Your Wellness Blueprint with Dr. Rao

[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, wait. [SPEAKER_01]: Before we start, just want to make sure we're clear here. [SPEAKER_01]: While this podcast talks about sobriety, mental health and addiction, it is not meant to replace professional medical advice. [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Sisters in sobriety. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Kathleen, and I'm Sonia, and we're X sisters in law brought together in marriage and bonded through our sobriety journey.

[SPEAKER_01]: Join us as we talk sobriety, addiction and everything in between. [SPEAKER_01]: You're in for quite a ride. [SPEAKER_01]: And our sub-stack is buzzing with amazing content from creative mock-till recipes to insightful courses and reflective exercises. [SPEAKER_01]: There is something for everyone. [SPEAKER_01]: Don't miss out. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a great way to add some extra joy and depth to your journey. [SPEAKER_01]: Check it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome, the sisters in sobriety, and this week we're joined by Dr. Jothi Rao, an internal medicine physician, educator, and founder of Shakti Wellness. [SPEAKER_01]: A practice rooted it integrative and preventative care. [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Rao is a board certified internist who blends Eastern and Western modalities to help her patients reclaim energy, regulate their hormones, reduce inflammation, and build systems that actually support behavior change.

[SPEAKER_01]: So today, [SPEAKER_01]: We will talk about healing from the inside out. [SPEAKER_01]: So welcome Dr. Rao. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_01]: So can you tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you to this integrative model?

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure. [SPEAKER_00]: I basically was a trained in Boston for traditional medical school, traditional residency, and was at a tertiary care center, which means that people were coming to this hospital from all over the world to try to seek specialty care. [SPEAKER_00]: So the way I was trained was everything was divided, like a cardiology weighing and a hematology weighing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Every month we rotated through one specific organ and it kind of makes you think that everything is not related and nothing really affects each other. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, seventy percent of our class went into specialization, the cardiologist, you know, it's very focused type of training. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I had my daughter in residency and so I was going to be a cardiologist, but I stopped because

[SPEAKER_00]: you know, having her and I didn't want to be away from her so much, but the point is that I didn't realize until many years later how connected all the organs are and very quickly became frustrated at the type of medicine we were practicing, which was really called band-aid medicine. [SPEAKER_00]: Very frustrated about the lack of satisfaction and even making people feel well because even the drugs we gave them caused side effects and problems.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I found that most people were walking around mostly unwell, even though they weren't ill with anything, but they were unhappy. [SPEAKER_00]: There was no joy. [SPEAKER_00]: It was just like slogging around tired at the age of thirty, forty, you know, very young. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I wanted to look for other ways to try to help the body heal. [SPEAKER_00]: So I got into acupuncture. [SPEAKER_00]: I was certified in acupuncture about thirty years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: And since then, that changed my whole life because that was [SPEAKER_00]: kind of on the path of healing versus band aid. [SPEAKER_00]: And it also put together this concept that everything's connected. [SPEAKER_00]: So when I was treating people for their carpal tunnel, they started sleeping better. [SPEAKER_00]: They started having less palpitations. [SPEAKER_00]: They started having gut improvement. [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, what is what?

[SPEAKER_00]: I was just treating your pain. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so it was very disconnecting for me to kind of understand how [SPEAKER_00]: Pretty one thing can affect another. [SPEAKER_00]: So I decided to do a fellowship in functional medicine, which looks at cause, which looks at how everything's related goes back to biochemistry, physiology, cell membranes.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, things that break us down, not specifically what's happening in your heart versus in your kidney versus in your brain. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, everything's related and the hormones and [SPEAKER_00]: what you eat and the microbiome and how you sleep, it's all connected. [SPEAKER_00]: And so when I started to be able to practice that medicine twelve years ago, I opened up Shukthi Health and Wellness Center.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was transformative for me because, finally, I was able to kind of have the time to be able to connect to people and figure out how they broke down. [SPEAKER_00]: Because even if people have the same two diagnoses, hypertension, for example, [SPEAKER_00]: Their their solutions are not the same. [SPEAKER_00]: One person might be having sleep apnea and other person might be having kidney issues.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another person might be stressed out of their mind and and so the drugs work one directionally. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they lower the blood pressure, but they don't affect the root cause, which if you leave that unchecked, then you have other problems down there. [SPEAKER_00]: So it also allowed me to do a lot of education. [SPEAKER_00]: teach. [SPEAKER_00]: I traveled to India to do mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote a few books, a book called Body on Fire, the Cardiologist, to try to educate patients on lifestyle choices that they can make to transform their future health. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just about medicines. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really about understanding how much control we have. [SPEAKER_00]: And I continue to try to learn about things that affect the whole body, not just one organ or one system or one diagnosis, and it's really

[SPEAKER_00]: exciting to be able to talk about this to people because I feel like we don't understand how much power we actually have over our health destiny and I want to be able to give people tools on on that power that they have really. [SPEAKER_00]: and all the things that are out there that we can utilize including sunlight. [SPEAKER_00]: And we'll talk about that later. [SPEAKER_01]: We will.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so when you talk about these foundational health habits, we're talking about like light, are we talking about exercise, we're talking about what you eat or is it more than that? [SPEAKER_00]: It is more than that, but I don't want to overwhelm people. [SPEAKER_00]: People can come to the pathway this pathway many different ways. [SPEAKER_00]: So it is not just exercise, not just sleep, not just what you eat, not just how you think your outlook, your optimism, also matters.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's overwhelming when you tell someone you have to do all of these things. [SPEAKER_00]: But what's exciting is that if I just work on my sleep or if I just work on my diet, [SPEAKER_00]: If I just work on moving more, just work on getting out in the sunlight, all of the things are connected. [SPEAKER_00]: So you can reach multiple goals by the same by coming at it from different pathways. [SPEAKER_00]: And so it is possible to do it from any angle.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you can start anywhere. [SPEAKER_00]: And I would say foundationally nutrition. [SPEAKER_00]: got microbiome, which is also affected by other pillars like exercise, mind body, connection, sleep, movement. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, these are all connected. [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's foundational as talk about it. [SPEAKER_00]: But then there's also this component of fasting, optimism, how much time am I spending out in the light?

[SPEAKER_00]: What is my oral microbiome look like? [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's different aspects that I can do that we can talk about in terms of where people can get to. [SPEAKER_00]: Start the starting point because just like a downward spiral when things go bad, you can have an upward spiral. [SPEAKER_00]: You just have to start somewhere and it builds because you have more energy. [SPEAKER_00]: You feel better. [SPEAKER_00]: Your taste buds are changing.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't crave your sugar. [SPEAKER_00]: You don't crave your salt because your body is healing because you're giving it the nutrients. [SPEAKER_00]: So oftentimes, I'll see people come in with twenty different supplements, but they're got some mess. [SPEAKER_00]: And so nothing's even getting taken in. [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing's even absorbing. [SPEAKER_00]: So what we want to do is foundationally look at how do we rebuild you?

