting their kids or their husband or their career second. And I actually think the opposite, right? I mean, it's like the analogy of put your oxygen mask on before you even assist your own child, right? I mean, because if you pass out, you're

going to be no good to your, to your child. I mean, that's an extreme example of it, but, um, I have a tendency to agree with you that, um, you know, mental fitness, um, you know, emotional stress, um, and self-care kind of these things that nobody wants to talk about. Yeah. There's definitely a reframe that we need to have as women and it's not selfish and it's not about being selfless. Like it's almost like we're taught as women and caregivers, Oh, you're such a selfless person. Mother Teresa is such a selfless person. Like that's such a good thing. Mother Teresa flew first class. Like you have got to be able to take care of yourself. I love that because I'm a trauma diva. In order to be able to take care of others. So, you know, the big thing that I came

up with for women, and I would love to spend some time on this, is that we have got to be willing to spend time with ourself. We have got to be willing to sit with ourself because that's where true self-care starts. And this kind of self-care that we're going to talk about is free. It's easy and you can access it at any time. Wow. But the, the tough thing when I talk to women about sitting with themselves is there's a few challenges that come up right out, right out the gate. Yeah. Is it okay if we go into these? Yeah, yeah. Let's go. Dude, my ladies are tuning in right now. Yeah, yeah. And men listening to this, share this with your girlfriend or your girlfriends or your wife, because she needs this message so badly.

So, you know, when we like women do not have access to sitting throughout the day much of the time and neither do men. Right. Like this is not just a message for women. Right. And you think about one. How can we carve out that time? We're running around doing all the things in our jobs,

with our family, all the things you guys are doing them as well. If we can actually find that five minutes in the morning or at the end of the day to finally sit down. If you tell someone to not do anything in that space, think about before you had your incredible breathwork practice or a meditation practice and someone told you to sit and do nothing. Oh, it's the worst. I used to go to these guided meditation classes and it would drive me crazy. Why? Because I would lay down on the table in a dark room, the candle's going, music's playing, and the practitioner's like, there's a hallway. And at the end of the hallway, there's a light.

And I'm like, well, can we get to the end of the hallway? Because clearly something's going on. There's something there. Yeah, there's something going on down there and there's not a damn thing going on where we are so they're like let me get to the spot that's the point gary just go with it i'm like i can't do this i want to get to the hallway where the light is yeah but i know what you mean so you sit in this this space for five minutes so if you tell someone to sit for five minutes if i'm like women we know we need more nurture we know i mean all day you're just like i just want to sit i just want to get to

friday and like sit on my couch and relax and catch my breath. But you go to sit and what do we do? These thoughts come up like, oh my God, what am I doing here? What's my to-do list? Why am I sitting here? What is this supposed to feel like?

Get on my phone. So maybe if we go deep enough, we start to feel some feelings. Maybe like, oh God, today was horrible. Or, oh my God, I didn't run that meeting the way I should have. Or it's like the horrible or oh my god i didn't i didn't run that meeting the way i should have or it's like the shoulds coulds didn't wouldn't so what do we do we distract ourselves out of it what do we grab to distract ourselves out of that feeling of sitting if you're sitting and you're doing something and it's not being internal what is it

it's grabbing your phone right so we grab our phone and it distracts us out of that moment but it also pulls us into more of like the shoulds, the not good enoughs, right? We're either scrolling social media, we're scrolling our emails, maybe we're meal planning, we're doing all the things. So in my mind, what I like to encourage women to do is to have a gateway tool to help us sit. And it's a book. So what if instead of picking up your phone, which is a negative habit, instead of just not picking it up, you replace that negative habit with a positive habit.

So you're not just not picking up your phone, but you're picking up a book instead. And what if you're picking up a book like Michael Singer, Untethered Soul? I don't know if you've read that book, but it's incredible. In that book, he talks about becoming the observer in our life, right? This is really powerful stuff because as women, we have gotten to a place of fearing these like dark shadowy emotions, right? If I feel angry, that's bad. If I feel sad, I got to get myself out of it.

Right. And so what we can do in becoming the observer is create distance from these thoughts. It's not about not feeling them, but it's almost like if you have a girlfriend that's going through something like very emotional, you can meet that girlfriend and give her advice because you're on the outside and you're not like feeling it as much. Right. You can rationally work through that problem. When it's ourself and we're like lost in the emotion or trying to distract ourself out of it, it's like we lose the insight that's in that feeling. So when we can become this observer,

we can start to ask ourselves questions about these emotions. What is it about this situation that's making me feel so angry? Guys, if you've been watching the Ultimate Human Podcast for any length of time, you know that one thing I do not do is push products. I do not just let any advertiser into this space because I believe that the products that appear on the Ultimate Human Podcast should be things that I use every day in my life to improve my own physiology. One of them is something called the Echo Go Plus.

The Echo Go plus is a hydrogen water generator that you can take on the go you essentially take the top off of this bottle you pour bottled water in this and repeatedly it will make high part per million hydrogen water you press this little button you'll see these bubbles going up in the water that's hydrogen being created in the water there are all kinds of peer-reviewed published clinical studies on the benefits of hydrogen water including reduced inflammation better absorption of your supplements better absorption of your foods better balance of the stomach acid and it feeds an entire class of bacteria in your gut hydrogen water in my opinion is the most beneficial water that you can drink, and now you can take it wherever you go. You can go to echo, E-C-H-O, H2O.com. That's echo,

E-C-H-O, H2O.com. Enter the code ULTIMATE10 for a discount. Echo H2O, enter the code ULTIMATE10 for a discount. Why am I sad about what just happened? Why am I feeling jealous or guilt? And from there, we can get these really powerful insights into what we want or don't want in our lives rather than just continuing to do what we do and like stuffing these feelings in the closet. Right.

