Jason Prall : Beyond Longevity

preprint that Steve and I have both reviewed. And we love it. And today, we're so fortunate to be joined by the author of this book, Jason Prall. And Jason, thanks for joining us.

basketball. And how is it possible that I, as a 13, year old could be you know, suffering from something like this? This doesn't make sense, right? So the answers that I got from the traditional medical profession at that time, just didn't make

any sense, even to my you know, underdeveloped 13 year old brain, right. And so that's where it started, I kind of, I planted a flag and kind of like, just really thought, something's not right here. And so every time I went to the doctor, and saw a traditional medical doctor, I was always skeptical, right. And it's not to say I didn't get value out of the doctor, and there's tremendous value in the medical profession. But that planted the skeptical

seed in me. And so as the years developed, and I developed another chronic condition in my early 20s, skin condition, and again, I couldn't find the right answers in the places that I was looking. So it forced me to kind of look elsewhere and discover a little bit more about what was happening, what might be causing

these symptoms. And ultimately, that's what I realized, right, that these were symptoms, that there was an underlying imbalance somewhere in my psyche, in my gut, in my habit, something somewhere, or perhaps multiple things. And then of course, eventually, that's what I realized was that there was a layered layered issues that I needed to tackle and, and ways that I was living that weren't

harmonious to health. And so that's really, as I began to uncover this, and unpeel that onion, and discover a little bit more of the deeper layers about what health is and what disease is, I found an interest in it, I, you know, was kind of the person that everybody went to, to ask questions if they had

issues. And ultimately, I figured out that I had a passion for this, and I could help people and, and I really wanted to get people out of this broken system that they were stuck in just taking medication after medication after medication. And as they get older, it just gets worse and worse, right. And we know how that story goes. And so that became my drive was to help people recover some of their their life, and ultimately studied functional medicine never became a doctor in that

way. But I studied all the same things. So I was running metabolic tests and, and gut tests and doing all the functional lab work, I learned to think like a functional doctor. And I had the engineering sort of systems thinking as a natural capacity. And so it all sort of made sense to me to think about this stuff. It was very complex, and it still is, but that's really how I kind of got into this, and learn to think about what health

is where it came from. And so it was it was working with, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people over the course of many years, that I learned really what was going on in our Western society that was causing so much of the health issues that I was seeing.

approaches for it. Today, we're going to talk about a lot of things but we're going to focus on longevity as as the ultimate factor here. Before we before we dive into your book and all maybe could you take a moment and just tell us a little bit about how you conceptualize longevity because it's Do people still don't agree on why we age? What are the factors that drive it? And what's what's it all about?

aging. And my thoughts are, after thinking a lot about it, is that there's probably both happening, right, that there's two aspects to this, that we know damages is playing a huge role in the sort of acceleration of what we would call aging. But then we have to kind of back up altogether and say, Well, what is aging? How do we even define aging? And this is something I asked probably 70 or 80, experts of all kinds, medical experts, health experts, and I got

different answers. Nobody could actually define aging, and I don't even know that there is a consensus definition of what aging is, I think it's really interesting that we can go from a zygote and develop this unbelievable complexity over the course of months and years. And, and repair and add this unbelievable development of a human. And then at some point,

it just kind of fails or breaks down or doesn't keep up or something like that, you know, in physics, we have this idea of, of entropy, right? That things just kind of decay to a neutral state. Well, there's something weird about life, which is there's this neg entropy, there's this opposite effect, but we organize we have this coordination happening. We resist the natural sort of entropy that might occur. So it's this very strange when you think about what's really going

on. And you know, we have stem cell exhaustion, right? So stem cells have this sort of youthful, like state, and they do amazing things. But why do we run out? How do we even make stem cells? Right? There's very interesting things when you think about what aging is, and how it all unfolds. And so, to me, I'm still left with more questions and answers at this point. And I think a lot of times we can make these leaps about what aging is how long we should live? Is it a disease

itself? Right? I think these are interesting conversations that we're now having. And I think we're having them because we're in this sort of regenerative medicine paradigm now, where we have tech and biology meeting in this very interesting place. And we're using biologics, like stem cells, like peptides, and we're inducing regenerative capacity of humans with our own tissues, right, which is really, really interesting. But the question I always have is, well, why is

