Improving the Mitochondrial-Microbiome Connection for Optimal Health with Jason Prall

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That's r-u-b-r-i-k dot com. So we have, of course, our human DNA, right? And it's the double helix. Well, mitochondria have a circular DNA, right? And we get this DNA from our mothers. So the health of our mother specifically, all of us get our mitochondria from our mothers. The health of our mother's mitochondria actually is pretty critical to our health throughout life.

Well, welcome back to the podcast. I've got a repeat guest, Jason Prahl, and we're talking all about how the gut microbiome communicates with our mitochondria and how things like food and food timing, sleep. Light and light timing, how all of that impacts the communication process between the gut microbiome and the mitochondria and how that plays a role in our energy levels, our sleep quality.

our levels of inflammation, our immune response. This is a really, really powerful information. You guys are going to really enjoy it. And if you want more from Jason. We've got episode 370. We talked about healthy aging, sleep, light, and circadian rhythm. And then also episode 292, we talked about his book, Beyond Longevity, Heal Faster, Feel Better, and Thrive. Also, that's a great book, guys. You can get it. on amazon.com or in the show notes.

Jason has a fantastic book, one of the best books I've read on longevity. Again, it's called Beyond Longevity, Heal Faster, Feel Better, and Thrive at Any Age. You guys are going to really enjoy this interview. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please leave us a five. five-star review. Those reviews help us reach more people and impact more lives with this message. Thank you so much for doing that. Thank you for being a part of our community, and let's go into the show.

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Well, Jason Prahl, always great to connect with you. And I know we've had conversations in the past, in particular about your book, Beyond Longevity, which I always recommend to people. It's a phenomenal book, great book if you're wanting to understand.

really all the different connections in the body and how that relates to our health and aging process. And I'm excited about this conversation, talking about the gut microbiome and its relationship and communication process with the mitochondria. You know, typically when we're learning... biology and we're learning science and physiology, we learn about these things in isolation.

We learn about the microbiome and how important that is. We learn about the mitochondria, how they produce the energy within the cells. And we realize that both of them are important. But again, we're always thinking about them in isolation. And so I'm excited to talk about the communication process and how that relates to health and disease. And so let's just get started with kind of an overview of the mitochondria and the microbiome.

Yeah, you know, it's funny. When I was really thinking heavily about aging, right, with my docuseries, The Human Longevity Project, and then my book. You know, it's really interesting when you start looking at research, you start listening to some of the experts in the field, and a lot of them will narrow it down to the mitochondria, right? They'll say that the mitochondria is kind of the crux of the whole aging phenomena. And while I think...

To some degree, that's true. It still just remains this theory, whether it's sort of mitochondrial diseases of aging and this type of thing. But the reality is that while mitochondria are absolutely critical, they're not the whole story, right? So for those unfamiliar with mitochondria...

They're just little organelles inside the cell, right? And these organelles, there can be many, right? It can be 500, there can be a thousand, right? Some of the organs like the brain, the heart, the liver, the things that are metabolically active are going to have more mitochondria, right? And it's also interesting to note that the two organs that don't get cancer are the heart and the brain, like the neurons of the brain. And those are really highly mitochondrial dense.

So there's actually a connection between mitochondria and cancer, which is really interesting. But the mitochondria are absolutely essential to the functioning of a cell, right? So mitochondria, the other interesting part about them is that they have their own genome. And this to me becomes the real interesting factor, right? So we have, of course, our human DNA, right? And it's the double helix. Well, mitochondria have a circular DNA, right? And we get this DNA from our mothers.

So the health of our mother specifically, all of us get our mitochondria from our mothers. The health of our mother's mitochondria... actually is pretty critical to our health throughout life. So the female lineage, it turns out, is very, very important for this key aspect of cellular function. And so, of course, it's known for making energy. It was commonly called the energy powerhouse.

the powerhouse of the cell. But the reality is, is that it is so much more, right? It's taking in, yes, it's taking in fuel sources, combining it with oxygen and making energy and water primarily. But it's doing a lot of other things. You know, it's responsible for reactive oxygen species, right? Or oxidative stress.

Now, oxidative stress is also known to be kind of dangerous or harmful. And while that's true in large amounts or excess amounts, or perhaps even just in general, it's this sort of like byproduct that can be inflammatory.

of a purpose too. These reactive oxygen species that are a natural part of mitochondrial function end up being communication molecules. So the mitochondria are not only responsible for making energy, they're responsible for taking out the trash, they're responsible for making hormones,

for signaling danger to other mitochondria and other cells. So they become a beacon of communication when there's a threat, such as a virus or heavy metals or chemicals or what have you. But they're also responsible for taking out the trash. I don't know if I mentioned that, and communicating with the DNA, right? So the communication between the mitochondria and the DNA, the human DNA, is...

absolutely essential for the function of the cell, right? So we talk about how, you know, the DNA isn't everything when it comes to, you know, illness and chronic disease and aging and everything. The reality is, is that there's a communication between the two.

This simple communication, it turns out, becomes a very, very important aspect of how every cell in your body functions. Every cell except for red blood cells contain mitochondria. So it's really, really important that we take care of our mitochondria.