These are powerful emotions. I want to talk about some of that when we talk about it. And so you're saying they should start with five minutes at a time, just say either in the morning or when they get the kids home. It's just find a place for five minutes. Could you make some book recommendations? Maybe I'll even throw them in the show notes. Yeah. The first one being one of them.

And just start with this five minutes of self-care. That's your first? There's two things I would say. So one is having a book with you wherever you go. And I actually started cause I wanted to help women do this. I created a free online community. We have a women's book club where each month I recommend a book that helps empower us. And then in our meetings, we apply the concepts in that book to our lives as women.

So I know we'll link that below. They can join my book club. They can even just look at my recommended book list, but yes, have a book. I even brought my book in my bag here because you never know when you'll have that five minutes. Like if I get to school pickup five minutes early, I can either grab my phone or I can grab a book. Right. So it's making that choice. It's like when people are making lifestyle and diet changes, health coaches will say the battle isn't won or lost at the mealtime. It's won or lost at the grocery store. Right. Right. So true. So for women in creating this five minutes, everyone can carve out five minutes a day to nurture.

The battle is won or lost when you put down your phone and you pick up a book. And I think that, you know, I like this habit because it's, you know, it's a five minute commitment. And I think what ends up happening is you start to derive so much insight and joy from that, that it becomes a 15 minute habit, becomes a 30 minute habit. And the phone fades and self-care starts to take the stage. Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, we're dopamine addicted. And so we easily get dopamine hits from our phone, but it doesn't feel good after. Right. Right. So when we can just put that down, grab the book, win the battle right there, you're going to get so many feel good chemicals. And then to your point, you're going to anchor

into that feeling next time you get to make a decision and so you know instead of um wasting time or diverting attention to a fiction novel which is just sort of just filling the space um you're saying fill the space with something that's going to give you bring you some meaning that's going to help you tune in yep so like untethered soul by michael singer is a book that we read in our book club. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza. He's got some incredible books. Right now we're reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. That's a great title.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. But I'm a big fan of Joe Dispenza. Yeah. And what was the last one that you said? We're doing Atomic Habits right now by James Clear. So, you know, talking about a five minute habit switch.

So another thing I'm doing is I'm taking women through a 31 day challenge. Give me 20 minutes with you in the morning, or if you want to start with 10 and each day they're getting an email that here's why we do this, right? Here's what it's going to do to your nervous system. And this is how it's going to translate into your life today. There's an inspirational quote, and then there's a journal prompt. Okay. So I have them wake up, set a timer, five minutes, 10 minutes, you choose, and just sit. And just sit and let the stuff come. And it's going to be uncomfortable, but we're doing it together, and it's okay. And then you word dump. You write.

You write all the things. And this may be beautiful poetry, or it's most likely going to be like word vomit. It doesn't have to be anything for anyone but you, because in this is where we start to get some clarity. So sit for five minutes, be with your own thoughts, write down what's coming to you. Maybe it's, like you said, it's poetry. Maybe it's just this word vomit. But your suggestion is that, you know, people start with five, women start with five minutes, pick up this book. And now let's say that they begin to incorporate this habit. And at some point, I do want to get back to how you addressed your lime and mold.

They incorporate this habit. What's the next phase of this journey? Yeah. So I would love to talk about, there's five phases to the self-synchronization process that I teach. And to me, this is a really important part of the puzzle. So we're going to talk about like the biohacks that I use to get myself better, which is really, really important because I wouldn't have even had the mental capacity to step into these tools. Right. It's like I needed to get in my chamber. I needed to

decrease inflammation in my brain. I needed to run some labs. I needed to take some supplements. I couldn't even think straight. Wow. Then I could pivot into these self-care tools. Right. But I know for me and a lot of women that had I been incorporating these from day one, I probably wouldn't have gotten as sick as I got. Right. So this isn't like an either or conversation. This is a both and. I think, you know, I love the point that you're making there. And I really want to highlight it for the, for, you know, the listeners, because you're right about the bucket filling up. And we, we understand things like sleep and, and, you know, poor diet and things like this, but we don't really

realize the impact of these micro stresses that eventually fill this bucket up. And essentially what they're doing is when you're in a stress state, when you spend a lot of time in a sympathetic state is it has a negative effect on the immune system. And so when you run the immune system down, you know, other pathogens that it may have been able to ward off, it's now allowing to slip through and to grow, which to your point is very likely what happened in your situation. You know, you're physically stressing your body at, you know, CrossFit, you're emotionally stressing your body because you've got all of these patients that are relying on you for their journey. Then you're, you know, spiritually stressing your body because you have a commitment to your husband. You have a commitment to your kids.

You have all these people that are in the front seat that you're really trying to help propel. And it's no one thing. And I think sometimes when people take a step back and they look at their life, they're like, well, I actually have a good relationship with my spouse. I really love my kids and I exercise and I eat well, but not really looking at, well, what are you doing for yourself? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you think about it. I think everybody is really busy. Everybody has a lot going on.

And when you add kids to that puzzle as beautiful like i am i'm a person that was born wanting to be a mom like i am so in love obviously and obsessed with my children and even just a morning like this morning like you can very easily get pulled into a state of fight or flight like it is very tricky to get into a flow state so we're getting them ready for school we're getting ready to come here for the podcast yeah It's like, I've heard you talk about on one of your podcasts, you know, ADD is like having multiple tabs open. So as a mother or as a busy woman juggling a lot of things, whether you have children or not, you have to have multiple tabs open. I'm going from the kitchen to my bedroom to grab something that I need for

getting out the door. And there's five things that happen on the way, right? So your immune system is constantly bombarded because you're constantly in the state of fight or flight to your point. And so if we're not taking those daily dips, then that can accumulate. And I think something that's really important to mention here is that, you know, we can't live in a bubble, right? So whether it's mold or toxins in the environment or air fresheners and fragna, fragna, pregnancies, fragrances, I can't even say the word because we avoid them at all costs. Febreze, fragrances, The pine soul things that hang in the Ubers. Yeah, the worst. But we also, there's a place for like being able to handle it.

