Fixing Your Fatigue and Increasing Your Energy Naturally with Dr. Evan Hirsch - S2E14

Kashif Khan:
So, there aren't too many doctors we get to speak to that have a superhero title. Dr. Evan Hirsch is the EnergyMD. Do you have a cape with that on it?

Evan Hirsch:
I know, I got to get one.

Kashif Khan:
You got to get one on your hands because that it's actually awesome because of for what you deal with. First of all, people are going to love what they're going to learn in this talk because everyone says, "I have this problem, I have this problem, and this problem." Say, "Well, what does that do for you?" "Well, I have no energy." Often people don't realize that itself is the problem, as opposed to this co-factor. And yeah, there might be multiple things, the reality of how we live and what's going on. Everybody has multiple things, unless you are really truly taking care of yourself in the current context of how we live. Otherwise, energy in itself can be a problem. So first of all, thanks for joining us.

Evan Hirsch:
Thanks for having me.

Kashif Khan:
How does somebody even know that fibromyalgia, I can't sleep at night, stress, a root... an outcome of that is... or poor energy, or the energy itself is the problem?

Evan Hirsch:
So as humans, we're incredibly adaptable. We start off down this path, we're doing physical education every day in elementary school and middle school. And maybe we're playing some sports in high school. And then you hit college and things start to slow down. On the weekends if you go dancing, it's like the most movement that you've gotten all week. And then slowly... And then you start consuming more toxins as things go on. And then eventually, you're tired. And whether it's because you're having a hard time sleeping, or whether you're getting seven to nine hours of sleep at night and then you're crashing throughout the day. Or maybe you feel like, "Yeah, I'm fine as long as I just consume caffeine all day."

Kashif Khan:
Right.

Evan Hirsch:
There's a problem. And whether you're having a hard time sleeping or whether you've got low energy, the body is giving you a sign and that's all these symptoms are, is there a sign, a wake-up sign to say, "Hey, there's something that you've got to pay attention to." And so generally, people just think that they're getting older. But the reality of the situation is, if your energy is not where you want it to be, there's a problem that needs to be fixed. And the thing is that all these causes of fatigue that we're talking about today and low energy are also the causes of diseases of longevity. So whether you want to prevent heart attacks, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, cancer, autoimmune conditions, all the causes are the same. And so, that's why you need to pay attention when your energy starts to flag, that it's time to do something about it.

Kashif Khan:
Yeah, because you see people at different ages with different energy levels. You'll see people into their 80s or 90s now today, riding their bicycle with the vibrancy of when they were 25 years old. They've made different choices perhaps, than people who don't feel that way. So, what are those things? What are those causes that allows that person to thrive the way they are?

Evan Hirsch:
Well, and it's always this combination of genetics plus environment, right? So it's kind of like genetics, as you know, right? Loads the gun and the environment pulls the trigger. So when we're looking at these causes besides the genetics, in terms of the other causes, I like to categorize them into deficiencies and toxicities. So deficiencies are things that are not in the body or in your life that are supposed to be. And toxicities are things that are in your body or in your life that aren't supposed to be. So when we look at the deficiencies, these are deficiencies in hormones. So whether that's adrenal gland dysfunction or thyroid or sex hormones, mitochondrial dysfunction, which is responsible for producing 70 to 90% of our energy and are found in every cell in the body except for red blood cells, whether it's vitamins or mineral deficiencies, whether it's neurotransmitter deficiencies or whether it's lifestyle habit deficiencies, not enough good food, not enough water, not enough movement, not enough sleep. So those are the deficiencies. Any questions on those before I move

Kashif Khan:
Into the process? Well, I was just thinking that when there's a lot and every single one makes sense, how does somebody know where to start? Is it just auditing themselves?

Evan Hirsch:
So cool thing is that 75% of these causes that we're talking about today in these 12 big categories, 75% of them can be determined by symptoms alone. So when we have people join our program, or even right now we've got our step, one of our four step processes actually free on our website, they can go in there, they can work through in an hour, and they can know 75% of their causes just based off of their symptoms. And then you can actually use your money appropriately to get the lab tests that you really need.

Kashif Khan:
Right? Okay, that's cool. Okay.

Evan Hirsch:
So then the toxicities we're looking at are things like heavy metals. A hundred thousand pounds of mercury are dumped into our oceans every year from coal plants. So many of us are walking around with mercury fillings. 80% of all conventional lipsticks have lead in them. There's lots of lead in all of these older homes.

Evan Hirsch:
And then chemicals, 86,000 different chemicals we're exposed to on a regular basis, 500 chemicals before you walk out of the house in the morning, if you're commuting. But it just has to do with all the soaps and the plastics and all these things that we're exposed to. In one study, they found that babies coming out of the womb in the cord blood, 287 different chemicals we're coming out of the womb now-

Kashif Khan:
It's horrible.