that not keeping up? What point? Do we start losing the capacity to sort of maintain this harmony within our biology? Where does it break down? Why does it break down? And how do we slow that

process? So I'm kind of of the opinion that there is this programmed aspect to our lives that there's a sort of a timeline so to speak, and that we can either accelerate that and age more rapidly, so to speak, and accumulate all this damage and disease processes, both at the cellular level at the tissue level, and holistically. And if we do things correctly, we live in a way that is harmonious with what health is, with what our biology wants to sort of do is its natural state, then we can

extend that. But I'm still unsure of how, how much longer beyond, let's say, 120? Is it possible for us to extend like, I really don't know. And I don't know that we have a lot of evidence, right to really suggest that. And one of the things I point out in the book is you look at wildlife, right? You look at a lion in the wild, it has kind of a maximum lifespan that in an average lifespan, and we can look at that. And then if you pull a line into captivity, we can actually extend that lifespan

for a variety of reasons. So there seems to be some play right with all organisms, but they all kind of follow the same pattern, right? So there's something underlying a species, the biological processes, that kind of dictates how long that life is. And so I think these are the things that I like to think about, and I don't have the answers I rely on on really smart people like you to do all this research for me, and I try

to interpret it. But But I think that's where, you know, there's really interesting discussions right now to be had around this idea of, of what aspect of aging is playing the biggest role in this process? And what's controlling this sort of timeline that that we see unfold, right, like, we all go through puberty at roughly the same time, right? There's the natural human developmental aspects. And so I think this is all in consideration, not just what happens after 60 years old

and beyond. Like, I'm curious about what's happening at six months, what's happening in the womb, what's happening 13 Like, there's really interesting aspect software development that I think is going to provide us clues around what aging really is. Yeah,

and epigenetic DNA methylation, and they looked at all the cells of different organisms, and they were able to calculate sort of the maximum and Age and The fascinating part that I still don't understand for humans was, first of all, they they found that all the cells of the body except for one maxed out at about 120 For humans, except for the air cells of the cerebellum, which went to like 400, or something interest, and I'm not sure what it's due to. But anyway, one more of

patterns? Because those those clocks that we're looking at in epigenetic sort of situations, they're actually just relative, right? Like they're actually not measuring. They're just not measuring it comparatively to the, let's say, average 90 year old, right? So if we have somebody that 60 year old, chronologically, and we look at the average biological age of a 90 year old person, now we can sort of draw comparisons, right? But that's just, that's not

real. That's, that's just a relative sort of comparison. Right? So, again, the question still remains, as we look deeper and deeper into these things, what is driving that, you know, and we have Yamanaka, who was another brilliant researcher won the Nobel Prize, right? And these things notice, Yamanaka factors, write these transcription factors that can be manipulated in mice to turn back the age of a cell, right.

And they're extending the lifespan of mice, but were much more complicated than mice, right? And turning back the age of a cell is really interesting. And I don't know how much closer that gets us to extending the life of an organism like a human over the, you know, the entire lifespan. But so. And again, even if we knew that stuff, is that enough? Or do we still have to live in a way that is harmonious to health, right? Can we abuse our bodies and live in

a really disharmonious way? And just rely on sort of this new technology to save us? I don't think so. You know, I think I think I think there's going to be sort of both parts of the equation that we're going to need to get right if we want to get to that, you know, 110 120 years without all this degeneration that we see. So it's, it's fascinating. I'm super excited for the next 20

years. I can't wait to see what unfolds like it's really, really cool that we get to be in this part of sort of scientific discovery, I think.

think of it?

process increases the wear and tear on telomeres. But on the other hand, if you embrace life, if you have purpose, maybe that will extend like because of the epigenetic mechanism involved. You talk about systems approach you come from come from the perspective of an engineer. And I would love for you to kind of talk about how you you bring that kind of systems thinking to this area.

