Pushing The Limits

How do you handle stressful situations? Everyone’s built a little different — some people can take their hits on the chin and come out smiling. But not everyone can take those hits. The pandemic has taken its mental toll on so many people. Others might still be struggling with past traumas and dealing with anxiety. Their situation keeps them in a state of constant worry and hypervigilance. That state of mind doesn't only harm their mental and emotional health — it can make them sick and more prone to physical diseases. More than ever, it's time to begin mental healing from past traumas, so we can better cope with our daily stresses.  Dr Don Wood joins us again in this episode to talk about the TIPP program and how it facilitates mental healing. He explains how our minds are affected by traumas and how these can affect our health and performance. If we want to become more relaxed, we need to learn how to go into the alpha brainwave state. Since mental healing is not an immediate process, Dr Don also shares some coping strategies we can use in our daily lives.  If you want to know more about how neuroscience can help you achieve mental healing, then this episode is for you.    Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn how trauma can put you in a constant state of survival and affect your performance and daily life.  Understand that it's not your fault. Achieving mental healing will require you to learn how to go into an alpha brainwave state.  Discover healthy habits that will keep you from entering survival mode.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  A new program, BOOSTCAMP, is coming this September at Peak Wellness! Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes:  #183: Sirtuin and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova  #199: How Unresolved Trauma Prevents You from Having a Healthy Life With Dr Don Wood Check out Dr Don Wood’s books:  Emotional Concussions: Understanding How Our Nervous System is Affected By Events and Experiences Throughout Our Life You Must Be Out Of Your Mind: We All Need A Reboot   Connect with Dr Don Wood: Inspired Performance Institute I Facebook I LinkedIn     Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again. Still, I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. 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Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Episode Highlights [06:05] The Pandemic-Induced Mental Health Crisis The pandemic forced many people into a state of freeze mode, not the typical fight or flight response.  As people get out of freeze mode, there will be a rise in mental health issues.  Teenagers are robbed of the opportunity to develop social and communication skills during this time.  [08:24] How Dr Don Wood Started Studying Traumas Dr Don’s wife grew up in a household with an angry father who instilled fear. He used to think that she would be less anxious when they started to live together, but she struggled with mental healing.  She had an inherent belief that misfortune always follows good things. Her traumas and fears also led to a lot of health issues.  She also was hyper-vigilant, which she used as a protective mechanism. However, this prevented her from being relaxed and happy. A person’s environment can dictate whether they go into this hyper-vigilant state, but genetics can also play a factor.  [15:42] How Trauma Affects the Brain Trauma is caused by a dysregulation of the subconscious. If your brain is in survival mode, it will access data from the past and create physiological responses to them. These emotions demand action, even when it is no longer possible or necessary. This dysregulation prevents you from living in the present and initiating mental healing.  In this state, people can be triggered constantly, which interferes with their day-to-day life.  [21:07] The Role of the Subconscious Your conscious mind only takes up around 5%, while the subconscious takes up 95%. Your subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between real and imagined.  In survival mode, people will keep replaying the past and think about different scenarios and decisions.  You’re left stuck because the subconscious mind only lives in the now. It does not have a concept of time.  This process is the brain trying to protect you. [25:04] What Happens When You’re Always in Survival Mode Being in survival mode will take a physical toll since it’s constantly activating the nervous system, increasing cortisol and adrenaline. When you’re in this state, your body and mind cannot work on maintenance and recovery. It is more focused on escaping or fixing perceived threats. Over time, this will affect your immune system and make you sick.  To truly achieve mental healing, you need to get to the root cause of your problems.  However, you also have to develop coping strategies to manage your day-to-day activities.  [30:18] Changing Your Brainwave State Traumatic events are usually stored in a beta brainwave state. Changing your response to traumatic events starts with going into an alpha brainwave state.  The beta state is usually from 15 - 30 hertz, while the alpha is lower at 7 - 14 hertz. Anything below that is the delta state, usually when you're in deep meditation or sleep. People who have trouble sleeping are usually in that beta state, which keeps processing information.  It's only in the delta state that your mind and body start the maintenance phase. This phase helps not only with mental healing but also physical recovery.  Learn more about Lisa and Dr Don’s personal experiences with these brainwave states in the full episode!  [34:30] Mental Healing and Physical Recovery Starts with the Brain Recovery is about genetics and the environment. In sleep, your mind will always want to deal with the threats first. It can only get to the delta state once it finishes processing these dangers. Your risk for developing sickness and depression rises if your brain can't do maintenance. Living in the beta state will make it difficult to focus.  [41:40] It’s Not Your Fault If you have a lot of trauma, you are predisposed to respond in a certain way. It’s not your fault.  There’s nothing wrong with your mind; you just experienced different things from others.  Dr Don likened this situation to two phones having a different number of applications running.  Predictably, the device that runs more applications will have its battery drained faster.  [44:05] Change How You Respond Working on traumas requires changing the associative and repetitive memory, which repeats responses to threats. You cannot change a pattern and get mental healing immediately—it will take time.  That’s the reason why Dr Don’s program has a 30-day recovery phase dedicated to changing your response pattern.  Patterns form because the subconscious mind sees them as a beneficial way of coping with traumas.  This function of your subconscious is how addictions form.  [47:04] Why We Can Be Irrational The subconscious lives only in the present. It does not see the future nor the past.  It will want to take actions that will stop the pain, even if the actions are not rational.  At its core, addiction is all about trying to stop the pain or other traumatic experiences.  Survival mode always overrides reason and logic because its priority is to protect you. [50:57] What to Do When You’re in Survival State In this survival state, we’re prone to movement or shutting down completely.  The brain can stop calling for emotions to protect you, and this is how depression develops.  When in a depressed state, start moving to initiate mental healing. Exercise helps burn through cortisol and adrenaline.  Once your mind realises there's no action required for the perceived threats, the depression will lift.   [53:24] Simple Actions Can Help There’s nothing wrong with you.  Don’t just treat the symptom; go straight to the issue.  Don’t blame genetics or hormonal imbalances for finding it hard to get mental healing. Find out why.  Also, seek things that will balance out your hormones. These can be as simple as walking in nature, taking a break, and self-care.  [56:04] How to Find a Calming Symbol Find a symbol that will help you go back into the alpha brainwave state.  Lisa shares that her symbol is the sunset or sunrise, and this helps her calm down. Meanwhile, Dr Don’s are his home and the hawk.  Having a symbol communicates to all parts of your brain that you’re safe.  [59:58] The Power of Breathing  Stress may lead to irregular breathing patterns and increase your cortisol levels and blood sugar. Breathing exercises, like box breathing, can also help you calm down because the brain will take higher oxygen levels as a state of safety.  If you’re running out of oxygen, your brain will think you’re still in danger.  Make sure that you’re breathing well. It’s also better to do nasal breathing.    7 Powerful Quotes ‘The purpose of an emotion is a call for an action. So the purpose of fear is to run.’ ‘People who have a lot of trauma have trouble sleeping. Because not only is their mind processing what it experienced during the day, it's also taking some of those old files saying “Well, okay, let's fix that now. Right. Let's get that.”’ ‘I was getting maximum restorative sleep. So an injury that I would have that could heal in two or three days, my teammates would two or three weeks. Because they were living in these, which I didn't know, a lot of my friends were dealing with trauma: physical, emotional, sexual abuse.’ ‘There's nothing wrong with anybody's mind. Everybody's mind is fine except you are experiencing something different than I experienced so your mind kept responding to it, and mine didn't have that.’ ‘That dysregulation of the nervous system. That's what we want to stop because that is what is going to affect health, enjoyment of life, and everything else.’ ‘I talked about addiction as a code. I don't believe it's a disease. Your mind has found a resource to stop pains and your subconscious mind is literal. It doesn't see things as good or bad, or right or wrong.’ ‘If there's a survival threat, survival will always override reason and logic because it's designed to protect you.’   About Dr Don Dr Don Wood, PhD, is the CEO of The Inspired Performance Institute. Fueled by his family’s experiences, he developed the cutting-edge neuroscience approach, TIPP. The program has produced impressive results and benefited individuals all over the world.  Dr Wood has helped trauma survivors achieve mental healing from the Boston Marathon bombing attack and the Las Vegas shooting. He has also helped highly successful executives and world-class athletes. Marko Cheseto, a double amputee marathon runner, broke the world record after completing TIPP. Meanwhile, Chris Nikic worked with Dr Wood and made world news by becoming the first person with Down Syndrome to finish an Ironman competition. Interested in Dr Don’s work? Check out The Inspired Performance Institute. You can also reach him on Facebook and LinkedIn.    Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn steps to mental healing. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Transcript Of Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.  Lisa Tamati: Hi, everyone and welcome back to Pushing the Limits. Today, I have Dr Don Wood who, you may recognise that name if you listen to the podcast regularly. He was on the show maybe a couple of months ago, and he is the CEO and founder of The Inspired Performance Institute. He's a neuroscience guy, and he knows everything there is to know about dealing with trauma and how to get the mind back on track when you've been through big, horrible life events or some such thing. Now, when we talked last time, he shared with me his methodology, the work that he's done, how he can help people with things like addictions as well and depression, and just dealing with the stresses of life, whether they be small stressors or big stressors.  We got to talking about my situation and the stuff that I've been through in the last few years, which many of you listeners know, has been pretty traumatic. From losing babies, to losing my dad, to mom's journey. So I was very privileged and lucky to have Dr Don Wood actually invite me to do his program with him. We share today my stories, how I went with that, and he explains a little bit more in-depth the neuroscience behind it all and how it all works. So if you're someone who's dealing with stress, anxiety, PTSD, depression, if you want to understand how the brain works and how you can help yourself to deal with these sorts of things, then you must listen to the show. He's an absolutely lovely, wonderful person.  Now, before we get over to the show, I just love you all to do a couple of things for me. If you wouldn't mind doing a rating and review of the show on Apple, iTunes or wherever you listen to this, that would be fantastic. It helps the show get found. We also have a patron program, just a reminder if you want to check that out. Come and join the mission that we're on to bring this wonderful information to reach to people.  Also, we have our BOOSTCAMP program starting on the first of September 2021. If you listen to this later, we will be holding these on a regular basis so make sure you check it out. This is an eight-week live webinar series that my business partner, my best buddy, and longtime coach Neil Wagstaff and I will be running. It's more about upgrading your life and helping you perform better, helping you be your best that you can be, helping you understand your own biology, your own neuroscience, how your brain works, how your biology works. Lots of good information that's going to help you upgrade your life, live longer, be happier, reduce stress, and be able to deal with things when life is stressful. God knows we're all dealing with that. So I'd love you to come and check that out. You can go to peakwellness.co.nz/boostcamp.  I also want to remind you to check us out on Instagram. I'm quite active on Instagram. I have a couple of accounts there. We have one for the podcast that we've just started. We need a few more followers please on there. Go to @pushingthelimits for that one on Instagram, and then my main account is @lisatamati, if you want to check that one out. If you are a running fan, check us out on Instagram @runninghotcoaching and we're on Facebook under all of those as well. So @lisatamati, @pushingthelimits, and @runninghotcoaching.  The last thing before we go over to Dr Don Wood, reminder check out, too, our longevity and anti-aging supplement. We’ve joined forces with Dr Elena Seranova and have NMN which is nicotinamide mononucleotide, and this is really some of that cooler stuff in the anti-aging, and longevity space. If you want to check out the science behind that, we have a couple of podcasts with her. Check those out and also head on over to nmnbio.nz. Right. Over to the show with Dr Don Wood.  