And I think that's where the magic comes from. And that's what I want to help women do because we can't control our external worlds. We can only control the internal. So I want to get back to these five steps. So five minutes with a book, journaling. And let's move through these other five steps. So five minutes with a book, journaling, and let's move through these other five phases. Because you coined a term in your bio, I forget what it was. It wasn't biohacking, self-hacking. Self-synchronization. Self-synchronization. So self-hacking, self-synchronization. I like the sound of that word. So it starts with the baby steps of five

minutes to yourself and choosing a book that's going to empower you, not just distract you and some journaling. And then how where do they progress from there? So that would be what I call the self sink step. So first we sit with the self. Right. So the book is the tool for that. Then it's the shadow sink. So the shadow is the word that I like to use for what we as women might call negative emotions or bad feelings. And we have become like dangerously good at avoiding these feelings.

Anger, shame, guilt, sadness, jealousy. And there is so much magic in these feelings. So the second step, the shadow sink, is all about simply realizing the power of these and giving yourself permission to sit in them longer. What if instead of feeling angry and distracting ourself out of it, like I used to do this all the time. I'd be mad and I'm like, oh, my God, why am I mad? I got to go for a run, like flip this. So I'm good for my day, rather than realizing that in my anger lies my greatest power. I could go like crush leg day at anatomy. Those are my best workouts. Yeah. I got one across the street.

Yeah. My workout buddies here. So anger is power. What if sadness we saw as our creativity? Think about your favorite pieces of art that you've ever seen or some of the songs that we all love, especially love songs. Those come from sadness. So the artist writing those had to feel that feeling. Like that is beautiful art. What if jealousy? This is a big one for us ladies. What if jealousy wasn't something that we shoved

in and tucked away because it's such an ugly feeling, especially if we feel it about our girlfriends. Right. What if we saw jealousy as a roadmap for what we want in our lives? And what if we sat with it long enough to figure out what is it that she wants that I can have? Yeah. Like jealousy is simply desire without action. Wow. It's I want that. And I haven't yet been willing to take the steps to get it. So kind of reframing it. Yeah. Like jealousy is simply desire without action. Wow. It's I want that and I haven't yet been willing to take the steps to get it. So kind of reframing it. Yeah, reframing it. I saw a Sadhguru the other day, a talk that he did. And this mother, it was a very painful moment in her life, had lost her daughter.

And she was just so overcome with sadness. And it had been years since her daughter passed away. And she said she woke with it every day. She went to bed with it every day. It was like a lead backpack that she wore and she just couldn't get this heaviness and sadness. And what he did, it was really interesting. He reframed it by talking to her that if you want to honor her legacy, you don't want her legacy to remind you of sadness. You want her to remind you of joy. What is the best thing you could do for her after her passing is you could celebrate the life and time that you had with her. And, and he just talked about reframing that emotional state to say, you know, you can, you can sort of loud over the loss, or you can rejoice over the time that you had. And then every time something good happens in your life, you can think about your daughter and how she would have reacted in that moment or, or that she's actually there with you. And you saw this like reframing of that emotional state. So is that what you're

talking about is like tapping into those emotions and kind of reframing it? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's such a beautiful story and reframing is so powerful and you know, that's a really good story to share because reframing doesn't necessarily mean it's going to feel good. Like I went through some major sadness and grief last week and it was ugly. Right. But the difference in what happens now since I've reframed it is I feel it. I used to never let myself feel it. And I learned a lot from it. I learned a lot about like, why is this coming up for me? What is this really about? Right. And then it's about doing the work, right? Because triggers on the outside that make us

angry or make us sad or make us jealous. That's all about stuff that we've carried in here, right? It's very rarely about the actual moment. So when they're, when they're engaging in this practice, you know, starting with a book that journaling, and now they're looking at this shadowing, as you call it, when they're experiencing that emotional state, what are you suggesting they do with that state, with that emotion? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot there. I have people that I rely on for sure. That's when I tap into a life coach. I call my girlfriends. Thank God I have some incredible girlfriends. I also tap into something I call the connection code. This is on my site. We can link it as well,

but there's five different things that I'll do. I'll either focus on doing something to get into my body and out of my head, right? So what are things that I can do or women can do to get into their body? We can put on music, we can dance, we can move. We can do yoga. That's one of them. I'll get into my heart. So what gets us into our heart? Sometimes great breath work. Like this morning you were doing your breath work. That'll get you in your heart. I'll get out into the world, right? Get me out of my home. Get me off my computer. Get me off digital. Get me outside in the environment. Gosh, that's so powerful. Just that it's the most overlooked thing I think in all nature, psychiatric care, Just getting outside of nature.

Yeah. I read this quote the other day. It was like, when we feel disconnected from nature, it's really we're disconnected from ourself because we are nature. I love that. So true. The other one is maybe learn a new skill. There's so much power in vitamin of information.

And for me, that's skateboarding lately. I'm not good at skateboarding, but I love playing on a skateboard. Oh, my God. This sounds dangerous. That will get me out of my head. good at skateboarding, but I love playing on a skateboard. Oh my God, this sounds dangerous. That will get me out of my head. Like I have got to focus when I'm playing on a skateboard. And the last one is connection with the divine. So I'll basically be like, what is it that I need right now?