Evan Hirsch:
... yeah, with all of these chemicals. It's awful. And so then molds are another toxin that we see a lot of, where half of all the buildings in first world countries have water damage and most of those have mold. And most people don't think that they... They might be listening to this like, "Nah, I don't have mold." I can tell you, so many people that we see don't think that they have mold. But in fact, if they lived in a place that ever had a flood, a busted pipe, a roof leak in a home or in a building that they worked or lived in, for a significant amount of time, a couple months to a couple years, that can be significant enough where you can move on to another house. But you're going to take that mold with you, even if you've been exposed when you're five years old for six months. And that's just the accumulation of these over time.

Evan Hirsch:
So, that's heavy metals, chemicals, molds, and then infections. Whether it's Lyme disease, Bartonella, Babesia, some of these other co-infections like Epstein-Barr virus, the new pandemic virus, HHV 6 virus, cytomegalovirus, parasites, bacteria yeast. A lot of different infections that come out to play when you've got heavy metals, chemicals, or molds that basically hijack the immune system.

Evan Hirsch:
So then these infections come out and they start taking over and they start becoming opportunistic. And then a lot of the symptoms that people are experiencing, they don't realize, and we'll get more into this later, they don't realize that some of these could actually be coming from an infection. The foot pain that they've got or the back pain they've got or the headaches that they've got.

Evan Hirsch:
So that's heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, and then there's allergies to foods and inhalants. There's negative emotional patterns. So something called, ACEs that people may be familiar with, adverse childhood events. Or I like to call them adverse life events, because if at any point in your life you've had mental emotional stress that has changed the way that you look at the world, that stress has then become chronic. And consequently, that will end up compromising your adrenals and your mitochondria and all these other... and your immune system. And that just contributes to all these things.

Evan Hirsch:
And then the last one is electromagnetic field. So anything that you plug into a wall that has a battery, it can emit wavelengths or frequencies, can damage DNA and negatively affect the immune system and increase inflammation.

Kashif Khan:
And the interesting thing about what you're saying is if you talk to say, a functional medicine doctor who truly reverses disease, heals people, as opposed to treating ongoing, you'll hear a lot of the same stuff in terms of, "Here's what you're designed for and here's how you actually live. There's some disparity in gap that needs to be worked on." Nobody has reinterpreted for the purpose of your energy levels, which is the work you've done. You've said that this is also, by the way, affecting this, and we can use these same tools, same auditing, same removing and adding, whether it's like you said, function versus load, to heal your energy levels.

Kashif Khan:
So-

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely.

Kashif Khan:
... then for most people that are working on their energy, at least we find, and I don't know if you've seen the same, that it's usually a struggle. There's a flip that gets switched. So there's a challenge of... And often, they get stuck. Or they get stuck in a certain place, and like, "This is the reality of who I am and this is how much energy I have." So, why is there that sort of difficulty in getting them to a better place?

Evan Hirsch:
So there's 12 different causes that we've kind of talked about today, and then if you take it out into sub causes, it becomes 33. So, we're just going to talk about the 12. But the challenge is that everybody has different causes and everybody has a combination of causes. So somebody may have causes 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10, and somebody else might have causes 3, 5, 7, 9, whatever. So, it's just really important for people to determine which causes they have. Because if you don't know which causes you have, then you're shooting in the dark. And you may be like, "Oh, so-and-so got better taking B12, and so I'm going to start taking B12." And then you don't feel anything.

Kashif Khan:
Right.

Evan Hirsch:
The other thing too is because there are so many causes, and everybody has a combination of these causes, is that it's this mass effect, where you may not feel anything if you pull out the gluten nail. So if we think about all these causes, and let's say you have 20 nails in the bottom of your foot and each one of those is a cause. And you pull out the gluten nail, you don't notice anything. You'll be like, "Eh, the whole gluten thing is whatever." You pull out the B12 nail because you start taking B12. "Eh, that B12 nail is what..." But the reality is, is that you've got to get this mass effect. You have to be fixing and working on all of these causes at a time in order for the body to work better, in order for you to start to remove the toxins and replace these deficiencies.

Kashif Khan:
That makes a lot of sense, because even if you are working on something that is absolutely what you need to work on, like you said, it's probably one of many things. There's probably multiple spokes that lead to your problem. So then that takes us, I guess, to the work you do, because really what you are saying is, in the very beginning of this, is even asking the right questions to begin with, getting rid of that trial and error. Here's how you fix your energy. Whatever that is, is probably not going to work. And there's probably more to it than, here's this one simple answer. So whether it's a supplement of thing, multifactorial always. Just like any chronic disease, autoimmune condition that you just can't figure out, it's because there's no one single sole source. Especially again, if you go back to and consider what you said about how the reality of the way we live.

Kashif Khan:
So you've done this work and you've worked with many people. You've written a book about it, I can see it behind you. What are those... You mentioned earlier there's like a four-step process you go through. So what is that? Because that's that thing that takes you away from this trial and error. I'm going to go watch some YouTube videos and hopefully I figure this out too, a precise strategy. So, what is that?