Hi, everyone and welcome back to Pushing the Limits. Today, I have a dear, dear friend again who's back on the show as a repeat offender, Dr Don Wood. Dr Don Wood: I didn't know I was a repeat offender. Oh, I'm in trouble. That's great.  Lisa: Repeat offender on the show. Dr Don, for those who don't know, was on the show. Dr Don is a trauma expert and a neuroscientist, and someone who understands how the brain works, and why we struggle with anxiety, and depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. We did a deep dive last time, didn't we, into the program that you've developed. Since then, everyone, I have been through Dr Don's pro program. He kindly took me through it. Today, I want to unpack a little bit of my experiences on the other side, s the client, so to speak. Talk about what I went through.  Dr Don, so firstly, welcome to the show again. How's it all over in your neck of the woods? Dr Don: Well, it's awesome over here in Florida. COVID is basically non-existent. Oh, yeah. Well, in terms of the way people are treating it, that's for sure. Very few people you see in masks now, everything is pretty much wide open. You can't even get reservations at restaurants. It's unbelievable. The economy is exploding here. There's so much going on. Yeah, I know the rest of the country, a lot of different places are still struggling with whether they're going to put mask mandates back on and all this kind of stuff but Florida seems to be doing very well.  Lisa: Well, I'm very glad to hear that because any bit of good news in this scenario is good because this keeps coming and biting everybody in the bum.  Dr Don: I know. Especially down there. You guys are really experiencing quite severe lockdowns and things, right? Lisa: Yeah and Australia, more so. Australia has gone back into lockdown. I've got cousins in Sydney who are experiencing really hard times in Melbourne and we've stopped the trans-Tasman bubble at the moment. Trans-Tasman was open for business, so to speak, with Australians being able to come to New Zealand without quarantine, but it's been shut down again. So yeah, we're still struggling with it, and the economy is still struggling with it but actually, in our country, we've been very lucky that we've managed to keep it out because they've had such tight controls on the borders. But yes, it's a rocky road for everybody, and it's not over yet, I think. Dr Don: Looks like it's going to continue, and that's creating a lot of stress.  Lisa: Oh, yeah, perfect.  Dr Don: This is what I've said. I think we're coming up to a tsunami of mental health issues because a lot of people have gone into freeze mode as opposed to fight or flight. Some people are in fight or flight. You're hearing about that on airlines: people just losing it, and getting mad, and fighting with flight attendants and passengers, and you see a lot of that. But I think that's obviously not the majority. I think most people are in that mode of just get through this, do what they ask, don't cause any waves, and just get this over with. So that's a freeze mode, and I think when people come out of freeze, you're going to start to see some of these mental health issues.  Lisa: Yes, I totally agree and I'm very concerned about the young people. I think that being hit very hard especially in the places that have the hardest lockdowns. If you're going through puberty, or you're going through teenagehood, or even the younger kids, I think, they're going to be affected massively by this because it's going to be a big before and after sort of situation for them.  Dr Don: And just the social. When we were teenagers, social was everything, I suppose. Learning how to communicate, and talk, and get along with other people, and good and bad. There were always struggles in school with learning how to get along with everybody but that is just sort of squashed. It's going to be fascinating to see when they do a study on the real true results of this pandemic. It's going to be a lot different than many people think.  Lisa: Yes, and I think the longer you ignore stuff, is we’re going to see it's not just the people are unfortunately dying and being very sick from the actual COVID, but the actual effects on society are going to be big. That's why talking about the topic that we're talking about today, dealing with anxiety, and dealing with stress, and being able to actually fix the problem instead of just managing the problem, which I know you're big on.  So let's dive in there, and let's recap a little bit. Just briefly go back over your story, how you got to here, and what your method sort of entails in a helicopter perspective. Dr Don: Yeah, basically how I developed this was really because of the life that my wife led first and my daughter. My wife grew up in a very traumatic household with a very angry father that created tremendous fear. So everybody was... Just constant tension in that household. When I met her, I just realised how this was so different than my life. My life was in the complete opposite: very nurturing, loving. So I didn't experience that. I thought when she started moving in and we got married at 19, we were very young, that this would all stop for her. Because now, she's living in my world, my environment, and it didn't.  She just kept continuing to feel this fear that something was going to go wrong and nothing is going to go right. She struggled with enjoying things that were going well. I would say to her, 'We've got three beautiful children. We’ve got a beautiful home. Everything's going pretty good; nothing's perfect. You have your ups and downs, but it's generally a pretty good life.’ She couldn't enjoy that because as a child, whenever things were going okay, it would quickly end and it would end, sometimes violently. So the way she was protecting herself is don't get too excited when things are going well because you'll get this huge drop. So that was what she was doing to protect herself. I just had a lady come in here a couple months ago, who very famous athlete is her husband: millionaires, got fame, fortune, everything you want, but she had a lot of health issues because of trauma from her childhood. When I explained that to her, she said, 'That's me. Your wife is me. I should be enjoying this, and I can't get there. I want to. My husband can't understand it.' But that's really what was going on for her too. Lisa: So it's a protective mechanism, isn't it? To basically not get too relaxed and happy because you've got to be hyper-vigilant, and this is something that I've definitely struggled with my entire life. Not because I had a horrible childhood. I had a wonderful childhood but I was super sensitive. So from a genetic perspective, I'm super sensitive. I have a lot of adrenaline that makes me code for, for want of a better description, I'm very emotionally empathetic but it also makes me swung by emotional stimuli very much. So someone in my environment is unhappy, I am unhappy. I'm often anxious and upset. My mum telling me she took me to Bambi. You know the movie Bambi? From Disneyland? She had to take me out of theatre. I was in distraught.  That's basically me. Because Bambi's mother got killed, right? I couldn't handle that as a four-year-old, and I still can't handle things. Things like the news and stuff, I protect myself from that because I take everything on. It's even a problem and in our business service situations because I want to save the world. I very much take on my clients' issues. I'm still learning to shut gates afterwards, so to speak, when you're done working with someone so that you're not constantly... So there's a genetic component to this as well.  Dr Don: Absolutely. So yours was coming from a genetic side but that's very, very common amongst people who have had a traumatic childhood. They're super sensitive.  Lisa: Yes. Hyper-vigilant.  Dr Don: Hyper-vigilant. That was my wife. She was constantly looking for danger. We’d come out of the storage and go: 'Can you believe how rude that clerk was?' 'What do you mean she was rude? How was she rude?' ‘You see the way she answered that question when I asked that, and then the way she stuffed the clothes in the bag?’ And I'm like, 'Wow.' I never saw her like that. She was looking for it because that's how she protected herself because she had to recognise when danger was coming. So it was protection, and I hadn't experienced that so that made no sense to me; it made perfect sense to her.  Lisa: Yeah, and if someone was rude to you, you would be just like, 'Well, that's their problem, not my problem, and I'm not taking it on.' Whereas for someone your wife and for me... I did have a dad who was  a real hard, tough man, like old-school tough. We were very much on tenterhooks so when they came home, whether he was in a good mood today or not in a good mood. He was a wonderful, loving father but there was that tension of wanting to please dad. Mum was very calm and stable, but Dad was sort of more volatile and just up and down. It was wonderful and fun and other times, you'd be gauging all of that before he even walked in the door. That just makes you very much hyper-vigilant to everything as well.  Then, you put on, on top of that, the genetic component. You've got things like your serotonin and your adrenaline. So I've got the problem with the adrenaline and a lack of dopamine. So I don't have dopamine receptors that stops me feeling satisfaction and... Well, not stops me but it limits my feeling of, 'Oh, I've done a good job today. I can relax.' Or of reward. And other people have problems, I don't have this one, but with a serotonin gene, which is they have dysregulation of their serotonin and that calm, and that sense of well-being and mood regulation is also up and down. While it's not a predisposition that you'll definitely going to have troubles because you can learn the tools to manage those neurotransmitters and things like nutrition and gut health and all that aspect. Because it's all a piece of that puzzle, but it's really just interesting, and it makes you much more understanding of people's differences.  Why does one person get completely overwhelmed in a very trivial situation versus someone else who could go into war and come back and they're fine? What is it that makes one person? Then you got the whole actual neuroscience circuitry stuff, which I find fascinating, what you do. Can you explain a little bit what goes on? Say let's just pick a traumatic experience: Someone's gone through some big major trauma. What is actually going on in the brain again? Can we explain this a little bit?  Dr Don: Yeah, this is one of the things that... When I did my research, I realised this is what's causing the dysregulation: is your subconscious your survival brain is fully present in the moment all the time. So everything in that part of our brain is operating in the present. which is what is supposed to be, right? They say that that's the key, that success and happiness is live in the present. Well, your survival brain does that. The problem comes in is that only humans store explicit details about events and experiences. So everything you've seen, heard, smelled, and touched in your lifetime has been recorded and stored in this tremendous memory system. Explicit memory.  Animals have procedural memory or associative memory. We have that memory system too. So we have both. They only have procedural, associative. So they learn through repetition, and they learn to associate you with safety and love, but they don't store the details about it. But we store all the details about these events and experiences. So this is where this glitch is coming in. If you've got the survival brain, which is 95% of everything that's going on, operating in the present, accessing data from something that happened 10 years ago because something looks like, sounds like, smells like it again, it's creating a response to something that's not happening. It's looking at old data and creating a physiological response to it, and the purpose of an emotion is a call for an action. So the purpose of fear is to run, to escape a threat. But there's no threat. It's just information about the threat. That disrupts your nervous system and then that creates a cascade of chemical reactions in your body because your mind thinks there's an action required. Lisa: This is at the crux of the whole system really, isn't it? This is this call for action to fix a problem that is in the past that cannot be fixed in the now. So if we can dive a little bit into my story, and I'm quite open on the show. I'm sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly. When I was working with Dr Don, I've been through a very, very traumatic few years really. Lost my dad, first and foremost, last July, which was the biggest trauma of my life. And it was a very difficult process that we went through before he died as well. And there’s a lift, as you can imagine, my brain in a state of every night nightmares, fighting for his life, he's dying over, and over, and over, and over again.  Those memories are intruding into my daily life, whereas in anything and at any time, I could be triggered and be in a bawling state in the middle of the car park or the supermarket. Because something's triggered me that Dad liked to to buy or Dad, whatever the case was, and this was becoming... It's now a year after the event but everything was triggering me constantly. Of course, this is draining the life out of you and interfering with your ability to give focus to your business, to your family, to your friends, every other part of your life. I'd also been through the trauma of bringing Mum back from that mess of aneurysm that everyone knows about. The constant vigilance that is associated with bringing someone back and who is that far gone to where she is now, and the constant fear of her slipping backwards, and me missing something, especially in light of what I'd been through with my father. So I'd missed some things, obviously. That's why he ended up in that position and through his own choices as well.  But this load, and then losing a baby as well in the middle, baby Joseph. There was just a hell of a lot to deal with in the last five years. Then, put on top of it, this genetic combination of a hot mess you got sitting before you and you've got a whole lot of trauma to get through. So when we did the process, and I was very, super excited to do this process because it was so intrusive into my life, and I realised that I was slowly killing myself because I wasn't able to stop that process from taking over my life. I could function. I was highly functional. No one would know in a daily setting, but only because I've got enough tools to keep my shit together. so to speak. But behind closed doors, there's a lot of trauma going on.  