Absolutely essential. And again, going back to the cancer discussion, right? We found oncogenes. We're looking at all these cancer genes. But the truth is there's a mitochondrial sort of theory of cancer and that many cancers, if not... if not most, or even perhaps close to all. are related to mitochondria function, if not centered around mitochondria function. In fact, one of the mitochondrial researchers that I spoke with, he said that there's no disease that doesn't involve mitochondria.

Right. So every disease involves mitochondria. And what happens is the mitochondrial genome starts to get. weakened right there's there's damage that occurs at the mitochondrial level when we see damage the mitochondrial level and these the the mitochondrial genes aren't working properly the communication breaks down with the human genome when it's not detecting threats properly. In other words, it's failing to communicate a threat.

or that threat signal is constantly on, which inhibits the mitochondrial energy production, right? We see things like chronic fatigue. All these diseases start to progress. You know, something like Hashimoto's thyroiditis. We think about it as a thyroid condition. Yes, true. But what's... It's really a mitochondrial aspect of the thyroid itself. So every disease that you can name, the mitochondria is playing at least a minor role, oftentimes a central role.

Yeah, absolutely. Mitochondria plays such a critical role in everything. And part of what you're describing there is a cell danger response and kind of the healing cycle, right? So in the beginning, it's like the cell, the mitochondria are trying to... um contain right whatever the

perhaps infectious organism or toxins that are building up. And then from there, that's pro-oxidative, right? And so it increases oxidative stress and it's actually an adaptive physiology. So I used to think, and a lot of clinicians out there. have been taught that mitochondrial damage is something that happens to the mitochondria, right? It's like an apple. If you leave an apple out, it starts to oxidize and rust in a sense, right? Something happening to the apple.

But really in our body, it's actually an adaptive response that the mitochondria is taking part in for long-term survival. The goal is long-term survival, but it gets stuck. in this kind of pro-oxidative, doesn't complete the full healing cycle and get stuck in this pro-oxidative hypometabolic state where it's not able to produce enough energy. And it's turning up oxidation, which turns up inflammation throughout the system. And it doesn't complete that cycle.

And I want to tell you why I think that is. I don't know if this is sort of accepted or proven at this point, but from what I have seen, this seems to make sense. And it actually relates somewhat to the polyvagal theory, if people are familiar with that. There's two sides.

the vagus nerve. We have the stress side, right? The sympathetic response. And then we have the parasympathetic. And we used to think that was it. But then we realized actually there's two aspects of that parasympathetic response. One is rest and relaxation and digestion.

and all those things that we love. And the other side is actually a shutdown, a dorsal vagal shutdown. So the ventral vagal is that rest and digest. The dorsal vagal is the shutdown. Well, it turns out we see the exact same mechanics at the mitochondrial level, as you mentioned. It's really beautiful.

response of a stress response, which is so critical, not only in killing the threat and eliminating the threat, but also signaling other mitochondria, hey, we got a threat, guys, we got a threat. And so they start turning on the inflammation too. But the body, we have to think about that it has a limited capacity to do things, right? There's only so much resource that it has. So when it allocates resource...

more heavily into inflammation, that's beautiful. It's really important, just like the stress response if you're running from a bear. But that also means that you're not doing some of these other things at the mitochondrial level that you need to be doing, like taking out the trash, like producing certain hormones, like making energy.

Right. So so now we've got this elevated stress response. Now, again, as you mentioned, we want that to turn off. But in chronic scenarios, things like mold exposure, for example, or or a viral infection that remains on or parasites or heavy metals. or any combination thereof, or perhaps even things like trauma, right? Emotional trauma, particularly in childhood, these type of things.

can create this sort of stress response at the cellular level that stays on necessarily until that threat is removed. But the interesting thing is that from what I've seen, the human body is so conditionable. that even when you remove the threat of the heavy metal, of the parasite, of the infection, whatever it might be, the cellular communication still may be such that it perceives a threat. In other words, those grooves have been laid so strongly.

And here's the key part. Until you provide a new stimulus. In other words, until you kind of jam the system, jar the system, and wake it up to some degree, then it can start to activate those patterns that are more healthy, right? So this is what I see in the nervous system level, at the brain level, and from what I've seen.

seen in some research, this is kind of what happens in the cell danger response as well, is that there's something that kind of gets stuck in a way, but it's an adaptive conditioned response. And so the way out of that... And so we need to provide some level of stimulus to wake that cell up again and remind it what healthy behavior looks like, right? And we'll get into some of that.

Yeah, so important. And let's talk about the gut microbiome and its important role in human health and then that communication process between the microbiome and the mitochondria. Yeah, so this is an area that, of course, has seen a lot of interest in the last probably two decades, right? And maybe even more in the West. But, you know, this is an area that goes back thousands of years, you know, in the ancient cultures, right? So from Ayurveda and...

Chinese medicine, and even some of the indigenous cultures around the world that don't have sort of names for their systems, they recognize that there's a whole universe inside the gut. And I've heard people like medicine men from Colombia. tell me that there's a whole universe inside your gut. And this is what they learned in their traditions. And I'm like, holy smokes, like they all knew this, right? They recognize that the reality. And so it's great that we're waking up to that.