Evan Hirsch:
Exactly? So that's called, The EnergyMD Method, that I've been working on for the last decade. And it is a four-step process. And the first step is to find the causes. That's really big picture, and that's the take home for everybody who's watching right now, is that you got to figure out which causes you have.

Evan Hirsch:
And like I said, in step one, you can work through the workbook and within an hour or so, you're going to know 75% of your causes just based off of your symptoms. And hopefully people can see how powerful that is. And then you can take that, and then you can figure out the treatment. So if you just simplify it, you figure out what cause you have, and then you figure out what treatment is actually going to fix that cause. And you go ahead and you plug that hole.

Evan Hirsch:
So in step two, and I should say big picture, is that this process is really all about step four and removing the toxins. The heavy metals, the chemicals, the molds, the infections, et cetera, all that stuff is most important. However, we can't do that until we get to step four. Step two is replacing those deficiencies that we talked about, the adrenals, the mitochondria, the thyroid, the neurotransmitters, the vitamins, the minerals, all that sort of stuff is going to make you stronger. It's going to enable you to then complete the program, because removing the toxins in step four is stressful. It's just a reality.

Evan Hirsch:
A lot of people, if they've seen a lime dock or a mold dock or whatever, oftentimes, they're feeling worse. And the reason why they're feeling worse is because they haven't done step two first, and they haven't done step three. And so step two is, we've got to boost these deficiencies that people have in order to make them feel better, in order to plug those holes and stop the leaking.

Evan Hirsch:
Then in step three, we have to open up these detoxification pathways. So detoxification is a buzzword, but in actual medicine, there are official detoxification pathways in the liver, in the kidney, in the lymph, in the neural lymph, which is in the brain. And the more toxins that you have been exposed to throughout your life, the more clogged these pathways are going to be.

Evan Hirsch:
And so the way that I like to look at this is like a funnel. So it's like you're changing your oil, you've got a funnel. And so if you look at the bottom of the funnel, if it's narrow and you try to start to detoxify and take some of these heavy metals and chemicals and dump them into these pathways, you're not going to be successful. So in step three, we open up the bottom of the funnel. And basically your success is going to be determined by the rate at which you can get rid of these toxins. So it's kind of like you want to dump the amount of toxins that you can get rid of out of the body in one smooth process, otherwise you're going to feel worse going through that process. So body loves small changes, slow and steady wins the race are things that we talk about all the time. And this is just another example of that.

Kashif Khan:
Yeah, that's brilliant.

Evan Hirsch:
Yeah.

Kashif Khan:
Sorry, go ahead.

Evan Hirsch:
I was just going to say, and then so step four is removing the toxins, the heavy metals, the chemicals, the molds, and the infections. And this is where you spend most of your time. The first couple of steps, it's going to take you a couple months, two, three months in order to introduce the supplements. And I'm an MD, but I operate online only, and so I operate as a health coach in the online space. So, everything that I'm doing is natural. It's supplements, vitamins, minerals, lifestyle, that sort of thing. But then in step four, that's really where it's going to take you six months, 12 months, 24 months depending on the number of causes you have and the severity of each of those causes. And that just really depends on the individual.

Kashif Khan:
And what people have to appreciate is that they come to somebody like you and they're told, "This part takes a month, this phase takes two months, this phase takes six months." What? Why does it take... You did 10 years of damage to cause where you're at, that threshold that you crossed a long time ago, which is why you can't stay awake past 3:00 PM it. So if it took you 10 years of toxic exposure and we can get rid of it in six months, that sounds like a blessing to me.

Evan Hirsch:
Yeah. And that's a really good point. And now that we know that so many toxins were getting through the womb and the placenta and whatnot, it's 30, 40, 50, 60 years that we've had these exposures growing up. But yeah, it's a small exchange, but it's really hard for people to think about, "Hey, I trade one year of my life..." Or actually it's essentially doing an MBA in your health. Or not an MBA, a master's degree in your health. And so you dedicate a year of your time to do this, you're going to feel so much better, and then you have the rest of your life.

Evan Hirsch:
It was like when I was going into residency. I came out of medical school, I knew what I wanted to do. I didn't want to do conventional medicine, but I was like, "You know what? I do these three years, I see thousands of patients. I'm going to have so much more knowledge." And I'm really glad that I did, because it's like a drop in terms of the 90, a hundred years that I'm going to live these three years. But it allows me to do so much more in my career, and it's just the same thing.

Kashif Khan:
Yeah. You mentioned a fact in the beginning about the number of chemicals. It was almost 300 found in newborns today, which is totally disturbing to even think that that's possible. But it makes perfect sense, if you think about the way that child or the parent was living for the last sort of generation. Are you finding that patients are coming to you younger and younger now because of the exposure?

