Reset Your Health in 10 Days: Advice From a Renowned MD

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Speaker 1 Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to a vibrant, phenomenal episode of the Mel Robbins podcast. Let's do this thing.

Speaker 1 Okay, everybody, I am so excited. Boy, do I have an incredible gift for you today.
And for those of you that are brand new to the Mel Robbins podcast, let me welcome you. My name is Mel Robbins.

Speaker 1 I'm a New York Times best-selling author and one of the most respected experts on change and motivation in the world.

Speaker 1 And I have a treat for you today because I have arranged to get you an appointment at zero cost

Speaker 1 with one of the world's leading doctors and medical experts.

Speaker 1 I'm telling you, you are in for a treat because you are getting world class medical and research-backed simple tactics today to improve your health, to improve your energy, to improve your vitality.

Speaker 1 We are going to do some healing today from the inside out. Who the hell am I talking about? Well, I'm talking about none other than Dr.
Mark Hyman.

Speaker 2 Welcome. Thank you.
14.

Speaker 1 New York Times bestsellers people.

Speaker 1 14. He's the founder and medical director of the Ultra Wellness Center and head of strategy and innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine.
Dr.

Speaker 1 Hyman has also consulted with the Surgeon General on diabetes prevention. I mean, we could just be dropping all, and

Speaker 1 he's laughing at his own credentials. And that's something that I actually love about Dr.
Hyman, because he's relatable.

Speaker 1 And so we are going to break down the world of functional medicine and the science behind how you can have more energy, how you can use things that are in your house and in your fridge to help you calm your anxiety, to help you gain focus if you have ADHD.

Speaker 2 And more importantly, I don't care how old you are.

Speaker 1 I know we got a ton of college kids that listen to this. You should be thinking right now, no matter how young or old you are, about what you can do to make sure that as you age, you also

Speaker 2 have the energy that you deserve, right, Dr. Heiner? Absolutely.
Welcome.

Speaker 1 Thank you. You're welcome.
And one other thing I want to tell you guys.

Speaker 1 So, about a year ago, I think you guys know this, I had this like tsunami casserole of a breakdown that was a combination of anxiety, grief, and crushing symptoms from menopause.

Speaker 1 Just

Speaker 1 oh, it was a hot mess.

Speaker 2 Literally. Literally.

Speaker 1 And I texted Dr. Hyman and I went to his wellness clinic and Lenox.
And so I have firsthand experience working with his team and following his advice. and it has made a profound difference.

Speaker 1 And that's why I'm excited for you to be here.

Speaker 2 Amazing. Sadly, our healthcare system and our medical paradigm doesn't actually know how to get you from there to here.

Speaker 2 And it's all about activating your body's own innate intelligent healing systems, which is really all I do.

Speaker 2 I don't really treat disease, I just help the body do what it's supposed to do by getting rid of the bad stuff and putting in the good stuff. So, the body is really an amazing organism.

Speaker 2 It's a self-healing, self-preparing, self-renewing system if you know what to do. And I mean, who's listening out there that got an owner's manual strapped to their leg when they were born?

Speaker 2 Probably not too many of you. You know how to use your iPhone and computer more than you know how to regulate and use your body.
And that's really what this is all about.

Speaker 1 Dr. Hyman, you just said something that really struck me, which is

Speaker 1 that every single one of us, our bodies,

Speaker 1 has an intelligent healing system built into it. And I immediately thought about the fact that, you know, we all know instinctively that if you cut your hand,

Speaker 1 your body knows how to heal itself.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And so you don't have to go to the doctor to get a prescription to heal your hand.
It just knows what to do. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so, can you just expand upon that? For somebody who has never considered

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 concept

Speaker 1 that your body is designed when you know how to take care of it to heal itself.

Speaker 1 What the hell does that even mean?

Speaker 2 It's really incredible. I mean, I literally get to be the witness to miracles every day.

Speaker 2 And people who are either wanting to just optimize their health and live a long, healthy life, or people who have end-stage diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disease, dementia, whatever it is, ADD, depression, when you know how the body works, you can learn how to optimize its function, which is why we call it functional medicine.

Speaker 2 And then you get rid of the stuff that's impairing our ability to function properly. And you put in the stuff that the body needs to thrive.
So you take out the impediments to health.

Speaker 2 You put in the ingredients to health. The body knows what to do.

Speaker 2 Most people don't connect the dots between what they're doing in their life, whether it's what they're eating or the toxins they're exposed to or the stress they're under or the lack of sleep they're getting or the fact that they may not move their bodies or learn how to do all these things.

Speaker 2 They don't know how that's impacting them. They don't know how close they are to feeling good.

Speaker 2 We're literally only a few days not weeks or months from feeling better we're only a few days away from feeling better yes it's really remarkable i take people all over the world i put it in these groups we do these programs around the world and we change their diet we move them a little bit a little bit yoga not like running a marathon but just gentle exercise some simple body practices and within six days the average person

Speaker 2 reduces their symptoms from all diseases by 70%.

Speaker 1 Wait, what? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I've done this so many times.

Speaker 2 I'm like, I even shocked myself because, like, whether you have migraines or irritable bowel or depression or insomnia or joint pain or fatigue or brain fog, whatever the stuff you're feeling, and I call it the FLC syndrome, which means

Speaker 2 when you feel like crap.

Speaker 2 There's a more serious version of that called FLS. Feel like shit.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Well, and I, you know, what's interesting is that I think about,

Speaker 1 you know, we're constantly looking at what people DM us and what they fill out in the forms at melrobbins.com.

Speaker 1 And I've started to wonder if part of the problem is that so many of us are used to feeling like shit.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we don't know how

Speaker 2 better we can feel. We don't have any insight because we've never, it's like you have an elephant standing on your foot your whole life.
You don't know what it feels like.

Speaker 2 when the element gets off until it gets off. And so then people have the insight.
And I've written many books about how to do this. In my new book, Young Forever, I explained how to do this.

Speaker 2 I've written a book called the 10-day Detox Diet, which is really what I used in my patients to help reset autoimmune disease, reset the gut, turn off inflammation, get rid of asthma, migraine, whatever it is.

Speaker 2 And people are suffering from depression. Because we don't have depression.
It's inflammation in the brain.

Speaker 1 I want to go point by point by point because I can feel, can you just hear Dr. Hyman winding up? He's winding up.

Speaker 2 He is so excited.

Speaker 1 I want to back up a couple steps because we were talking about the fact that your work in functional medicine as a medical doctor, decades of work with patients, of research, the books that you've written, we are going to link to all of this, everybody.

Speaker 1 It will be in the show notes. Don't you worry.
We got you covered. You talked about the fact that our bodies are designed to heal.

Speaker 1 And so I want to give people a metaphor to start to think about because you've already started talking about food.

Speaker 1 and that we don't stop and think about the fact that the environment that we live in and the things that we stick in our mouth and put into our body and the stress that we endure are all things that we can change for the better that have a material demonstrated impact on the quality of your health to the point where if you take this seriously within six days, you will feel better.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, what's so amazing, Mel, is that every cell in your body, your DNA, your microbiome, which are the bugs that live in your gut, your immune system, Everything is listening to your thoughts.

Speaker 2 Everything is responding to your environment in real time. We call it the exposome.
Your life is not predetermined by some genetic destiny.

Speaker 2 It's the life and the exposome, which is all the sum total of all the experiences you've had, all the toxins, all the thoughts, all the relationships, all the food you've eaten, everything washing over your biology, creating the expression of who you are in this moment.

Speaker 2 And so that's a very empowering idea because it doesn't just, something just didn't happen to you.

Speaker 2 You can actually be empowered to understand what those things are and change them and radically reverse your, your biological age, your, your health problems, your mental health, because the body has this incredible healing system, as we said.

Speaker 2 Wow. Okay.

Speaker 1 So what a good metaphor, and maybe you have a better one, but I keep thinking about like, if you think about the fact that a car, brand new car is designed to drive.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Right.
It needs fuel, though. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So if you want to take care of your car, you put in the fuel that doesn't have a bunch of crap in it,

Speaker 1 or you plug your car in, right? And you drive one of these electric cars.