[SPEAKER_00]: How do we get your body in the state, which is really important is feeling safe? [SPEAKER_00]: If we get our body to feel safe, saying I'm not running from a tiger, all sorts of things start to work better.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's so powerful to know that switch is there that we can do and there's a lot of different ways to get there. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not saying it's easy. [SPEAKER_00]: But we need rest and digest system, right? [SPEAKER_00]: The vagus nerve, the parasympathetic.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I do in shock the health and wellness is I work on the parasympathetic system, the rest and digest system, which offsets that sympathetic overdrive, whether that's an addiction, whether that's stress at work, whether that's a bad marriage, whether that's constant pain, the bodies constantly being told that I'm running from a tiger, adrenaline, cortisol, [SPEAKER_00]: all elevated because you're not feeling well.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what you want to do is tell that body, I'm fine. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm resting and I'm digesting well. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm safe. [SPEAKER_00]: And then the body starts to, you know, be able to incorporate tools to heal much better than if it's always in the sympathetic overdrive. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's really what I focus on in the beginning. [SPEAKER_00]: The concepts of breast and digestive people. [SPEAKER_00]: I kind of meet them where they are.

[SPEAKER_00]: If someone is eating a perfectly whole dot whole some diet, that's [SPEAKER_00]: And their nutrients status is fine. [SPEAKER_00]: I move to sleep. [SPEAKER_00]: I move to fatigue. [SPEAKER_00]: I move to the mind body connection. [SPEAKER_00]: Am I walking around stressed out all the time? [SPEAKER_00]: How do I calm my brain? [SPEAKER_00]: How do I get some calmness and rest back into my life? [SPEAKER_00]: And we use, you know, many different tools.

[SPEAKER_00]: We use things like calming and gargling and other things that affect the vagal nerve. [SPEAKER_00]: But we also talk about meditation and yoga and deep breathing. [SPEAKER_00]: We talk about things that are AMO fit, which is like an external device that helps that vagus nerve. [SPEAKER_00]: So basically bottom line is that we can start working on a system of the breast and digest.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we build on that because if you are resting and digesting better, your body is more capable of taking in other inputs. [SPEAKER_00]: And that input doesn't necessarily have to come in a prescription form or supplement form. [SPEAKER_00]: It can come [SPEAKER_00]: with the lifestyle form. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so I think all of us need to understand that there is a part of our system that wants to heal all the time, our body's looking to heal.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we just have to take the problems out of the way. [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the biggest problems here is what we're thinking all day. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the chatter that's in our mind. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the fifty thousand thoughts we're having every day that's the same. [SPEAKER_00]: that keeps kind of keeping us back, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a whole possibility of limbic system reset and working with a therapist or EMDR trauma therapy, you know, so many things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to minimize it, but it is a place that we have to look at in order to heal the body. [SPEAKER_00]: So what is happening here, even if we don't understand the trauma, I find hidden, you know, small trauma and big trauma so much in people that are not healing their stuff, their body stuck. [SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't always have to look like PTSD.

[SPEAKER_00]: It can be smaller things that have happened along the way, a divorce, a bad boss, a really bad interaction, a loss of a very good friend. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, that kind of a thing that can be very traumatic for people. [SPEAKER_00]: That surgery. [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of medical trauma out there too. [SPEAKER_00]: People are free to go to the doctor because they've been mistreated or misdiagnosed or have had bad outcomes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, there's a lot of this outside with COVID and fear [SPEAKER_00]: So basically starting with concepts that call us and relax us and allow our body to heal is really a starting point. [SPEAKER_01]: I would say I'm in EMDR. [SPEAKER_01]: I would say too like it's kind of like a second tier of like if I don't sleep properly or I'm stressed, EMDR is just not as effective. [SPEAKER_01]: I read it, which is interesting. [SPEAKER_01]: So, a hundred percent.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: So, are we talking about [SPEAKER_01]: chronic inflammation, which I know you've said is like the root of a lot of conditions, is that what we're looking at is reducing the overall inflammation in the body. [SPEAKER_00]: So the body has this ability to identify the bad guys. [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's white cells in our body that are charge of our immune system. [SPEAKER_00]: They're lined in our mouth and our gut.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a lot of cells and basically our skin. [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of different ways our bodies constantly looking for the enemy in the threat, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Because historically we were wired to protect ourselves from [SPEAKER_00]: invaders and from that weather and from famine and those genes are still with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when we are in a grocery store, [SPEAKER_00]: We don't have the famine issue, but the quality of the food is almost like the body still starving, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So there are things that triggered these switches for white cells to go up because there's a bad guy, and that that guy could be that we said too much that so that the issue is that the bad guys are not just threats to our life and our weather and our families.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's I'm sitting in traffic too long. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a terrible situation at work. [SPEAKER_00]: I've got a lot of stress in my [SPEAKER_00]: in my surroundings. [SPEAKER_00]: On top of that, we also have patterns that are ninety percent away from what our natural bodies want. [SPEAKER_00]: We sit too much. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't need high nutrient foods. [SPEAKER_00]: We're not in sunlight. [SPEAKER_00]: We are stressed all the time in terms of thinking.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't prioritize sleep. [SPEAKER_00]: So all of this lead to this imbalance, which causes our body to constantly be in threat. [SPEAKER_00]: And when that happens, there are these white cells, our immune system that come to the rescue. [SPEAKER_00]: And so one of the foundational places you see these changes [SPEAKER_00]: is in the gut. [SPEAKER_00]: The microbiome, which lines our gut, it starts to change. [SPEAKER_00]: We start to get bad bugs.