From a Western scientific perspective, it's still so nascent. We don't really know what's going on at the gut. So I want to preface whatever I say after this. We still have so much to learn and we're uncovering new things every day and we're changing our stance on a lot of things. But when it comes to the gut, it is the first interface with the outside world other than, you know, the skin.

eyes and sense organs, right? So when we eat foods, whatever we take in, that is where everything is sort of interfacing, right? And the gut you can think of is this kind of like hollow tube, right? Where there's a big donut.

Right. And we're sticking something inside and then it has to assimilate. Right. But inside the gut, of course, is a huge ecosystem. And this is a living, breathing ecosystem of organisms. Right. Some we think of as pathogens. Even when we run a stool test, you might see pathogens.

Well, yes and no, they're only pathogenic when they get out of balance with respect to other things. And even then, oftentimes we label something as pathogenic and it may not actually be pathogenic. Like it's so nuanced at how this stuff works. But the things that we're confident in is that we want a lot of diversity.

A lot of diversity of organisms. And this makes sense. The reason this makes sense is because that gives you adaptability to handle different environmental pressures and stressors. So different organisms that you interact with from your food, different food sources, etc.

But these organisms are also responsible for breaking down some of the food, right? So when we eat something like blueberries, right? This is oxidative stress, actually, right? The anthocyanins in the blueberries, these things are pro-oxidation.

We think about them as antioxidants, but it's only the response from the body that we get from these pro-oxidative things. So all the plant foods that we can think of with all the colors and the beautiful stressors in them, things like curcumin from turmeric. These type of things, these are stressors. These are plant protectors. So in order for our body to deal with those, we have to metabolize them. Now, you need those organisms to actually metabolize the substance.

And I think we take it for granted that we all just magically have all these organisms that can metabolize turmeric to the same degree. But it appears that's not the case, right? In fact, there's a lot of studies out of Japan related to seaweed and how the Japanese have taken up this organism and are able to actually digest seaweed better because they eat so much soup.

So it was actually an organism that gets transferred from the fish and allows Japanese people to... to metabolize the seaweed better than other cultures right so in other words this is again it's a living breathing thing that can happen over generations or even over weeks constantly shifting and changing because of the environment that it's interacting with

So we need certain organisms. So it's not only what you eat and what you digest, but it's what your microbiome is capable of digesting and metabolizing, right? So having a healthy, robust- diverse microbiome is very, very critical to be able to take advantage of the healthy choices that you're making when you're digesting food and choosing the right foods, right? So it's so, so critical. The microbiome is responsible for...

much of what's going on. And the interesting thing, the reason I think it's so worthwhile talking about the microbiome and the mitochondrial connection is because, again, when I was thinking about aging and trying to understand what are the critical factors of aging...

What I came up with was that DNA, it's like the concept of DNA. DNA itself is the... it's the building blocks of life right we we can all kind of accept that sure cell membranes are important and fascia is important and the interstitial space it's all important no question but none of it would be here without dna

right? So again, human DNA, mitochondrial DNA, and now we've got this microbiome with its own DNA. And I'm just using the microbiome as one organism, but really it's billions and billions of organisms that all have DNA. their own DNA. So now we've got this ecosystem of DNA in the microbiome in the gut, as well as throughout our body. We have the mitochondrial DNA and we have the human.

DNA. And they are all in communication. So to me, it is these three things that we need to take care of, that we need to optimize, if you will, for good communication, for good response, for good human genetic expression. When our human DNA starts to fall apart, well, that impacts our mitochondria and impacts the microbiome. When our microbiome starts to degrade and become unhealthy, well, that's going to negatively impact our mitochondria and our DNA.

And if we're negatively impacting our mitochondria, that's impacting DNA. So it's all in this three-way communication. So that's why I think it's really, really critical that we sort of paint this picture and this idea of why do I want healthy mitochondria? they actually talk to your microbiome. If your mitochondria are saying, we need food, we need food, we need food.

and this impaired metabolic response, or even a healthy response, they will communicate. They will send out communication mechanisms in the gut. that then communicate to the microbes in the gut and to your various cells along the lining of the gut too. So you can see that there's a very interesting communication that takes place.

And we know this now, this is actually researched very, very well. And we're starting to see some of the metabolites, the things that when your organisms in your gut, when they metabolize food and other matter. they will spit out metabolites. And these metabolites are the communication molecules. They are energy resource for the body. So this is a really, really important thing. And a lot of research is going into figuring out.

you know, what are these sort of postbiotics? What are these metabolites doing and responsible for? And how can we take advantage of them, right? You can imagine a pharmaceutical industry, even a supplement industry going, ooh, we know the science now and we have the tools that we can do stuff.

Let's go look and see what happens when we give the body X substance, see what it produces and what that's going to do downstream. So that's where we're at with a lot of the science. And that's why this conversation is so interesting. Yeah, it's really, really fascinating. And I remember back when I first started my practice back in 2009, gut microbiome research was really just coming out. We didn't know much about postbiotics. And I remember...