Speaker 1 I think a lot about food as the fuel. And if your car drives best on electricity or gas, you would never put sand in your gas tank because it would clog it up.

Speaker 1 And so is that kind of a metaphor to get you thinking about how

Speaker 2 it's more exciting than that because yes, food is fuel. it's energy, right? You need it to, you know,

Speaker 2 run your body. Yep.
But there's just all this other stuff in food that we've ignored besides calories. And it's the informational molecules in food.

Speaker 2 Because food is not just calories, it's information, it's instructions, it's code that upregulates your biology or downregulates it every single bite. Wow.

Speaker 2 It changes your gene expression, your hormones, your brain chemistry, your immune system, your microbiome. Literally everything

Speaker 2 is changed in real time by what you're eating.

Speaker 2 Like most people don't connect their food and their mood or their food and their asthma, or their food and their era ball, or their food and their migraines, or their food and food and anxiety.

Speaker 2 Or anxiety depression.

Speaker 2 Wow. Okay.

Speaker 1 I want to talk about where do we start? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Because I want to make sure that everybody listening leaves with a better understanding.

Speaker 1 of how their body is designed to heal itself and specific changes that we can make in order to activate that power inside of us. And so I want to talk a little bit about,

Speaker 1 you write so much about food, and we've already started talking about it.

Speaker 1 And in particular, I'm huge, I'm a huge fan of your book, The Blood Sugar Solution, which is where I think you're one of the first people to start talking about the vagus nerve and the power of the vagus nerve, which we talk about on this show constantly.

Speaker 1 And the ultra-mind solution is a book.

Speaker 2 All these book goodies. Oh, yeah.
All these book goodies.

Speaker 1 But listen, you know, everybody, and I'm going to have you explain it. You know, you probably, you may have heard that your gut is called the second brain.

Speaker 1 But what you may not know is that

Speaker 2 during

Speaker 1 the formation of you as a human being,

Speaker 1 the same embryonic clump that forms the brain also forms the gut. And they separate, but they stay connected via neurotransmitters.
So I think about it like almost like like

Speaker 1 goop, like you break goop in half and it's got those stringy sections, and part of it becomes your brain, and the second part becomes the gut.

Speaker 2 Oh, they call it your gut brain or your second brain.

Speaker 1 Yes. And that they talk to each other all the time.

Speaker 1 And so where I want to start with this is, can you explain the connection between your gut health and your overall health?

Speaker 1 And then we're going to get into specific mental health issues that people struggle with.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. You know, what was really amazing to me, Mel, is I began to practice functional medicine.
I began to treat people's guts. I would help their immune system get better.

Speaker 2 I'd get them on anti-inflammatory diets.

Speaker 2 And as a side effect, they would report to me that my ADD is better, my depression is gone, my panic attacks are gone, my mood is better, a sleeping bed, all these things. I'm like, really?

Speaker 2 What's going on here? And I began to really inquire about this.

Speaker 2 process

Speaker 2 of how everything below the neck is influencing everything above the neck. Yes.
So the subtitle of the ultra mind solution is how to fix your broken brain by fixing your body first.

Speaker 2 And what's really amazing is the microbiome is this new frontier, in addition to the understanding of the gut brain and the gut nervous system and the brain nervous system and how they're connected.

Speaker 2 There's constant communication. There's more neurotransmitter in your gut than your brain.

Speaker 2 But what's now happening is the understanding of this sea of bacteria in there that are all speaking to you every minute.

Speaker 2 And I just had talked to a scientist who was researching a particular microbe in the gut. And it's a big word.
It's called acromancia. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 It's just one of the bacteria that lives in the middle. I already forgot it.
Okay. And

Speaker 2 what's amazing is as they were fermenting this, growing this bacteria to put in a probiotic, which is very powerful for many things, for regulating metabolism and mood and blood sugar and everything.

Speaker 2 They discovered that this vat of the byproducts of this bacteria was something called GABA.

Speaker 2 Now, GABA

Speaker 2 is a calming neurotransmitter.

Speaker 2 When people take valium,

Speaker 2 that's what it's doing. It's activating the GABA receptors in the brain to calm you down and relax you.

Speaker 2 So when you think, if you have the right bacteria in your gut, you're producing compounds and neurotransmitters that are going to your brain and making you either relaxed and calm or depressed. Wow.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 I want to have you define a few things for us.

Speaker 1 So you've used the word inflammation a lot yeah

Speaker 2 what the hell does that mean well everybody knows you know you no everybody does not know you got a sore throat that's inflammation you cut your finger it gets red and pussy that's inflammation oh right no i've never thought about it that way you sprain your knee it swells up that's inflammation

Speaker 1 but but when but when you functional medicine doctors throw around the word inflammation inflammation here inflammation i don't even know what you're talking about

Speaker 2 so we know that inflammation on the outside what it looks like yes right that's what i was just referring to. Yes.
But there's inflammation on the inside. Oh, okay.
And it's silent inflammation.

Speaker 2 You know, if your brain's inflamed,

Speaker 2 it doesn't get red and swollen, but you get depressed and you have ADD and you have personality issues and you can't sleep and you're anxious, right?

Speaker 2 So we're now understanding that the inflammation, this hidden inflammation is occurring inside of us and it's leading to all the diseases of Western civilization, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia.

Speaker 2 The aging process itself is called inflammaging, which is one of the hallmarks of aging I talk about in Young Forever in my book.

Speaker 2 And the beautiful thing is that we now know what is driving the inflammation on the inside.

Speaker 1 What's causing us to have inflammation on the inside?

Speaker 2 Our gut is a big player. Okay.
70% of our immune system is in our gut. And if we don't eat the right food, if our microbiome isn't the right bugs in there, they're nasty bugs.
And we get leaky gut.

Speaker 2 And that means the body can't filter out the food and proteins from food and the bacteria in there. and you leak them across the intestinal lining.
And guess what? Your immune system's right there.

Speaker 2 And it goes, Holy shit, what is all this? And starts creating inflammation.

Speaker 2 So you get asthma, or you get arthritis, or you get depression, or you get diabetes, or you get dementia because the gut bacteria and the whole system in there is broken down.

Speaker 1 Can I ask one more question? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because I think this is really important for everybody to understand.

Speaker 1 Let's back up a minute and talk about how your gut is supposed to function.

Speaker 1 So when it's functioning in the correct way, because I only learned about leaky gut because we had a daughter that struggled with disordered eating.

Speaker 1 And she was constantly talking about how she felt fat. And I thought, oh my God, we have not only this issue with restriction and her not eating, but we now have body dysmorphia.

Speaker 1 And we went to see a nutritionist that was a functional, holistic nutritionist. And she came back and said,

Speaker 1 through the disordered eating, your daughter has destroyed

Speaker 2 her gut.

Speaker 1 There are no positive bacteria strains. So the food hits her gut.

Speaker 1 And without positive bacteria strains, the food doesn't break down.

Speaker 2 And so she does feel bloated. She feels bloated and

Speaker 1 then like all of this acidic crap, because the food is not.

Speaker 1 digesting properly because there's no positive bacteria, all this acidic crap leaks through the wall of the gut and then goes through the nervous system and the anxiety spikes.

Speaker 1 And so this was brand new to me. So can you just explain to everybody, when your gut is in balance, how is it functioning properly?

Speaker 1 Because I think that'll give everybody the ability to then understand

Speaker 1 the impact of it not functioning properly.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, you pretty much shouldn't know it's there. It should do its job, right? You shouldn't be bloated or distended.
You should have heartburn. You shouldn't have gas.
It should feel fine.

Speaker 2 You should be really.

Speaker 1 People go through life without all that?

Speaker 2 I mean, you can have a little gas, but it's not like, you know, that's kind of a normal thing. But I think if people are really noticing their gut function,

Speaker 1 something's wrong.