[SPEAKER_00]: We start to digest poorly. [SPEAKER_00]: We start to get leaky gut. [SPEAKER_00]: We start to create inflammatory cells, most of the immune systems in the gut, eighty percent. [SPEAKER_00]: So the signals that we send to the gut, I'm safe. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm eating, you know, nutritious nutritionally when I eat. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're eating too often, right? [SPEAKER_00]: We're eating twelve, fifteen hours a day. [SPEAKER_00]: That's too much eating.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a lot of signals we're putting to into our body that says that we're not safe. [SPEAKER_00]: And so the immune system, yes, gets triggered. [SPEAKER_00]: You get microbiome changes. [SPEAKER_00]: You get inflammation that happens through white cells. [SPEAKER_00]: You also start to change fat deposition. [SPEAKER_00]: which causes inflammation. [SPEAKER_00]: You get that in the midsection, which is a response to cortisol and insulin.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not as easy as saying it's just one thing because it's multiple things. [SPEAKER_00]: It's multiple insults, including microbiome, including white cell dysfunction, with including things like mitochondria, which are the powerhouse of ourselves, but they're much more than that. [SPEAKER_00]: They are [SPEAKER_00]: literally in charge of everything, they're in charge of art, glucose control, our immune system, our metabolism.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so many things are circled around the mitochondria and we hit it all the time, including sitting under blue light all day long, hits our mitochondria. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not just one thing. [SPEAKER_00]: It's also the quality of our water and our foods, right? [SPEAKER_00]: We're seeing toxins. [SPEAKER_00]: So the bodies just trying to stay afloat. [SPEAKER_00]: It's literally just trading water because we're just throwing all these insults at it.

[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is you can't test it on a blood test. [SPEAKER_00]: I can't say how healthy you are by looking at a white count or mark or inflammation. [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't work. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't have a blood test for this. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of this is related to your symptoms, the way that we're

[SPEAKER_00]: progressing, waking, fatigue, brain fog, these are like vague symptoms that suggests that something's off balance. [SPEAKER_00]: So yes, it is inflammation, root of all illness, but the inflammation comes from sometimes too much fat in the midsection. [SPEAKER_00]: It comes from hormone imbalance. [SPEAKER_00]: It comes from lack of nutrition. [SPEAKER_00]: It comes from lack of bad good bugs in the gut.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of causes for that inflammation, but it starts, I believe, a lot in the gut. [SPEAKER_01]: And so when we talk about the gut, how do you view alcohol? [SPEAKER_01]: And it's impact on the gut and the microbiome. [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the biggest things aside from the sugar content and the fact that it causes dehydration and the fact that it can give extra calories. [SPEAKER_00]: Also, it is a toxin, it affects our liver.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the gut, when I say gut, I also mean liver. [SPEAKER_00]: The liver and the gut part of the same system. [SPEAKER_00]: Our liver is the most overworked organ in the whole body. [SPEAKER_00]: It is constantly detoxing us. [SPEAKER_00]: It is making ourselves for [SPEAKER_00]: plotting and it's making ourselves for cholesterol and making it's taking care of our hormones, our nutrients, our toxins, it is constantly working.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when you throw an insult at it like a alcohol and it's excessive, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Because there's really no safe amount of alcohol per se, I mean, most studies will say, you know, people who don't drink alcohol have a much better health than [SPEAKER_00]: They'd be saying, you know, you can have one or two glasses a day. [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably less bad. [SPEAKER_00]: But honestly, no alcohol is the best.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when you have one or two glasses and you exceed that or you binge, that's a gigantic toxic load to the body. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a gigantic insult to the liver. [SPEAKER_00]: It increases something called food made in the brain. [SPEAKER_00]: It causes dehydration to ourselves. [SPEAKER_00]: It affects the gut microbiome adversely. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of inflammation created by it, but it also plugs up the system that is there to work for getting rid of toxins.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it kind of like you get a backlog, then you have other issues that pile up because the toxins aren't getting out of you. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's a combination effect and this is putting it simply but it's just one of those things that Just spirals because the liver does so much and the gut does so much that alcohol is a direct insult to both places Yeah, that that makes sense. [SPEAKER_01]: Do you talk to your patients about alcohol use?