So can you sort of, just in a high level, we don't want to go into the details. This is a four-hour program that I went through with Dr Don. What was going on there. and what did you actually help me with?  Dr Don: So when you're describing those things that were happening to you, what was actually happening to your mind is it was not okay with any of that. It wanted it to be different, right? So it was trying to get you into a state of action to stop your father from dying: Do it differently. Because it kept reviewing the data. It was almost looking at game tape from a game and saying 'Oh, had we maybe run the play that way, we would have avoided the tackle here.' So what your mind was saying 'Okay, run that way.' Well, you can't run that way. This is game tape. Right? But your mind doesn't see it as game tape. It sees it as real now, so it's run that way. So it keeps calling you into an action.  And especially with your dad because you were thinking about, 'Why didn't I do this?' Or 'Had I just done this, maybe this would have happened.' What your mind was saying is, 'Okay, let's do it. Let's do that.' What you just thought about. But you can't do that. It doesn't exist. It's information about something that happened but your mind sees it as real. That's why Hollywood have made trillions of dollars because they can convince you something on the screen is actually happening. That's why we cry in a movie or that's why we get scared in a movie. Because your mind, your subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between real or imagined. So that's actually happening.  You were just talking about the movie with Bambi, right? When you were little. 'Why is nobody stopping this from happening?' So your mind was not okay with a lot of these things that were happening, and it kept calling you to make a difference. That's what I never understood my wife doing. That before I really researched this, my wife would always be saying, 'Don't you wish this hadn’t have happened?' Or 'Don't you wish we hadn’t done this?' What I didn't understand at the time, because I used to just get like, 'Okay, whatever.' She’d go, 'Yeah, but wouldn't it have been better?' She wanted to get me into this play with her, this exercise. Lisa: This is going on in her head. Dr Don: Because it's going on in her head, and she's trying to feel better. So she's creating these scenarios that would make her feel like, 'Well, if I had just done that, gosh that would have been nice, thinking about that life.’ And her mind seeing that going, 'Oh, that would be nice. Well, let's do that. Yes.' So she was what if-ing her life. And it was something that she did very early as a child because that's how she just experienced something traumatic with her father. In her mind, she'd be going, 'Well, what if I had to just left 10 minutes earlier, and I had have escaped that?' Or 'What if I hadn’t done this?' So that's what she was doing. It made no sense to me because I hadn't experienced her life, but that's what she was doing. Her mind was trying to fix something. It’s never tried to hurt you. It was never, at any point, trying to make you feel bad. It was trying to protect you. Lisa: Its job is to protect you from danger and it sees everything as you sit in the now so it's happening now. I love that analogy of these... What was it? Two-thirds of the car or something and... Dr Don: So goat and snowflake? Lisa: Goat and snowflake. And they're going off to a meeting and they're late. And what does the goat says to snowflake or the other way around? Dr Don: So snowflake, which is your conscious mind, your logical reasonable part of your mind, there's only 5, says the goat 95%, which is your subconscious mind. Who runs into a traffic jam says, 'Oh, we're going to be late. We should have left 15 minutes earlier.' To which goat replies 'Okay, let's do it. Let's leave 15 minutes earlier because that would solve the problem.'  Lisa: That analogy is stuck in my head because you just cannot... It doesn't know that it's too late and you can't hop into the past because it only lives in the now. This is 95% of how our brain operates. That's why we can do things like, I was walking, I was at a strategy meeting in Auckland with my business partner two days ago. We were walking along the road and he suddenly tripped and fell onto the road, right? My subconscious reacted so fast, I grabbed him right, and punched him in the guts. I didn't mean to do that but my subconscious recognised in a millimeter of a second, millionth of a second, that he was falling and I had to stop him. So this is a good side of the survival network: stopping and falling into the traffic or onto the ground.  But the downside of it is that brain is operating only in the now and it can't... Like with my father, it was going 'Save him. Save him. Save him. Why are you not saving him?' Then that's calling for an action, and then my body is agitated. The cortisol level’s up. The adrenaline is up, and I'm trying to do something that's impossible to fix. That can drive you to absolute insanity when that's happening every hour, every day. Dr Don: Then that's taking a physical toll on your body because it's activating your nervous system, which is now, the cortisol levels are going up, adrenaline, right? So when your mind is in that constant state, it does very little on maintenance. It is not worried about fixing anything; it's worried about escaping or fixing the threat, because that's the number one priority.  Lisa: It doesn't know that it's not happening. I ended up with shingles for two months. I've only just gotten over it a few weeks ago. That's a definite sign of my body's, my immune system is down. Why is it down? Why can that virus that's been sitting dormant in my body for 40-something years suddenly decide now to come out? Because it's just becoming too much. I've spent too long in the fight or flight state and then your immune system is down. This is how we end up really ill.  Dr Don: We get sick. I was just actually having lunch today with a young lady and she's got some immune system issues. And I said, 'Think about it like the US Army, US military is the biggest, strongest military in the world. But if you took that military and you spread it out amongst 50 countries around the world fighting battles, and then somebody attacks the United States, I don't care how big and strong that system was, that military system was. It's going to be weakened when it gets an attack at the homefront.’ So that's what was happening. So all of a sudden, now that virus that it could fight and keep dormant, it lets it pass by because it's like, 'Well, we can let that go. We'll catch that later. Right now, we got to go on the offensive and attack something else.' Lisa: Yeah, and this is where autoimmune, like your daughter experienced... Dr Don: About the Crohn's? Yep.  Lisa: Yep. She experienced that at 13 or something ridiculous? Dr Don: 14, she got it. Then she also got idiopathic pulmonary hemosiderosis which is another lung autoimmune disorder where the iron in the blood would just cause the lungs to release the blood. So her lungs just starts filling up with blood. They had no idea what caused it, that's the idiopathic part of it, and they just basically said, ‘There's no cure. She just needs to live close to a hospital because she'll bleed out if she has another attack.’ Only 1 in 1.2 million people ever get that. So it's very rare so there's no research being done for it. They just basically say, ‘If you get it, live close to a hospital.’ That's the strategy. Lisa: That's the way of fixing it.  Dr Don: And so both of those are autoimmune, and ever since we've gone to the program, she's hasn’t had a flare-up of either one of those. Because I think our system is directly now able to address those things.  Lisa: Yeah, and can calm down. I think even people who haven't got post-traumatic stress like I've had or whatever, they've still got the day to day grind of life, and the struggle with finances, and the mortgage to be paid, and the kids to feed, and whatever dramas we're all going through. Like we talked about with COVID and this constant change that society is undergoing, and that's going to get faster and more. So this is something that we all need to be wary of: That we're not in this. I've taught and learned a lot about the coping and managing strategies, the breathing techniques, and meditation, the things, and that's what's kept me, probably, going. Dr Don: Those are great because they're... Again, that's managing it but it's good to have that because you've got to get to the root of it, which is what we were working on. But at the same time, if you don't have any coping, managing skills, life gets very difficult. Lisa: Yeah, and this is in-the-moment, everyday things that I can do to help manage the stress levels, and this is definitely something you want to talk about as well. So with me, we went through this process, and we did... For starters, you had to get my brain into a relaxed state, and it took quite a long time to get my brainwaves into a different place. So what were we doing there? How does that work with the brainwave stuff?  Dr Don: Well, when we have a traumatic event or memory, that has been stored in a very high-resolution state. So in a beta brainwave state because all your senses are heightened: sight, smell, hearing. So it's recording that and storing it in memory in a very intense state. So if I sat down with you and said, 'Okay, let's get this fixed.' And I just started trying to work directly on that memory, you're still going to be in a very high agitated state because we're going to be starting to talk about this memory. So you're going to be in a beta brainwave state trying to recalibrate a beta stored memory. That's going to be very difficult to do.  So what we do is, and that's why I use the four hours because within that first an hour and a half to two hours, we're basically communicating with the subconscious part of the brain by telling stories, symbols with metaphors, goat and snowflake, all the stories, all the metaphors that are built-in because then your brain moves into an alpha state. When it's in alpha, that's where it does restoration. So it's very prepared to start restoring. And then, if you remember, by the time we got to a couple of the traumatic memories, we only work on them for two or three minutes. Because you're in alpha, and so you've got this higher state of beta, and it recalibrates it into the same state that it's in. So if it's in alpha, it can take a beta memory, reprocess it in alpha, takes all the intensity out of it.  Lisa: So these brain waves, these beta states, just to briefly let people know, so this is speed, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the speed at which the brain waves are coming out. So in beta, like you'd see on ECG or something, it's sort of really fast. I think there's a 40 day... Dr Don: It's 15 to 30 hertz. Lisa: 15 to 30 hertz and then if you're in alpha, it's a lot lower than that? Dr Don: 7 to 14. Lisa: 7 to 14, and then below that is sort of when you're going into the sleep phase, either deep meditative or asleep. Dr Don: You're dreaming. Because what it's doing in dreaming is processing. So you're between 4 and 7 hertz. That's why people who have a lot of trauma have trouble sleeping. Because not only is their mind processing what it experienced during the day, it's also taking some of those old files saying, 'Well, okay, let's fix that now. Right. Let's get that.’ That's where your nightmares are coming from. It was trying to get you into a processing to fix that. but it couldn't fix it. So it continues, and then when you go below 4 hertz, you go into delta. Delta is dreamless sleep and that's where the maintenance is getting done.  Lisa: That's the physical maintenance side more than the... Dr Don: Physical maintenance. Yeah, because that's not processing what it experienced anymore. What it's really now doing is saying, 'Okay, what are the issues that need to be dealt with?' So if you're very relaxed and you've had a very... Like me, right? I played hockey, so I had six concussions, 60 stitches, and never missed a hockey game. The only reason now that I understand I could do that is because I'm getting two or three times more Delta sleep than my teammates were. Lisa: Physical recuperative sleep.  Dr Don: Yeah, I was getting maximum restorative sleep. So an injury that I would have that could heal in two or three days, my teammates would two or three weeks. Because they were living in these, which I didn't know, a lot of my friends were dealing with trauma: physical, emotional, sexual abuse. I didn't know that was going on with my friends. Nobody talked about it. I didn't see it in their homes, but they were all dealing with that.  Lisa: So they are not able to get... So look, I've noticed since I've been through the program. My sleep is much better, and sometimes I still occasionally dream about Dad. But the positive dreams, if that makes sense. They're more Dad as he as he was in life and I actually think Dad’s come to visit me and say, ‘Hi, give me a hug’ rather than the traumatic last days and hours of his life, which was the ones that were coming in before and calling for that action and stopping me from having that restorative sleep.  I just did a podcast with Dr Kirk Parsley who's a sleep expert, ex-Navy SEAL and a sleep expert that's coming out shortly. Or I think by this time, it will be out, and understanding the importance, the super importance of both the delta and... What is the other one? The theta wave of sleep patterns, and what they do, and why you need both, and what parts of night do what, and just realising...Crikey, anybody who is going through trauma isn't experiencing sleep is actually this vicious cycle downwards. Because then, you've got more of the beta brainwave state, and you've got more of the stresses, and you're much less resilient when you can't sleep. You're going to... have health issues, and brain issues, and memory, and everything's going to go down south, basically.  