And I'll tap into one of those or phone a friend. Okay. Yeah. And so now moving through these other five phases, we're in phase three. Phase three. This is a really, really important one. The other two are pretty quick, but phase three is a cycle sync so i've heard you talk a lot on your podcast about getting back to basics right so for women it's living in accordance with our cycle

so our body has this incredible magical my wife has an app so she warns me when it's coming yeah well so here's the thing can we sync that to my phone so i'm so i know so i know when we're pushing the red zone this is really good information for you because you're going to be able to help support her so the men that are listening to this take your notes write this down this is huge so you know as women we're designed it's not an accident right what happens with our hormones there's a design for it. We've just gotten disconnected from it. So leading up to our cycle, we have a drop of progesterone, estrogen, our neurotransmitters drop, all of our feel-good chemicals, our dopamine, our serotonin. So basically all of our protective armor is down. So first of all, when you're with your wife,

just think of that, right? Like she is emotionally naked and vulnerable leading up to her period. So what I always like to, you know, as a chiropractor, my lens is always like, why were we designed this way? So why would women be, be designed this way? Well, if you look back at indigenous cultures, what would happen during those times? Well, women, one, we were all synced up to the lunar cycle because we didn't have all the lights that you talk about all the time we didn't have blue light and white light and we were all in sync and these women were removed from society they weren't outcasted right they were invited to stop their duties stop their responsibilities because the communities knew the power of these women gathering together and taking time to go inward.

This was the most intuitive time for women to gather and create solutions for problems and challenges within the culture. So the most intuitive time for them is during this emotional vulnerable state prior to their menstrual cycle starting. How far out from the menstrual cycle? Prior to and starting. I think there's other experts, Dr. Mindy Peltz. I don't know if you've had her on here. She nails this stuff. Oh, so good. So that would be a great question for her, but I would say about five to eight days leading up. Okay. So how do we apply this to real world?

Because you're not going to send your wife in the red tent with her friends. And we probably have podcasts to be on and patients to see. And right. But how can we take that information and live in accordance with that? Well, if we're talking about biohacks, like this is not the time to push the ice bath. This is not the time to push the sauna. Use it. Right. But this isn't like the. I know we had a conversation before the podcast anyway it's not more is better anyway but especially during and leading up to your period okay this is a time to nurture this is a time for slow tune in for me this is when i absolutely get in my hyperbaric chamber

is when i'm spending a lot of time on the pmf mat this is when uh if I'm going to binge LIB, love is blind. Yeah, love is blind. For all those. All those ladies out there, I know you binge watch. It's total trash and it's so good. It's total trash. It is a train wreck of a show. Well, we just got off the spiritual bandwagon and went right down that rabbit hole.

Well, let's be real. Let's be real. This is when I'm going to watch. If I'm going to watch something on Netflix, this is that time. If I can carve out time for a massage, it's the week before my period. Really? If I'm going to get my hair done, it's the week before my period. This is when like, can someone take care of you? Can we carve out the space? And the last thing on that is, you know, even just a reframe, this is not a time for outward energy. This is a time for inward. So if you've got a big

day, a big job, like my hairdresser, once she was like, I'm sorry, I'm not feeling super chatty. I'm leading up to my period. All she had. I mean, I was like, of course, please. I was not expecting that of you. Right. We can reframe like I don't need to talk a lot. Today can be a day where I listen. Right. Today can be a day where I'm present. Just setting your intention and giving yourself permission to tune into that. The last two real quick. Spirited sync. This one's really, really fun. Spirited sync. So this is getting back to your spirit. This is getting back to what did you like to do as a child? The key to all these is when we have this information, again, these aren't like appointments that we have to take this is like a reframe and things that we can tap into almost at any time throughout our day so what did you like to do as a kid i like to get on my bike i like to spend time outside yeah um my girlfriend loved to

tap dance so how can we incorporate that into our daily lives she went on amazon got her got herself a pair of top shoes and And in between her Zoom meetings, she taps for two minutes. That's so awesome. My wife's been really intentional about getting back into dance lately. She actually texted me this morning about how dancing, there was a study that came out on the impact of exercise being actually better than SSRIs. If I can find the study, I'll actually put it in the show notes. And that the serotonin, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors did not have as much of a positive outcome as exercise. And specifically that dance had the greatest effect on these dopamine levels and and actually shifting a

state of depression more so than um you know more so than these these ssris and i and so she literally just texted me that this morning so she's definitely going back and start dancing she's gonna dance she's not depressed but i mean she's just gonna dance her way into a state of really healthy well it gets you out of your head and into your heart and into your body. Right. So I did something similar. I would call these macro self-cares, right? Macro self-care would be going to the dance class.

Right. Micro self-care, if you have like a quick two minutes, it's putting on music at your house and like shimmying your hips in between phone calls. Right. So I was a gymnast growing up and I loved gymnastics. And when I was 11 years old, I made team and I was really shy. And so I quit. I quit before competition.

And when I started asking myself, what did I like to do as a kid? That was like the deep, deep one that I was like, God, I love gymnastics, but I could never get back. I had a screw it moment. And last year I was like, why can't I get back? So I called, I called our kids gymnasium. Your wife's a daredevil over here, like skateboarding, gymnastics. It's all about getting in flow. Yeah. Um, so I called our kids gymnastics studio and I asked if they would coach me and they said, come tomorrow. So at the age of 41, I started taking classes. And a few months after classes,

our kids had a gymnastics competition. And the coach asked me if he wanted me if I would compete. No way. I competed. Did your kids give you the stink eye? In my children's gymnastics competition. You know what? They were a little embarrassed. But what I I watched these girls watch me. I watched these girls watch me at the age of 41 compete in a gymnastics competition and all i could think of is i pray that when they're older they see this and they remember ah you know and like i've seen them out in the community and they're like you're that girl you're that girl that competed in our competition yeah so the spirit sync is all about getting in flow is really what it is and we do that by participating in play.