[SPEAKER_00]: I Try yeah, I've been burned before you know where I asked the wrong question. [SPEAKER_00]: I recently had it [SPEAKER_00]: A college kid that came and saw me and I asked him how much he drank and he said, only drink once, once a month. [SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't ask him how much.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Why can't he get twenty drinks that one time. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: That's binge drinking is worse almost than drinking regularly. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to say worse. [SPEAKER_00]: It's it's just as that. [SPEAKER_00]: So the point is that I try to ask the questions, but in my one hour intake, I'm trying to get to so many things that people are doing that are not safe for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So sometimes I don't delve into it. [SPEAKER_00]: That was a very good learning lesson for me because I need to ask how much. [SPEAKER_00]: because once a month sounds like nothing. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's actually a ton. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, and the reason I asked him that was because weird things were happening as blood work and I didn't understand it. [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, this doesn't explain. [SPEAKER_00]: You were doing so great. [SPEAKER_00]: What happened?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why did all of a sudden everything turn around? [SPEAKER_00]: And so then I asked him the question, well, when you do drink, what happens? [SPEAKER_00]: He was, well, I can put away twenty beers, you know, in that one day. [SPEAKER_00]: So, of course, that is going to affect the way he heals. [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, that's going to affect his liver and his gut microbiome. [SPEAKER_00]: Because it just didn't make sense to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: because he was cruising along so well, and you know, then it would like kid of all. [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, those kind of questions, I'm always learning as a clinician as well. [SPEAKER_00]: I learned from my patients all the time, but it isn't something that I think I spend a great deal of time on, but it's part of my intake form, you know, but I also have to focus on so many other things that people do on a regular basis.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember ever telling the truth on medical history about how much I've seen it. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the other problem. [SPEAKER_00]: Most people are afraid to tell me. [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't take it as gold, you know, when they're saying it, I kind of just process it. [SPEAKER_00]: And so now when the teenage or the college can tell me what's for twice a month, I'm going to be a lot more probing about those questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, speaking of college kids who are in their summer season now, you do talk a lot about aligning routines with seasons. [SPEAKER_01]: And so like what what a seasonal kind of living mean to you and why is it important? [SPEAKER_00]: So the the the big of a moment there's a few things that I've done in medicine that has been so transformative and I think acupuncture has been one of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fasting regimens have been another form that has been so powerful in my practice. [SPEAKER_00]: And the most recent news input was the circadian rhythm biology, which is that our organs are linked to the sun cycle. [SPEAKER_00]: And as most people know based on where you live, the latitude you live in, the season that you're in, it changes, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Because we have seasonal effective disorder for reason in the winter.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sitting here next to my happy light because I have that light is so critical for me in the winter's now, but even in the summer, I don't get outside as much because I'm in my office all day under these blue lights.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there is a seasonal circadian rhythm link to every organ that we have, which is so powerful to understand. [SPEAKER_00]: There is a lot of we get more energy from sunlight than we do our food. [SPEAKER_00]: So we need sun. [SPEAKER_00]: We are batteries. [SPEAKER_00]: We are ninety we're seventy percent water. [SPEAKER_00]: We need to be charged and we're not getting it under these blue lights. [SPEAKER_00]: So we have to be outside more.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we want to be eating seasonally because the vegetables that grow in the season are also charged with that sunlight of that season. [SPEAKER_00]: So what we take in. [SPEAKER_00]: We'll also have higher amounts of energy and do better for our body. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a very, I read the principle as well, but I'm learning that it affects our mitochondria energy cells much better if we eat seasonally, like, according to the season.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we get up with sunrise and we go down with sunset in the sense we get away from blue light, one sun sets. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm usually wearing blue light blockers because I'm under the light. [SPEAKER_00]: And they're, they're amber usually. [SPEAKER_00]: And then at night, when this is what I tell my patients too, at night after sunset, where red glasses to block the blue light even more, because our body needs to know that there's a circadian change.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when we're under the same light all the time, it is actually an insult to our mitochondria. [SPEAKER_00]: So when we talk about seasonal living, we're talking about changing our cycles to the sun cycle. [SPEAKER_00]: So if you can wake up, [SPEAKER_00]: sunrise a lot easier in the winter than it is now. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's in the summer. [SPEAKER_00]: It was as if we as five, fifteen were at my latitude.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now it's six o'clock today, which is a lot, you know, more reasonable. [SPEAKER_00]: But if people can't do that, then I'd asked them to at least start with sunset. [SPEAKER_00]: Go out and see the sunset to see the how the light changes without sunglasses without regular glasses without contacts. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you do wear glasses, I mean, people do this. [SPEAKER_00]: So they can actually see the sun coming into the eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's very important to get it to the [SPEAKER_00]: the homerizer. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of triggers in the back of the retina that tell and communicate directly with our brain about making hormones, neurotransmitters, so many things that are activating our organs. [SPEAKER_00]: There's, it's a such a powerful impulse. [SPEAKER_00]: So regardless of what you're coming in for, we're in my practice now.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will talk about the circadian rhythm biology because I think it's foundational whether you're completely well and you just want to each better or you're so tired, you can't get up off the couch. [SPEAKER_00]: It will literally help anyone and everyone and it's free.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's going outside and a lot of people will tell me, well, I can't, my son really bothers my eyes. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's a sign of us being inside too much. [SPEAKER_00]: So we can go out when it's lighter, like sunrise. [SPEAKER_00]: It's much, much, much dimmer light. [SPEAKER_00]: You can use Lux as a measurement of the intensity of light. [SPEAKER_00]: And so for example, my Lux right now, while I'm sitting under this light, it's too fifty.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then my Lux lamp that I'm sitting in front of here and my happy light is about ten thousand Lux. [SPEAKER_00]: And if I go out in a summer day, in my latitude, it's about fifty to a hundred thousand. [SPEAKER_00]: Our bodies need about thirteen hundred. [SPEAKER_00]: Luxe to wake up to make dopamine to make our hormones like pregnant alone and sex hormones into stastro. [SPEAKER_00]: If we don't do that, if we don't get outside, we're blending all those responses.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of the reasons why seasonal affective disorders so prevalent because we're not getting out into that thirteen hundred luxe enough for a body to make serotonin and dopamine. [SPEAKER_00]: and these kind of transmitters. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just about vitamin D. It's a very little about vitamin D. Vitamin D only happens at certain times in the day and it doesn't even happen in certain latitudes in certain seasons.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's more about this spectrum of light that you see at different aspects of the day. [SPEAKER_00]: And I would love for people to check out this app called My Circadian because it explains it a lot better than I just did. [SPEAKER_00]: But it is such a powerful input that I think everyone needs to know about it. [SPEAKER_00]: because we get more energy from sunlight than we do our food.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in anticipation of this conversation, I was thinking about how much light I get. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I have a covered porch, which I spend a lot of time on, and then I have like an uncovered porch. [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, is this just about being inside our outside? [SPEAKER_01]: Is it about, you know, being struck by the rays? [SPEAKER_01]: Is it what if you're wearing a hat? [SPEAKER_01]: What is the way to maximize the benefit from the sun?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that we have to be able to see sunlight without any sort of glass, whether it's glasses we wear, windows, contacts, ideally. [SPEAKER_00]: This is all I do, only people need to see it also. [SPEAKER_00]: But you can sit under a tree. [SPEAKER_00]: You can wear a hat. [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to stare directly at the sun. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I would never do that. [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't tell you to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just about being outside and seeing the race. [SPEAKER_00]: So even early morning light, which is when I checked this morning at sunrise, I think it was like, one seventy five locks. [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't that much, but it was the spectrum of light is so different than what I have under my blue light.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is so powerful to be there. [SPEAKER_00]: Just sitting in the grass or standing in the grass. [SPEAKER_00]: on the beach, wherever you are, you can see and be outside, please do not stare at the sun. [SPEAKER_00]: Some people say you should face east, and if that means of trees in front of you, fine, if that means that buildings in front of you, fine. [SPEAKER_00]: But there are concepts where the light needs to hit the back of your red.

[SPEAKER_00]: eyes, and it's the right now. [SPEAKER_00]: And so there are different genes and proteins that get stimulated, that cause reactions that kind of communicate in the leptin pathway. [SPEAKER_00]: So metabolism, neuro, transmitter pathways, hormone pathways, [SPEAKER_00]: It also wakes up every organ.

[SPEAKER_00]: So for people who are constipated, one of the signals is to go outside, let the sun see the light because then it starts to move organs and activate things like, hey, it's morning. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go. [SPEAKER_00]: Just equally as important as sunlight, we need dark. [SPEAKER_00]: We need dark at night. [SPEAKER_00]: We need both aspects so our brain knows that it is time to calm down. [SPEAKER_00]: So we don't do that right? [SPEAKER_00]: Most of us are watching Netflix.

[SPEAKER_00]: where we'll check in on emails before we go to bed. [SPEAKER_00]: There's a constant influx of blue light. [SPEAKER_00]: Sleep disorders, who doesn't have a sleep disorder? [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody has a sleep disorder. [SPEAKER_00]: Part of the problem is this concept of where we're not in the sun enough and we're in artificial light too much.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we start to ship that cascade, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, for me, I'm obsessed with sleep because it is such a powerful organ to heal. [SPEAKER_00]: Restored of sleep is so key and to stay well and to kind of creating balance and it's a great way to detox. [SPEAKER_00]: We detox in our sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it is very, very important to get restored of sleep and very few people get restored of sleep without taking something or [SPEAKER_00]: being on something, you know, this is a big problem. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that this is a very easy solution of kind of minimizing blue light wearing red glasses, some way to block the light or having a red bulb in your room at night after sunset. [SPEAKER_00]: I would just encourage people to try.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's too easy not to, there's really no downside to it. [SPEAKER_00]: But it has, in my practice, I've only learned about this in the last three months. [SPEAKER_00]: It has really started to help my patients heal. [SPEAKER_00]: It's another tool in their toolbox. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's so, it's so accessible and simple for most people. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm not talking about just the glasses.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just talking about going outside and maybe making your room dark, cold and creating that environment for sleep. [SPEAKER_00]: That's optimal.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just have to prioritize it, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like anything else. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a priority to shift in mindset of like, wow, but I've done this my whole life. [SPEAKER_00]: But why how can I do this now? [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I would encourage you to think about it because the mitochondria is really critical. [SPEAKER_00]: Our mitochondria wronged immune system. [SPEAKER_00]: So they're kind of like the foundation part.