the big things? What are the big levers, I think it's one of the early chapters I write about in the book is on circadian rhythm and Chrono biology, right. And

the research is abundantly clear on this, right. So if we're not sleeping at the right times of the day, in other words, when the sun is down, and we're working swing shifts, and I mean, nurses and doctors, and this is this is a big problem in the medical industry, that for those who are working, those shifts that are all over the place, all cause mortality increases, every disease, will will is more likely in that

scenario. And that's because we have this the central governing factor in the brain and throughout our body, right? I mean, this is what's wild, we have things like, you know, the super charismatic nucleus and in the brain talking to the hypothalamus and the pituitary, that governs, and of course, the the lead to other parts of the brain actually, but it covers hormonal function, right? That's a huge driver. And hormones are the probably the biggest lever

that the body uses. I mean, hormones are unbelievably powerful. And anybody who's taken cortisone, or bodybuilders or taken, TRT, and some hormone therapies like it, hormones are amazing in what they can do. That's, that's just one big part, we also have these clocks inside every cell of our body, right, so we have these, these clock genes, B Ma, you know, period genes, clock genes, and they're governing the epigenetic

function of each cell. So it knows what the thyroid so to speak, knows which which genes to turn on which to express and not express based on the light cycle that the that are being picked up through the eyes and on our skin. Right and, and to some degree, the what we're eating, and how we're moving and all that type of stuff. So so to me circadian rhythm is a huge one. And this is something, I don't need to run a hormone pad, I don't need to look at cortisol rhythms and melatonin rhythms.

If I know how you if I know you're sleeping at the wrong time today, like we just need to correct that first and then we can run a hormone panel and then look at your your rhythms and your, your, your peak cortisol and all that. So I think there's there's general ways of being that are huge, that sort of trumps everything else. In other words, they kind of, they're going to regulate all kinds of

things gut function, right. So if your circadian rhythms off, then your gut function is going to suffer, right, your your your microbial balance, your population won't be as good as if you were sleeping correctly at the right times of day. And if you're moving at the right times of day, everything is going to be shifted based on cortisol or chronobiology.

Another part is what you alluded to is this dis general stress component, which this is underlying every aspect of our day, including when we're

sleeping, right. So if we have a lot of childhood trauma, if we've got a lot of things going on in the background, and our nervous system is sort of jacked up, even at a restful state, right, we can be meditating or resting or, or just kind of laying on a beach, and the baseline nervous system function is going to be the sympathetic drive is going to be a little bit higher in some people than others. That is a huge, huge

factor, right? And then if you get triggered into a stressful response really easily, and you can't come out of that stress response, then this is massive, right? So to me, like those are really, really big driving factors. And people can be trying to correct gut function. You know, they say all disease starts in the gut. And some degree, I think there's a, there's an element of truth to that. It's a partial truth, but a very good thing to think

about. But if your nervous system can't get into a proper parasympathetic tone, then we're going to be chasing our tail trying to correct for gut function, you know, all kinds of metabolic issues and chaos that might be going on. And really, what you need to do is figure out how to get that nervous system state balanced, good, parasympathetic tone, good, sympathetic, and then shutting off that sympathetic, right? So this is, I think these two

things are the big ones. And once we get that right, then we can start looking at other places and sort of looking in the gut and looking at, you know, liver and whatever else we might be sort of focusing on from a medical perspective, but there's big umbrella things that I think we really need to focus on.

all these other things. And then there's, there's a group of people that say that acute stress like hormesis, you know, through our nieces and through other mechanisms, like the Finnish saunas study or, or ice baths, or going out and exercise is acute stress, that these things are somehow beneficial, and they actually reduce aging and improve longevity. How do we reconcile those differences in stress? Or what what makes stress good? And what makes stress bad?

long periods of time. But from what I've seen, that seems to be perhaps something that can even Trump doing the wrong things in a huge way, maybe not completely. But I think it's really fascinating, this sort of passion and purpose piece, I just wanted to mention that because time and time again, it seems to be that is especially as we get into our older years, when we're when we're kind of losing our lust for life, we're not really sure our place, maybe friends and family have passed

away. That's really a big driver. And if we can maintain this zest for life, this, this, this, this desire to be here and show up every day, that seems to play a huge role. Now, this stress one is huge, because, you know, hormesis is really the

right concept that I think we can look at all this stuff through with this idea of hormetic stress, which is some amount of stress is really, really necessary. And too much stress is going to be deleterious. Now how do we find that that sweet spot that zone is anybody's guess. But the only way I've figured out how to do that, to some degree is to tune into my own body, and listen, and we can we can measure HRV that's a really, really good way

to do this. So if we measure our heart rate variability, we have a good heart rate variability score, you know, there's there's trackers out there sleep trackers that can help measure our sort of readiness or our ability to handle more stress. I think this is maybe the best, trackable way that we can do this. And we can also listen, right, so. So some days, if I didn't get good sleep, for

whatever reason. And I'm just not feeling that great in the morning, it's probably not a good idea for me to really push it right and go exercise like crazy, maybe better day for me to go for a walk, maybe do some yoga, maybe just actually rest, right? Like, there's there's a really important aspect to that. So it's not necessarily me in my overall state, it's me in this very individuated specific context, on a day or even hour by hour situation, that's going to determine how hard do I push?