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely. And now especially with the pandemic virus and some of the complications of a number of the things that have been going on the last couple of years. Yeah, we're just seeing a lot more inflammation from a lot more toxins. And with something like long haulers from the pandemic virus, we're seeing it's just a different infection, but it's the same sort of process. So you got to look at all these different causes because all these causes, they set the stage. Immune system is dysfunctional. All of a sudden you get the virus and then things take off, because the immune system can't take care of it. And that's why we're seeing 30%, 40%, 50% in some studies of people who get the virus who end up with long haulers or persistent symptoms.

Kashif Khan:
So how does somebody know that they have, versus anything else, that they have a chronic infection and that's driving what they feel?

Evan Hirsch:
So, it's hard to know in some ways. I mean, when it comes to long haulers or the pandemic virus, a lot of it has to do with the chronology. So if you've got a new diagnosis of something or got weird symptoms or new symptoms since November 2019, it definitely has to be taken into account. There was one study that was done on 265,000 people who had the virus, and then six months later, they were reassessed. And 33 or 35% of them had a new mental health diagnosis of anxiety, depression, or bipolar. We now know that 200 plus symptoms can be due to the pandemic virus. These symptoms can persist.

Evan Hirsch:
So a lot of people now, young people who have palpitations and they're like, "I got this when I got the virus.", or headaches or abdominal pain. It's just amazing. But a lot of this you can determine by your symptoms. So coming back to your original question, when we're looking at some of these infections, even the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, when they're talking about Lyme, they'll say that it's a clinical diagnosis, that the Western blood tests and that ELISA, some of these blood tests are actually for epidemiologic studies only. And so when we look at these as clinical diagnoses, for example, we can put together a picture based off of some of the symptoms that are more specific for a particular infection.

Evan Hirsch:
So if we look at Borrelia, which is also known as, Lyme, you really can't have it unless you have two symptoms. You have to have symptoms that come and go, where some days are better than others. And then you also have to have symptoms that move around the body. So this could be joint pain, muscle pain, nerve pain, that one day is in the left elbow, and then the next day, the next week, the next month is in the right ankle. If you don't have those, you can't have Borrelia. Go ahead.

Kashif Khan:
Just listening to you talk about Lyme, it just reminds me in some of the research we've done around the genetics of Lyme and why people have different outcomes. We found, particularly in women that have some form of estrogen toxicity, in fact, forget about Lyme. They're often misdiagnosed and don't even have it. So do you find the same thing, that the impact of our current reality and what's happening in the body is a bigger load on women than it is on men?

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely. Well, and yes. I have a chapter in my book, Why Men Don't Believe Women When It Comes to Mold. And we can talk about the genetics of that. But that's kind of what we're seeing. And women are also more likely to ask for help, which is why we also see more women reaching out. But yeah, absolutely. And you would know the genetics better than I on a lot of why that is the case, but for sure.

Kashif Khan:
Yeah, it's funny, because we see this in a lot of what is solved in functional medicine. And a lot of it has to do with why we're solving the wrong problem. This is the beauty of what you do. You do a deep audit before you even start on, what's the solution? No, let's figure out the problem first. And for some women, it is their estrogen dominance or their estrogen toxicity, which is a cofactor to this other inflammatory load, and men don't have that cofactor to deal with. Some men are estrogen dominant, but even then, the levels are very low compared to what a woman has to deal with. And that leads me to other thinking on other cofactors. And have you done much work around things like neurochemicals and stress, and what the current reality of how we live and how that may lead to your energy levels being off?

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely. So one of the things that we focus on a lot in the program is that we have a mindset curriculum, and we create a daily energy mindset with everybody who goes through our program. And then we also have these emotional intelligence coaches or trauma informed coaches to change the way that we are associating with some of the discomfort in our body, and just improve our emotional intelligence. Because what we're seeing is that, yes, the increase in chronic stress, whether it's mental, emotional, or physical, like all these toxins, are going to cause dysfunction in the adrenal gland and all the other aspects of the body that regulate stress. And consequently, that ends up negatively affecting the immune system and your detoxification pathways. And then you end up with whatever symptoms you end up with. And in our case, the people that we see, it's energy deficiency, it's all these weird symptoms that they get from these infections like some of the ones I mentioned from Borrelia. Or it could be pain on the bottom of the feet, or it can be spontaneous sweating or whatever.

Kashif Khan:
So when I think about the work you're doing, and I'm picturing the patient, it's probably somebody that wants to be optimal and wants more and better. But if you think about the reality of the United States today, I think that I heard the other day it's 88% of people are metabolically unhealthy, that don't really care about what they eat, and don't really think that it's a problem. And believe that the way they are and the way they feel is just how they are and how they feel. So, how do you get through to the people that aren't seeking your help and saying that I think this is fixable, but they believe that this is just normal and that's why they're metabolically unhealthy?

Evan Hirsch:
I think that it really has to do with how bad the pain is. If the pain isn't bad, if they're like, "Well, this is my life and this is how it is.", and they don't realize what they're missing out on. They can't get off the couch to play with their kid or their grandkid, or go for a date with their spouse because they're too tired or travel. But if they're okay with it and acceptance and gratitude for where you're at is an amazing thing, then they're not going to make a change. Right?