[SPEAKER_00]: And those guys really get hit with blue light badly in an artificial setting. [SPEAKER_00]: And so we want to be able to set the right signals for healing. [SPEAKER_00]: by giving the tools which are, until the light exposure we have. [SPEAKER_00]: which can change seasonally. [SPEAKER_00]: So sometimes in the winter, for example, you're not going to see sunlight till seven thirty eight o'clock, but you're up at six.

[SPEAKER_00]: So some people in this field would say, you know, try to use basically use your red glasses in your house until the sun comes out. [SPEAKER_00]: And then go outside and see the sunlight. [SPEAKER_00]: So seeing sunlight as your first light is really important to set that circadian rhythm.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I go back and forth between Pennsylvania and Toronto and in Pennsylvania I live in the woods and in Toronto my apartment is in the city and so the combination of that and it stays light out in Canada until almost ten o'clock at night and I get so thrown off [SPEAKER_01]: When I'm there, but so we mentioned the mitochondria. [SPEAKER_01]: I know you explained this to me when we spoke last, but what are they and why should we care?

[SPEAKER_00]: So they're an integral part of every cell. [SPEAKER_00]: They're, um, they're full of, uh, by layer of bit membranes. [SPEAKER_00]: And they do a lot of work for us. [SPEAKER_00]: They take, they create energy ATP. [SPEAKER_00]: They take our food, our carbs, proteins and fats and turn it into energy. [SPEAKER_00]: They are in charge of our immune system. [SPEAKER_00]: They're also in charge of what's called the cell danger response.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when our bodies really, really threatened, when we're in fear, when we have something like a virus or something, you can get into the cell danger response. [SPEAKER_00]: And you can get stuck in there. [SPEAKER_00]: And so that is that chronic sense of unwellness, this chronic illness type of thing. [SPEAKER_00]: And we try to move people out of that by supporting the mitochondria in different ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bottom line is it is really critical to our well-being, our aging, and our healing. [SPEAKER_00]: Like it is actually foundational to most things that are related to our health. [SPEAKER_00]: And it is [SPEAKER_00]: In every organ some organs have a higher density of it like our brain like our ovaries. [SPEAKER_00]: So we want to be able to support the mitochondria specifically for neurodegenerative health is going through the roof dementia.

[SPEAKER_00]: Parkinson's, you know, all these neurodegenerative things or illnesses are really, really problematic and we don't have great tools for them. [SPEAKER_00]: So in my perspective, as always, is about prevention. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's work on the mitochondria before it becomes a problem because another fact I learned that was like, earth shattering for me was that you can survive pretty well with seventy percent of dysfunctional mitochondria.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you guys are mitochondria get hit over time. [SPEAKER_00]: up to seventy percent. [SPEAKER_00]: You're okay. [SPEAKER_00]: You're functioning. [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody knows anything's wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: You don't know anything's wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: When you get to eighty percent is when you start to feel things and things show up. [SPEAKER_00]: That is a ton of time. [SPEAKER_00]: So most people don't wake up with the chronic illness, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So there is a process that's happening over maybe decades. [SPEAKER_00]: That is then manifesting as something. [SPEAKER_00]: for most of us. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not like the radiation injury or something where you get hit with a big virus in your immune systems, it's tank.

[SPEAKER_00]: So for this reason and because we cannot measure mitochondria in any safe, reliable way, I think that working on your mitochondria all the time is critical to stay well and healing and supporting your immune system because if the mitochondria's damage are also going to have inflammation and you're going to have a problem regulating your immune system. [SPEAKER_00]: So it has become more foundational to me. [SPEAKER_00]: I used to talk about, you know, gut.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as since I've been taking these courses in the mitochondria and cell membrane health, it's becoming more and the four of let's work on the mitochondria first.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the way to do it through, you know, circadian biology through types of water that we drink and also supporting our cell membranes lipid levels because that might a country have these violator lipids that surround the inner and outer membranes that allow things to get in and allow things to get out. [SPEAKER_00]: And we need a functioning system in order to be able to have toxins and take nutrients that our body needs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's one of the reasons why in the beginning, let's say, I'll see people taking all these supplements, nothing's changing. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just a gut absorption issue. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a mitochondrial issue. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a cell membrane issue. [SPEAKER_00]: Things just don't get into the cell if they're on well. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I know you're really passionate about free and like accessible tools.

[SPEAKER_01]: What are some tools we can use to support our mitochondrial health?

[SPEAKER_00]: So one is downloading this app called my circadian because it really tells you about sunlight. [SPEAKER_00]: It has videos on there that really explain every aspect of the day and how it affects ourselves. [SPEAKER_00]: So and it's and it's cumulative. [SPEAKER_00]: So today I got maybe thirty minutes of sunlight. [SPEAKER_00]: But over the weekend, maybe I'll get three hours. [SPEAKER_00]: We would like to get to a goal of at least two hundred minutes a week.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't like to put that number out there because it's not more as better. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's one of those things. [SPEAKER_00]: That's probably the most free, easy thing to do. [SPEAKER_00]: That's great. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, this put a lemon in your water. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, fresh water. [SPEAKER_00]: As full some to spring water as possible. [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean you have to pay thousands of dollars for water system.

[SPEAKER_00]: But structure of water is another way to help the mitochondria stay in balance. [SPEAKER_00]: There's actually types of water that do better in our body. [SPEAKER_00]: And because we're sixty to seventy percent water. [SPEAKER_00]: It is very vital to have the right type of water. [SPEAKER_00]: And we, the most of that water is within the cell. [SPEAKER_00]: And when the cell's dehydrated, it just doesn't work efficiently.