Dr Don: That's why I didn't understand at the time. They just said 'Well, you're just super healthy. You heal really fast.' They had no other explanation for it. Now, I know exactly why. But it had nothing to do with my genetics. It had to do with my environment. Lisa: Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing the Limits if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on here. It's been a public service free for everybody, and we want to keep it that way but to do that, we need like-minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on patron.lisatamati.com. That's patron.lisatamati.com.  We have two patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as 7 dollars a month, New Zealand or 15 dollars a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us. Everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries, and much, much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com, and thanks very much for joining us.  Dr Don: That's, at the time, we just thought it was all, must have been genetics. But I realised now that it was environment as well. So maybe a genetic component to it as well, but then you take that and put that into this very beautiful, nurturing environment, I'm going to sleep processing in beta what I experienced that day and then my mind basically, at that point, is 'What do we need to work on? Not much. Let's go. Let's start now doing some maintenance.' Because it wants to address the top of item stuff first. What is it needs to be taken care of right now? Right? Those are the threats.  Once it gets the threats processed, then it can then start working on the things that are going to be the more long-term maintenance. So then it'll do that. But if it never gets out of that threat mode, it gets out for very little time. Then, if you're getting 30 minutes of delta sleep at night and I'm getting two hours, it's a no-brainer to figure out why I would heal faster.  Lisa: Absolutely, and this is independent of age and things because you've got all that that comes into it as well. Your whole chemistry changes as you get older and all this. There's other compounding issues as it gets more and more important that you get these pieces of the puzzle right.  Do you think that this is what leads to a lot of disease, cancers, and things like that as well? There's probably not one reason. There's a multitude of reasons, but it's definitely one that we can influence. So it's worth looking at it if you've got trauma in your life. People were saying to me 'Oh my God, you don't look good.' When you start hearing that from your friends, your people coming up to you and going, 'I can feel that you're not right.' People that are sensitive to you and know you very well, and you start hearing that over and over, and you start to think, 'Shit, something's got real. Maybe I need to start looking at this.'  Because it's just taking all your energy your way, isn't it, on so many levels. The restorative side and the ability to function in your life, and your work, and all of that, and that, of course, leads into depressive thoughts and that hyper-vigilant state constantly. That's really tiresome rather than being just chill, relax, enjoying life, and being able to... Like one of the things I love in my life is this podcast because I just get into such a flow state when I'm learning from such brilliant... Dr Don: You're in alpha. Lisa: I am. I am on it because this is, 'Oh. That’s how that works.' And I just get into this lovely learning in an alpha state with people because I'm just so excited and curious. This is what I need to be doing more of. And less of the, if you'd see me half an hour ago trying to work out the technology. That’s definitely not an alpha state for me. Dr Don: That's where they said Albert Einstein lived. Albert Einstein lived in alpha brainwave state. That's why information just float for him because there was no stress. He could then pull information very easily to float into. But if you're in a high beta brainwave state, there's too much activity. It has trouble focusing on anything because it's multiple threats on multiple fronts. So when we have a traumatic event, that's how it's being recorded. If you remember, what we talked about was there's a 400 of a millionth of a second gap in between your subconscious mind seeing the information and it going to your consciousness. So in 400 millionths of a second, your subconscious mind has already started a response into an action even though your conscious mind is not even aware of it yet.  Lisa: Yeah. Exactly what I did with rescuing my partner with the glass falling off the thing. I hadn't reached that logically. Dr Don: It's funny because that's one of the things that I talked about ,which is sort of, give us all a little bit of grace. Because if you've had a lot of trauma, you're going to respond a certain way. How could you not? If your mind’s filtering into all of that, of course you're going to respond with that kind of a response because your mind is prone to go into that action very, very quickly. So we can give ourselves a little bit of grace in understanding that of course, you're going to do that, right? And not beat ourselves up.  Because you know what I talked about with everybody, there's nothing wrong with anybody. There's nothing wrong with anybody's mind. Everybody's mind is fine except you are experiencing something different than I experienced so your mind kept responding to it, and mine didn't have that. So you had multiple... Think about we have a hundred percent of our energy on our phone when we wake up in the morning, right? Fully powered up. You fire the phone up and eight programs open up, right? And mine has one.  Lisa: Yeah. You're just focusing on what you need to. Dr Don: Then noon comes, and you're having to plug your phone back in because you're out of energy.  Lisa: That's a perfect analogy. You’re just burning the battery. My all is a hundred windows open in the back of my brain that is just processing all these things and so now, I can start to heal. So having gone through this process with you, like you said, we worked on a number of traumatic experiences, and I went through them in my mind. And then you did certain things, made me follow with my eyes and track here, and my eyes did this, and then, we pulled my attention out in the middle of the story and things. That helped me stay in that alpha state, brainwave state as I probably now understand while I'm still reliving the experience. That's sort of taking the colour out of it so that it's now sort of in a black and white folder. Now, it can still be shared, and it hasn't taken away the sadness of... Dr Don: Because it is sad that these things happen but that's not the response for an action which is that fear or anger, right? That dysregulation of the nervous system. That's what we want to stop, because that is what is going to affect health, enjoyment of life and everything else.  Lisa: Wow, this is so powerful. Yeah, and it's been very, very beneficial for me and helped me deal. For me, it also unfolded. Because after the four hour period with you, I had audiotapes and things that are meditations to do every day for the next 30 days. What were we doing in that phase of the recovery? What were you targeting in those sort of sessions?  Dr Don: So if you remember what we talked about, we have two memory systems. The explicit memory is what we worked on on that four hours. That's detail, events, and experiences. Once we get the mind processing through that, then we have to work on the same memory animals have, which is that associative repetitive memory. So you've built a series of codes on how to respond to threats, and that has come in over repetition and associations. So the audios are designed to start getting you now to build some new neural pathways, some new ways to respond because your mind won't switch a pattern instantly. It can switch a memory instantly, but a pattern is something that got built over a period of time. So it's like a computer. If I'm coding on my computer, I can't take one key to stop that code. I have to write a new code. Yeah, so what we're doing over the 30 days is writing new code. Lisa: Helping me make new routines and new habits around new neural pathways, basically.  Dr Don: You don't have that explicit memory interfering with the pathways. Because now, it's not constantly pulling you out, going back into an action call. It's basically now able to look at this information and these codes that got built and say, 'Okay, what's a better way? So do we have a better way of doing it?' Or 'Show me that code. Write that code.' If that code looks safer, then your mind will adopt that new code. Lisa: This is why, I think for me, there was an initial, there was definitely... Like the nightmares stopped, the intrusive every minute, hour triggering stopped, but the process over the time and the next... And I'm still doing a lot of the things and the meditations. It’s reinforcing new habit building. This is where... Like for people dealing with addictions, this is the path for them as well, isn't it?  Dr Don: Yeah. Because I talked about addiction as a code. I don't believe it's a disease. Your mind has found a resource to stop pains, and your subconscious mind is literal. It doesn't see things as good or bad, or right or wrong. It's literal. 'Did that stop the pain? Let's do that.' Because it's trying to protect you. So if you've now repeated it over and over, not only have you stopped the pain, but you've built an association with a substance that is seen as beneficial. Lisa: Because your brain sees it as medicine when you're taking, I don't know, cocaine or something. It sees it as essential to your life even though you, on a logical level, know that, ‘This is destroying me and it's a bad thing for me.’ Your subconscious goes, 'No, this is a good thing and I need it right now.' Dr Don: Because it's in the present, when does it want the pain to stop? Now. So it has no ability to see a future or a past. Your subconscious is in the moment. So if you take cocaine, the logical part of your brain goes, 'Oh, this is going to create problems for me. I'm going to become addicted.' Right? Your subconscious goes, ‘Well, the pain stopped. We don't see that as a bad thing.' I always use the analogy: Why did people jump out of the buildings at 911? They weren't jumping to die. They were jumping to live because when would they die? Now, if they jump, would they die? No. They stopped the death. So even jumping, which logically makes no sense, right? But to the subconscious mind, it was going to stop the pain now.  Lisa: Yeah, and even if it was two seconds in the future that they would die, your brain is going...  Dr Don: It doesn't even know what two seconds are.  Lisa: No. It has no time. Isn't it fascinating that we don't have a time memory or understanding in that part of the brain that runs 95% of the ship?  Dr Don: It's like what Albert Einstein said, ‘There's no such thing as time.’ So it's like an animal. If an animal could communicate and you say, 'What time is it?' That would make no sense to an animal. 'What do you mean? It's now.' 'What time is it now?' 'Now. Exactly.' Lisa: It's a construct that we've made to... Dr Don: Just to explain a lot of stuff, right? When something happens.  Lisa: Yeah, and this is quite freeing when you think of it. But it does make a heck of a lot of sense. So people are not being destructive when they become drug addicts or addicted to nicotine, or coffee, or chocolate. They're actually trying to stop the pain that they're experiencing in some other place and fix things now. Even though the logical brain... Because the logical brain is such a tiny... Like this is the last part of our evolution, and it's not as fully...  We can do incredible things with it at 5%. We've made the world that we live in, and we're sitting here on Zoom, and we've got incredible powers. But it's all about the imagination, being able to think into the future, into the past, and to make correlations, and to recognise patterns. That's where all our creativity and everything, or not just creativity, but our ability to analyse and put forth stuff into the world is happening. But in actual, we're still like the animals and the rest of it. We're still running at 95%, and that's where we can run into the problems with these two.  Dr Don: Because you got two systems. You got a very advanced system operating within a very primitive system, and it hasn't integrated. It's still integrating, right? So if there's a survival threat, survival will always override reason and logic, because it's designed to protect you. So there's no reason and logic that will come in if there's a survival threat. It's just going to respond the way it knows, does this Google search, 'What do we know about this threat? How do we know to protect ourselves, and we'll go instantly into survival mode.' Again, there's the reason and logic. Why would you jump out of a building, right? If you applied reason and logic, you wouldn't have jumped, right? People will say, 'Well, but they still jumped.' Yes, because reason and logic didn't even come into the process. It was all about survival.  Lisa: Yeah. When the fire is coming in it was either... Dr Don: 'Am I going to die out now or I'm going to move and not die now?'  Lisa: Yeah, and we're also prone to movement when we're in agitation and in an agitated state, aren't we? Basically, all of the blood and the muscles saying, 'Run, fight, do something. Take action.' Dr Don: That's why when people get into depression, it's the absence of those emotions.  Lisa: Yeah, and people feel exhaustion.  Dr Don: Yeah. The mind kept calling for an action using anger, for example, but you can't do the action because it's not happening, so it shuts down to protect you and stops calling for any emotion, and that's depression. So the key to get out of depression is actions. It's to get something happening. So in a lot of people who are depressed, what do I tell them to do? 'Start moving. Start exercising. Get out. Start doing things.' Right?  Lisa: So I run ultras. Dr Don: Exactly. Perfect example, right?  Lisa: Yeah, because I was. I was dealing with a lot of shit in my life at the time when I started doing ultra-marathons. To run was to quiet the pain and to run was to be able to cope and to have that meditative space in order to work through the stuff that was going on in my life. And I know even in my husband's life, when he went through a difficult time, that's when he started running. So running can be a very powerful therapeutic, because there is a movement, and you're actually burning through the cortisol and the adrenaline that's pouring around in your body. Therefore, sitting still and that sort of things was just not an option for me. I had to move. And it explains what, really. It's calling the movement. Like it was a movement because I couldn't fix the other thing.  