And how much recovery do I need, but that really becomes the key drivers am am I recovered enough to be able to induce more stress with something like, you know, Hot Cold Therapy, right, uh, exercise to some huge degree sunlight, right? These are all stressors that we can encounter, even foods, right, these plant foods that we eat, they have lectins in them and phytates and, and all kinds of plant chemicals that are little micro stressors. And for some people,

that can be too much. And so this is why I think we see in some capacity, a large issue with food sensitivities is because we've lost the ability to tolerate these little micro stressors that we would find in plant foods. And it's hard to say, is it bad? Or is it good? What's bad for somebody who can't handle that level of stress and has lost their, their tolerance to these these types of foods or chemicals? Right

chemicals are another one. And so we have humans are really fascinating in the sense that we can adapt to a lot of things, like given enough exposure in small doses with the ability to recover over periods of time we can adapt. Right now we have such a high degree of we have too much going on. Right? There's this is hyper stimulation that and this novelty that we can't, we can't

adapt to. So I think that's a big part of it is if we're throwing too much at our system, and the stress bucket gets overfilled and we can't repair, regenerate and recover enough to then go and get more stress. So So stress seems to be this really important factor for adaptation for this resilient adaptation. Right. And the easiest example of this is something like bodybuilding.

Right? So it's, it's you go in and you lift 100 pounds once and it's really hard the first time, well, you do it enough with the proper recovery. And every bodybuilder knows this, that recovery and sleep is absolutely essential for you to get bigger and stronger and more well built body. So you need the nutrients, you need the proper sleep, the proper recovery. And then when you do, the body is learning, because it's an open energetic

system. It's taking these energetic signals, whatever they might be your thoughts, your beliefs, the the weights, you're lifting the foods you're eating, and it's going to always try to adapt and optimize for whatever conditions are present. So it's kind of what the body is doing, right? It's like optimizing for the stimulus that it's given. So if you do that in the right way, then the body can optimize for that condition in an repetitive way. So this is what's good

about some of this stress. And I know there's this idea that eat lots of different foods and all that. And I think there's truth to that. And there seems to be something about this repetitive nature with the proper recovery, that the body starts to optimize for the conditions that it finds itself in. So I think that's really how we have to think about this, am I recovered? Can I induce more more stress upon my body? And if so, my body will

adapt? So it's, it's, it's really about, you know, people say, Are you are you fit, well fit for what to for climbing a mountain, fit for, you know, running a marathon that fit for, you know, mountain biking, fit for? What do we fit for, right, the body is going to adapt based on the stimulus that we give it so long as we have the necessary capacity to recover. And that's the biggest piece,

back to your own story. Jason, I wonder if you can tell our audience the factors that made the biggest difference in your own recovery?

any way, no huge neglect. But as a child, when we don't have the capacity to consciously understand the world, and be able to process the feelings and emotions that are coming, they essentially can get caught in the system, so to speak, stuck, we're unable to process and that leads to again, an an adaptation, right and an ego state, so to speak, in a fractured ego state where we build these personalities in

these ways of being. And it might be the perfectionist, it might be the successful person might be somebody who, who chases money, because they need to feel safe and secure. There's all kinds of these things that they're actually we lot that we actually appreciate in our society. And there's other ways of being that might be addictions, right? Whether it's food, whether it's a relationship type of addiction, that is an unhealthy for us, alcohol, and there's

dependencies of all kinds. But to me, for me, for my well being, it came back down to that nervous system perspective, how do I get my system in a state where it can finally relax, as I go throughout my day, and if somebody cuts me off in traffic, or something doesn't go my way, or a big stressful event comes up, my system doesn't get hijacked, and I don't I don't completely lose myself, it may trigger me a little bit into some emotional state. But I come back down to rest, I come back

down to neutral. And I see this all the time with the people that I work with and just walking around throughout my day is that we can get overjet like overloaded with this sort of stress that is inevitably going to be there this mental emotional stress. And what's happening is we're getting hijacked back to a more younger state, right, we actually go back and regress, so to speak into a strategy that was successful when we were five or

eight or whatever. And we're doing that as 40 year olds and 50 year olds, because it was something that worked back then. Right, but it's not the most optimal way of being and so this is for me, it was it was retuning those ways of being those habits, those thoughts, those beliefs. And by by by processing some of the old stuff by basically growing up developmentally and My whole system found a new, a new rest, it found a new balancing point.