So there's not a lot of time in our day where we're completely present in the moment. So for women, it might be dance. It might be gymnastics. It might be movement for guys, more of our adrenaline seeking guys. Like for my husband, he almost has to be like facing death to be present. These hundred foot wave surfers, the reason that they love it is it puts them in the present moment. It puts them in flow. You think about during your day, all the thoughts that you have. There's very few times where we're focused on one thing. So the gift of tuning into your spirit and spirit sinking is being present. That's where you get dopamine. So being present, finding something that,

you know, get back to your why and find something that really feeds you. So let's walk through the first four again before we get to number five. Walk us through that again. So self-sync, that was sitting with the book as a tool. Book, start five minutes, journaling. Yeah, I've got that book club for anyone that wants a resource. I've got a 31-day challenge. I'll sit with you in the mornings. The next one is shadow sync. So understanding the power of our emotions sitting with them phoning a friend maybe drawing journaling getting some of that energy out um the third one is cycle sync living in in accordance with our cycle as women and the um just to summarize that this is like going into your menstrual cycle the time where you're not pushing yourself too intensely physically, you're not doing the extreme ice baths and saunas and

some of the other things you're sort of focusing on your- Nurture. Nurturing yourself. Yeah. And there's pieces of that for every part of the cycle. I have that on my platform. I just figured we'll touch on it here. And I like the idea of, like I said, my wife keeps hers on her phone. She has an app. But I like the idea of getting your spouse involved, getting the men involved.

Because, you know, sometimes we're looking from the outside and we don't identify with the fact that you can be three different women in the same month. Yeah. Right? And that could be a beautiful thing. It could be an amazing thing. It's a beautiful thing. And I think in our society, we've, especially as women, we've started to judge that. Yeah.

So when our men know that how we feel and what we need leading up to our cycle, and that's why I think just communication, like I'm very straight up with Jay. I will tell him, this is how I feel and this is what I need from you. That's great. And I think men appreciate that kind of communication. We do. I mean, we also would like to know when the libido spikes. Like if we could be specific about that.

That would be during ovulation. Okay, good. If we could make sure that we highlight that. It's usually, if you look at your wife, so just real quick, cycle syncing around ovulation, that's when we feel like peacock. Like when I'm in a social gathering, I could be like ovulating, not ovulating, that's when we feel like peacock. Like when I'm in a social gathering, I could be like ovulating, not ovulating, ovulating.

Because the girl that's ovulating is gonna be walking in, talking all, think about again, why would we be designed that way? Because that's when we're fertile. We're meant to reproduce, right? From a biological standpoint. So when you're- I love that getting back in tune with that cycle

and being, you know, as a harmonious couple sort of in sync with that together. Like, can you make me coffee and bring it to me in bed? Like, can I just have a bit more time in the morning to nurture? Can you get the kids breakfast? Like, that I think is such a beautiful way to be with our partners. Sure. Amazing. And it takes tuning in and listening and knowing how you feel and what you need and then owning it enough to outwardly our partners. Sure. Yeah. And it takes tuning in and listening and knowing how you feel

and what you need and then owning it enough to outwardly express it. And then number four, number four was spirit sync. And then number five is simply slay sync. So we do all the syncs so we can slay our life. And this basically gets us to a place of living the life of our dreams rather than living the life that we feel like we're supposed to. There's so many shoulds, especially as women that we put on ourselves. Yeah. I should, I should, I feel bad. I like these words that we say all the time. Yeah. So it's so amazing. I, you know, I, I, we spend so much time down the deep rabbit hole of science and less down the deep rabbit hole of experience. And so I like that this is an experiential way to maybe take some of the toxic load off of us because, you know, toxins aren't just environmental pollutants.

I mean, toxins are our feelings. They're emotional states. They're burdens. They're stresses. And, you know, we can filter our environment for, we can filter our water, we can eat organic food, but if we're not actually taking care of the emotional, spiritual and the side of us that actually has, that's, you know, in touch with ourself and feeling like it's okay to do that, we're leaving like a third of the bucket unaddressed. A hundred percent. And so I love this journey.

I want to circle back around to your journey with Lyme. And after you discovered it, you know, I know you glossed over the fact that you have these modalities at your clinic and you started hyperbarics, but what kind of specifically did you do? Because I, you know, now that I know I live in the mold capital of the world. Welcome. First of all, you'll find air filters in every single room in the house. Like I'm a psycho.

I'm ozone-ing the place, you know. But, you know, I think that there is a lot more chronic low-grade viral mold and mycotoxin and heavy metal toxicity that is going completely undiagnosed and missed. And, you know, and it doesn't show up in standard labs. Yeah. And it doesn't show up on the gene test that I do. And, you know, very often, you know, our clinical team will take someone who looks good on paper, their labs, is perfectly supplementing for their genetic deficiencies. And but anecdotally, they just do not feel good. They're heavy levels of brain fog, like you're saying, fatigue, loss of libido.

They seem to can't get out of the rut. And so it could very well be, you know, what you were facing. So what kind of steps did you take once you identified this enemy? Yeah. I mean, I was really fortunate, right? So I'm a chiropractor and I was literally working in a building that has all the tools that I required. So I'm very, very fortunate. And I know a lot of people don't have access to that as easy as I do. They can find access to it. They can find access. That's true, especially now.