I started doing some research on apple cider vinegar and I started promoting it to different patients. And I remember a guy telling me, he's like, yeah, I started doing a tablespoon apple cider vinegar and water. every day and he's like after a week he's like my blood pressure because he was on he was on a blood pressure medication he's like my blood pressure was was normal and i came off my blood pressure medication it's been been great ever since

And he's like, that's all I did. And I started thinking, well, what nutrients are in apple cider vinegar? If you look at it, it's not really like- So nutrients that we, especially back then that we would classify, like, is there a lot of vitamin C in it? No. Is there a lot of vitamin A? Is there zinc? No. There's really no nutrients in it. It's really just postbiotics and enzymes in there.

kind of acidic nature helps stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, the vagus nerve. And so it's really its impact on the nervous system and those postbiotic metabolites. that are influencing the communication process in the body, which reduce stress on his system. And now his blood pressure is normal. And I'm sure you've heard stories like that as well.

This is what's cool, is that, again, we don't even really know some of this stuff yet, right? There's so much to learn when it comes to this. But, you know, it reminds me of, I'm a fan of Ayurveda, and I've studied Ayurveda to a degree. I'm not an expert in it. But I find that their fundamental lessons are things that we've now uncovered in the West. And they've, again, for thousands of years, have talked about...

when the post-digestive effects of certain foods. So in other words, some food, like lime, I think, it's very acidic, right? So typically that would be heating, but in Ayurveda, it's viewed as cooling. So these type of... things once it's digested, right? And you hear about it from the sort of alkaline and acid kind of vegetarian type crowd, right? Like don't eat an acidic diet and eat an alkaline diet.

You know, lemons and limes are considered alkaline, but really they're acidic. So it's pointing to this idea that I think we kind of got some of the theory wrong with some of this stuff. It's not really about acid alkaline. It's not an alkalizing diet. There's different effects, right? Like all the probiotic type foods, right? The kefirs and the sauerkrauts and these types of things, any fermented foods. There's so much more going on there, I think. Look, when you start looking at...

the biochemistry and the biophysics of a lot of this stuff, you realize, oh my gosh, it's so complex and we're oversimplifying a lot of this stuff. So when it comes to these foods, again, they're healthy for a lot of reasons that i don't think we quite fully understand to be honest um you know even rice you know i remember years ago when i first learned that that white rice was you're after digesting white rice you produce butyrate and i thought

wow, this is really interesting. You take a basically a very starchy carbohydrate, right? That raises blood glucose like through the roof if you eat it plain and a lot of it, but it's producing a fat. that is very important for the health of your colon cells.

This is where kind of when I when I kind of woke up to that idea that a carbohydrate is then metabolized into a very important fat. It made me realize that the old paradigm that I grew up with, you know, the carbs and the fats and the protein kind of thing, the bodybuilder. of lessons really are just so oversimplified.

Things are done correctly in the right doses, in the right proportions. Even things like white rice can be a very healthy addition if used in the right way. If used incorrectly, it can be unbelievably unhealthy, right? So these things are a lot more. complicated but again i think the big thing is

do we have a healthy gut that can metabolize these things? And when I run gut tests on people, I can see a lot of the strains, keystone strains that are missing or that are low rather, they're not missing. They're just very low. And a lot of the sort of more pathogenic type strains when they...

get out of balance are high, right? So we start to see these things. So the question again remains how do we actually take advantage of this what is it what is there to do about this how do we get a healthy gut and how do we get healthy mitochondria when you when you get that right because as far as i know we're not changing our genes our human genes yet although i'm sure that's coming unfortunately

But once we get those two equations right, now that three-way communication between all the genetic groups can work optimally. Yeah, that's key. And so let's talk about some of the environmental stimuli that really impact that communication process between the DNA, the mitochondrial genetics, which has its own DNA, and the gut microbiome. Yeah. And this is where it kind of gets interesting because it's literally everything. It's what are you, what are you thinking about?

What are your belief systems? What is your unconscious mind kind of operating in? What's happening in the background with your nervous system at rest? You know, what kind of sleep are you getting? Of course, what are you eating? When are you eating? Perhaps maybe more important because people are starting to talk about it, but everybody wants to talk about what diet.

when, when diet, right? Like when are you eating and how much? This is an interesting one that I think a conversation that is sort of not had as much anymore. I don't know if it's because

because people are tired of the kind of calories in versus calories out kind of argument. And they think that that's a totally invalid way to think about food. But from my experience, it's still a decent way to think about food. And only as a... proxy we don't need to get super scientific of how much calories and these calories turn into this that's really not important but whenever i'm

working with people and even in my own life, I recognize that when I'm eating too much food, it has a negative effect, right? Even if I'm eating at the right times of day, et cetera. So there's a, it's a really important conversation to have to remember that you can use kind of calories. as a proxy to the amount of food that you're eating. And of course, it's not just the calories, right? It's not just the amount, but it...

That is important too. I think we just kind of toss that away. We've all eaten too much before. Like what happens on Thanksgiving? It's like we eat a huge meal. It's not the turkey that's making us tired. It's the fact that we ate so much, so many calories, and we want to take a nap.

Right. Well, and I see, I see even now, you know, the, the, typically it's more of the, the carnivore type crowd or the paleo type crowd or, or, or ketogenic crowd, but it's like, you can just eat whatever you want because it's healthy fat.