And this is why, you know, I'm seeing a lot of things now we're just It's January 2 here, right? Right now, you see a lot of this, like, New year, new you type of situation. And I keep thinking like, I appreciate the sentiment, but it's not New Year New, you just because the calendar flips doesn't mean that you changed at all, you know, it's more like new habits new you. Right? So what is it that you're? What are your habits? What are your habits, habituated thinking? What's your habituated

ways of being? And how do we change those? So that to me, is the core of, of, let's say, recovering health. If you're if you're in a diseased state, or maintaining health, it's how do I maintain a habituated way of being that is conducive to health. So for me, it was, I had to, I had to relearn how to how to walk through the world. Not necessarily outwardly, outwardly, I may look put together to some degree, but But

internally, it was chaos. And it, it's hard to even explain, and I didn't even wasn't even aware of it. Until I started kind of digging into some of that stuff. And realizing who I was at my core and what I was really pursuing and why I was pursuing it. Why was I making the decisions that I was making? Why was I doing things that I knew were unhealthy, which we all do, which is really interesting. So we talked about what do we eat? And how do we exercise? And how do we stay up

late and all these things? And yet, we don't do them to perfection? Why? What's going on there? You know, and how do we, how do we get underneath all that? So for me that that's the biggest one, and the people that I work with, it's, it's, it's never not part of a problem. Right, there's always areas of improvement in that sort of that aspect of who we are and how we're expressing inside.

to a place of calm, what approaches worked best for you to learn to get to a place of calm,

of setting. And putting putting a name to it may be difficult, because it's a variety of techniques that were perhaps

used. But things like Family Constellation, you know, ways that I could, I could understand family dynamics, I'm sitting with a, what you might call a therapist, but it wasn't a traditional therapist, it was somebody could actually show up as the, let's say, the ideal parent, in other words, re parenting, my sort of inner child, so to speak, and the one that was frustrated and angry and disappointed. But this disappointment was a big one. For me, as a child, I experienced disappointment a

lot. And so disappointment was a was something that I carried with me for a long time. So I had to, I had to get those wounds and those sorts of, let's say, limited ways of understanding that were that were with me, I had to, I had to figure out how to process those and develop more complete

understandings. And so it was in kind of a one on one therapeutic setting, where I got to process understand, and there was literally stuff that was so old that I wasn't even aware of that I was processing in, in in real time. And there was an aspect of me that could watch it and an aspect of me that was experiencing it. So it's really cool. And I think somatic aspects, somatic therapies of various kinds can be super, super helpful, incorporating the

body. I mean, I think fundamentally, this is why we dance was such a big thing. And across all cultures, that was a way to express and to move the body, the energies in the body emotions in the body and look at people dancing, they're literally just expressing emotion. And now we're starting to reengage that in the West.

But anything that can use the body to process, emotion and belief and conditioned thoughts, then new ways of being start to sort of emerge out of nowhere, almost, but I think a lot of it had to do with somebody that was able to reflect something back to me, and allow me to, to see myself in a new way, which is really what the parent, that's the role of the parent, right as young ones is to reflect this stuff back to us. And there's developmental processes that we

can look at right? On individuation and figuring out who we are and our relationship to our caregivers and you know, creating independence and there's it's a complex thing and and so, it was going through a lot of that again, and doing it in a healthy way with a healthy parental sort of figure that allowed me to really get to the core of some of this stuff, but I mean EMDR is a thing antastic technique for processing things.