Speaker 2 Okay. And then you just look in the toilet.
You should have a perfectly formed log. It just floats a little bit.
And that's it.

Speaker 2 And you should feel the urge to go and you should go and it should take a couple of minutes and that's it. And that is not the case for most people in Western civilization.

Speaker 2 We know now how to identify imbalances in there. We know how to test for it.
We know how to treat it.

Speaker 2 Not most traditional doctors, but most functional medicine doctors, This is the focus of a lot of the way we help people is by optimizing their gut function.

Speaker 2 Because when we eat, we're not just feeding us, we're feeding the thousand critters that live down there.

Speaker 2 There's probably 10 trillion cells in there that we're feeding

Speaker 2 in your gut, and they affect everything that's going on. If they're the bad guys, you're going to feel bad.
And if they're the good guys, you're going to feel good.

Speaker 2 When you eat sugar and starch and processed food and artificial sweeteners and thickeners and gums and additives, they just destroy the microbiome.

Speaker 2 So we really have a gut crisis in this country, but we also have the food crisis. And the food crisis is really what's driving it.
Change your diet and see what happens.

Speaker 2 Not for a year or 10 years, but 10 days. Anybody can do anything for 10 days.

Speaker 2 And when you do that, you literally take away all the potential inflammatory foods, all the foods that are causing you to have issues, which is typically gluten, dairy, sugar, processed.

Speaker 1 So, what is the 10-day like, well, just give us simple rules that you want everybody listening to try. This is a dare.

Speaker 2 Let's go through a sample menu for a day, but it's basically protein and vegetables, nuts and seeds and berries. And so you.
Oh, hold on. You said that very fast.
Protein. Vegetables.
Vegetables.

Speaker 2 Nuts and seeds and berries. Nuts and seeds and berries.
And lots of good fats, olive oil, avocados.

Speaker 2 So it's basically breakfast could be, for example, a couple of eggs with sliced tomatoes, an avocado with olive oil on top. Lunch could be a big salad with lots of different veggies and tomatoes.

Speaker 2 I could throw a can of wild salmon on there. Yep.
Put in some pumpkin seeds, just lots of good plants.

Speaker 1 Very colorful.

Speaker 2 Very colorful. And dinner might be, you know, some piece of fish or chicken or some nice small piece of meat with three-quarters of your plate should be vegetables.
So three-quarters of your plate.

Speaker 2 I'll have the other night I had like a purple sweet potato. I had some roasted mushrooms.
I had roasted eggplant. Whatever you kind of get excited about, broccolini.

Speaker 2 I make cruciferous vegetables every day. These are the broccoli.
What did you say? Cruciferous vegetables.

Speaker 1 What the hell were it crucifix?

Speaker 2 Broccoli. Broccoli, basically.
The broccoli.

Speaker 1 What does cruciferous mean?

Speaker 2 It means broccoli, basically. Broccoli, collard, collards, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, you know, all those things.
The fiber crap your grandmother served. Is that what you're doing?

Speaker 2 It's this family of vegetables. It's a super family.
Got it. Because it actually detoxes your cells.

Speaker 2 It helps prevent cancer. Wow.
It boosts all the molecules in your body.

Speaker 1 So I want to stop you real quick because you posted something two days ago. I did.

Speaker 1 What? It was your cells, your brain cells, like all of this stuff,

Speaker 1 your skin that all is continuing to grow, it doesn't just grow out of thin air. It actually is impacted and grows from the raw materials that you get.

Speaker 1 And so would you rather have cells that are made from a bag of Doritos?

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 1 Or cells made from a salad or a piece of fish. And when you boil it down that way, like, holy cow, what I put in my mouth is what I become.

Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. You literally become what you eat.
Listen to your own body. Your body is the smartest doctor in the room.
It'll tell you what works and what doesn't.

Speaker 2 And when you stop this or that, you go, my God, wait a minute, my joints don't hurt. Or wait a minute, I'm not having terrible reflux or heartburn anymore.
Or I don't have migraines. What happened?

Speaker 2 Or my mood is better. What's going on? It's what you're eating.

Speaker 2 Wow.

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Speaker 1 Welcome back. I'm here with Dr.
Mark Hyman, and he is talking today all about the fact that we have the power. to heal ourselves from the inside out.

Speaker 1 And we're talking about simple ways that you can do this.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 1 Dr. Hyman, what are the top things that people should in this kind of 10-day window

Speaker 1 stop eating?

Speaker 2 Basically, anything that comes in a package can or a box, get rid of it. If it's sugar, no.
If sugar-sweetened beverages, no. Alcohol, no.

Speaker 2 The grains and beans for a short time, because a lot of people have inflammation from that. They have a gut issue.

Speaker 2 Grains and beans are healthy and they're good for you, but for some people, they can be a problem.

Speaker 1 What's the universal one? It's no gluten.

Speaker 2 No gluten, no sugar, no dairy, no alcohol, no processed food.

Speaker 1 Do you have any fun?

Speaker 2 Absolutely. I have so much fun.
I have so much fun every day. Just kidding.
My whole life is fun. And I don't feel restricted.
I don't starve myself. And the thing is, these foods are addictive now.

Speaker 2 So people think, I gotta have sugar. People are listening.
They're thinking, oh, Dr. Hyman, can I have artificial sweeteners? Or can I have, you know, stevia?

Speaker 2 Or can I have a lot of everybody's going through their head?

Speaker 2 And if you are having this inner dialogue right now, I guarantee you, you have biological addiction to sugar because you're trying to find a way out.

Speaker 2 You know, I'm going to stop smoking, but I'm going to vape or I'm going to chew nickered gum. Well, that's not getting rid of your addiction.

Speaker 2 And I think it's not your fault. And this is probably one of the biggest problems I have with the narrative in America that we are blaming the person who's overweight.
for their problem.

Speaker 2 It's your fault that you're eating too much and not exercising enough because that's the solution to weight loss. It's all about calories in, calories out.
It's all about moderation.

Speaker 2 And if you can't do it, there's something wrong with you. That's just a big fat lie.
And that keeps people feeling ashamed about themselves. It keeps them from being empowered to know what to do.

Speaker 2 It keeps the food industry free of responsibility. And it's one of the most unfortunate narratives that we have.

Speaker 1 And what you're here to say is it's not your fault because the way that food is manufactured, it is addictive and it is screwing up your body chemistry and it is causing like a whole litany of things that we aren't even thinking that my diet and the way that processed food is getting metabolized, is causing this inflammation that makes my brain not work right, that impacts focus and energy and mood and sleep and all of these things.

Speaker 1 And all of your work points to the fact that one of the places that all of us can start is by just doing an experiment for 10 days where you stop the dairy, stop the gluten, stop the sugar, and you eat a colorful meal of whole foods and vegetables.

Speaker 1 Three quarters of the plate is vegetables and have a protein.

Speaker 1 There is your homework for 10 days and report back, everybody, because you've seen over and over and over again that in that small of a window, people have remarkable results. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's the key because if people go, you know, this is a long slog and it'll take me a year,

Speaker 2 you're not going to want to do it. So this is like the restart and has enormous benefits because for the first time, people understand what they're doing impacts how they feel.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I almost feel like this is like an oil change.
We got to get that nasty ass oil out there and glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, get your gut working right.

Speaker 1 Can we talk about the impact of the gut with anxiety and what's your recommendation? If somebody struggles with anxiety, what do they need to do to heal their gut and how will that impact anxiety?

Speaker 2 Well, anxiety can be caused from many things, right? From, you know, life stresses, from trauma, from environmental toxins, from your microbiome, from eating too much sugar.

Speaker 2 I mean, there's a whole list. So functional medicine is about getting to the root cause.
Yep. And anxiety is a symptom.
symptom. It's like saying I have a headache, right?

Speaker 2 Well, did someone hit you in the head with a hammer? Or do you have a migraine? Did you not sleep enough? Did you have a hangover? Do you have, you know, an aneurysm? Like, why do you have a headache?