I mean, when we were first getting into this 15 years ago and you were well before us, people didn't know about this stuff and you couldn't find it. Now it's everywhere. But I also fortunately lived with a functional medicine practitioner. So what did I do? I delved pretty deep into fasting. I was definitely taking a lot of supplements to help clean out some of the bugs and help support my immune system.

When you say delve deep into fasting, what kind of fasting were you doing? So I was doing once a week for me, this is what worked for me, I was doing once a week a 24 hour. And I would do that even leading up to getting sick, I was doing that about once a week, like my busiest week in the clinic because I actually feel best when I fast.

Other days I was doing intermittent. And then I changed my fast around my cycle. So leading up to a cycle, there's progesterone balance that needs to occur. So that's when I would have more carbs and cut my fast. So I would do fasting. Hyperbaric oxygen was one of the biggest parts of my healing. So you would, how frequently would you do hyperbaric? And for those people that are familiar with hyperbaric, what kind of atmospheric pressure would you use and oxygen would you use?

Yep. So I, we have hard chamber in our clinic and we have soft chamber in our clinic and in our home. So I was doing, for the most part, I was doing soft chamber and clinic and in our home. So I was doing, for the most part, I was doing soft chamber mild pressure in our home. When you say mild pressure, 1.4? 1.3. Okay. So just really, really mild pressure. And for those of you guys that think that hyperbarics for a condition like this are way out of the realm of possibility, our clinical team has in the past

been able to, there are companies that put leasing agreements in place and they will actually, if a practitioner writes you a script, they will deliver a hyperbaric chamber. And the, you know, the doctor will give you the script on how to utilize it. And then you lease the chamber. So, you know, when you're looking online, you're like, holy cow, these things are 18,000 to, you know, $90,000. If you get really sexy, um, you might not be out of pocket for all of that for a few hundred bucks a month. I mean, I have a friend, uh, um, out in Pete and Kim out in, uh, Colorado and they leased it. Well, that's nice too, because then it's in your home. So for me, you can go to clinic now.

So many clinics have them, thank goodness. When I was doing it in our home, I could get the kids to bed and then I could spend a couple hours in the chamber. Okay. So you're doing hyperbaric chamber, fasting, cyclical fasting, I would call that. And this is full water fasting for 24 hours, right? Yes. Well, I've blood tested, so I'm someone that. And this is full water fasting for 24 hours. Yes.

Right? Yeah. Well, I've blood tested, so I'm someone that can have coffee on a fast. So I would have a little bit of cream, heavy cream in a coffee. Great. My ketones go up and my glucose stays stable. You just made a lot of people really happy. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It makes it so much easier. And so you would do a soft hyperbaric chamber session daily? I would aim for about, I think I was doing, Jason was overseeing my care because I couldn't even think straight, but I think I was aiming for about 10 hours a week was my goal. 10 hours a week, wow. And then, because I was doing a couple hours in chunks at home. So if I went two hours, you know, five days a week, I hit it.

And then once a week in the clinic i was getting about 1.75 so i was hitting the higher and talk a little bit about what the hyperbaric does so so you know it obviously increases the atmospheric pressure but were you also running high um dose oxygen in there we so at home we didn't have supplemental oxygen in the clinic we do so hyperbaric essentially i mean again boil it down to like what does our body need and what does it run off of so hyperbaric essentially, I mean, again, boil it down to like, what does our body need and what does it run off of? So hyperbaric oxygen is simply oxygen under pressure. You know this, but for your audience and and according to Boyle's law in science, any pressure, any gas, when you pressurize it, we can absorb more readily. Oxygen is one of the number one fuels for the nervous system.

So a lot of my symptoms and a lot of what I had going on was nervous system based. I had brain inflammation. I was totally inflamed all over my body. So going in the chamber for someone like me or someone that has those symptoms, it basically is like one of the best anti-inflammatories out there. Yeah. So you were getting in the hyperbaric. What kind of supplementation were you doing? And were you trying to measure your ANA titers, your IgG, your IgM titers to see if it was having an effect? To see what was happening, yes. And really, I mean, I took myself out because as a practitioner, I feel like, I don't know, I feel like I can't doctor myself. Right.

So I needed to become a patient. And I also, I was so overwhelmed with like what was going on in my blood. Fortunately, I was able to hand everything over to Jason and just focus on like mentally getting myself better and taking care of my children. So he was running my labs. He was keeping a close eye on everything.

I was taking a lot of stuff to, like I think I was taking some parasite stuff because Lyme hides in all the places. I was taking some parasite stuff. Yeah. Uh, cause lime hides in all the places. I was definitely doing a lot of immune builders. Um, I was taking methylated vitamins. I know you're big on that. That's so important. When you say methylated vitamins, just to be specific, the B complex methylcobalamin, probably methylfolate, um, yeah, trimethylglycine, some of these things that actually just help really support healthy methylation. Because I think a lot of people don't realize that we methylate light metals very easily, but we also methylate heavy metals, meaning we rid it extremely slow, which is why two people that are exposed to the same level of, let's say, mercury toxicity, one can become toxic mercury and one doesn't have any mercury toxin at all.