I mean, there's just there's so many and to me, I'm continuously exploring this, this realm to see what else is under there so that I can continue to process because the more I do, the more I come back into better relation with myself better relation with the person across from me, whether it's my wife, or friends, or our colleagues or anybody, I come into better relation with, with the planet and all life living beings, you know, come into better relationship with what we can

call God or anything that is bigger than me, right, this sort of grand mystery that we are. So my relation to everything has shifted, because of this stuff. And it's, it's, in my opinion, the most important work that we can do.

lives. How do we get that

And so what you see you see across different cultures, different values are implicated. And so children grow up with different sets of values. Now, why is that? It's not because they're all just somehow deciding the same thing just haphazardly based on individuated consciousness, right? We're actually getting molded by our culture, by our family, by our society, their local society or community, right? It might be religious, or it might be, you know, a large family or whatever it might be.

But those values are instilled in us. And it's not that they're bad. In fact, societal values tend to to maintain because they work on some level, right? Sort of, from an evolutionary biology perspective, we can say that things stick around that kind of work. But the question is, is that for you, at this point in your life, are you pursuing the thing that you really feel passionate about, like, from your core from who you really

are? And so for me, I was an engineer, I was making good money, I bought a house, I did all the things that I thought would provide stability, happiness, you know, keep things

interesting. And then I woke up one day, and finally recognize the things that I was feeling inside of me, were because I was off track from what sort of some people might say my soul wants to do but but really, it was like, what, who am I and there wasn't enough of me discovering who I really was, and what I was here to do, and what I what I got excited about. And so I think that's it comes down to shedding some of the conditioning, that that we just

naturally pick up. And again, we, because it comes back down to the core stuff, right? We want to feel safe, we want to feel connected and accepted and loved. Right? That's what we're looking for as young ones for most of our lives. And even as adults, we're still wanting those things. So all of our decisions are essentially based on those things. Right? How do I feel connected, love safe, these

very basic things. And so based upon those natural desires, and important aspects of who we are, we kind of chase some things. And we wind up in a place that we didn't realize where we're at, and we go, oh my god, I'm 35. What am I doing with my life? Right? You see this with midlife crisis? That's kind of the thing that's happening there. So I think it's, it's, it's going inside, it's dismantling some of the conditioning. But also just, I think, consistently asking yourself, really, what is it

that you want? And sometimes that's a very difficult question to answer. I still ask myself that. What is it that I really want? am I waking up each day? Excited about my day? And if the answer is no, that's a pretty good indication that there's an opportunity to, to find something else to explore different territory, to see if you can ignite some passion and purpose somewhere. But that's really a big part of it is can I

explore my way out of this? If I'm not happy if I don't feel like I'm living in a purposeful, passionate way? Then how do I at least just go try to explore and figure out something stumble across something that I might find interesting, but one of the one of the fascinating things I asked a 94 year old lady this and I said, you know, look, most of your family's is passed away, or they're they don't live here anymore. You're 94 What gets you up? What gets you excited every

day, you know? And she said, Well, I've got to learn the song for the violin class on Thursday. And I That what an amazing, brilliant answer that is. And that shows you that you can find passion and purpose and interest in anything no matter

how big or small. So I think this is one of the things that we we really have an opportunity to to retool a little bit is that this idea of passion and purpose doesn't have to be this sort of Elon Musk's style, grandiose Changed the World Vision, purpose and life story.

It can be something so small, it can be in your grandchild, it can be in learning something for the violin class, it can be in the most modest and humble and beautiful aspects of life. But there needs to be an interest and that comes from within wherever it comes from. It's it's something worth following. I think that's it's just about listening to really what's going on inside.

Because that's one of the ways that we are adapted to the past and we are sort of anchored back in the past. How do you advise suggest or in your own work? unsticking your emotions getting past or assessing stuck emotions?

However, we want to classify that we've actually got to get in touch with those again, and ideally, we'd get in touch with them in a safe way, perhaps with another nervous system, that's that can help us revisit these things. So either we're walking through a day, and something puts us back there automatically, because it's an

adaptive strategy, right. And so we're gonna go back there, right, as we're walking through it, I still go back there every day, I'm getting put back into some situation that kicks me into a mental or emotional state of a four year old or a nine year old or 12 year old, or whatever the case is. And so now, with a little bit of awareness, I can actually, I can actually catch that during the day. And I say, oh, here I am. This is like a little eight year

old version. And I don't put I don't put ages to it, but but there's a little younger version of me that's still operating from a limited perspective, it gets a little upset or gets a little sad or feels isolated, or whatever the case is, that that will kick up. Now I can bring awareness to that in real time, even if I don't do anything with it, just becoming aware of it. And understanding it can be beneficial over the course of