Dr Don: That's what they'll tell you to do. To get out of depression is to move. What I say is the way to get out of depression is to get your mind to resolve what it’s been asking for. Lisa: It's going a little deeper.  Dr Don: Yeah. So it's going down and saying, 'Okay, why has it been getting you angry and now, it shut down from the anger?' Because it's been trying to get you in your situation. 'Don't let Dad die. Don't let this happen.' Right? So because you couldn't do it, it just shuts down. Makes perfect sense but when we get to the resolution that there is no action required, there's no need for the depression anymore. The depression will lift because there's no more call for an action.  Lisa: I can feel that in me, that call. Anytime that anything does still pop up, I sort of acknowledge the feeling and say, 'There is no call for action here. This is in the past. This is a memory.' So I do remind myself that when things do still pop up from time to time now, as opposed to hourly. I go, 'Hey, come back into the now. This is the now. That was the then that's calling for an action. This is why you're doing thing.' Even that understanding, that process now actually helps me in that coping sort of state as well. Dr Don: And that's why I spend so much time on the education because when you understand that the problem is not as big as we make it, there's nothing wrong with you, right? So people will say, 'Well, I got a chemical imbalance.' I go, 'Why?' 'Well, my brain has a chemical imbalance.' 'Yeah, okay. Why?' Right?  Lisa: You're always going deeper. Dr Don: They're talking about the symptom. I want to get to the issue, not treat the symptom. So if you come in and said, 'Oh, I have a low serotonin.' So they're just going to say, 'Okay. Well, we're going to put you on 5-HTP to boost your serotonin.' But I say, 'Well, why do you have low serotonin? There's got to be a reason. It's got to be a gut imbalance or there's got to be something going on right within your brain.' Right? Lisa: Yeah, and this is how the whole of the medical world should operate. Like. 'Let's go back as deep as we can.' It's very difficult because you have to be very investigative in your approach. You have to sort of work out and try to work back where is it coming from. It's much easier just to take an antidepressant in the worst case, or 5-HTP in the more gentler case. Because it is the chemicals, but why is the chemical there or lack of chemicals there?  I can tell if it was my husband, he's training for a hundred miler at the moment, and he's got a full-on job as an officer in the fire brigade, and they have lots of night shifts, and they have very traumatic scenes that they experience on a daily sort of thing. I know when his serotonins are dropping, and I know why they're dropping. For him, time alone in nature, taking some time out, doing some self-care, having some extra sleep, doing those things to try to balance things, getting back to baseline is the level that I can work at as a health optimisation coach. But this sort of program is going even a level deeper, and that's really, really powerful.  Dr Don: Then giving you the tools. So first, we fixed what caused the problem, and we give you the tools to be able to stay present. Lisa: To stay in there. Yeah, to stay on that nice balance. Dr Don: And teach your brain what it means to go back. There's where your symbol, and statement, and anchor came in. The idea behind that is to be able to get your mind to make that associative, right? 'Oh, what does that mean when I see that symbol?' Or 'I see that, that means we're safe.' Right? Then it goes back into alpha brainwave mode. Lisa: I do that one every day. In fact, I deliberately go and search out sunsets now whenever I possibly can, job allowing, and so on. I'm trying to get to see a sunset or sunrise, just reverse it because it was my anchor. It was my symbol, if you'd like. Then instantly, that calms me down, if I'm looking at a sunset going down. Dr Don: It's an automatic. It's a science. Because when your mind gets... So when I was growing up, my mother, my father, my house was my symbol of safety. So as soon as I would come home, my nervous system would completely go back into regulation because it felt safe. So what we're doing is giving you the tools to teach your mind that when it sees that, hears that, or feels that, that you're safe, and it builds the association. There's what the 30 days of associating that sound, that smell, or that touch, and that symbol with ‘I'm safe.’ Then, it just becomes automatic. You don't even have to think about it. That's why the 30 days are powerful.  Lisa: I think, actually, keep practising that ongoing. Dr Don: I use it for years. I still do it. Mine is a hawk. I see my hawk all the time. It's unbelievable. He literally buzzes my car two or three times a week. No other bird ever does this, and I see him constantly just coming right in front of my car. So a very powerful symbol for me, but it just is my constant reminder that I'm good. I'm fine. There's nothing I need to be doing. When one of those thoughts come in, you go to your symbol, your mind just goes, 'Oh, I don't need to do anything about that.' Lisa: What were we doing when I grabbed the risks with my anchor? I think you call that, is it the anchor? So when I see a sunset and I grab my rescue, that was my anchor, what were we doing there? Is it sort of an NLP technique? Dr Don: Well, it's also activating the parietal lobe in your brain, right? Because that part of your brain recognises touch, and then one part of your brain recognises sound, and another one recognises pictures, the occipital lobe, right? So we're basically giving the whole brain: the occipital lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe the same message. 'We're safe.' It gets it in different communications because it communicates differently, right? So when your occipital lobe sees your symbol, with your sunset, that's one part of your brain getting the message, then another lobe in your brain gets the message, and then another lobe gets a message. It's like, 'Oh.' We got it from every corner of the brain. Lisa: So we must be in a safe, good place.  Dr Don: We must be in a safe place so we wouldn't be feeling this or experiencing this. If you remember, we connected it up to these great events in your life as well.  Lisa: Yeah, yes. Yes, that's right. Then, I also, and I don't know if it's right, but I built in the breathing stuff thing too.  Dr Don: Oh, no. That's perfect too because there's lots of oxygen in there. You can't be stressed out if you've got a lot of oxygen. It's impossible.  Lisa: Yeah, yeah. It just pushes it down. Like that parasympathetic state. Being able to activate that very, very quickly with a couple of the tools and different breathing techniques that I have. I find myself doing that 10 times a day. Just bring me down, or when I'm swapping from one thing to the other, or just to recalibrate my brain almost, or even in training. So we go to the gym. In between the sets, if I'm doing a really hard workout, I'll do physiological size which is just double intakes and exhales. Long exhale is to reset my body because when you go into high-intensity interval training, you're actually putting your body into a state of stress, and that can actually make your cortisol and your blood sugar go up and everything else. So in between the sets, I often do this physiological side. Whether within a couple of seconds, it's like, 'Reset. Okay, go again. Reset. Let's go again.'  At the end of a really hard session I’ll do sort of box breathing exercises to just take my whole nervous system down. Then, I've given that stimulus of the training and then taking the other is if you do... Especially be doing training late at night, and I'm getting off-topic but... And you're doing cardiovascular training, say, at late night, high-intensity running or something that, that can actually stop sleeping because you're in that heightened state of stress. Dr Don: Yes. You're not safe. Lisa: Yeah. You're not safe and you need to bring it down and bring that parasympathetic state in. Because at the bottom of it is this autonomic nervous system branch of parasympathetic versus sympathetic state and we want to be more than that sympathetic. I'm always constantly in the sympathetic, sorry, and not the parasympathetic. You've taken me on using this technique to be able to bring me down, basically, very quickly.  Dr Don: Yeah. Because that vagus nerve is going to send a message that we have oxygen. That tells the brain that if there's lots of oxygen, we couldn't possibly be in danger. Because if you're in danger, you'd be running. If you're running, you wouldn't have much oxygen, which would then remind the brain to keep pumping because we're still in danger. That's literally where a panic attack comes in. It's that the mind is looping through something even though there's no threat.  My wife really taught me this is because every once in a while, she’d just go, ‘Huh.’ I go 'What?' 'I just wasn't breathing.' She would literally stop breathing because she was so tense. That made no sense. 'Well, why would you not be breathing?' She’d go, 'I don't know. I just stopped.' Because she was so tense, and her mind was looping. Then all of a sudden, now the oxygen, CO2 level changes, right? Then the brain gets a message that we're running low on oxygen so then the vagus nerve send in a message like, 'Breathe!' But again, that's all interpreted by the brain as threats.  Lisa: Yeah, and if you find yourself doing a lot of sighing or a lot of that type of thing and you've actually stopped breathing, then you need to retrain those breathing systems and ideally, nasal breathing. Because again, there's a lot of good reasons why the nose or going through the nasal passage instead of breathing with the mouth it's very, very beneficial as well. It's an instant thing and when we constantly... Like we're focused on our emails, and we are like 'Oh, the phone call is coming in,' and we just forget to breathe or we overbreathe and we go [imitates hyperventilating]. Dr Don: Hyperventilate, yeah.  Lisa: That just sends body, 'Panic, panic, panic, we're in panic mode,' and off you go into that whole cascade of panic situations. Dr Don, we've gone all over the place today. It's been a brilliant... I love talking to you. It's just so fascinating. It's reminding me again of some of the things that I've got to keep doing that and gives people listening some tools.  But where can people actually come to see you and actually go through the program that I've been through? I highly recommend you do this. If you're dealing with some serious, especially dealing with serious addiction, or trauma, or anything that's really stuffing up your life, you need to go through this program with Dr Don. There are a couple of different options for people. So where can they find you and how best to reach out to you? Dr Don: You can come to our site which is... We have a website but we also have an easier way to get there which is Gettipp. The program is called Tipps so gettipp.com. And if you come to gettipp.com, then you'll be able to see all the information. You can watch some of the testimonials of people who have been on the site that have gone through the program. Lisa: Including me. Dr Don: Including you. Yep, awesome, and that's what we're looking for. Because you may hear one story, and that doesn't resonate with you but then you hear somebody else. These are just people who have experienced what you're experiencing, and everybody has different things in their lifetime. So when you hear somebody else and you go, 'Oh, that's me.' That's why I laugh at this because when I first met my wife, she swore me to secrecy. I could never tell anybody about her childhood and now, everybody knows about her childhood.  Lisa: That's brilliant because it takes the power out of the whole damn thing, and it's helping people. Dr Don: That's what I said. I always said to her, 'I really believe your story is going to help people.' She was 'No, no. I'll never be able to stand up and talk about it.' Now, she can completely talk about it. Lisa: She’s completely healed. Dr Don: Because her system doesn't get activated. Before, if I had said to her, 'Oh, tell this person about what happened to you as a child,' she'd be sobbing. She couldn't even get it out of her mouth because her mind would be looping through. In order to start talking about it, she'd have to go into memory. When she goes into memory, her nervous system would get activated, and she'd go into a fight stage. Who could stop that? Lisa: You can tell me, just the conversation we've had today, and I've been talking about Dad, and all that traumatic stuff that I went through, not once did I bawl my eyes out today, which I usually would have. Not to say that I'll never cry over Dad again because I probably will, but it will be not being instantly triggered in inappropriate situations. It will be when I want to think about my dad in my time, in my way, and it will be mixed of love and gratitude in the memory rather than the trauma. And that's gold. So Dr Don, thank you. So gettipps.com.  Dr Don: You have to see this. I just lost it. I have a ball. Five balls on my desk, I just throw them.  Lisa: You need Siri. You need Siri. 'Hey Siri, turn the rocks tape on.' Dr Don: It's just motion activated because I haven't been moving. So even for performance. Because again, we'll be always built on performance more than just trauma. Because I say again, nothing's wrong with you. So the idea is when we get these traumatic events and experiences out of the loop, then your performance can go up. So that's really the key. Lisa: So high-performing executives, athletes who are wanting to perform at the top of their game and are being drained by whatever, this is a program for them. So the actual name of your institute is The Inspired Performance Institute rather than just The Trauma Institute or something. Dr Don: So yeah, because what's interfering with you reaching that next level of performance? As you know, as a world-class athlete, the edge between winning and second place is small, but if you get that little edge... That's really what this is all about is to give you that edge so that you can perform at your highest level.  Lisa: Yeah, this is fantastic for athletes. Absolutely. And executives as well who are high-level, high-functioning people who have to be on the ball all the time. This can be really powerful so it's not just draining energy. I know that I've been running on a battery of less than 30% for the last year, for sure. Now, I can start to rebuild my health and it's going to take a little bit of time probably in my... All of that sort of aspects. But now, I'm on the right track, and getting my energy back, and feeling a lot better because this looping isn't happening, and I'm not in that constant state of fight or flight.  Dr Don, much, much gratitude to you for your work, what you've done, and how you've developed this program, for taking me through it. I'm very, very, very grateful. and highly recommend that anyone who was dealing with stuff like this or wants high performance, go and check gettipp.com or theinspiredperformanceinstitute.com is also the full website. Thank you, Dr Don and I hope you'll be home shortly. Dr Don: I absolutely love it. Loved talking to you so anytime you want me back, I'll be back.  Lisa: Absolutely. Awesome. Thanks, Dr Don.  Dr Don: Thanks. That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends, and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.  