Speaker 2 Right. So anxiety is just like saying I have a headache or depression is like saying I have a headache.
It doesn't mean anything other than what your symptoms are. The question is, what's the cause?

Speaker 2 And that is what functional medicine is so good about. And so the gut plays a big role.
I really just start with the simple lifestyle practices. Do a 10-day reset.
Do some simple movement.

Speaker 2 Take a walk. Do some simple mindfulness practices.
Do your high five.

Speaker 2 I do take five, which is five breaths five times a day. You know, it's simple, like before you eat every time, before you go to bed, take five breaths in slowly, in and out for five seconds.

Speaker 2 How the hell does that help? It resets your nervous system because every time you breathe, you move your diaphragm. And your diaphragm is this place where the vagus nerve goes through.

Speaker 2 The vagus nerve is your relaxation nerve. That's your nervous system.

Speaker 1 You just need to find the switch.

Speaker 2 And this is what, yeah, that's the beautiful thing.

Speaker 2 So you can can actually use your breath to reset your nervous system and to calm everything down and lower adrenaline, lower cortisol, lower all the stress hormones and reset your system.

Speaker 2 But it doesn't take a lot.

Speaker 1 I want to just come back to something you said in the very beginning.

Speaker 1 Over and over and over again, you're proving simple ways that your body is designed to heal itself.

Speaker 1 So five breaths, deep breaths.

Speaker 1 Walk us through how you do five breaths.

Speaker 2 Just go like, take a deep breath in to five through your nose

Speaker 2 and five out.

Speaker 2 Do that five times. It's not that hard.
Yeah, but nobody. I just did it once and I feel hard enough.

Speaker 1 I feel better too.

Speaker 1 And again, it's proof that if you do the right input,

Speaker 1 your body responds.

Speaker 2 And this is really what my work is about. It's what my book, Young Forever, is focused on.
How do we activate our healing systems?

Speaker 2 Whether you're 25 or 75, you can activate these systems and feel better now and put

Speaker 2 yourself on the track for a longer, healthier life. Wow.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about ADHD. And what did you say? ADHD.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 I even fell for that.

Speaker 2 That was good.

Speaker 2 Let's talk about ADHD. What are you talking about? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about ADHD and the gut.

Speaker 1 How it is healing your gut?

Speaker 2 Oh, God. Helping with ADHD.
I got to tell you a story. And it was what really got me on this track of thinking about writing writing this book.

Speaker 2 It was a 12-year-old kid who had severe ADHD when he was younger. It was a kindergarten on Adderall and kicked out of kindergarten.
I mean, who gets kicked out of kindergarten? Wow.

Speaker 2 And just struggling at 12 years old. His mother was at her wit's end

Speaker 2 and,

Speaker 2 you know, kind of behavior problems and just struggling. The mother brought him in and I did a full evaluation because I don't just say, tell me about your ADHD.

Speaker 2 I said, tell me about your bowel movements. Tell me about what's happening with this and that and the other thing.
And it turned out he had asthma. He had irritable bowel syndrome.

Speaker 2 He had headaches at night. He had muscle cramps.
He had anal itching, which is a clue about something.

Speaker 2 It's often a sign of yeast issues or

Speaker 2 yeah. So he had all these problems.

Speaker 2 And he was on seven different medications from multiple different doctors, on asthma medications, on cut medications, on ADD medications, on mood medications. It was a mess.

Speaker 2 I started treating him, and all we did was clean up his diet. This kid was living on junk food, never ate a vegetable in his life, massively nutritionally deficient.

Speaker 2 He was deficient in magnesium, which caused muscle cramps. He was deficient in zinc because he didn't ever eat any pumpkin seeds or vegetables, and his immune system was dysregulated.

Speaker 2 He had also B vitamin deficiencies. He was having gut issues with bad bacteria, gluten sensitivity.
He had yeast overgrowth. He had a little bit of lead in his system.

Speaker 2 All this stuff that was really easy to treat. All I did was basically take out the bad food, put in a whole foods diet, a little bit of an elimination diet we talked about.

Speaker 2 I gave him basic multivitamins, some fish oil, magnesium, and vitamin D, and probiotics, kind of reset his gut. And the mother brings him back two months later, and

Speaker 2 she says, not only is his ADD gone, but all of his other symptoms are gone. His migraines, his irritable bowel, his asthma, his skin issues, his anal itching, it's all gone.

Speaker 2 Congestion, sinus issues, all gone. And his handwriting went from totally illegible, you know, these kids with really bad penmanship, to perfectly legible, perfect penmanship.

Speaker 2 And I didn't send him to a handwriting school. All I did was fix his brain by fixing his body, by fixing his gut.

Speaker 1 I'm processing this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a lot. No, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 I'm processing this because I have a visual to share

Speaker 1 with you listening to us. And then I want to tell a quick story because I'm starting to feel like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding with our own son.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 the visual I want to give everybody, because it just

Speaker 1 hit me, is you know, when somebody has an allergic reaction, like they get stung by a bee or they eat something that they're allergic to and their face turns bright red or, you know, something swells on their body, that inflammation that you're seeing on the outside is the body reacting to something that it can't process.

Speaker 2 Or that it doesn't like.

Speaker 1 What is what it just can you describe what an allergic reaction means medically? Because I then want to tie it to something that I'm now thinking about when it comes to the gut.

Speaker 1 So what does it mean when you have an allergic reaction? You have allergies.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, there's really two main kind of allergies.
Okay.

Speaker 2 One is a true allergy. So if you eat peanuts, your tongue swells up, your lungs shut down, you can't breathe, and you can die.
You get anaphylaxis.

Speaker 2 That's a life-threatening emergency, a bee sting allergy. That's a certain type, we call it type one allergy, which is super fast, super quick, and you can die from it.
EpiPen people.

Speaker 2 EpiPen people, right? Then there's the delayed sensitivity. It's not a true allergy, but it can create sort of low-grade long-term symptoms.
So if you eat bread, you might have brain fog.

Speaker 2 Is that a true allergy? No. But is it sensitivity? Yes.

Speaker 2 And I think people don't have, I mean, I know, for example, if I eat dairy, I will get congestion and snotty immediately, and I'll probably get pinballs the next day.

Speaker 2 But if I have, for example, sheep or goat products that are from regenerative sheep that have A2 casein, which is not inflammatory, then I don't, right? So

Speaker 2 it's really not so much about

Speaker 2 the type one we're so much worried about. It's all these other types of food reactions that are slow and delayed and create this low-grade inflammation that creates all these symptoms for people.
Yes.

Speaker 1 So I wanted to bring that visual in for everybody because I think it's really helpful. And it occurred to me a couple years ago, huh?

Speaker 2 I wonder if

Speaker 1 like these sensitivities and these allergies that people have to food that may not cause swelling or redness in your face or breakouts or whatever that you can't see.

Speaker 1 I wonder if all of this is screwing up the way that our body is able to function. Absolutely.
And it interferes with your body's way to function.

Speaker 1 And so when you think about it like those kind of type one ones that, and you just explained it, like if you have a sensitivity to wheat or your body just can't handle the big company manufactured foods because of the chemicals and the dyes and the crap that are in it, it is causing your whole body to have almost like this

Speaker 1 smoldering inflammation.

Speaker 1 And so when you think about it that way, it makes so much sense to go, holy cow, if you just simply were to switch your diet from all this processed crap, grab and go, and you were to put on your plate a little bit of protein and three quarters vegetables, it would probably calm your body down and your thoughts down.

Speaker 1 And here's what I'm going, holy fuck, this is crazy. Because our son,

Speaker 1 exactly what you're talking about, Oakley in fourth grade was diagnosed with severe dyslexia. The kid could not read.
It looked, honest to God, like he was writing with his feet.

Speaker 1 His dysgraphia was so bad.

Speaker 1 He could not sit still. So we pull him out of public school and they immediately medicate him for ADHD.
He hated the meds, but it was the only way he could sit still in class. Fast forward

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 1 about eighth grade, he starts advocating for himself. I'm not taking these meds.
I'm not taking these meds. I'm not taking these meds.
We're like, fine.