months or years. But ideally, in a sort of more therapeutic setting, with somebody who can help me process these things. And it can be a loved one, it can be a partner, it can be somebody doesn't have to be a professional of any kind, necessarily. But somebody that can hold that space, let's say isn't using a new age term, but somebody who can just kind of be there with me, allow me to experience that in a way that doesn't feel like a death, so to

speak. Like it doesn't feel like I'm actually not going to get out of there. And some of these actually can feel like death are so so significant and severe, that they can feel so scary to revisit that we eat sugar and processed away with this food, or we we escape with work, or we literally can't get in there and feel these emotions because

they're scary. So with another body there, and perhaps a technique that can be helpful, but we got to go back and we got to process this, we got to actually get to get with them. And with enough practice, we can actually do it ourselves with enough stability with enough resource. If we have the sort of mental emotional resource. We can actually get in there and process a lot of this stuff ourselves. But it's I do it frequently in my work, I will

sit with it. And I can feel this knot in my in my sort of solar plexus and the viscera. Like you can actually feel this stuff. And you can use your awareness and feel into it and allow it to process and it'll it'll start moving. So this is actually real stuff. This is embodied visceral experiences, and sometimes it's emotion, and sometimes they're conjoined. And sometimes there's mental processes that will kick on in response to some of these

feelings. And so, you know, sometimes it's just a matter of getting familiar with the territory, and understanding how this stuff works. Why is it that when I feel this certain thing, my mind just starts going into hyper vigilance, right, that's a process that we can understand. But if it's largely unconscious, then we're going to think that we're in control that we're operating. But really, it's a four year old that's operating. And we're just kind of along for

the ride. And this is why so many people can get hijacked in the grocery store and the post office or somebody cutting them off, and they just lose it right, and they can't get back under control, because some part of them feels unsafe, unrespected unloved. And there's these hijacked processes that come on to try to establish some level of safety, security connection, you know, in the

system. And so in the mental is a big one in the West, in particular, like we are just hijacked, we're basically cut off here, and we're all head, you know, we're just thinking our way through the world. And it takes some getting used to get back into the body into the heart, into the belly, into the sacrum into the hips, like to actually get down into our bodies a little bit. But when we do, then we can process these

things in my experience. In my opinion, when we process there may be 1000s, or millions of little things to process. But once we process it, it's kind of done like that little thing, whatever that was, we can process and then there's a, there's a more integrated being here, a more adult version shows up. And again, in my experience, it's, I'm doing this hundreds or 1000s of times in my own system, and a little bit of me starts to show up as a more older, more

integrated person. So that's, I think, the first thing is you got to get in there, and you got to experience it, you got to feel it. And hopefully with resource and support that that seems to be a huge factor, and safety,

Right? It's the best way I can say it is scary is not the right word. But it's it's such a level of discomfort that you just don't go into it. And most of us are operating this way like this is what's leading to binge eating and, and excessive drinking, and smoking. And, you know, these habits that really are there to bypass and avoid what's naturally coming up in the body on a consistent basis.

Right. So again, this is this is what I mean like it's not a new year new you it's New year, new habits new you and how do we establish habits or lifestyle? What's it's uncovering all the stuff that's creating the habits that that are unconscious, right? Like that's, that's tough, this is tough work. I mean, I it really is, cuz it's scary. It's hard. And it's the most worthwhile thing that I've

ever done. And it gives me such pleasure and passion to talk about it, but to help people with it, to explore into it, even though it's the scariest place to go.

things. And you give them the evidence for it and then they would change but are realizing now that perhaps the greatest factor in this is not the education but it's it's the psychological things that you're mentioning in the complexities of humans that it's not enough just to to present the evidence, the best peer reviewed articles aren't going to change this. So what do we what do we do? What can we do to make those changes happen psychologically? What are the what are the tools you use?