And it's like, no, that's not really true. You know, you can't eat a half a stick of butter in your coffee in the morning and think that's a wise decision and it's not going to impact your overall kind of function. So it's still an important aspect, right? How much you're eating, when you're eating.

and of course, what you're eating. But then of course, exercise, right? Exercise is absolutely critical. And again, I think people don't want to hear it as much. Like they're kind of like, in other words, it's been drilled into us so much, like the importance of exercise.

And it's always been an important aspect of my life. But what was really fascinating was that I was in kind of functional neurology classes with some pretty unbelievable minds in the functional space. And it's like the neurophysiology of... high intensity exercise right so it's like

how this high intensity exercise impacts your neurological system, your brain and nervous system, how it impacts your immune system, right? How it impacts your gut function, right? And it's like, oh my God, like I didn't quite realize to the extent of why it's so important to...

get like a vigorous exercise in and by walking and and very simple exercise that is that is done on the regular is so important so these are the kind of um i'd say that the big factors and of course we can look at environmental load right things like toxins chemicals

metals, any pathogens. These are, of course, important too. It's all playing a role. There's only so much we can do about that pathogenic load and the toxic load. And I don't want to be sort of defeatist about this. I think you do what you can. But if you go too deep.

down that rabbit hole, you're going to drive yourself crazy trying to get rid of all the chemicals and metals and things because they're just everywhere. I think what's important is you do what you can in your immediate environment as often as you can.

You have awareness around some of this stuff. And the other part of that is, is that if your system's working properly. then your body can actually handle some of this stuff. Like we actually have detoxification systems. If you're getting in a sauna regularly and you're sweating, right? If you're doing exercise, a lot of it can be breathed out, you know? So a lot of the stuff, we have excretory pathways for a reason.

We can get, we can get rid of this stuff, but it does take some mindfulness, right? So if we are keeping our system on track, then we can handle sort of this, this burden that we're, we're, you know, faced with. But, you know, again, I want to stress that it's literally. everything that impacts the microbiome and the mitochondria.

how you think and what you believe, it goes all the way down to how your mitochondria function and how your gut functions, right? So it's a really, really critical thing to remember that it's not just the sort of physical parameters that we operate in, it's our intra... environment being our mind as well. I just want to take a moment to interrupt this podcast to tell you about one of my favorite podcasts I listen to. It's called the Dr. Josh Axe Show, hosted by my good friend, Dr. Josh Axe.

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Yeah, it's so important to remember. It's really everything. What we're thinking, what we're doing each and every day is going to impact that communication process. And when it comes to prescription, like you were saying, it really has to be personalized because...

Somebody's stress threshold for, let's say, exercise. Exercise is a stressor on the body. Stress threshold when it comes to different food compounds that they're putting in their body. Their stress threshold for how much sun they can. adequately handle that's therapeutic and healing for them can be different, right? And so let's talk about that. Let's talk about some things that in a sense are more universal or like, let's say, because you have somebody like, for example, like myself.

very healthy, athletic. I can handle a higher amount of stressors, right? And that actually makes, it's a hormetic stress that actually makes my body stronger, healthier, more resilient. And then you have somebody that's battling complex chronic illness. they've got chronic fatigue and you know if they were to try to

to keep up with me, even for, you know, an hour, they would be absolutely passed out, you know, on their sofa, right? And it would actually overwhelm their system and they would get more inflamed and worse. And so let's talk about where people can start that are dealing with complex chronic illness.

Yeah. And by the way, I want to state that the reason I'm sort of highlighting that it can be everything is not to overwhelm people and say, you've got to get everything right. But it's more, it's mere to point out that hopefully that somebody can find a gap in their health.

regimen, right? For me, I know for a long time, I had these gaps in awareness. Like I didn't realize that my belief system was impacting my gut function, for example, right? So I just want to point to them so that people can look and reflect at their own situation. find these gaps maybe where their health regimen isn't on point because they may be eating the right things and taking the supplements and doing so much right. But if you've got unresolved trauma,

a really, you know, kind of sticky childhood, that could be the thing that's keeping you locked down into this fight or flight at the nervous system level, at the mitochondrial level, and even at the gut level, right? So again, that's really why I'm pointing them out. But I love your point.

Like there are universal aspects to health, right? So there's individuated aspects, which is kind of what, what, what, what diet to eat, right? Like that's kind of, it's very individualistic. You're not going to feed the same thing to a four-year-old as you will, uh, an 18 year old as you will. year old and depending on what conditions they have and all kinds of things right like it's a very very different scenario so um everything is contextual and and there are universal

sort of basic truths that we must adhere to. And I think that the biggest one when it comes to chronic illness is sleep. So this is one of the most important things, I think, that one can dial in as best as they can. How do you get your sleep on track, right? So the first thing you do is you get up in the morning. As soon as the sun has risen and you're up, go outside and go for a walk.

10-15 minutes this may seem very inconsequential i've had people do only this and turn around some amazing conditions that they didn't even think was possible So just getting up and getting that light in your eyes, setting your circadian rhythm so your body understands it's morning, turn on all these functions and turn off all these functions. Doing that regularly, especially like usually takes two or three weeks if somebody's circadian rhythm's out of whack to get that on.

track, but that morning light is so critical, at least 15 to 20 minutes and as much daylight as you can, that's like hitting your eyes, for example. So you don't want to be locked in a, in a work cave all day, you know, morning to night and not really get any sun exposure. Your body's going to lose track of what time of day it is. This is a reality. I worked in Seattle and I remember during the winters, I'd go, I go to work in the dark and I come home in the dark.