Speaker 1 But if we get a report from school that you are bouncing around the classroom, we're going to have to find a different solution.

Speaker 1 This school happened to have a cafeteria where all the kids ate and it had

Speaker 1 healthy options. There were no unhealthy options.
There was the salad bar.

Speaker 2 There was the homemade soup.

Speaker 1 There was a protein. He gets into ninth grade.
When I tell you, this kid is a totally different

Speaker 2 person.

Speaker 1 His handwriting is different. That's what made me think.

Speaker 1 His ability to focus is different. He is just, I don't even know who he is.
It's like destroying it in school. He is present.
Yeah. And he eats vegetables.

Speaker 1 He has a totally different diet. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like I'm sitting here going, holy shit, the kid used to eat mac and cheese. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Chicken nuggets.
That'll do it. That'll do it.
Don't put a vegetable on my plate. That'll do it.
Yeah, it's really true.

Speaker 1 And I, and it's like, and I'm just processing this because I'm like, I think I, this is a major part

Speaker 1 of why

Speaker 2 he is

Speaker 1 transformed. And Mel, it's not just ADD.

Speaker 2 Everything that goes on in our brain above our neck is governed in the same way. We may not have such severe symptoms.
We may not have asthma.

Speaker 2 We may not have severe ADD, but we may have fatigue or brain fog or just depression or anxiety.

Speaker 1 Well, let's talk about depression because anxiety is not a disease. ADHD is not a disease.
No, they're just. Let's talk about depression, though, because that is technically like a disease.

Speaker 2 Well, anxiety is a disease, and ADD is considered a disease. I mean,

Speaker 2 they're in the disease classification manual. I don't agree.

Speaker 2 I think here, let me just back up a little bit. We have like 155,000 diseases in our manual, doctor manual, that we can pick pick from when we want to diagnose somebody.

Speaker 2 And most of them are just descriptions of the symptoms that people have, but tell you nothing about the cause.

Speaker 1 So is the root cause inflammation?

Speaker 2 Is that the root cause inflammation? The cause of many things is inflammation. What is the root cause?

Speaker 1 What are the options when it comes to root cause for you as a functional medical doctor?

Speaker 2 So basically at the beginning we talked about taking out the bad stuff, putting in the good stuff. And the body's not that complicated.

Speaker 2 I mean it's complex, it's very dynamic, but basically it needs certain things to thrive and certain things make it not thrive, right?

Speaker 2 So what are the things that we need to think about getting rid of that the body doesn't like? Okay. Bad food.
Yep. And we can define, we sort of define that as processed food, sugar,

Speaker 2 it's stress and it's, it can be physical or psychological stress. And a lot of, you know, stress is really defined as the perception of a real or imagined threat to your body or your ego.

Speaker 2 So it could be a tiger chasing you, or you could think your spouse is cheating cheating on you, but it's not true.

Speaker 1 Or you could think that your boss is mad at you. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The other few things that are the things that cause our body to be out of balance, besides bad food and stress, are toxins. Our gut and microbiome is a huge factor.
So an unhealthy gut and bad bugs.

Speaker 2 And last is

Speaker 2 things that irritate our immune system like allergens or sensitivities.

Speaker 1 Okay, what are the five things?

Speaker 2 Bad food, stress, toxins, bad bugs, and

Speaker 2 allergens. Okay, got it.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 if we have those things, they create imbalance. So we have to get rid of those things, take out the bad stuff.
So what are the good stuff? What are the ingredients for health?

Speaker 2 How does our bodies thrive? We are often deficient in many nutrients, particularly omega-3s, vitamin D, B vitamins, iron, zinc.

Speaker 2 These are magnesium common nutritional deficiencies that have broad impacts across the body, including our mood.

Speaker 2 Then we need the right

Speaker 2 balance of hormones. We need clean air.
We need clean water. We need movement, like exercise.

Speaker 2 We need resetting, restoration, relaxation, resetting the vagus nerve, sympathetic nervous system needs to be calmed down, right? That's not a passive activity. So you have to actively relax, right?

Speaker 2 Whether it's breathing or yoga or meditation or whatever, prayer, journaling, million ways to do it.

Speaker 2 Then we need

Speaker 2 also sleep. And most of us are not getting enough sleep or good quality sleep.
So seven, eight hours minimum for most people is essential.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 if somebody is not

Speaker 1 getting good sleep, you mentioned seven to eight hours of sleep is what the average person needs minimum.

Speaker 2 What are

Speaker 1 a couple simple changes that you would recommend that someone focus on immediately to start to improve their sleep habits?

Speaker 2 Well, there's a number of simple things you can do to fix your sleep. One is regular sleep cycle.
So wake and sleep at the same time every day. Okay.
How does that help? It puts you in a rhythm.

Speaker 2 So your body kind of knows, oh, it's time to eat. It's time to sleep.

Speaker 2 You're a biological organism, whether you like it or not. And you have to regulate yourself based on circadian rhythms and the basic cycles of day and night and light and dark.

Speaker 2 The other thing is make sure you have 20 minutes, if you can, of light in the morning. Why? Because that

Speaker 2 resets your brain for the day and also resets your pineal gland and will help with melatonin production later in the day. Oh.
Which melatonin helps you sleep at night.

Speaker 1 And so the light you're talking about is get outside even on a cloudy day. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay. 20 minutes.
20 minutes. And these light boxes, you know, even you can use that have full spectrum light.
The second is at night, don't get blue light. So wear blue blocker glasses,

Speaker 2 get off your screens at least two or three hours before bed.

Speaker 1 Does that include television or just phone?

Speaker 2 If you want to really do the blue blocker stuff, you can wear your blue blockers while you're watching television. And that's a cheap investment for a good benefit.

Speaker 2 And that will help your brain start to calm down.

Speaker 1 And how does blue light interfere with your brain's ability to shut down and get ready for bleeding?

Speaker 2 Well, listen, listen, Mel, we didn't have the light bulb till 100 and something years ago, right?

Speaker 2 So our bodies are like designed when the sun goes down to produce all these hormones and chemicals to help us get ready for sleep. Wow.
Another thing you can do is take magnesium.

Speaker 2 Magnesium really helps with sleep for a lot of people at night. And then the other thing I love to do is a hot bath with Epsom salt and lavender.
Why lavender and why Epsom salt?

Speaker 2 Epsom salt has magnesium, which gets absorbed in the body.

Speaker 2 The hot water basically relaxes your muscle, your nervous system. So I can be like super stressed.
Maybe I get a hot bath.

Speaker 2 They make it as hot as I can stand it. And that has other longevity benefits.

Speaker 2 And then I had lavender drops, which, you know, Johnson and Johnson knows work and the study's been there because it lowers cortisol. They're using the lavender baby bath to calm the babies down.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So, so lavender drops, you can just put them in the bathtub with your Epsom salt and soak in there for 20 minutes, go to bed.
And as your temperature starts to go down, you'll sleep.

Speaker 2 Also, keep your bedroom like for sleep and sex, right? And don't have a TV in there. Keep it cool, 68 degrees or lower.

Speaker 2 Keep it dark.

Speaker 2 Really important. Earplugs and ice shades, if you know, you live in the city or something.
Yeah. But that all helps to reset your sleep system.

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Speaker 1 Hey, I'm Mel Robbins. Welcome back.
I'm here with 14-time New York best-selling author, Dr. Mark Hyman.

Speaker 1 He is the voice when it comes to functional medicine, and he is talking today all about the fact that we have the power. to heal ourselves from the inside out.

Speaker 1 And we're talking about simple ways that you can do this.

Speaker 2 All right, Dr.

Speaker 1 Hyman, can you tell us about the importance of connection as a way to stay healthy?

Speaker 2 Connection, community, love,

Speaker 2 meaning and purpose. These are all ingredients for health.