the unconscious. And there's, I've even worked with a hypnotherapist that can do amazing stuff on that level, right. So there's, there's so many ways, and again, this is where I think some of the indigenous plant medicines can actually come into play. There's a lot of ways we can get into that unconscious, right, Joe Dispenza has developed a whole career out of tapping into this, this this type of reality, there's cool things that we can

do there. And so exploring that unconscious world and bringing that conscious, that is really, really key. It may or may not even shift anything yet, it may just be bringing what we didn't know is there, all the gunk in the closet out into the living room, right? You still got a messy house, but at least you know, it's what's there. We know it's under the bed. Right? So that's one areas go deep into the unconscious and find out

what's there. The other part is, is you can actually use the conscious to change the unconscious, right? So we have a negativity bias, most of us are running somewhere around four to one negative thoughts about our environment about the world, compared to the positive, right. And that's for safety reasons, right? If you're walking through the woods, and there's bears and whatever, like we're constantly looking out for danger, that's how we survive. Well, we can flip that on its head, no, we

can do conscious practices. Look for the silver lining and anything and everything. In fact, we all know these people, somebody around us is like that super positive guy or gal that is just like you, they can't be shaken, they're always positive. And oh, it's almost annoying how positive they are. Right? Like I'm thinking of one person in my life, specifically. And he's always been like this always smile on his face. And so we can

actually choose this stuff. And we may not be there we may be in really, really negative land, like just swimming in negativity in terms of emotions, and thoughts and expectations, we're just going to the crazy thing is, is that if we have that expectation, we seem to create a reality that confirms that expectation back to us. That's what's wild. And I don't know how it works. But I've seen it over and over again. So we can become empowered and do the

opposite, right? This is the whole the secret the movie, and some of these others are positivity stuff, envisioning, and all this stuff is sort of tapping into that same idea. But, but even more practical, you can just go throughout your day, and just catch yourself when your negative thinking is flipping around, you can actually do gratitude

journaling, right? When I go to the grocery store, and I swipe my card, or whatever I do to pay for my groceries, I can actually in that moment, say, I'm really grateful that I can pay for this food. Right? Like, it doesn't have to be these big grandiose things that it can be every day, just starting to consciously bring awareness to I'm actually lucky, you know, I got up this morning, I can walk sure my knee hurts. Yeah, not ideal. I can focus on that knee pain. Or I

can say, You know what? I can walk today, you know, it's a good day, right? These are conscious repatterning. And because of neuroplasticity, we can actually change the brain, we can change the neurons, right? The neurons that fire together wire together, we now know, in fact, DNRs is a great sort of strategy, dynamic neural retraining system that Annie Hopper has created around this idea that has gotten people out of some really horrendous syndromes, right? So there's,

there's neuro plastic ways. This is the cool thing about humans, we are so adaptable, we can change things we are, we are the most empowered beings on the planet, we can, we can totally shift our reality, we can change our environments, our external environments, our internal environments, we can change it right. So no matter what circumstances you you've been given, you can flip it on its head, right? So we can change the unconscious by going in and

working some of that stuff. And we can change our conscious, which will shift our unconscious. So it's all working together, we just need to figure out how do we start working with some of this stuff? And it's honestly, it's easier than I think, than we realize. But it's a matter of where are the biggest levers to turn? And in my opinion, this is one of those those areas, how do we change our thinking? How do we change our emotions, unconscious and

our inner beliefs? What are governing those things, so that we can walk? And look, this is why I called the book Beyond longevity. Because yes, cool, longevity. Great, awesome. Living a long time. We need more elders in the world. There's a lot of value there. And we want to live healthier, long lives. And even beyond that. I think there's a more important aspect, which is how do I become here today, right now? How do I show up happy? How do I show up vibrant and willing to live my

life here today? Not thinking about what happens in 90 years? Or am I going to be healthy when I'm you know 86? I want to be hairy right now.

intention there. And they can go to awakened Health Academy. That's where I have a lot of the interviews I do with brilliant people like yourselves, and trying to bring out a lot of this new health information that is this flooding airways, and I have a place for that as well. So I want to thank you guys for being on and all the work that you guys do. Honestly, it's like, you guys do the hard work. And I just get to go read all the work that you guys do and try to put it together in my own

way. So I sincerely do appreciate all the work that you guys are doing. In the world, it is so cool to see it finally coming out into the public in a new way. It doesn't have to go through the filtered medical system as it as it did top down. It is now grassroots everywhere. And it's things like this that are honestly in my opinion, going to change what the next 20 years looks like.

that we do on this channel. And we take the your suggestions and advice very seriously. So please let us know what you'd love to see on this channel. Thanks for watching and we hope to see you next time