Kashif Khan:
Yeah.

Evan Hirsch:
The pain has to be really bad where they need to make a change, or they realize all the things that they're missing out on, that they want to make that change. So, that's why so many of the people that we're working with are leaders in their communities in their families in their businesses in their governments, because they want to take their lives to the next level. They know that the world needs them. They know that their kids need them, and they have a bigger mission. But it's really hard with people who don't have that kind of purpose.

Kashif Khan:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because that community piece, I mean, everybody knows this. You're the sum of the five closest people around you. So if you are in a community where everybody thinks the norm is, after I eat dinner, I can't get off the couch because what I ate was garbage, and this is normal energy levels for me, maybe you're not going to seek help. Because that pain level is what you're supposed to feel. Versus being amongst vibrant and thriving people and say, "Why can't I be like that person?" Elevating the goal. And that may be part of healing, is understanding that maybe your goal can be bigger, you can aim for more in, iterably. Right? Step by step, get there. These kind of tiny habits that people like Dr. BJ Fogg talk about, right?

Kashif Khan:
There's something that you talk about, which is people come to you after they've been failed by whatever doctor or clinician, because it's a unique perspective you have. So, they kind of need your specialized focus and direction. So what are the reasons that these people are sort of failing when they're working with these other people and then they have to come to you?

Evan Hirsch:
So a lot of it has to do with those 12 different causes, and the lack of knowledge around the fact that people have this combination. So unfortunately, most of the conventional, natural, integrative, and even functional medicine docs are really great at the deficiencies. They can boost your adrenals, they can take care of your mitochondria, they can give you bioidentical sex hormones if you need those, they can boost your neurotransmitters. But the challenge is that not enough of them are understanding around the environmental toxicities. So if they are knowledgeable in heavy metals, that's great. But most of the time, they're not knowledgeable in heavy metals and chemicals and molds and infections. And a lot of the Lyme docs, maybe they're not going to touch molds or vice versa. And if they are, are they also addressing negative emotional patterns? Do they have emotional intelligence, trauma-informed coaches on their staff?

Evan Hirsch:
So it's kind of like you can pull out all the causes, those nails in the bottom of the foot that we talked about. But if you're pulling out half of them, it still hurts when you walk. You're going to hit a plateau. And so it's just about making sure, and coming back to step one, it's just about making sure that you're addressing all of the causes that you have so you leave no stone unturned, so you know that your likelihood of success is so much higher.

Kashif Khan:
It sounds like even functional medicine is evolving into what medicine is, where things get siloed, which is the natural progression. Because as you specialize, and this is what I'm good at, then more people coming to you for that thing, and this is all I do now. Then there's the mold doctor, the breast cancer doctor, even though you're functional in nature, you end up solving one problem. So yeah, that's a greater community problem that really should be spoken of, because what we don't want to happen is this beautiful promise of functional medicine gets broken because everyone gets so siloed and not sort of a great generalist like yourself that can look at all factors. So hopefully, we don't lose that.

Evan Hirsch:
Yeah, I totally agree. But the challenge is that these environmental toxins are really complicated. Each one of them is very complicated, and then getting them all together and the relationship that they have in context. And especially the infections. The infections they're just such a huge part of what we do, and it doesn't have a lot of awareness around it until, now we're starting to see with long haulers, there's more awareness around this one infection, we now know. We're getting so much research about it, how it can cause 200 plus different symptoms in the body. It's just starting to blow people's mind.

Evan Hirsch:
There's research from back in, I think it's the 60s on schizophrenia, where people took doxycycline, which is an antibiotic, and they saw a 60% decrease in their symptoms. And then they went off of the antibiotic and the symptoms came back. Now, I'm not advocating for antibiotics, but it's just another example of how many of these diseases that we're walking around with are associated with an infection.

Evan Hirsch:
When you looked at cancer, every single cancer has been found with an infection inside it. Now, is that causal? I don't know. Did the infection cause that cancer? I don't know. But I do know that there is this relationship that we're seeing everywhere. And we're knowing that it's no longer, I think we used to think it was in this human form or 10% human cells and 90% bug cells. I think it's now we're 40% human cells and 60% bug cells, so we're catching up to them. Not really, it's just new research. But having that sort of understanding around how we have this symbiosis and how much of a role these infections are playing in our lives. And how we have to keep them in check and maintain that relationship between the immune system and cultivating that symbiosis is so important.

Kash Khan:
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Kashif Khan:
So, how does somebody like yourself do what we're saying that functional medicine needs to do? How did you get this sort of worldly knowledge and this breadth of knowledge from end-to-end?

Evan Hirsch:
It's being curious and it's figuring out the holes. So doctors are just like anybody else, you get comfortable in your wheelhouse. And I'm definitely guilty of this as well. So pushing myself and being like, "Okay, what's the next thing that I have to learn? What am I missing about?" They say, "By your patients and by your clients, you'll be taught." Because people will bring this to me, "What do you think about that?" I'll be like, "I don't know. Let's go figure it out. Let's see whether it's something that's applicable. And let's give people the biggest bang for the buck to make the biggest shifts in their lives."