Speaker 2 In my book, I talk about how, for example, if we cured heart disease and cancer from the face of the planet, we'd extend our life by five to seven years.

Speaker 1 If we cured loneliness?

Speaker 2 If we cured loneliness and develop connection and meaning and purpose, we extend our life by seven years or more. So wait a minute.

Speaker 2 Basically, having meaning and purpose and connection in your life is more powerful than curing cancer and heart disease in terms of longevity. Connection is medicine.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I'm sure you're seeing it as an epidemic of loneliness, especially coming out of the pandemic.

Speaker 2 Totally, totally. So those are the ingredients for health that we need to provide.
And everybody needs different ones.

Speaker 2 For example, some people might need more vitamin D, some people might need more sleep, some people need different kinds of exercise. So it's really personalized, but those are the basic ingredients.

Speaker 1 Sort of personalized, right? Because like just talking to the broad audience that's listening, you've mentioned a number of supplements and it's the same ones over and over.

Speaker 1 So for anybody listening that's like, okay, I got it. I have to do something.

Speaker 1 We've already talked about diet and changing your diet and even just noticing that if you were to remove the things we've talked about and add in this very simple, clean, healthy, vegetable forward and clean protein diet in six to 10 days, you're going to feel like a different person.

Speaker 1 Just try it.

Speaker 2 Try it. And then you can decide what you want to do after that, right? I want to keep eating my donuts.
Okay, fine. Then you're going to feel like crap.

Speaker 2 And if you want to feel like crap, it's your prerogative. Well, I'll tell you something.

Speaker 1 I am now on, it's like, I don't know, day 30 something of not drinking. It's life-changing.
Yeah. It's totally life-changing.
And I cannot believe how much clearer I am.

Speaker 1 I cannot believe how much more present I am. I cannot believe that I don't really miss it.

Speaker 1 And I had committed to doing this for almost almost three months and

Speaker 1 I don't know how I'll incorporate it back, if ever. Maybe here and there, but like it just was such a profound difference for me that I'm kind of dumbfounded I didn't do this earlier.

Speaker 1 And so I think you can tell almost immediately. But will you explain to everybody?

Speaker 1 If you're not currently taking a high quality multivitamin or other supplements, what are the non-negotiables where everybody should start?

Speaker 2 You know, for probably less than a dollar a day, you can get what you need, which is a multivitamin. Yep.
And I would say a good one. It's cleanly produced.
It doesn't have fillers, additives.

Speaker 1 How do you tell if it's a good one?

Speaker 2 The ones that are manufactured in good manufacturing practices that don't have fillers, chemicals, and additives that are bioavailable forms of nutrients.

Speaker 2 And so if you stick with certain brands, you can kind of guarantee you're going to get that.

Speaker 2 Then I think a vitamin D for most everybody, even in the summer, people are like, oh, I'm taking, you know,

Speaker 2 in the summer, I don't need it. You do.
Most people, unless they're out there running around half naked between 10 and 2 every day, all year long, you're going to be vitamin D. That's only you.

Speaker 1 I've seen you in your before and after photos that we're going to link. The dude is fan with the six-pack.

Speaker 1 You're running around getting the vitamin D. He's embarrassed and laughing.
We know it's true. Now, is there different forms of D, like D3?

Speaker 2 Vitamin D3.

Speaker 1 And do you have to take it with something else to be absorbed?

Speaker 2 Fat. You need fat.
So with food, basically. Okay.
And so maybe between 1,000 to 5,000, the government guidelines say up to 4,000 is safe. So there's no downside to that.

Speaker 2 And then fish oil for most people, because 90 plus percent of us are deficient in omega-3 fats because we don't eat wild food that much anymore.

Speaker 1 What does the fat do?

Speaker 2 These omega-3 fats are fats that we need in small amounts that are what our brains are made up of. Oh.
They regulate inflammation. They are what our cell membranes are made of.

Speaker 2 They are basically the most critical fats that we consume, and most of us don't have enough of them. And they can treat depression and

Speaker 2 many mental issues. Even ADD has been found to be helpful.
Postpartum depression. I mean, so a lot of things that we just think, oh, what do we do with these things?

Speaker 2 But there are great studies that show that these can be effective. So I think that's a kind of basic non-negotiable.
Got it.

Speaker 1 So multivitamin, everybody, the D3. And fish oil.
And fish oil. What about magnesium? Because you've mentioned it.

Speaker 2 Well, sure.

Speaker 2 That's my fourth one, but depending on your symptoms. And how do you know you need magnesium?

Speaker 1 Well, I don't know. How do I know?

Speaker 2 Listen, listen up, everybody. It's pretty simple.
If you have everything, anything that's irritable or twitchy or spasm-y, it's likely you're magnesia efficient.

Speaker 2 So if you're anxious, your emotions are twitchy. If you have palpitations, it's twitchy.
If your colon's not working and it's in spasm, you have constipation.

Speaker 2 If you have muscle cramps, you have eye twitching. Any of those things are signs of low magnesium.

Speaker 1 I'm just twitching as you describe those symptoms because I'm like,

Speaker 1 I promised everybody an appointment, zero cost, with one of the world's most respected medical experts and leaders, leading voices in the functional medicine space. My toes cramp all the time.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 2 You know, everybody's favorite radio station, you know what that is?

Speaker 1 No. W-I-F-M.

Speaker 2 What does that mean? What's in it for me? What's in it for me? Yes, exactly. So your toes.
Yes, my toes.

Speaker 2 Probably cramp because you have either electrolyte imbalances or magnesium. Oh.
And so if, you know, people often don't have enough electrolytes in their diet, particularly potassium.

Speaker 2 So you can get that from eating lots of vegetables, from vegetable broths, or take electrolyte solutions. But taking magnesium is a huge cure for muscle cramps, and it's particularly foot cramps.

Speaker 1 So what surprising things cause your magnesium to go down?

Speaker 2 So we should have a lot of magnesium because it's in all foods, nuts and seeds, and a lot of plant foods. But we do so much to make our bodies dump magnesium in our urine.

Speaker 2 We drink too much soda, we have too much caffeine, too much alcohol, and too much stress, all of which cause us to lose magnesium in our urine.

Speaker 1 How does it make you lose magnesium if you drink a soda?

Speaker 2 Well, it's got something called phosphoric acid in it, which is

Speaker 2 in the dark-colored colas, and that causes you to leach magnesium out. And yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, thank you, doctor.

Speaker 1 Can we talk about hormone imbalance? Yes, we can. How do you know if your hormones are out of whack? And what role do hormones play in your gut? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I would love to selfishly focus on women if that's possible.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 in the Young Forever, I have a whole series of quizzes that aren't fancy tests. They're literally just questions you answer and you get a score and you go, oh, wow, my hormones are out of whack.

Speaker 2 Or my detox system is not good or I'm way inflamed or I have magnesium deficiency, like those questions I just rolled off about what your symptoms would be.

Speaker 2 So it's pretty easy to identify what's going on. Now, women in particular have way more complex hormonal history than men.

Speaker 2 Men go through andropause and they kind of lower their testosterone so they. That's weird.
Andropause?

Speaker 2 It's male menopause, basically.

Speaker 1 And what happens when dudes go through male menopause?

Speaker 2 They get low libido, sex drive, trouble having erections, lose the muscle mass.

Speaker 2 get a little more soft and round you know basically that's what happens and i and grumpy and grumpy because of those things. Low motivation, you know, a little depressed.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 But with women, they go through, you know, puberty and then they have, you know, their teenage cycles and then they have their 20s cycles and their 30 cycles and their 40 cycles and then 50s.

Speaker 2 So it changes. Every decade, women are having hormones and everything happens from PMS to irregular cycles to heavy bleeding to PCOS to pre perimenopause to menopause.

Speaker 2 And so, you know, there's no one prescription for all of it.

Speaker 2 But essentially, what we do know is that just like everything else we talked about, the things that cause imbalance in our body that we listed off, right?

Speaker 2 The food, stress, toxins, et cetera, and the ingredients for health are also influencing our hormones.