[SPEAKER_00]: So another big way aside from sunlight and sleeping regularly in darkness at night is also water. [SPEAKER_00]: And you can put vegetables in there like cucumber, you can put chia seeds, you can put lemon in your water. [SPEAKER_00]: If you can get filtered water and you do that, it's actually considered structure. [SPEAKER_00]: and it works better to maintain that internal hydration.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very much simplifying this, but I'm saying that it's an important tool and most people have access to water. [SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully most people have access to lemon or some vegetables that can be put into the water, but that's another way to start working on your mitochondria. [SPEAKER_00]: The third way is to be able to eat essential fats that are in the Omega-III families.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so this is a little bit trickier because sometimes you'll have to work with the provider and nutritionist or someone who can measure your cell membranes to see what you're lacking in terms of Omega-IIIs, whether that's Flax seed, hemp seed, chia seeds, walnuts, [SPEAKER_00]: It's also sometimes another thing I learned is it doesn't matter what we eat if we're not getting out in the sun our membranes aren't being able to take it in.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of things out there and I think all of these three are intimately linked. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not like I can just do the water. [SPEAKER_00]: I can just do the business. [SPEAKER_00]: It's all three that we need to focus on, but it's not like an overwhelming stressor. [SPEAKER_00]: If I get to two out of the three, and I'm working on the third, it's okay, but I think we all need sunlight as a foundation. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really, really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whether I have the perfect water away, the perfect lipids, maybe not as critical, still important, but at least everyone has access to going outside, hopefully.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and the water, I think there've been so many, are they gimmicks? [SPEAKER_01]: Different types of should we be drinking the alkaline water? [SPEAKER_01]: Should we, you know, what should we be looking for in the water? [SPEAKER_00]: I think the quality of the water, like a spring water, would be really important, filtered water would be really important. [SPEAKER_00]: I do struggle with what's the perfect water system for the home.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that EWG.org has a site that does tell people what their water issues are in their zip code. [SPEAKER_00]: So they can put it in and find out their water has lots of metals in it, has too much of these chemicals in it. [SPEAKER_00]: So they measure it to some level. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not perfect. [SPEAKER_00]: But water does change based on your location. [SPEAKER_00]: based on public water versus well water.

[SPEAKER_00]: So looking at that as a concept and finding out what are you drinking and you can buy these filtered systems that are portable as well. [SPEAKER_00]: But I haven't found anything that's perfect. [SPEAKER_00]: So for now, I'm telling people just do filtered water, add a lemon. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there are supplements that you can take that will structure the water better that add minerals to the water.

[SPEAKER_00]: things like hydrogen tablets, but you know, I'm not big about trying to get people our supplements if they don't have the foundation. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think hydrogen tablets you can you can do harm on those. [SPEAKER_00]: You can do excessive amounts, which isn't safe for you. [SPEAKER_00]: Even those minerals like nutrients and minerals that you put in your water is not going to be as effective if you're not going outside.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I would always start with what you have that's free and then maybe support it with [SPEAKER_00]: supplements as needed. [SPEAKER_00]: But there are different types of water out there. [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't do alkaline because we need stomach acid and I've seen too many people get into trouble by alkalizing their body too much and then they lose their stomach acid to digest the foods that they have and then they start getting other problems.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to artificially shift things in one direction anymore plants will give you more alkaline body. [SPEAKER_00]: So you can do it through food. [SPEAKER_00]: to get your body more alkaline. [SPEAKER_00]: Also, low acid and high acid feel the same. [SPEAKER_00]: So people don't know. [SPEAKER_00]: There's their heartburn can actually be low acid because they're drinking their alkaline water.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I just want to caution people against supplements that are one directional because you don't know exactly what this symptom is telling you. [SPEAKER_00]: And so your most safer with things with food and water, like things that are available, unless you can get tested somewhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, um, yeah, the waters that I have, I've seen people get into trouble with all sorts of, you know, kind of, you know, things, which I'm not sure is right for everyone. [SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, we all need water. [SPEAKER_00]: So I would say start with your go to edwg.org, find out what's in your water, find out. [SPEAKER_00]: They also recommend the things that you can do for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: at a lemon, at a vegetable, you know, just have a structured water, also some cool studies have shown. [SPEAKER_00]: This is really exciting to me that, you know, our intention when we drink water matters. [SPEAKER_00]: So there were studies that were reproducible that looked at, I'm holding this water and I'm angry and I'm saying, [SPEAKER_00]: or I'm getting mad, I'm saying, you're terrible person, you're horrible.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who I'm talking to, but I'm just saying, like, I have negative emotions while I'm drinking this water. [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's me drinking the water thinking, oh, life is wonderful. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so grateful. [SPEAKER_00]: This is so wonderful. [SPEAKER_00]: Like all these positive emotions. [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's one where I do nothing and I drink the water.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, they took those waters with the intention that you have by holding it and they looked under a microscope. [SPEAKER_00]: They froze it and then looked under a microscope. [SPEAKER_00]: And remember, this was we produced multiple times. [SPEAKER_00]: The water that was that had negative emotions was very chaotic. [SPEAKER_00]: The structure was very chaotic. [SPEAKER_00]: The water that had neglect, where there was nothing. [SPEAKER_00]: There was no emotion at all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also had its own dysfunction with it. [SPEAKER_00]: But it was the worst type of water, having no emotion. [SPEAKER_00]: And then the water that had the positive emotion looked like beautiful, almost no place. [SPEAKER_00]: Pistoy. [SPEAKER_00]: So that structure of that water is really important to how our membranes take it up. [SPEAKER_00]: And that to me was incredible because I was thinking, okay, is it about how you're doing it based on talking to someone?

[SPEAKER_00]: But what it is is what are you saying to yourself when you're drinking this water? [SPEAKER_00]: Am I telling myself that I'm a horrible person that I'm stupid? [SPEAKER_00]: I'm terrible while I'm drinking this water because that's what's happening to the water in my body, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So if we have like a positive intention, like saying something with gratitude before we drink the water, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's a cool tool to have, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the studies have shown that that water composition changes. [SPEAKER_00]: So the intention of how you drink that water can be powerful. [SPEAKER_00]: That blood in your brain with positive emotions, you know, is a really hard task because we are inclined three times more negative emotions and positive because that's what kept us alive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our fear, our anxiety, our constant vigilance was what kept us alive. [SPEAKER_00]: with threats that we had thousands and thousands of years ago. [SPEAKER_00]: But that is still the today. [SPEAKER_00]: So if we're reading a newspaper, we're listening to the news. [SPEAKER_00]: Our brain is much more likely to go to that negative news and be like, this world is a horrible place to live. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we're walking around with.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and then this happened. [SPEAKER_00]: That was negative. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my gosh, then I got a parking ticket. [SPEAKER_00]: Traffic so bad. [SPEAKER_00]: Like you're always looking at that negative thing. [SPEAKER_00]: It is much more easier to do that, right? [SPEAKER_00]: But our brain, it takes work to look for the positive. [SPEAKER_00]: It takes work. [SPEAKER_00]: So one thing I tell my patients is start with when you're about to drink water.