Lisa interviews one of her athletes from our Running Hot Coaching Tribe, Matt Scrafton. Matt joined Running Hot with the goal to run a 100km trail race at Taupo in New Zealand.  Previously he had successfully run a couple of 50km events and really wanted to push himself but as a Dad, husband and having a full on career he wanted to do this challenge without breaking himself.   Matt shares his triumphs and struggles on his road to 100km glory in this no holds barred honest and raw account of what it takes to run 100km when you have a full on life and you don't have the luxury of being a full time athlete or having all the talent of a Scott Jurek or Dean Karnazes.   Many will relate and find inspiration in this story.    Matt describes himself as “An incurable dreamer. An unapologetic introvert. A Husband and father. Just a guy who loves life and running long distances.   Since moving to New Zealand 14 years ago, Matt has swapped the rugby boots for endurance sport. He’s completed Coast to Coast, cycling round Taupo and and a few ultra races.”   You can follow Matt on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/mattscrafton/   We would like to thank our sponsors Running Hot - By Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff If you want to run faster, longer and be stronger without burnout and injuries then check out and TRY our Running Club for FREE on a 7 day FREE TRIAL Complete holistic running programmes for distances from 5km to ultramarathon and for beginners to advanced runners.   All include Run training sessions, mobility workouts daily, strength workouts specific for runners, nutrition guidance and mindset help Plus injury prevention series, foundational plans, running drill series and a huge library of videos, articles, podcasts, clean eating recipes and more.   www.runninghotcoaching.com/info and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel at Lisa's Youtube channel  www.yotube.com/user/lisatamat and come visit us on our facebook group   www.facebook.com/groups/lisatamati Epigenetics Testing Program by Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff. Wouldn’t it be great if your body came with a user manual? Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise? These are just some of the questions you’ll uncover the answers to in the Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There’s a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the “future of personalised health”, as it unlocks the user manual you’ll wish you’d been born with! No more guess work. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research. The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyse body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home Find out more about our  Epigenetics Program and how it can change your life and help you reach optimal health, happiness and potential at: https://runninghotcoaching.com/epigenetics You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com    Transcript of interview: Speaker 1: (00:01) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati brought to you by LisaTamati.com. Speaker 2: (00:14) Well, hi everybody. Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits. Fantastic to have you back again. I really appreciate your naughty checking in on the show every week. Today. We've got a little something special for you. I've got actually one of our athletes it running hot coaching has agreed to come on and share his story. So it's a little bit of a debrief, a little bit of a coaching call. Hopefully you guys will pick up some gems of wisdom. We're gonna, she's gonna. She has insights and the journey that he went all to get to a hundred K, which was his ultimate race recently. So welcome to the show Matt Scrafton how are you? Morning, I'm good. How are you? Very, very good. So I met his sitting in Wellington. You got to sunny day down there. Speaker 3: (00:56) Yeah, it's beautiful and it's, there's no wind for once. So yeah, really nice. Speaker 2: (01:01) That's unusual. So I met let's step back at the beginning. So tell us a little bit about yourself, where you come from and then we'll get into the running side of it. Speaker 3: (01:13) Alrighty, Um so I'm British. And I've be, I moved to New Zealand in 2005 where I met my now wife. So I grew up in, in the UK and political Brighton by the sea. And we live in the mighty Waikato in Cambridge and we've been all over the place. You know, Alton, Wellington, Melbourne, but Cambridge is home and some my wife and I have a baby girl, Darcy's four, and we have a crazy eight months old poodle, Daisy. So life is pretty full. But yeah, no, I've been, I'm, I found running probably about six or seven years ago. I've been doing endurance sports or Madi sports, probably longer. But as time went on, it got harder to balance all three disciplines. And then I decided that I really wanted to do something that had an endurance element to it and trail running or running was the easiest, you know, put on your shoes, get out the door and go. Speaker 3: (02:07) So yeah, so I got into sort of trail running proper about six or seven years ago and set myself the goal as I kind of do with, with life of, of running a 50. And and we were living in Melbourne at the time and the North face 50 was a, an annual event in may of each year around the blue mountains. It's just outside of Sydney. Gorgeous rice. Yeah. And so I spent probably about a year building up for that with a few feeder events. But the big goal of running the 50 yeah. And did that eight hours, 39. And that was really tough. It was quite a hard race. But yeah, I was surprised that what I now understand to be that mental state that you there are so important to an athlete. That went, that race went really well mentally for me. Speaker 3: (03:02) So I thought, yep, this is definitely not a one off. So a couple of months later, Darcy arrived and, and life changed. So took a while. Yeah. Yeah. It took a while to find that, that rhythm. We moved back to New Zealand and I then locked in the terror wearer this year, actually, 2019 and so spent it about, you know, another year building up for that. But I was kind of, yeah, so doing the, I'm doing the 50, I did have aspirations to run further, but my wife said, no, no, get another 50 under your belt before you, before you go further. You know, that it definitely wasn't a one off. So yeah, spent about a year building up for the 50 and did that in I think it's February of this year. So came home in about seven hours and yeah, it was just a really hot day. Speaker 3: (03:55) And I thought there's no way I'm running and as our ultra in the middle of summer, it's just crazy times. Which probably discounts the marathon disabler but there we go. But the it was, it was pretty cool race fantastic atmosphere and some really great support crew and aid station folk that rock up and make it a really memorable day. And then I woke up, I got home, woke up the next day and I had this, this kind of overwhelming feeling that it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a sense of mission accomplished. I had done that, but there was more. And I didn't quite know what it looked like. So before everyone else got up, I was looking online for big events or things to do, you know, huge running goals to chase and telco was on in October, so it was always, Speaker 2: (04:45) Let's back up a little bit. So you ran 50 Ks, paid him some seven hours or something and the tank wasn't in thi the next day. Like most people get to the finish line on any race and go, never again. Well that's it. Unless a very experienced one or something, they know that that's, that's going to be temporary. But you in the very next day started looking online. Usually it takes at least five days. Speaker 3: (05:11) Yeah, no, I think I'm really like goal-orientated I I think I, you know, you, we do what we do during the hours of nine to five to make ends meet and pay the bills, et cetera. But running is I've come to learn that it's a, my thing, it gives me that time and space. And it's, you have a, there's a fantastic mental feeling that goes with running. And if you marry that for me with huge, big, hairy audacious goals it gives me that balance. And if I don't have that big hairy audacious goal on the horizon or near, then I start, I start to struggle. Yeah. And my life is a bit out of balance. So I think it was physically I was, I was a bit poked, you know, my legs hurt and you know, I had a few tight muscle groups. Speaker 3: (06:09) But there was definitely a sense of there's more in the tank. And for me it was a case of you've got this base, you've legs, you've come through, okay, yeah, they're gonna hurt, but whose legs wouldn't after running 50 a day and let's use that base as a launching pad for the next big hairy audacious goal. And the counsel or guidance from my, from my wife was find a 70 or 80 K wise woman. This lady, she is, yeah, very, very wise. She's my CEO, my CFO and everything else. But to ignore that, no, she's a lovely lady. See no, I, I did ignore it and as I tend to do with some guidance and I thought, no, let's go a hundred now. Let's lock it in because there was nothing else on the horizon that was closer and telcos on our doorstep and yeah, it was on. Yeah. Speaker 2: (07:05) Well, so Topo 100 K for people who, let's see, from overseas. So taco is universal part of the country in the North Island of New Zealand, and I have a hundred K of the year, which is, can be a muddy, muddy, and hilly fee. So you signed up for that already straight after, straight out of the gate after Tyler WEDA. And what happened then? Speaker 3: (07:28) Literally I text my brother in law and said, what are you doing on the 12th of October? I have a deal for you. And I, then you came back and said, yep, nothing. What have you got in mind? I said, Oh, would you like to be my support crew for 'em a hundred K? It's like, are you sure? It's crazy idea, but let's do it. When Shelly and Darcy woke up, I kinda very casually dropped in conversation and yeah, it, you know, I gave myself a good few weeks to recover. Possibly from what I've learned from Neil subsequent after the a hundred possibly digging it myself long enough to recover which then is how I, I met you Lisa. So yeah, so I started training and, and literally followed the same sort of process and build up that I'd been doing for the 50, but obviously slightly longer distances for the a hundred. And I think it was around may or June of this year that I started to realize that what had got me through the 50 wasn't necessarily gonna get me through the a hundred. And that's when I, yeah, that's when the world changed. Speaker 2: (08:35) And that's when you found us. Speaker 3: (08:37) Yeah. So I was looking for not only coaching but a community that I could connect with. Cause I think when we run, we do a lot of this stuff in isolation. And I think I was looking for more than just a frequent, frequent contact the coach. I wanted to understand how everyone else was doing the trials and tribulations irrespective of distance and just share that knowledge. And yeah, I did my research and I think you and I had a phone call and yeah, gave it a go and yeah. Jumped on board Speaker 2: (09:11) And yeah, so we were, we were start the heavy onboard and we've now got this 100 K goal. And you said, I think it's what's important is a lot of people stand out on their own and they, they, they do fine for a little while. And then you start to either run into injuries or you go weeks bigger or you start to have troubles in some way, shape or form. I begin a bit burned out, maybe lose your motivation. And that is some people often come to us and say, Oh, I need a bit of structure. And it's an, it's not like probably 90% of people who join us have hit the wall in some way or hit a big, big, big scary goal that they know they need to take a little bit more seriously. So it's one or the other. Or they're just starting out that that's another thing and they want some really good guidance and structure. So what was the main difference like when you came to running hot coaching and jumped into our planes, what was the major difference that you found campaign to say and screeching off the internet? Speaker 3: (10:17) Yeah. So I think the catalyst for looking beyond our training in isolation on my own was I wanted a more rounded approach to the a hundred. I realized that I wasn't spending enough time on core strength for example. And I also knew that my own knowledge and experience wasn't enough and that there were people out there who had years of experience and I'd be daft not to tap into that. So recognizing that I had my own limitations. So from a knowledge perspective and actually I, the biggest thing for me is that I was starting to get a sense that I wasn't approaching my long runs fresh. Yup. So I was going into the weekend quite fatigued and I wanted a more, I wanted to know if there was a way to balance training for a hundred so that you didn't feel you know, shot all the time and fatigued. Speaker 3: (11:11) So that was the catalyst. And and then the conversation with yourself and then actually working with Neil, it's on pick the a hundred K plan. I was like, wow, the longest run in the week, mid week is actually shorter than my current longest midweek run. So automatically the, I'm going to start feeling a little bit fresher. Yeah. And then I started getting actually the first core strength session I did, I probably couldn't walk proper for about a day or two. I remember doing the lunges and I was like, Oh wow, I'm going to, yeah, this is, there's a reason why I'm doing this. Speaker 2: (11:46) Oh, that's fine. So, and like [inaudible] that is a key thing. Like you don't know what, you don't sometimes how weak you've gotten to, like when you run, it's a catabolic exercise. So it starts at eight, you eat away at your muscles. And so if you're not counteracting that with strength training, with a, also with your mobility and for, for different reasons then over time you're going to get weaker and more flacid than the, in the, in the core for example, you'll have strong leaks, but that's what, you know, run isn't going to have strong links obviously, but the rest of you will, will suffer from. And that's when things can come unstuck as well, especially if you're not 20 anymore, you know, you need to start thinking about muscle max loss, which is, which we sort of lose around 200 grams a year after the age of 40 on average. So let's say they say so we want to be counteracting that as well as the fact that you are in a catabolic sport that is actually eating away at you and you want to be able to maintain. So, okay. You started into the strength program is think, well this is, this is different. Yeah. And how, how, how was it for you when the mileage, like a lot of people think, okay, I've gone from 50 to a hundred, I have to double the mileage. Doesn't work, does it? Speaker 3: (13:00) Absolutely not. No. So the a hundred, the leap from 50 to a hundred was for me, surprisingly manageable. I'm working in within the a hundred K plan that you guys gave me. So midweek run automatically shorter. So there's some gains there. And actually the, the longest run was actually comparable to my 50 K. Yeah. And I think we added maybe another hour onto it just because I was questioning, well, if I'm going to take 15 or 14 hours, then you know, do I need to run a little bit longer than what I've been doing? 