So you're working on your methylation. You're working on, you know, you're using hyperbarics. You're doing that 10 hours a week so you're also doing some targeted supplementation you're also using fasting I love that that you're using cyclical fasting and and anything else that you were doing where you're walking we're using IV therapy I was getting some IV in our clinic I was doing sauna right to like really sweat some of that stuff out uh methylene blue is a big one huge we were using as well in combination with red light it really puts it on

steroids yeah um you know there's uh we do a lot of 10 milligram methylene blue twice a day with red light therapy and i'll tell you for me i mean it's like being plugged into an electrical socket yeah and if you do that if you do the blue then red light, and then the hyperbarics, that's like... Okay, now I need a hyperbaric. It's the only thing I don't have in my house. We can hook you up with that one. Okay, okay, good. Most of us have a very difficult time

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going on and we had the tools to treat it so within a few weeks i started feeling normal wow you know but then what happened is we travel a lot for work. Um, a lot of times we're doing East coast, West coast flights. So I didn't have like the bandwidth to push the limits. So we would travel and I would get sick. I'd have a Lyme flare. We'd have like a stressful week in the clinic and I would get sick. Right now. I mean, a couple of years later, like you would never know. I have Lyme. I think there's some chronic Lyme in my blood, but I can push the limit. I mean, we travel, I'll take a red eye plane, not healthy, not ideal and land back on East coast time and have a full day of work and land in with the kids

and I'm good. Right. So I've gotten to a place where I can handle, I can handle life. And I think that's really, you know, whether we're talking about biohacking, biooptimization, it's really about changing our external and internal environment. And internal, I know we both feel is so key because if we're not working on that, none of, of every DNA strand in your body, about 40% of our DNA is viral. Only 60% of our DNA is human DNA. It's crazy. So you think about every time that ladder unzips and rezips, we're silencing all of those viruses. You know, in a lot of what we've seen, you know, our clinics were, we were wellness clinics when COVID hit. And we were literally faced with shutting the doors because nobody was coming in for blood work. We would send people to LabCorp for blood work and, and, and people associated LabCorp with COVID. And they, they thought, Hey, these, these lobbies where people are going to get COVID tested is not where I'm going to go

and get my wellness blood check. So we went weeks without adding a new patient. We ended up pivoting the clinics to COVID testing clinics. And as such, our clinical team got very good at, you know, because we were testing so many thousands of people for COVID, we got really good early on at treating people for COVID and have since gotten really good at long COVID. And one of the things that we see is that, you know, these existing viruses that are part of our DNA, you know, mono comes back as Epstein-Barr. You didn't really catch Epstein-Barr, you've always had it. You know, chickenpox comes back as shingles. You didn't really catch shingles, you've kind of always had it. So what causes these viral pathogens to really flare is just what you're talking about,

the bucket getting overflowing. And being able to address physical, emotional, spiritual, and dietary, lifestyle, exercise, sleep. As you get deficient in one area, you better be focusing in these other areas. And biohacking is only a portion of that, which I'd like, I love the fact that you're, you're filling these in because you could go years, decades, and the mono you had in eighth grade just pops back in. Yeah. And it's, it's in remission for lack of better words, you know,

and you're just IgG positive, You have no IgM antibodies to it. And then all of a sudden you go through a really stressful period and bang. And it's like the double stack because it's probably going to come in a time in your life when you're stressed, spread thin, burn out. It's the worst. Because that's what causes it. And now you're hit with that. Kicks you when you're down. Yeah.

So it's about doing the stuff that we can on a daily basis. Again, I love that you talk so much about getting back to basics and doing the inside work. Cause there's, I feel like there's a few main reasons for that, but one is, you know, who cares if you're getting great sleep? Who cares if you're getting in the cold plunge and making dopamine, if you hate your life, who cares if you're miserable? You know, it's so funny because Malia read me me that in your bio this morning down by the water. And I go, I love that. She says, who cares if you're biohacking if you hate your life? I go, that's a really good point.

We were both laughing by the water this morning. I love that these tools are hitting the masses. Yeah, I do too. And you're a big part of that. Your conversations that you have in here are doing both. And I love that because I can't even tell you the friends that have called from Ohio, where I'm from, like my friends from high school that are watching what you're doing and they're starting to ask questions. And, you know, your interview with Dana White, like how he's getting dopamine now

from an ice plunge instead of whatever the other tools that people used to reach for. That is a huge step. No question. And then at the same time that people used to reach for. That is a huge step. No question. And then at the same time, I want to challenge people to take it that step further because, you know, I know we play in some of the same circles and there's these bio hacking conferences popping up. You could go to one every weekend all over the country. I just went to an amazing one. Yeah. And you walk around these and it's gadgets upon gadgets like if i see another picture on social media of someone with like light helmets covering their face and something on their throat and like trackers up and down their arm it's like we're just missing this huge piece like we're just

replacing i'm glad we are because it's getting people from a place of drugs and medicine getting to a place of like okay let, let's, let's use ice and let's use heat and let's use methylene blue. And then all the stuff that you're doing in your life and talking about on here is also that next step of like, okay, breath work and meditation and all the things I've got my dad and brother watching, you know, I'm like, because it's not just me saying it anymore. Hey dad.. Hey, brother. Yeah. So let's just sort of wrap this all up for the audience. What would you say are your, let's start with a morning routine, healthy morning routine. You know, mother of three, like yourself, probably inherently has a little caregiver syndrome, right?

100%. Kids are first, husbands first, careers first. Let's wrap up like a good starting morning routine for her. And then I want to wind into what are some of your favorite biohacks that you would use outside of that. So let's start with the morning routine. Yes, the morning routine, especially for a natural caregiver woman, whether you're a mom or not, starts with a reframe. And I think one of the biggest take homes I want people to get out

of this message is it's not selfish and we're no longer required to be selfless. This is about being self with, right? With yourself. So as a mom of three children, I could easily assume that in the morning, if I am choosing to not help my children before myself, that I'm ignoring them or that they feel that I'm ignoring them. So I first needed to start with a really powerful reframe. I'm not ignoring my children. I'm not ignoring the emails. I'm not ignoring the phone calls. I'm not ignoring my obligations. I'm taking five minutes to be with myself because then I have a full cup to fill whoever else I'm taking care of. And especially for women with children, we are role modeling for them. Yes. Right? So my learning-

They learn more through observation than they are through dictation. A hundred percent. It's like, I can't hear what you're saying because I'm watching what you're doing or your actions speak so loud. I can't hear what you're saying. I'm watching what you're doing or, you know, your actions speak so loud. I can't hear what you're saying. So my mornings, I do not go on digital. I do not go on digital and I'm very protective of light sources. So I call it a magical morning. Yeah. And I create what feels like a wake up lounge.