Kashif Khan:
That's awesome. I know that... So, you do directly work with patients. I know you do a lot of advocacy and your books are out there teaching people. So how does somebody listening in say that this is... "Wow, this is what I've been waiting for. How do I work with you?"

Evan Hirsch:
So, they can come join us at energyforleaders.com. We have a free Facebook group called the, EnergyMD Facebook Group. A lot of the stuff also we're migrating away from Fix Your Fatigue and Into EnergyMD, so that's relatively new branding for us. So, they may see Fix Your Fatigue in different places. But you can reach out and get on a free call with us to see whether or not we're a good fit to work together. You can click on the Work With Us tab and you can see what we have to offer.

Evan Hirsch:
Right now, we do have step one of the program for $0. So people can jump in there and just based off of their symptoms in an hour or so, they're going to know 75% of their causes. And then whether they work with us or not, they're going to be so much more ready for that next step in the process to resolve their issues.

Kashif Khan:
That's really cool. One question for you, I've been thinking everything we've been talking about has been more the sort of the typical functional medicine client, like that person that isn't maybe sick, but again, the energy just isn't where it should be. Then there's a person who we haven't spoken of yet, which is in clinic, therapeutically being treated for something. Maybe it's cancer, maybe it's, call it Alzheimer's, who knows what it is, but they have a chronic disease. And the outcome of that is low energy. Can that person get help?

Evan Hirsch:
Yes. And it depends on the amount of damage. If that person also had chemotherapy and they damaged organs or whatever, to an appreciable degree, it definitely makes it harder. But you bring up a very good point, because all of these causes that we're looking at are also all the causes of every other illness out there. This is kind of like a complete functional medicine, environmental medicine, integral medicine paradigm. These are all the toxins we're exposed to, it's the same causes, but the effect of these toxins and of these causes on the body are just manifesting in different ways in the body.

Kashif Khan:
Yeah. And as you've been talking, I've been thinking the same thing, that if someone were to go through, say, beginning to end, a program with you, it's kind of like, "Okay, I came to you for my energy, but there's three or four other things I didn't even know I was going to fix." Because if you get the systems firing properly, all those spokes kind of go away anyway.

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely.

Kashif Khan:
And have you had outcomes like that, where kind of success stories where, "Hey, guess what, this is also gone."?

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely. Well, and what ends up happening in the process is, we replaced those deficiencies that we talked about. But then once we get rid of the toxins, you have to wean off of the things that you've been using to replace the deficiencies because those are Band-Aids. They're natural Band-Aids, but boosting the adrenals, the mitochondria, thyroid, all these things that we're using, they're natural, but they're still Band-Aids. But once we get rid of the toxins and the adrenals come back on board and they don't have the chronic stressors, mitochondria is back on board, the thyroid's back on board, then you don't need as much, if any, of those supplements.

Evan Hirsch:
And one of my favorite things to do is to reverse thyroid disease, because thyroid really is this combination of low thyroid resulting from autoimmunity to the thyroid. And autoimmunity is just reaction of the immune system to a toxin in the body causing inflammation. So you get rid of the toxin, immune system stops attacking the thyroid, thyroid comes back online, and then all of a sudden people are like, "Oh my gosh, I'm hyperthyroid. I've got all these symptoms of too much thyroid." And it's like, "Oh, it's because we need to wean you down off of the thyroid you're currently taking, because you don't need it anymore because the thyroid is now a lot more functional."

Kashif Khan:
And what do you think of people that are living the stimulant lifestyle? Meaning, I go to the gym regularly and I see people scooping their pre-workout into their mouth. And I see I can't go to the gym without my coffee. So, is that a need or is that a mask? And if you're masking things, is there damage being done that you don't know about?

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely. So they're just whipping the adrenal gland with those things. Whether it's caffeine or some of those pre-workout concoctions, is that unfortunately they are a Band-Aid and they are going to work for a period of time until they don't. Those people are going to get to a point where they can't function without the caffeine, and so they're going to keep ratcheting up the caffeine, and then the caffeine no longer works. And then they have to go to a different stimulant or whatever because they're not addressing the causes, which are these things that we've talked about today. And they won't get success until they address them.

Kashif Khan:
So, what's going to happen to this entire pre-workout generation that-

Evan Hirsch:
Well, the thing is that they're not going to blame it on that because they're just going to end up being that 50-year-old who's too tired to do anything. And they just think it's them getting older, unfortunately. There's not that awareness, unfortunately. Our FDA is doing us a disservice by not putting things out there so people have this understanding around, "Hey, these are things you have to look for. These are things that are actually problematic. This is actually how the body works. These are the things you should be avoiding." So unfortunately, now it's just, as you said, commonplace to end up on the couch next to somebody and be like, "I'm tired. What about you?" "Yeah, I'm tired. Let's just watch TV."