Speaker 2 And what role do hormones play?

Speaker 1 So if we had to just like kind of even get more basic.

Speaker 2 What are hormones? Yeah, well, no, I mean, I'm serious.

Speaker 1 Like, because I think we throw around these terms, but I personally am like, well, what actually, what role does the hormone play?

Speaker 2 Well, hormones are like the communication command and control centers in your body.

Speaker 1 I thought the neurotransmitters were.

Speaker 2 They are regulatory pathways that affect your brain a lot. Okay.
And they do work in other areas of your body. But in your brain, you have something that's like a command center.

Speaker 2 It's called the hypothalamus. Okay.
And this is like

Speaker 2 radio traffic control on your internet.

Speaker 1 And for those of you who are not watching this on YouTube, I want you to know that Dr. Hyman is pointing right between the eyebrows.

Speaker 1 And I think the reason why we all get that scrunchy wrinkle right there is because that is the command center.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a little bit inside. It's like I can't quite touch it because it's inside my head.
Okay, what's it called again? The hypothalamus.

Speaker 1 Hypothalamus.

Speaker 2 That's controlling our sex hormones like estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and so on. It's controlling our stress hormones like cortisol.
It's controlling

Speaker 2 our growth hormone. So there's thyroid hormones.
All these hormones are controlled by this command and control center. Okay.

Speaker 2 And so what happens, particularly with women, is that they not only have trouble with their sex hormones because of all the stresses and toxins and everything in our life, but they also thyroid problems are really big and often underdiagnosed.

Speaker 2 And then you get insulin, which is

Speaker 2 becoming out of balance as you get older.

Speaker 1 Is insulin a hormone?

Speaker 2 Insulin is a... kind of a signaling hormone peptide made by your pancreas.
Okay.

Speaker 2 And that regulates blood sugar and your body, but it also kind of, when it's out of balance and you eat too much sugar and starch, you get this increasing belly fat and weight gain and that's caused by insulin so women are subjected particularly as they get into their 30s and 40s to this sort of imbalances in sex hormones thyroid hormones stress hormones and blood sugar control hormones insulin those are like the four horsemen of the apocalypse yes and so you know you don't have to treat each one separately if you do the basic things you get your lifestyle sorted out you eat right you exercise you learn stress reduction techniques you get enough sleep you take your basic supplements you get rid of all the crap in your life as best you can.

Speaker 2 Your hormones will reset.

Speaker 1 What about the thickening in the middle? That's the one that's bothering me.

Speaker 1 I'm not down with that.

Speaker 2 No, that's not good.

Speaker 1 No, he just looked down to see the thickening in the middle. I saw that.

Speaker 2 But that's the insulin part. That's the blood sugar control.

Speaker 1 So, what do I do? Because I'm getting so many people writing about this too, because I've been talking about it. I'm like, this is not fair.
I have stopped drinking.

Speaker 1 I have the healthiest lifestyle I've ever had. I exercise every day.
I eat the three-quarters of the vegetables, clean protein. I get outside in the morning.
Like I'm doing it all.

Speaker 1 Check, check, check, check, check.

Speaker 1 What the fuck is going on?

Speaker 2 Definitely hormones change. So sometimes there's things to tweak.
Sometimes

Speaker 2 there's ways you can sort of modify your diet a little bit or exercise a little differently to sort of regulate this. But it's just sort of checking what's going on.

Speaker 2 Maybe your thyroid is a little off, or maybe

Speaker 2 your insulin is a little higher than you think and you have more insulin resistance, or maybe, you know, you need to sort of increase testosterone because that gets lower too.

Speaker 2 And that increases muscle mass and body fat loss. So it's like a symphony that you have to sort of be a conductor and make sure it's all playing in two.

Speaker 1 Well, the visual I got was whack-a-mole. Like the second I hit the insulin correctly, the, you know, the thing shoots up.

Speaker 2 No, it's not like that. It's not like that.
It's actually, it actually all works the other way. It's actually when you, when you treat the root causes, then everything gets better.

Speaker 1 So one question for you. If you can't afford to go to somebody in functional medicine to get this all tested, how do you figure out what's going on?

Speaker 1 Because I know that what's going to happen with this conversation, Dr.

Speaker 1 Hyman, is that we are going to activate anyone listening to absolutely take the next 10 days of your life and see what happens when you reset your diet and you remove a few things.

Speaker 1 Absolutely add in those simple supplements that cost you less than a dollar a day and you are worth that investment in yourself and see what happens.

Speaker 1 Absolutely take the steps to lower your stress stress and tap into your body's ability to reset, like even just the five deep breaths a day that activate the vague and tone the vagus nerve.

Speaker 1 But if somebody's going,

Speaker 1 I want to learn more, what is the next right step?

Speaker 2 That's a great question. And, you know, one of the challenges I've always had with medicine is it's kind of a secret guild.
And doctors hold the reins. They can order the tests or they can't.

Speaker 2 They will give you the results or they won't. They'll help you interpret them or they won't.
And so you're at the sort of mercy of whoever you're seeing.

Speaker 2 And most doctors do a good job and want to help people, but

Speaker 2 it kind of kept in the guild.

Speaker 2 So in the book, Young Forever, I do have really extensive questionnaires that allow you to figure out almost 80% of what's going on.

Speaker 2 And then depending on what you find in those, you can kind of follow up with different kinds of testing.

Speaker 2 But because of this problem, exactly that you're talking about, I decided to co-found a company with a good friend called Function Health, which allows you, without a doctor's order, to go to any Quest lab in the country and there's thousands of them.

Speaker 2 Oh. Get a blood draw of over 100 biomarkers that normally cost $15,000 for 500 bucks.
Wow.

Speaker 2 And it comes with a whole interpretive map and framework and dashboard that's filtered through the lens of functional medicine, get the testing done, get your results and track it over time.

Speaker 2 And you can see your hormones, your thyroid, your insulin, your age-related markers, your brain chemistry, so much about what's going on with your body.

Speaker 1 You know what's so cool about this, if you can afford to do it, and we'll put the link in the show notes is it's like getting an x-ray of your insides.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You've already you've already you've proven to us that you heal from the inside out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's absolutely true. And I'm so excited about this approach because it empowers people to be the CEO of their own health.

Speaker 2 And the reality is that, you know, even if you go to the doctor with all these complaints, they're going to be able to, quote, manage your symptoms. I don't want to manage people's symptoms.

Speaker 2 I want people to get better. I want people to reverse these problems and not need a doctor.

Speaker 2 And the truth is, most of the things that work are not things you're going to get at a doctor's office, which is drugs and surgery. So sometimes you need them, and I use them.
It's not a bad thing.

Speaker 2 But most of the problems we have don't respond very well to that. I mean, they just cover over the symptoms.
What if you could actually figure out why you're having the problem and fix it?

Speaker 1 Well, I think you told us why. It's inflammation.
It's a gut that's out of whack.

Speaker 1 It is the stressors in your life. It is the toxins in your environment.

Speaker 1 And not understanding that your body has this elegant design that is super intelligent and responsive and can heal itself if you are conscious and intentional about the right input.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And that's what's exciting that's happening now in science is we're actually getting there.

Speaker 2 Like the old paradigm's dying and in the longevity space I've been working in and when I wrote about in Young Forever where these scientists are now talking about what's underlying all these diseases, these 155,000 diseases, that's not what we need to be thinking about.

Speaker 2 It's these 10 underlying problems that tend to go wrong as we get older that can explain all disease.

Speaker 2 And if we treat those, we may not be able to just extend our life by five years by getting rid of cancer or heart disease, but by 30 or 40 years. That means living to be 120 and being in good shape.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't want to live to be 120 in a nursing home and a wheelchair. I don't be able to ride my bike, go for a horseback ride, make love.
You know, that's what I want to do when I'm 100 or 120.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 I, you know, I'm glad that you said that because oftentimes I hear the word longevity and I had that reaction. Like, well, I don't want to be rotting away in a nursing home.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 2 125. That sounds terrible.
It's terrible because most of what we see

Speaker 2 in the world is abnormal aging. And we think that's normal.
Oh, it's normal to become frail and decrepit and not be able to do what you want and lose function.