50. And then it was like, you know, if you want to run a little bit longer, that's okay. But there isn't a one size fits all. You've got to just make it work for you. Speaker 2: (13:42) Yeah. Yup. And this is a, the thing that's like, I've said to people sometimes when they think, how the hell am I going to double that? And, and I'm not actually doubling the distance and I say to them like, when I'm running or set of 200 K race or two 50K race, I don't double it again, because you can't double it. You can't keep doubling that. You're training distance to suit your and with, we've come from, you know, most people have come from maybe a marathon,udistance training. We are, you know, from half marathon, two marathon, you steeping up your mileage a lot more and your long run does get a lot bigger and you're doing sort of three quarters, you know, 32, 33 K run as your longer time before Marisol. So people extrapolate that and think that that's what happens when you're doing a 200. Okay. And it isn't, you can't, you cannot physically recover from training intents on this. You kept choking or somewhat [inaudible]. Speaker 2: (14:39) But generally you can't recover. And that's where the wheels start to come off. People if they start to try to do this high mileage, so we're not high mileage coaches. And we get a lot of people coming to us who've come from high mileage coaches and that approach would work at the beginning and it will work when you're younger. When you've got kids in careers and you're getting a little bit older, they had approached that to unravel. If you're a lady, you can often start getting hormone problems as well. And so both sixes adrenal exhaustion is on the horizon too. So those are things that we always very aware of and you're trying to keep you from tipping over there. It's a very fine line to walk sometimes. Okay. So walk us through the next part of the process. Speaker 3: (15:23) So I think we're just on that around the longest run. So I training was going really well. You know, mobilization work, strength work, and then I got through what I turned my apex weekend, the longest run weekend. Yep. And I run it as per the schedule where I may be through one half an hour for mental confidence and yeah, it's about 43 K I think in total. Five and a half hours in the Hills. Yeah. And then that the following week is when it all came crashing down, fell off. The wheels did come off big time. Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm Speaker 2: (16:03) You run into an injury problem. Speaker 3: (16:05) I did. I had basically an absolute awful pain sensation in my left ankle tendonitis. They turned out and that, yeah, that happened literally on the Wednesday after my long run. I could feel it. You know, in the sort of the Tuesday morning and then I went for another run on the Wednesday, which I shouldn't have done. And it was hurting like never, like no other pain I'd had before. So I knew something wasn't quite right. And managed to get to see my awesome physio in Cambridge and and she said, yeah, you've got some, some tendonitis. And we basically worked up a plan where I would, and I, I think at that point, if I don't take it back a step, there was a day, I think it was a Thursday where I was sitting in my office in Cambridge and I was literally in tears because I thought, how am I, how am I going to get to the start line, let alone the finish line and put all this effort in. And you know, I spoke about the balance or the need to have balance in professional life and personal life. Suddenly I could see the Seesaw completely, you know, mounted as broken for overseas friends. And I I was just learning bits because I thought, I can't run. How the, what am I going to do? I can't walk this thing. So I think I flipped you guys a note and said, how do I typo? Speaker 2: (17:35) You were in immediately black spice and you, you reached out and I could tell from the, you know, you asking about specifically about the, the injury I think, which was part of the same, but the what, what, where I jumped in was more the, the meaningful side of it because you were, you were taking the deep dive. So when you've put your heart and soul into something massive and then it starts to unravel and then you're thinking you're fearing not being, because it's not along to the race now that you're not going to get there. And every decision that you're missing in this is very, you know, normal things that though it still starts crashing down around your ears. So how did they, so I, I jumped on a call with you and we started to work through some of the, the mental stuff. How did that help you? Speaker 3: (18:18) Yeah, it was, it was really interesting cause I, I went straight to the physical side. So how do I taper? How do I still do these sessions? You know, I've got an internal session tomorrow. How do I run that with an ankle that I can't run them? And you're like, no, no, no, no, no. Take a step back here. This is you, you, I think you actually said you've got this your legs have got all the miles they need to do to do the a hundred is now about the upstairs. How do you mentally stay, stay in the fight to get yourself to the start line and through the race. And I was, I was actually quite taken aback about that because I thought, well, I'm missing all these sessions or I'm going to be missing all these sessions. Speaker 3: (18:59) And I'm generally fairly confident person, but I guess susceptible to blows from life as, as anyone is. Yeah. And I couldn't, I wasn't listening to you, I think at first. And then you followed up in an email and it, I actually, it took me three or four attempts to reread what you'd written. And then we communicated over the next 48 hours. And you said over the weekend, I want you to read a book if you can. And the book is the biology of belief. Yeah. Bruce Lipton. Yeah. And it was a little too it took me way beyond my, my scoring. Yeah. School level science around biology, but it was the last section that really knitted it all together, which is about how your perception and beliefs influence your physiology or can influence your physiology. And I think that's when the penny dropped for me that this is all about the mind going into these next three and a half weeks. Speaker 2: (20:06) Yup. And that's the key point because the situations happen, the injuries happen. Speaker 3: (20:12) Yup. Speaker 2: (20:13) What we've got, we can, we can, the, the, the, the thing that you're going to do wrong is to keep training over that injury and to try and fight through it when you've got a rise at the other rains. So the panic is that I'm not going to be fit enough when the reality is if you, if you get through 70, 80% of your total training malls, you're going to be fine. And I, and as a coach, you don't, you, you trying to get your people, I'm a bit more than that, but if something happens, you, you will get there. The best race I've ever had in my life, one of the most amazing races put that way, let have, was that one that I did in the Himalaya's, which I shared with you, that 222 K rice. So of the two highest mountain passes and in the world mudroom bubble passes and I ripped the ligaments off my league team weeks out from the rice. Speaker 2: (21:01) I couldn't run for seven weeks and I had a hypoxic brain concussion from doing altitude training. So I didn't have enough oxygen in my body. So of course all these evictions and so on. Some of the listeners would have heard this story, but eh, when I, and I was either I'm going to pull out or I'm going to carry on. And I decided I'm carrying on because I'm put in so much. If it as you know, the effort that goes into training for something like this, we need alone the sponsorship, the foam, the documentary that, you know, the whole works just made that I couldn't just pull out. And so I had to try and face it with only a couple of weeks training at the end of that seven week. So not being able to train on my foot. So I did cross train, I didn't want to cook with my body and I spent the rest of that time on my mindset. Speaker 2: (21:44) And when I got to the stat line, my body was actually in better shape than if I'd smashed it right till the end because I'd actually given my, my body hadn't had a recipe years putting it, you know, mildly. And so this actually was the best thing that could've happened and it was fit. And I did the 222K race mind do like a really hard, tough, long at altitude, extremely dangerous race and, and killed it, you know, was, was briefly had, I've got documentary if anyone was walked,uI'm slightly simplifying it, but the point was you didn't need to do every one of those training sessions that you think you need to do. And when you don't have the choice, it's either you change your mindset to the whole thing and you stay on board with it and you better, or you give up and you pull out or you keep trying and you and yourself even more, and then you might be out for six months, you know? Speaker 3: (22:37) Yeah. And I think the, the biggest thing as human beings, we often always easy to do, is to, is to not learn from the mistakes as we go through life. You know, to the definition of madness is to repeat the same action and keep expecting the same or different outcome. Okay. And, yeah. So, so I think you know, when I spoke to you in that scenario that you described around that, that race, you said to me, the one thing you did do was you asked your support crew and those around you on that day or leading up to the event and through it to be 100% positive that you didn't want any negativity around you. So when I was going through this over that weekend I said to my wife, you know, do I pull out? She said, well, you can't because you, there's no point. Speaker 3: (23:20) You missed the withdrawal date. Yup. No, you might as well just take each day as it comes, see where you are. We're going to go down, everyone's booked in to come down and stay, et cetera. So that's just do it and just see what happens. My wife is a Kiwi. She's her world view is inherently positive. I'm, I'm British and naturally cynical about most things in life. So glass half full glass half, we kind of marry each other out. But yeah, so, so I I got through that weekend and I jumped in the pool and on the bike and I was having physio, physio sessions and I wasn't running and it was a really weird sensation. Weight in the sense I felt like I was getting behind. So that's when I, little things like, you know, I did that accountability mirror exercise where I took post-its and wrote down in a motivational statements or words on a mirror and I took a wee picture and I know it's a silly thing I did just to hold myself accountable going through the next three and a half weeks to do towel pose. Speaker 2: (24:28) And that is not silly. That is really, really good. Anything, any positivity that you can surround yourself with is, is the mental game, is everything in ultra? Speaker 3: (24:37) Oh, it is totally. And this is the biggest, you know, you do these events in life and I've, the one thing I've learnt this time round is that it is all mental. It is a hundred. I mean you're also, you're palsy, you know, needs to be conditioned. [inaudible] Speaker 2: (24:52) Healthy and you need my foot. But the rest is in your head. And Oh man, I'll say next weights, you know, finish races that they shouldn't have been running cause they went far enough to do it, but mentally they were strong enough to get through it. We don't recommend doing that because you're going to scroll your body in the long run, but it is about this up here. How much, how much pain can you suffer, how much can you overcome, how much, what's your why and how big is that? Why and how strong is that? Why you really, really want this? And then you find ways around obstacles. And, and I think having seen what I've seen in other athletes, I've seen people with incredibly bad injuries survive races. I've seen you know, people who are blind run across the Sahara. And I've seen this before. People with, with one leg run across your belly. And a whole bunch of people who carry kids who had cerebral palsy is to give them a cross them a mouth on the Saturdays, you know incredible stories. People who really believed in saving the rhinoceroses and addresses the rhinoceros the entire time across the Sahara. You know, absolutely crazy things that physically shouldn't be now able to do. But they did. Speaker 3: (26:05) But because of their why and their purpose, they did. Yeah, absolutely. Speaker 2: (26:08) In a very, very strong why. And there has to be the, the ultimate. OK. So you, you started to tune your mindset around, so this positivity and surrounding yourself with positive people and your wife's telling you, you could, you know, you got this, we started, we just starting and that is the thing. Get to the stat line, start, see what happens. Speaker 3: (26:24) Yeah. And I think the biggest thing they have along the way, I was training with a guy it lives in Oakland and