Kashif Khan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're coming from a place where, I need a little bit more energy so I have a better outcome. And you put your adrenals through so much hell that your natural state is far less energy than default what it should be.

Evan Hirsch:
Exactly. That is the consequence.

Kashif Khan:
Wow. And how long does that take?

Evan Hirsch:
That's a good question. It's different for everybody, based off of their genetics and how they process caffeine. And it depends on the number of other toxins that they have in their body. So that's kind of the big thing too, is that if somebody came out of the womb with 300 different chemicals, and then they were fed a lot of tuna fish growing up like I was, so they got a lot of mercury, lot of cheese sandwiches and gluten, so I got a lot of dairy and gluten. And then maybe you lived in a moldy environment, and then maybe you had some sort of exposure to plastics, hot plastics in the summer and just drinking out of those water bottles. And then you're also living this sort of pre-workout lifestyle. And you're doing hormesis, which is wonderful in one part where you're basically stressing out the human body to make more muscle and to make yourself stronger, but it's still stressing the body. And if you have these other stressors, then at some point those stressors overwhelm the body and you get symptoms.

Evan Hirsch:
Or you're hijacking the immune system and then all of a sudden some infection, which has been transported most likely from mom through the placenta, all of a sudden becomes opportunistic when you have a breakup or you have, let's say, a car accident or something like that, and you end up in chronic pain. Not necessarily because of the accident itself, but because you allowed an infection to come out that ends up causing chronic pain in the body or other weird symptoms.

Kashif Khan:
So for someone listening today that's like, "Oh, wow. I made a big mistake. I've been on pre-work workout for three years.", is there a test that it can go do to check their adrenal levels and see where they're at?

Evan Hirsch:
There is, but adrenals is actually one of those things where you can tell the function based off of your symptoms. Now, you have to be off of caffeine and any sort of stimulant in order to be able to determine this. But one of the biggest ones is people going from sitting to a standing position and getting lightheaded. The adrenal gland is responsible for producing aldosterone, which regulates our salt balance. And they cause the reabsorption of salt from the kidneys so that you don't lose your salt. And that increases the pressure inside the blood vessels and increases the flow of the brain when you stand up. And that's called, orthostatic hypotension or low blood pressure when you stand up, or POTS, P-O-T-S, is one way that people are looking at it and describing it these days. So, that's... Yeah.

Kashif Khan:
Yeah, okay. I do know that when I think about... I don't drink coffee, I never have, not because of any good reason other than I never understood it. It was hot and it tasted bad, so...

Evan Hirsch:
You and me both.

Kashif Khan:
Yeah. But there's people that I work with that they can't function without it. So, is there something that they can replace it with that doesn't create that load on the system?

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely. So one of the thing... And actually, I did this when I entered residency because I started learning more about this, where I went from all the caffeine that I was drinking in medical school to just staying really hydrated. And so if you stay really hydrated where you're drinking around two and a half to three liters a day. I mean, there's calculations that you can do, but most people need about that amount. And you're putting sea salt to taste in this water because that's one of the ways that you can really support the adrenals. And I didn't go into all the symptoms I just talked about that lightheadedness, orthostatics, but we can do that if you want to. But that can really help people have better energy during the day, better focus. Consequently, that would end up leading to better sleep, less crashes throughout the day, lots of benefits.

Kashif Khan:
That's interesting because I had a friend that produces a supplement of all things for pickleball players. So, he specializes in supporting the sort of performance of pickleball players. And he sent me an adrenal product and I tried it and it was salty. And I thought there was something wrong with it. But you're saying that that's one of the key elements that will drive adrenal function.

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely. So, it takes the burden off the adrenals. So if adrenals aren't producing aldosterone, aldosterone is not reabsorbing the salt from the kidneys, you're peeing out salt. And it reminds me of what you said when we were off camera where you... well, you said you don't urinate. You drink a lot of water, you don't urinate, so there could be a salt balance issue there. But when you're taking the salt, that ends up changing the osmotic gradient, it increases the salt inside the blood vessel, consequently, pulling water in there, increases your blood pressure so that it can go to your head and the other parts of the body. And the adrenal gland can actually take a break. So, that's the way that it works.

Kashif Khan:
That's very interesting. The other area where I see people sort of tripping up is when it comes to school and sleep. Even work and sleep, people have to struggle and study all night. Obviously if you're not sleeping, you're not going to feel right. But is there a hack? Is there anything somebody can do who just doesn't have a choice or just didn't get proper sleep the night before to have a better day?

Evan Hirsch:
Yeah, absolutely. And this is also what I recommend when people go to festivals, Burning Man, EDM, or stuff like that, is that I recommend that people take adrenal and mitochondrial support every three hours until six hours before they're going to bed. So normally this would be, you wake up in the morning and you start taking it maybe eight o'clock in the morning every three hours until four o'clock or so, if you're going to be going to bed at 10 o'clock, because that'll give you six hours before you go to bed. Now, if you're going to be up longer than that, you just keep taking it every three hours. Let's say you're going to go to bed at three o'clock in the morning, you stop at nine o'clock. And that six hours seems to be a nice washout period where you've created this nice circadian rhythm for yourself, where basically you've got this energy and then it's coming down and allow you to sleep well.