Speaker 2 And the truth is that most of us, our health span doesn't equal our lifespan. The last 20 years of our lives.

Speaker 1 What's the difference between a health span and a lifespan? Well, a health span is how many years you're healthy.

Speaker 2 You can do what you want. A lifespan is how many years you're alive.
So if you're fine until you're 60, then you get dementia and you're nursing them for 20 years. That's not good.

Speaker 2 So that's what you want to do is make your health span equal your lifespan.

Speaker 1 You know, my mother-in-law is 85 years old. She jumps out of airplanes.
She walks five miles a day. There you go.
She's having the time of her life. She prioritized friends.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 She is the definition of vitality at that age. And she's like the energizer bunny.
I can't imagine her. running out of steam.
And that's what I think you're talking about when it comes to vitality.

Speaker 1 One thing we did not touch on that I know we're going to get a lot of questions on is probiotics.

Speaker 1 And you've already talked, Dr. Hyman, about the fact that your microbiome is the bugs in your gut that break down the food you eat so it can be turned into energy.

Speaker 1 And it's these bugs that keep your immune system healthy and that help your brain to function properly.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 How do you reset the gut in terms of what probiotic or is there a strain you should take or what should you is yogurt enough like tell me tell us well the truth the truth is Mel that that most of what determines the health and quality of your microbiome is what you're eating okay right so you need to feed your gut right you need to tend your inner garden right and that's not that hard to do what does it like it likes lots of fruits and vegetables it likes lots of fiber.

Speaker 2 It likes probiotic foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, and things like that.

Speaker 2 It likes prebiotic foods, which are like the fertilizer that feed the good bucks, things like asparagus, artichoke, plantain, jicama. The list goes on.

Speaker 2 So we can do that a lot through our diet and to not eat gut-busting foods. Things like tons of sugar, processed food, food additives, emulsifiers, chemicals, all those things damage our microbiome.

Speaker 2 And then drugs, we're on a lot of drugs, antibiotics, acid blockers, and all these things can really screw up our our gut microbiome.

Speaker 2 Drugs like Advil and the anti-inflammatory drugs. So we have to be really smart about taking out the things that bust our gut and putting the things that heal our gut.

Speaker 2 But the probiotic can be a useful tool, but it's not in replacement of the diet.

Speaker 1 So you're basically saying if you eat sugary cereal for breakfast,

Speaker 1 and then you have chicken, nuggets, and pizza for lunch,

Speaker 1 and then you have like

Speaker 2 take out whatever fried, whatever, pop in one probiotic is not going to help yeah no okay and the other thing that's really amazing is that we learned that they like polyphenols which are what is that there's like a million molecules in colorful fruits and vegetables that are the medicine in food and these medicines work in many ways in our body and particularly on a lot of the longevity switches but it turns out that these microbes in your gut like to eat them Oh right.

Speaker 2 And so remember that weird name, acromancia, that I was mentioning?

Speaker 1 I forgot it, but now I do.

Speaker 2 But the one that produces this like natural volume in your gut.

Speaker 2 That bug really likes green tea. It likes pomegranate and it likes cranberry.
And it likes all the molecules. So you have to feed them.
You have little critters in there. You got to take care of them.

Speaker 2 And so food is the biggest solution. And yes, probiotics can help and prebiotic supplements and fibers can help.

Speaker 2 But we really want to actually make sure we actually take care of it by eating what we need to be eating.

Speaker 2 And I had actually horrible colitis years ago from taking an antibiotic that screwed up my gut. And I cured it using a lot of these polyphenols and prebiotics.

Speaker 1 Wow. And there's one other thing I want to tell you.
Donna, who's one of the producers here at 143 Studios, she has something to tell you. Oh, Dr.

Speaker 1 Mark Hyman, a personal connection that I think you listening, you're going to love this full circle moment.

Speaker 5 Hi, Dr. Hyman.
I am really excited to be here today.

Speaker 5 And this feels very much like a full circle moment because

Speaker 5 without you, there's a good chance that I actually would not be here today.

Speaker 5 About 12 to 14 years ago, I was living with excruciating back pain. I was on meds that are now illegal because they created heart issues.

Speaker 5 I had really horrible asthma, so even if I wanted to be active, I couldn't. I was wheezing terribly.
And I was allergic to everything. I was diagnosed with 43 allergies when I was eight years old.

Speaker 5 So I was just sneezing and wheezing and hunched over all the time. So quite miserable.

Speaker 5 And then around that time, I found one of your books called The Five Forces of Wellness, I believe.

Speaker 2 That was actually an

Speaker 2 audio. An audio series.
Yes.

Speaker 5 Yes. So I at that time was divorced, and so I was a single mom and had my son in the back seat, and I would play those same four C D's over and over again.

Speaker 5 And I really needed to hear what you were sharing about how the body is impacted by food. I had never heard any of this before.
I didn't realize that I was supposed to be eating.

Speaker 5 I didn't realize I was supposed to be eating greens, and I wasn't supposed to be eating all the sugar I was and all the soda I was drinking.

Speaker 5 And so I changed my lifestyle because of you, and I started to go to the gym.

Speaker 5 And here I am now, 14 years later, and I have no more back pain.

Speaker 5 I'm not on meds anymore. I don't carry an inhaler because my asthma is now in remission.
And no more allergies. I'm not sneezing.
We have dogs here today, and there's no way I could be in this place

Speaker 5 with dogs around.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 I just want to thank you because I've now run 27 5Ks and I've climbed Mount Washington twice and I've biked 75 miles in a weekend four times and I just could not have done that without you.

Speaker 5 So thank you so much for

Speaker 2 that story. You know, I think, I think it's an amazing story because what

Speaker 2 you experience is not impossible to achieve for most people if they know what to do. Wow.

Speaker 2 Donna,

Speaker 1 first of all, I freaking love you because that.

Speaker 1 What just happened here is the mission of this show.

Speaker 1 It is to truly connect people with the information, the inspiration, and the encouragement that they need so that they can take control of their life.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 And again, what I love the most is that you have said from the very beginning, your body is designed to work on a very simple rhythm to heal itself.

Speaker 1 And now you know the simple, cost-free things that you can do in order to tap into this magnificent, intelligent body of yours.

Speaker 2 It's a miracle, really.

Speaker 1 It really is. Well, Dr.
Hyman, in the house, thank you so much. You made a huge difference in my life, Donna's life.

Speaker 1 I know that this is going to make a huge difference in everybody's life who listens.

Speaker 1 And one thing I want to point out again is that the whole point of this episode is to empower and educate you about the amazing healing capacity of your body, to introduce those of you who have never heard of functional medicine to this incredible area of research.

Speaker 1 And finally, to give you things to try.

Speaker 1 And if you're somebody that's been dealing with chronic illness and some of the stuff that we've talked about today doesn't apply to you, it's really smart for every single one of you listening to just take and try what feels right for you.

Speaker 1 That's the whole point of this. You are your best healer and your body will tell you what's working.
All the resources are in the show notes.

Speaker 1 And in case nobody else tells you today, I'm going to tell you that I love you.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, but you're not talking about you. I don't love you.
I'm just kidding. But I love you, Dr.
Hyman.

Speaker 1 And I love you listening. I know Dr.
Hyman loves you too. That's why I say that.
That is true. It's really true.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And I believe in you and your ability to put this to use because it's going to help you create a better you, and that's going to lead to a better life. All right.
Go do it.

Speaker 1 I'll talk to you in a few days.

Speaker 1 Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language.
This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.

Speaker 1 It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.

Speaker 1 Stitcher.

Speaker 1 Hey, it's your friend Mel. If you love the Mel Robbins podcast, you're going to love this.

Speaker 1 If you want to hear all the new episodes ad-free, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM/slash podcast plus to start your free trial today.