And I worked at Boeing for a little while. And this is big, again, this big box. So I was literally not exposed to any sunlight. Now we have, of course, have lights inside, but it's not the same thing at all. It's not even close.

So that's one thing that's really important, right? And of course, going to bed on time. And that means generally 9.30, 10 o'clock is kind of the sweet spot. And this varies depending on a lot of things, but that's a good sweet spot for most people. Another important aspect of that is not eating. food about two to three hours before that so your last meal ideally your last food of any kind 7 p.m right and if you can because that

function that your body is serving, that resource that your body's dedicating to digesting food is directly in opposition to the things that need to happen at 10 PM and beyond, which is your body's cleaning up. Your body's getting ready for the next day. It's turning on all these different functions. And when you give it this mass.

job to do, it's just not going to do those things very well. It's not going to do either of them well. It's not going to do the cleanup and it's not going to do the digesting very well. So now you're going to get poor digestion, which means more metabolic waste that enters your system and your system's not even cleaning it up as well. And it impacts various hormones that I won't get into because it's quite complex. I guess to say that the metabolic function...

The fat burning capacity, the ability to use food for fuel, the ability to get good sleep is drastically impacted when you eat the after 7 p.m. So it's a really, really critical aspect. So I say, get your sleep diet. But there's other aspects to sleep, right? Somebody may have a lot of sleep apneas. They may be snoring. They may not be getting...

quality sleep at night. Exactly. Because their jaw isn't developed enough. And this is very common in the West, right? Due to poor breastfeeding practices, due to... poor nutrition and some other factors, the jaw doesn't quite develop fully. And what happens is our teeth don't have room, our tongue doesn't have room in this cage, and therefore it blocks the throat.

So this is very common. And you can do these sort of airway analysis and see that the tongue coming up throughout, there's hardly any gap. There's hardly any gap in the nasal passage back here. So we get these apneas. So we can do correctives.

on the jaw side to get better sleep. So you can see this goes quite deep. But nevertheless, investigate your sleep and figure out what's going on there if you're not sleeping well. and do whatever you can to get good sleep. Sleep is the foundation for everything else, right? So we're swimming upstream if we're not sleeping well. So sleep is critical. I'd say the other critical piece is exercise, movement. We cannot be healthy if we're not moving.

And so this doesn't mean that you need to go do CrossFit every single day. What this does mean is that you're getting up, you're moving around. If you're in an office space, I find myself sitting more than ideally I would want to oftentimes. So I just have to manufacture movement. And this can look like a few jumping jacks. look like a little bit of yoga. This can look like pushups. This can look like anything. This is going to look like going for a walk, but get the body moving regularly.

Every 15, 20 minutes, do something. Stand up, sit down, do something. So often, every hour, if you can, go out and do a little bit more movement. And then, of course, vigorous exercise every now and again. And this is, of course, different for everybody, right? 75-year-old.

exercise is going to look different than a 25 year old, but whatever's going to stress your system, that's the critical piece. Stress your system basically as hard as you can for a few minutes. It doesn't have to be half an hour. It can be as little as five minutes in total of you stressing your system really, really hard or a moderate amount of stress for a little bit longer. That's more common, you know, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, hour, something like that. So the key is constant.

low-grade movement that you can actually kind of do with just nose breathing. That'll keep your system relaxed and stress-free while also benefiting from all the movement aspects and then do something very difficult. strenuous for the system. This will work wonders. You know, that strenuous exercise in particular is going to make the mitochondria

get better at what they do. There's a high energy demand in the musculoskeletal system, in the heart, in the brain, in the liver, everywhere, really. Every metabolic organ is going to need to work harder when you exercise in a challenge. way so therefore it's gonna basically the body says we have a stimuli that we can't hardly handle we need more soldiers

So the mitochondria is going to divide, right? And we call this mitochondrial biogenesis, right? The ability for our cells to make new mitochondria. And these new mitochondria are healthy.

Ideally, they're relatively healthy. They're going to be healthier than the old, tired-down, worn-out mitochondria. And that's what happens. You can think of like old shoes versus new shoes, right? And the old shoes still kind of work, but eventually they're going to get a whole... in them, they're not going to work and your feet are going to get wet.

So there's a process to get rid of those, but this aspect of building new mitochondria to handle this workload stress is very, very critical for the cell itself. You can imagine a cell with 30 mitochondria. If it can turn 30 into 40,

Now you've got brand new healthy mitochondria to make energy, to communicate. So now that cell doesn't need to die because it's got new mitochondria that are healthy. Instead, if you never give the body this stressor and those old mitochondria just... kind of eventually wear out and the cell may say we don't got enough resource here we're going to have to you know die and it has you know mechanisms and and other cells right immune cells can actually recognize these these tissues and say

This isn't working out. We're going to have to recycle you. And so you get too much of that. Like some of that is very good. You get too much of it too often. Now you're starting to see organs and tissues that are dysfunctioning. And this is naturally going to happen. This is actually kind of part of the process of aging, you could say. This is the natural degradation of the body, which is going to happen. But we can do things to sort of mitigate that. We can do things to halt that.

can regenerate these tissues, right? You see this, the liver's a great example, and the gut lining, very, very good examples of tissues that can get damaged quite frequently, but then rebuild very, very effectively, right? And essentially bring new... new cellular tissue to these organs, and that increases function, right? So it's a really, really critical aspect of staying healthy. And then the other one I would say is related to food.