So it's this beautiful, basically the entire intention of my morning is to ease into our day. Now, do you have a specific room that you do this in, or do you? So we all kind of gather where our couches are in the family room. I've got a red light that I love, that I love, love, love, that I turn on, and it's like a little bonfire light. Sometimes we'll put little music on, like ocean waves or sound healing or really light, beautiful music. And how long does that time frame last?

I mean, just like you said before, you start with five minutes, but it rolls into half an hour. So if I'm up at 5am, like I get up and I sit in front of my red light, I read my book. I've got like this beautiful night, amber light that clicks on my book. That is my favorite time of the day, because that's the only guaranteed time that we can be in that flow state. Right. Not going to miss five, 10, 20 minutes of sleep, right? Right. So I encourage women, get out of your bedroom. Be very, very aware of your light.

We're in this beautiful dreamlike state. And if you can extend the pleasure of that dreamlike state in the morning, it's going to set your nervous system for the entire day. So what do I mean by that? White light will pull us out of that beautiful state. Oh, yeah. White light is the... We are in the junk food of lighting in this room, just FYI. But we can handle it.

Shame on you, Miles. We can handle it. My production manager is feeding me junk food straight to the dome. So get red light. There's some amazing biohack lights, you know, that I love. Yeah, I have them. They're great. You can also for $10 dollars on amazon like i have lamps in our home my husband will laugh at me at like six o'clock at night all the lamps i'm like melatonin time and they all go to the red light bulbs like our house looks like a brothel when people walk by so at night and in the morning it's just red light no idea what you're talking about no idea

yeah i'm sure i'm sure you don't have the same thing. Red light district. So maybe the red light district is on to something. Maybe. Maybe. That's why they're so happy. They've got great skin. So I love this morning routine.

And you're even talking about some of your greatest biohacks. But I also really like that the majority of what you're talking about some of your greatest biohacks, but I also really like that the majority of what you're talking about is free, right? Tapping into yourself, journaling, giving, you know, getting yourself a book, not reading fiction and not comparing yourself to what's going on on Instagram, but maybe taking a few minutes to yourself to actually read and inspire yourself and feed your soul. I mean, I think one of the things that I notice happens, and I try to reignite this childlike curiosity in my clients, is that we lose our intellectual curiosity as we get older. You know, when we're kids, we're so curious about the world, and we're so curious

about our friends and education on the opposite sex, maybe the same sex. We're just, we have all of these curiosities, and we sort of grow and grow and grow and grow, maybe the same sex. We're just, we have all of these curiosities and we sort of grow and grow and grow and grow and we have this very visceral happiness. And I found that again as an adult because I have a childlike fascination with the human body. And I'm fascinated by the science of bio-optimization, of how does disease work?

How do we treat disease? How does, you know, how do we just, you know, continue to evolve and become, you know, more of an ultimate human. And so for me, it's like, like, this doesn't feel like work right now. Like this, you know, I mean, this is my job, but it doesn't feel like work at all. You know, this morning we were shooting outside and I'm like thinking to myself, I was like, just thank you, God. This is just amazing that this is my journey. Um, you know, we were, we're outside just shooting videos of walking in the, in the park. And I think when people can tap back into that intellectual curiosity, like what excites them? What do they want to know more about? It's a massive outlet for stress.

Oh, 100%. And so I love this morning routine. So for the audience that's really tuned, I think my females are going to love this. How do they find you? What do they find out more about you? How can they get your book? Yeah, so they can find me on socials, BeInspiredMama.com

Be Inspired Mama, and she's got the Mama mug right here. Are these your signature mugs? No, but I should make one, right? Yeah, I think you just have to put Be Inspired above it and you got your own. I get 15% of those sales. Totally. I'll give you a code. Use code Gary. You'll make 10 cents on

every company. I'll make 10 cents. 10 cents adds up. Then you can buy some good lights. Yo, like what kind of biohackers bathe in this fluorescent lighting? And then I'll share the link. I know we'll share the links to my incredible community,

the book club. I call it the best friend's book note because you're literally creating a best friend within yourself. That's great. And in the women going along this path with you. So we'll link to that book club. I've got the 31 day free journey that people can go through the challenge to create a magical morning with me. That's free. We'll link that below too. And then I have the Be Inspired Mama podcast. Beautiful. Free fits everybody's budget. And I wind down every podcast the same way.

It's the same question. If you've been watching my podcast, you've been able to cheat. So you might have prepared for this. But what does it mean to you to be the ultimate human? I love that question. An ultimate human. Yeah, I love that question. You know, I love to say when I'm speaking to audiences that anyone can go and do yoga on the beach, right?

Anyone can have an incredible breathwork practice on the top of a mountain. But can we do enough inward work by taking just five minutes a day to connect with ourselves so that we can handle the chaos? So that we can do yoga and get to a meditative state in the middle of whatever our day brings us. And I feel like to me, that is becoming the ultimate human. And it all starts with that reframe of going inward and taking this time for ourself isn't selfish. We no longer need to be selfless as women. This is all about being selfless. Dr. Melissa, this was amazing. I'm really excited that we took the time today to speak to you. I'm definitely going to have you back on the podcast at some point in the future.

Thank you for coming today. And guys, as always, that's just science.