[SPEAKER_00]: Start with it and just think of something positive and then drink. [SPEAKER_00]: Because that intention will start to change or perception your mindset. [SPEAKER_00]: your brain activity because now you're going to start looking for positive things. [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to start, oh, that person smiled at me. [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, that was so nice of them. [SPEAKER_00]: They gave me a little bit extra coffee.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just looking for these little things that are just small, but they make you happy. [SPEAKER_00]: And then you'll start to see your body actually shift because now you're actually looking for these positive things or fighting it because you're looking for it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, speaking of water, something that blew my mind when we spoke that I thought was a gimmick was fasting.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I was, my ex-husband, we were together for almost twenty years, was Jewish, and every year, I would try to fast on your Omkapur. [SPEAKER_01]: And a few hours in, be like, I can't do it. [SPEAKER_01]: I can't do it. [SPEAKER_01]: And you said something that really hit me was like, you know, if you can't fast for like, twenty four hours, I'm like, I can't fast for twenty four hours.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what are your thoughts about fasting and detoxing and kind of elimination and resetting? [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was fascinated when we spoke about it. [SPEAKER_00]: So the other aspect of protecting the mitochondria is that it also is the cell that kind of takes up a lot of the toxins in our cells. [SPEAKER_00]: And it basically needs to get cleared every so often. [SPEAKER_00]: And periods of fasting cause mitophogy, which is a change of shift.

[SPEAKER_00]: It gets rid of the bad guys and starts to create new [SPEAKER_00]: on top of G in my top of G, which is our body's clearinghouse. [SPEAKER_00]: It is important. [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like a hoarder's house. [SPEAKER_00]: When we have reactions happen, they create debris. [SPEAKER_00]: And that debris needs to get out. [SPEAKER_00]: And so one of the reasons we get ill is because that debris doesn't leave. [SPEAKER_00]: It's congested.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have poor mitochondria, we have poor live system. [SPEAKER_00]: We have just bad garbage disposal systems. [SPEAKER_00]: We're not pooping, we're not urinating enough, we're not sweating enough. [SPEAKER_00]: We're not sleeping enough, so these are all forms of detox. [SPEAKER_00]: So detox is fundamentally critical to our well-being. [SPEAKER_00]: And what you're doing when you fast is you're giving that liver a break.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember I said it's the most overworked organ.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are descending some positive signals to the gut microbiome. [SPEAKER_00]: shifts that happen, that just give it rest. [SPEAKER_00]: Kind of like when you're meditating, you're resting your brain, you're taking a reprieve from everything that's out there. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what you're doing when you're fasting. [SPEAKER_00]: So your periods of fasting and they all have different benefits. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a gigantic promotic promoter of fasting.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is very different for each person because the stem cells. [SPEAKER_00]: So people come to me and say, I just want to eat better. [SPEAKER_00]: What do I do? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, fasting is definitely going to be part of that regiment for me because fasting is going to create if I have someone do something like a fasting mimicking diet or a five-day water fast, which I'm not saying is easy, but that will start to create new stem cells in the body.

[SPEAKER_00]: New baby white cells that kind of can be whatever they want in the body. [SPEAKER_00]: And the science shows that you get rid of pre-diabetic pre-cancerous, like you just basically get rid of things that are inefficient, you can lower [SPEAKER_00]: You're, um, see, we have to protein when you do these regularly. [SPEAKER_00]: You can go to the website. [SPEAKER_00]: The kid is called prolon.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he has tons of studies on that website about what happens to your immune system when you do these five day fasting mimicking diets regularly in a row. [SPEAKER_00]: You start to see shifts in white cells. [SPEAKER_00]: You start to see stem cells go up. [SPEAKER_00]: You start to see decrease abdominal growth. [SPEAKER_00]: You start to see lipids go down. [SPEAKER_00]: You start to see something called IGF one, which has been associated with cancer's go down.

[SPEAKER_00]: So excellent value in terms of using fasting, but it also causes my topology. [SPEAKER_00]: It also changes our resilience genes. [SPEAKER_00]: It helps us age better. [SPEAKER_00]: But not everybody can do a five day fast. [SPEAKER_00]: But I do it with my patients every year in January. [SPEAKER_00]: Once a year and we do it as a Facebook group when we do it as a group. [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of people find themselves saying, wow, was easier than I thought.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you just have to make sure you're not on any medications that will interfere with it. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so would ask them to talk to their provider, but the other ways to fast is just sixteen eight, which is time-restricted feeds. [SPEAKER_00]: You're eating in an eight-hour window and you're fasting for sixteen. [SPEAKER_00]: That's a decent goal for most people. [SPEAKER_00]: Almost everyone can do twelve hours. [SPEAKER_00]: And it sounds ridiculous.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, why wouldn't I fast twelve hours? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, most people don't because they have a nighttime snack at ten before they sleep or they're staying awake till twelve. [SPEAKER_00]: And so they're having something maybe before they get, and they get up at seven or eight and they have their breakfast. [SPEAKER_00]: They're eating, they're eating in a sixteen hour window and maybe resting for eight.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I usually tell people to try to work to a twelve hour window. [SPEAKER_00]: And then it will change your metabolic flexibility. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're not able to utilize resources from your fat, then that suggests metabolic inflexibility. [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean something's wrong with you. [SPEAKER_00]: But it means that you can train yourself to get to that point. [SPEAKER_00]: I was that person. [SPEAKER_00]: I could not go past them in a clock without even.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was definitely angry. [SPEAKER_00]: I was insulin resistant, no matter what I did my whole life, I was insulin resistant. [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing that got me out of insulin resistance was fasting. [SPEAKER_00]: And so there is a lot of data that shows, there's definitely differences, there are subtle differences in where you are in your hormone status, like in menopause, it's a little bit harder to fast for some women.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you have diabetes or insulin resistance, you should talk to your doctor about them.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is definitely a benefit in time restricted feeding, periodic fasting, which is between two and three days. [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's also, like, growth hormone changes that happen. [SPEAKER_00]: Resilience changes that happen. [SPEAKER_00]: And then with five days, there's stem cells and mitophogy and all sorts of great things that happen. [SPEAKER_00]: And new genes that are brought out because of resilience and things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not an easy thing to kind of just go and do a water fast, but I've started doing pro-laner of the fascinating data to probably do up fifteen. [SPEAKER_00]: I've done it fifteen times or so. [SPEAKER_00]: And then you get sick of the box. [SPEAKER_00]: You get sick of eating once in the box. [SPEAKER_00]: So basically, I just started drinking water. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was shocked. [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I'll just drink water till I'm hungry.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just never was hungry. [SPEAKER_00]: And I just drank water for five days. [SPEAKER_00]: And it was easier than I thought. [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually had more energy than I had when I did the five day. [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's a process in each individual when you get to that point, if you get to that point. [SPEAKER_00]: I have some people and there's a great movie called Fasting on Netflix, a documentary that I think everyone should watch.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is a pretty decent summary on what Fasting gives you as a tool. [SPEAKER_00]: for health. [SPEAKER_01]: I know you just talked about the water, but when you compare something like a water fast to a juice cleanse, so are all of them effective in their own way? [SPEAKER_00]: They are effective in their own way because you're doing calorie restriction, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Cleansing, giving your liver a break and giving your gut a break.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're, you're definitely helping because you're just taking a pause. [SPEAKER_00]: Everything's kind of like, hoof, like a reset, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It's just the question of what your goals are and what's happening physiologically in the body. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think any of those are wrong if you're feeling well doing it. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, it's a little bit hard. [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone gets a little bit grumpy when they're hungry and things like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the issue is the post change that happens, you know, where you're after the five days or after the three days or after you feel great. [SPEAKER_00]: Like you most people feel like, wow, and, you know, calorie restriction is a huge, has been studied forever about longevity. [SPEAKER_00]: We age better with less calories. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're all eating way too much and way too often. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that it is just a reset concept.