And this is, again, I kind of mentioned meal timing. And it's sort of related to fasting and caloric restriction. And for me, there's lots of different strategies that we can use. There's different types of fasting, right? There's kind of a 24-hour fast. 72 hour fast and beyond, but for the purposes of kind of mitochondria and gut function.

these shorter fasts can be very regenerative in this process. So whether it's a 24 hour fast or a 48 hour fast, or even an 18 hour fast or a 12 hour faster, as long as it's a regular thing that you're doing. So, you know, a 24 hour fast. every week great strategy an 18 hour fast every day great strategy you know 16 hour fast every day great strategy three, three day fast or longer every once in a while, every quarter, for example, nice strategy. And what happens is when we.

when we don't give our body this food source, the gut doesn't have as much to do, right? It doesn't have to do a ton of work. So now it can get to work on cleaning up the space, right? So now these organisms... Let's say you have an abundance of yeast and fungal load. Well, they're not going to get the resource that they need, which is generally glucose and carbohydrates and starch. So now there's going to be a competition.

And so these things that are going to get stressed because they don't have resource, they're going to kind of die out. Everything's going to come back into harmony. And what we see in this ecosystem is that we see a proliferation. of various species and so we'd see the the diversity go up in in this instance of fasted we see uh better metabolic function at the at the microbiome level we see kind of this uh just just healthy behavior really

And then the other side is that we see this happening at the mitochondrial level, right? So the mitochondria aren't getting this constant glucose source or fat source. And so they have to figure out what to do. And this is the process, like the early process of starvation, you could say, at the cellular level, when that sort of glycogen gets depleted to a large degree around the body.

The cell's got to turn to burning fat for fuel, and they have to go around and clean up all the lame mitochondria that are in the body. So you get this recycling, this autophagy. and this is a really really important again getting rid of the defunct mitochondria that's that's communicating poorly

creating new mitochondria through mitochondrial biogenesis and exercise, right? And giving the body tons of rest and allowing it to sort of relax and do all the garbage taking out and everything that it needs to do to produce resource. the body right when we rest we are producing resource we are allowing the body to gather resource it's so critical it's why you can't go for long without sleep right it just doesn't work

So if you do those three things, clean up the old stuff, right? You make new ones and then you give your body resource and rest. It's kind of a trifecta. So I think those three to me are absolutely essential for everyone. And of course there's... There's probably 20 other things I could mention that would be helpful. But if you kind of center your focus, I've seen athletes that eat the worst diet. I mean, and look.

I don't advocate for that. And eventually it does catch up to them. It's certainly not a recipe for success, but they can overcome a pretty crappy diet because they're exercising well, they're focusing on their sleep, right? And generally they're eating.

appropriately right they're fasting and they're intermittent fasting in a way that keeps them healthy so it can overcome so much and then when you throw on all these other beneficial things that we could do from a sort of functional medicine standpoint, chiropractic standpoint, we start to see a ton of benefit.

Yeah, it's a really great overview. And that's super important to understand. We want to make these cells more metabolically flexible, where they're good at burning sugar, good at burning fat, ketones as an energy source. And ultimately, it's kind of basically taking... converting lazy mitochondria into very stress resilient mitochondria. I always say the quality of our life is going to come down to the amount of stress resilient mitochondria we have in the cells of our body.

And that's really what you're talking about here is creating more stress-resilient mitochondria where they can handle a certain amount of stressors, whether it's coming from exercise, whether it's coming from... mental emotional stressors, whether it's coming from not having food for a period of time, which is a stressor on the body, or even having too much food at a certain period of time. All those things are stressors. We want great adaptability. And so stress resilience is really...

How adaptable are we? Absolutely. And we want both, right? Like we want the barbell approach. We want tons of... Good stress. Well, I didn't say tons. There's appropriate amount of stress, right? But it needs to be enough. Like it needs to actually push you, right? Same thing with sun exposure. You know, I see Brian Johnson. He's the one that's, you know, spending millions of dollars.

trying to live forever. And he's completely avoiding sun. And I think, wow, what an interesting approach. I understand that it's... It keeps your skin healthier, but there's so much you're missing by not getting exposure to the sun, right? So exposure to the sun in appropriate amounts based off of your tolerance for the sun. Exercise as hard as you can without causing injury.

And foods. You want these stressor foods, right? This is where the colorful plants and vegetables are so beneficial in the proper amount. But for some people that are... that are compromised at the gut level. This is when you see things stressing the gut out. It's too much. It cannot handle a lot of these foods and we call it intolerance, right?