Kashif Khan:
Sounds like it could be a hack for something like jet lag as well.

Evan Hirsch:
Exactly.

Kashif Khan:
Kind of reset the clock. Yeah, that's really cool.

Evan Hirsch:
Absolutely.

Kashif Khan:
Actually, I'm about to fly, so I'm going to try that and tell you how it goes.

Evan Hirsch:
There you go.

Kashif Khan:
Yeah.

Evan Hirsch:
Please do.

Kashif Khan:
That's awesome. I mean, everything you've been saying is so on point and so easy. That's the thing about it, that what it takes to get to this problem is years and years and years of killing yourself slowly. Right? But the fix doesn't take that long, if you start doing the right stuff. From what I'm hearing from you, if you focus on the right things. First of all, you've made this sort of audit and review available so that people can focus on the right things, because that's such a big challenge with so many options on why you don't have energy. And even it's never limited to one thing. It's usually multiple things, so understanding that. And then knowing what to do about it. And the what to do about it part doesn't seem all that difficult. There's tweaks and things, maybe some supplements, maybe some changes in lifestyle. It's just the doing it part is the challenge.

Evan Hirsch:
The doing it and having the support along the way because make no mistakes about it, there are bumps in the road, especially when you're dealing with infections. It's kind of this balance when we talked about the funnel in step three and you're starting to remove these toxins. You got to make sure that that funnel's open. And if you feel worse, you may have to stop. You may have to open that funnel again. And then you can start down that path again.

Evan Hirsch:
And yes, I agree that it's a short amount of time, relatively. But it's still too long for most people. So they do have to get their head around six months, 12 months, 24 months. It's going to be a process. You just have to take a step every single day. One of the things we talk about is asking yourself more empowering questions. Most people are asking themselves disempowering questions like, "Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to the world? Why are things bad?", or whatever it is. And you need to be asking yourself better questions like, "What can I do today to love myself even more?" And you're going to actually get a better answer from your brain. Or, "What can I do today to increase my health even more?"

Evan Hirsch:
And every single day, you just take a baby step. And we've got a checklist where people just go through this process. If you get stuck, you reach out for help. We've got the one-on-ones, we've got the group components so that people feel supported in every aspect so that we know that they're going to be successful.

Kashif Khan:
This is awesome. Actually, I'm going to test this stuff out on myself, by the way. It's not sort of chronic for me, but there are days where it just doesn't add up. And I know there's something I've worked on a lot, when it comes to my mind and body. But there's always room for improvement. And I think I'll probably find it through your process, it sounds like it. Because there's days where it just doesn't make sense. I just feel like I'm not the same person. So hopefully I'm going to fix that and I'll be one of your case studies.

Evan Hirsch:
I love it. Yeah, and that's the curiosity that leaders like you have, is all these different aspects of my life, how can I be better at being a better dad, being a better business owner, being a better partner, all these things, if you're looking at improving your life. Which obviously you are. And so you're seeing that and you're saying, "Hey, what can I do here in order to make my life better in this aspect?"

Kashif Khan:
Yeah. Well, this was awesome. I would ask you one last thing. There's so much you offered, but for the somebody that's just starting tomorrow, what's one, two, three things they should do just to get going?

Evan Hirsch:
So, definitely check out the free step one course. But something that's practical that has nothing to do with that, I would say is, drink more water. Get that two and a half liters of water. And you're not going to get it tomorrow, if you haven't been drinking much. You got to kind of build up to it over time. Put a pinch of sea salt in there. Start going to bed closer to 9:30, 10 o'clock. Just some of these lifestyle habits can make a huge difference for folks. Most of the people that we see are doing those things and that they've got all these other causes that we have to work on. But for somebody who's starting off, you got to look at these lifestyle habits. You got to make sure you're moving as much as you can without feeling worse. If you're feeling worse, you're not getting your, what I call the, Goldilocks Dose of Movement. And movement should be fun. Turn on Air Supply and do some dancing around the kitchen. Right?

Kashif Khan:
Yeah.

Evan Hirsch:
So, it's some of these things that you just want to be doing for movement. And for food, you want to be eliminating gluten, dairy, and sugars, and eating more meat and vegetables. But I would say if you just want to go simple... Oh, and then there's the mindset stuff. Gosh, there's so many things. If you just want to go simple, I would say live in gratitude, just three gratitudes a day. They can be the same three gratitudes every day, and drink more water.

Kashif Khan:
This is awesome. So Dr. Hirsch, AKA, EnergyMD, thank you for your time. This is going to help a lot of people. It was great that you were able to give us the time, and thank you again for joining us.

Evan Hirsch:
Thanks so much for having me on.