[SPEAKER_00]: And fasting is a tool for people that can be hugely helpful. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think those are those are things are also free, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Because you're eating less or buying less food. [SPEAKER_00]: You don't go by the fanciest green fast out there. [SPEAKER_00]: Some of these and the kit for pro-lon is not cheap, but you can do your own version. [SPEAKER_00]: There's some pro-lon mimicking things. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just they're not studied.

[SPEAKER_00]: to see what their biochemical marker changes are like the company has.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then you will do some benefit. [SPEAKER_01]: So when we talk about what I think is like really popular now that intermittent fasting and so like sixteen eight. [SPEAKER_01]: Do you also suggest that you were just saying we ate way too much in way too often because that was a thing like ten fifteen years ago which is like eat like [SPEAKER_00]: eight small meals and like so is there so the grazing concept kind of was the way I used to practice as well maybe ten years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's more data to show that regular meals and giving breaks between meals helps the gut microbiome specifically for like things like dysviosis and bacterial overgrowth. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think we need to probably eat two to three meals a day, most times, and top heavy, which is what I'm learning, which is a shift for me too, where you're eating most of it during the daytime, and very little when the sun sets are in the nighttime.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because our pancreas, which is an organ that's linked to the sun, also starts once rest. [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't want you to eat that pasta at eight o'clock at night, because your glucose will be worse. [SPEAKER_00]: And for my patients who do glucose monitors, I'll say, watch it. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, eat some eat the same thing at four and eat the same thing at eight. [SPEAKER_00]: See what happens. [SPEAKER_00]: Go eat outside.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your glucose will do better under some light versus eating under a blue light. [SPEAKER_00]: Watch it. [SPEAKER_00]: See what happens. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, these are things that are, I have a lot of patients who have insulin resistance. [SPEAKER_00]: Me included when I was doing, I thought I was doing everything right.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, you're stressed, you don't, you may not have the best cell membranes, you may not be absorbing your nutrients, you might be walking around with high cortisol all the time, you might be under blue light all day. [SPEAKER_00]: All of these things raise our glucose. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just what we eat.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's really important to understand that I think if you're doubting anything about fasting, if you wear those continuous glucose monitors, you can also see some changes in your glucose. [SPEAKER_00]: and you can figure out what time regimen is ideal for you, for not eating. [SPEAKER_01]: So someone's listening to this as we wrap it up. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're thinking, that was like a lot of information.

[SPEAKER_01]: What is one small thing, a realistic shift they can do today to kind of start moving in a different direction, a healthy return. [SPEAKER_00]: When you get up, go outside. [SPEAKER_00]: Go outside, stand in the grass, ground yourself in the earth. [SPEAKER_00]: The first thing you do when you wake up, just go outside without sunglasses, without any glasses. [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to wear a hat, you can wear a hat.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it will start to change your biology and your body. [SPEAKER_00]: And then you can, again, you want that upwards spiral. [SPEAKER_00]: You have to start somewhere. [SPEAKER_00]: I used to say, you know, work on sleep because I felt sleep was so, so powerful and most people don't sleep properly. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think going out in the sun is easy because it's like one step. [SPEAKER_00]: Just get outside.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, drink your water out there, grab a cup of coffee, sit out there. [SPEAKER_00]: If you can stand in the grass, awesome with their feet. [SPEAKER_00]: Great. [SPEAKER_00]: You get grounding too. [SPEAKER_00]: But that would be the thing that would tell people. [SPEAKER_00]: And then start to go out more and wear the red glasses at night or shut your lights down at night so that you're, you know, after sunset, you're getting more red light.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you're not getting the blue light in your eyes. [SPEAKER_00]: You will start to see shifts happen. [SPEAKER_00]: You will start disney shifts happen. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just you have to start somewhere. [SPEAKER_01]: And so many of us have like I have a dog. [SPEAKER_01]: I have to take around every morning anyway. [SPEAKER_01]: So why not just turn that into like a ten minute. [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's really helpful.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, if you want to, there's great videos on there and you can learn a lot from what each part of the day gets a benefit. [SPEAKER_00]: So absolutely check out that app. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we'll link to the app in the show notes. [SPEAKER_01]: But thank you, Dr. Rouse, so much. [SPEAKER_01]: There's so much information.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really hope the next book you write is about circadian rhythm and the mitochondria, because I think it's like fascinating subject stepping outside for ten minutes, something I think we can all do. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a hundred percent. [SPEAKER_00]: And then build on it, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Don't stop there. [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to build. [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to think of it as a positive spiral. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you all for listening and we will see you next week. [SPEAKER_01]: This was Sister Zoom's sobriety. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening and being with us today. [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to learn more about sobriety and meet your community, find us at sistersinsubriety.substack.com. [SPEAKER_01]: Our few is Sister in sobriety, then reach out on social media. [SPEAKER_01]: We'd love to hear from you.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're feeling generous, leave us five stars in a review and follow us wherever you listen. [SPEAKER_01]: You'll never miss an episode. [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time,