Now, the other side to that is rest, right? And athletes get this really well. They understand this, or at least the ones that are at a high level. If you're introducing new stressors into your life, then you need equal. rest and recuperation you need to be able to to to respond to that stress right oftentimes the old the old school way of approaching athletics

was you just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and you're not giving your body enough rest and resource to recover, right? So we need to be able to recover and it's a really, really critical aspect, especially in our modern day, which doesn't involve... very much time with hardly any stimulation and a low-grade environment. We are constantly stressed, even at rest. To focus on stress is a stress reduction techniques and really the anti-stimulation.

to reduce stimulation turn off of the turn off the buzzes on your phone right try to clear out your calendar like whatever you can do to simplify your life will take that load off of your nervous system when it's at rest and now you can drop deep and the rest you can you can

recover, you can sleep better, et cetera. So those two things, we need better rest and recovery and we need more stress. Too many of us are walking this middle line of like not stressing our systems, but constantly under this low grade stress.

And it's not a good stress. It's too constant. So we want stress and rest. If you're operating a note, you hardly ever want to be in this kind of middle ground area. Like that's really the danger zone if you get locked in, right? So it's really understanding this. too many people are in this danger zone and then they stress themselves and they're not getting rest, it's not going to work, right? We need to focus on both rest and recovery as well as the stressors.

Yeah, really well put. And this has been a great interview, Jason. We could talk all day about this stuff, but it's so critical. And I really want... our listeners, this information is vital. When it comes to getting healthy and well, understanding what Jason's talking about is really the place to start. Just understanding that enough stress and then really, really great rest.

That, um, I mean, that's, that is the formula for being healthy and well. And so temperatures too, right? Like we didn't even mention that, but that's a great one where we can stress the system with some cold.

stress the system with some hot like doing that because we're right now in the west we are just we're in ambience all the time right none of our ancestors 500 years ago were in this ambient temperature all the time right so most of humanity um throughout history has been subject to temperature extremes unless you live on the equator right so it's it's interesting even then So it's really interesting to note that this sort of 68, 70 degrees Fahrenheit that we're operating in is...

all year round is unheard of in human history. We need to stress our bodies. So get in the cold, take a cold shower, dunk your face in cold water for 15, 20 seconds. Like this is how you wake up the system. That thing that I mentioned earlier about, about.

jarring the mitochondria awake well that's that's exercise that's cold exposure that's heat exposure right like that's what you need to do to wake up these mitochondria and oftentimes you even need to go further than that for some people who are severely in sort of chronic fatigue but we need to wake the system up and the best way is to kind of get comfortable in the uncomfortable. Like just, just, just.

Bite down, grin and bear it. Just get in that cold shower and go, this is going to suck. I do this all the time. I have a cold punch. I don't particularly like it. I mean, I like it. I'm addicted to it. There's endorphins that are like my system just loves, but there's an aspect. that goes oh god i don't really want to do this but it makes you feel so good right so you kind of just like forgo the mental chatter and just go do the exercise

Go do the cold punch. Go sit in the sun. Whatever it is for you to kind of challenge your system, you just kind of accept the fact that it's going to be uncomfortable. That's okay. It's a heck of a lot better than being in chronic disease states throughout your life. I can guarantee that.

Yeah. And even like with cold plunge, the therapeutic dose for most people is a very short period of time. I get like 11 minutes a week, 11 minutes a week. That's exactly right. So, I mean, and, and that's over several different bouts, right? So it might be like.

One or two minutes, you know, when you get in there and you're getting a therapeutic dose, it's going to boost your dopamine, your endorphins, you know, for hours afterwards. It's better than, you know, a shot of espresso for your energy levels.

No question. Which is just stealing energy from tomorrow to get through today. None of that actually gives you energy. It just stresses your system and prevents you from sleeping. So it's exactly the opposite. I know it feels good. I enjoy it too. It turns on my brain.

I like it, right? But it's really not actually giving you anything. It's just pushing your system into a stress mode, right? So it's not that it's bad per se, especially for neurological function. Caffeine can be... decent but but but i think um we hear that and we go oh okay i'll have seven you know and it's just like it's just not the recipe you know yeah

Yeah, absolutely. Well, so good, Jason. I really enjoyed this conversation. Guys, definitely check out his book again, Beyond Longevity, A Proven Plan for Healing Faster, Feeling Better and Thriving at Any Age. Really phenomenal book if you're looking to reduce inflammation. and support healthy longevity. So Jason, thanks again. Any last words of inspiration here for our audience?

No, I just appreciate you having me on. Always love the work that you're doing and the content that you put out. So yeah, I just encourage everybody to go check out your site. It's a constant resource for me when there's that question I have. I'm like, I wonder if Dr. Jockers has covered this. when you cover it, it's like five pages of gold. So I just, again, appreciate everything you guys are doing over there. Thanks so much, Jason. Appreciate you.

Well, that's all for this show. And I want to thank you again for spending your valuable time with me today. And if there was something you heard in this interview that you have questions on or you want to dive into deeper, then drjockers.com is the best place to go. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider taking just a quick moment and giving us a great review. Your reviews help us influence more people and transform more lives.

And if you took something valuable away from this episode, then please share it with someone in your life you know it can help. We'll see you soon on a future podcast. Be blessed, everybody.

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