we've done a few training runs together and I sent him a text set, ah, you know, with start together, but we'll be finishing separately. I don't know if I'm going to finish in my current state. And he phoned me and he, he's a really happy go lucky guy, positive outlook. He said, no, no, we will walk this out together if we have to. And I thought, wow, okay. That's, that's pretty cool. So yeah. Speaker 2: (26:58) Oh yeah. This guy gives us his name. Give them a shout out. Speaker 3: (27:01) Johnny. Johnny, Denise. Yeah. Nice. Good guy. So yeah, so Johnny and I were, we ended up training separately of those last couple of weeks. And I was trying not to look at Strava and you know, get envy about long runs that he was putting in. And I was in the poll in my Emma Speedos. It wasn't good. But anyway yeah, no, so sorry, go on. Yeah, it worked. It worked. Yeah. So we got through that through those last few weeks. I'm in the pool and on the bike and having some fun on the mountain bike. And actually it was really nice just to get out in the Hills and just turn around. And then I remembered actually coming down one single track in, in Cambridge that I was actually doing a race the following weekend, so I should probably take it easy and not go too fast in case it came off. But yeah, no. So I, I started just to test the run walk literally the Monday before the race on the Saturday and that was the first time I'd got back on my feet and it was a really tentative run walk. And then I did another one the next day. And then the final one I think was on the Wednesday and no reactions from the ankle. So I thought, well, yeah, big, big mental hurdle cleared. You know, we're locked in to do this and we're going to do it. And yeah. Speaker 2: (28:18) And that's pretty like, it's pretty ballsy to be fair. You know, like it is hard when you're facing a hundred K and you haven't been able to try and fill the last few weeks and you're in the last phone a week, people before the race and you're like, can I even walk, run, walk, run in a couple of days you can change it. We'll be trying this out. And you're standing on the start line and said, and the morning it a hundred K, you know, it takes a lot of mental strength. So well done. Thank you Chuck it all in. Speaker 3: (28:44) No, definitely not. And I think at that point even I think my physio had said to me you are doing this, you can do this. And that you will break, you will not break anything in your ankle if you do this. And it hurts. It's just, it's not just ligaments, tendons, just tendons and they will recover. And I think that hearing that actually, I was like, okay, so if my body hurts, it's going to have to live with it and my mind is going to tell it. And that was the process I was going through. I think I spoke to you in the buildup and you said to me that this could be the body's way of trying to tell your mind that this isn't a great thing to do. Let's just sit back and watch some Netflix on the Saturday. Speaker 2: (29:20) Yes. Let's dive into that for a sec. The, in my experience in nearly every big race that I've done and the week before or two weeks before, something goes wrong on my body. Like I get sick, I'll get a cold, I get the flu, I get something, some, some single play out. And I, and I S I think it's the subconscious we aiming already actually body because it knows that you've got this big race coming up and it's trying to stop you. We'll throw everything at you. Just stop you. Speaker 3: (29:50) Yep. And that book I mentioned earlier yeah, a lot of it was about using your conscious mind, so not drifting off into unconscious thinking, focusing on the now using your conscious mind. And there's a lot more power in, in, in potential, in the using your conscious mind rather than the subconscious mind. So if you play it forward, then my subconscious was trying to tell me not to do the race because it's going to be tough. It's going to hurt. But my conscious mind was going, no, you've got this, you can do this. It's going to hurt, but it's gonna be fine. Yeah, yeah. We are doing this. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So we got through that last week and you're headed off to Topo and it was just a really interesting segue the night before Johnny and I, we've got a big house in our families came down and my, my mother and father who I love them to bits and my father in law was chatting away with Johnny who was really laid back and Johnny was having a, just the odd beer, one beer before the race. Speaker 3: (30:55) And I'm quite serious about my prep. I was not talking to anyone. I was going through my mental checklist and all that stuff. And my father in law said to me, man, why aren't you more like Johnny lay back and relax? I was just like, nah, we're all different. You know, everyone's got a little different around different ways of preparing. So yeah. So there's nothing wrong. Speaker 2: (31:17) And by the way, cause I mean, I talked to me the night before you know, I'm in the zone, you're in the zone and, but there are people who are just totally chilled out and whatever happens happens when that, the different personality types, unless I wasn't really be confused because everyone has their own way of preparing for such a battle because it is going into Epic bed already. Speaker 3: (31:37) Yeah. I think physically I'd appreciated the difference prior to this race around ultras and running and athletes, you know, we all come from different shapes and walks of life, but mentally as well, I was seeing some really interesting sides of people and athletes. So yeah. So yeah, John and I were up the next day about I think four o'clock got to the start line half five. It was absolutely freezing and telco. And I actually, I've never done this before, but I fell asleep again in the car on the way to the style line is about a 40 minute journey. But for me it was a sign of just how relaxed I was and whatever was going to want to fold was going to one fold, but it was going to do so in a way that was going to have a positive outcome. I was, I was quite relaxed about it. Which was really bizarre. So Speaker 2: (32:27) Thanks. Turn around to the T is three weeks before and the Speaker 3: (32:31) Oh, chalk and cheese. Yeah. Chalk and cheese. Yeah. I yeah, so there's, so we got going and Johnny had forgotten his headlight as usual, so I let us out and I said to John, look, we're going to run, run what I call fifteens, which is you run 10 minutes and maybe walk for five minutes. And I think I said to Johnny that it's going to be the pattern for me throughout the race. And he was like, yep, sweet. I'll run with you would walk this together. You just set the pace you, you'd be mr timekeeper. And we go so we we started off and are we running really comfortably? I think we ran the first 20 miles you know, I don't know, roundabout, just under four hours or something. Yeah. and at one point we were, Johnny was leading in and we were running up the Hill, then we were running down a Hill and he said, Oh, I probably ran that a bit hard. Speaker 3: (33:21) How's that? Yep. So but we were trying not to get too excited and carried away with ourselves. So to got to that first checkpoint, all good. And then I think it, it started to hit home around the, you know, you get into the race and we were running this sort of 15 thing where you run 10 and walk five. And I had this little checklist in my head where I'd come up with four things to think about on a rotation deliberately so that I could focus on the now using my conscious mind. Does that make sense? Yup. Yup. Yeah. So I, I'd ran through this little cycle where I'd go you know, what's my effort? Am I running comfortably? Am I running too fast or too slow check. My nutrition you know, have I eaten in the last half an hour? Have I taken some water in fuel? Speaker 2: (34:11) It's called association. I call that association where you're associating, you're actually checking in with your body. Yeah. And then another strategy, which is just association, when you're in pain that you're actually go off and do your heavy place and might be visualizing, may swimming with whales or something like that, that I'm in somewhere else or I'm renovating my house or I'm doing something like that and I'm taking my mind somewhere else. So these two strategies are really, really good to open to your practice. Speaker 3: (34:37) So now I know that I was doing the disassociation thing around the ADK Mark, but the yeah, so I was, and the other thing I deliberately, I was checking, you know, am I in touch with my environment? Can I feel with my feet and in whatever, my body, the physical environment, just to make sure that I was using my conscious mind. And I would go through this little checklist again, every 20 minutes or so. And so we got through the first 20 miles, it felt quite, quite quickly. And we hit the farm lands, which is a really monotonous physical environment, more walking or hiking than it is running. And it's not fun. It's not inspiring. But we got through that, hit the first major aid station, I think it was around the 50 K Mark. And I said to Johnny I'm now running into territory unknown territory from a distance perspective, even though I've technically run longer time on feet, this is going to be your ground. Yeah. so they'll talk about the different approaches. Johnny and I Johnny got to that big ice station and he had a white bike fritter. And I was like, no, I cannot stand that stuff. Speaker 3: (35:53) So yeah, so I, as, as we left the ice station, my wife said, how you feeling? And I said, honey, I'm really suffering. She said, well, you're halfway. This is all upstairs now. I see the neck see you at 75 K or whatever it was. I was like, Holy moly. So here we go. I'm sorry. It literally felt like I was stepping off an area called comfort and known into the unknown and uncomfortable, and this is going to hurt. It's gonna hurt. And this is where growth happens. Yeah. Yeah. So and we were running together, but we were always about, I don't know, three or four meters apart just because that's how you find yourself. And I think I got to about 65 K in Kinlock or something like that. And I said, I was crying behind my glasses, my sunglasses, because I was going through this dark patch where I was like, if I stop, I'm going to stop and I'm going to let all these people down and I will have this sense of underachievement pressure, yeah. Speaker 3: (36:59) For hanging around my neck. And as we approached, or one of the mini stations, I said to Johnny, Oh, you run on now, I'm I'm close to DNS thing. I'm gonna work through this. He said, no, no, no. We are, we're going to walk. We start if we have to together. Wow. He's doing. Yeah, he is. He's a really good dude. So so then our run at that point became a shuffle and you know, you're tired, you're physically tired. You can't run at that same pace. So we're still running, but it was just a, a shuffle and yeah, Johnny dragged us into the into the Kinlock aid station where we picked up our pacer. And my wife's friend who's training for coast Hannah, so she she signed up to be a pacer and yeah, my my wife took a video. Speaker 3: (37:48) She she asked me a question and she was videoing the response at the, at the 74 K line and a station, sorry. And she said, how do you feel? And I said explicative tired. And she said, Oh do you want to do a another hundred or on 160 after this? And there were a few more expletives that followed. And she she's kept the video and I've, it's a nice reminder, but so then we, yeah, we Johnny had another white bite fritter and I was just like, my God, he's going to suffer in a minute. And yeah, so we hit the Hill behind Kinloch and off we went. And that's, I think when the disassociation came in for me, cause my, my body was really hurt and my feet were really broken, like listers, toenails, just feet were sliding all over the place in my shoes. And it got through Kinlock with a reduced shuffle. And then I think we popped out around the 90 K Mark and into the, off the Hill. And I think that's when I th I finally felt that I was going to do this or sort of finish it. Yeah. Speaker 2: (38:58) That's a good feeling when you think, yeah, I've got this now. Like, Speaker 3: (39:01) Yeah. I mean I think we are our pacer was really good. She, you know, was checking in and if you're pacing someone that you've, you, you know, haven't done that sort of distance with, it's you've got to find your rhythm. And when we got to that last day station, I think, you know, eight K to go or whatever it was that's when we all thought, yeah, this is this, we're on the home stretch here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And across the finish line and yeah, happy days Speaker 2: (39:30) Come back to like be like you've been in the, in the hurt locker for a good city. K so 25 Ks or something, which is an awful long time by the way. And I always say to people, the rice doesn't really step from Sydney. [inaudible] Usually that's when you know, when you pace yourself, right, with you hydrated, right. Whether your nutrition was right up until that point. And there's always going to be a time in those big long races and that can laugh for hours when you're absolutely miserable and you just want to die every second and give out. And if you can get through that, sometimes what happens is very often as you come into another space where suddenly it's all good again, you don't know how or why, but you, Bonnie sort of comes back. Did you experience that? Speaker 3: (40:09) Yeah, I think so. I took the, I spoke about in that 60 K Mark, you know, where I was close to DNF thing and you know, when Johnny said to me no, we're going to walk this out if we have to. So let's just keep going. I think what I now understand a little bit more about, I was going through a battle with my body and mind and what my body was going. Now let's just stop, you know, there's an aid station, there should, it can come pick you up. We'd go home and my mind was like, no, no, you were going to do this. And it was, it was like there's a little war going on between the two. Totally. Yeah. And Speaker 2: (40:39) Welcome to the, I enjoy the devil, the lion and the snake. Yeah. Louder. And it gets more and more frantic up there. Right. Speaker 3: (40:46) And I, I'd, I'd heard about it from, from you and others around in that war, your, your mind is telling your body, no, we're going to do this. So just shut up and just live with the pain. And that pain that I was experiencing physically actually reached a point and it didn't go any further. It just settled, it dissipated. And and then I got into a happy, happy place where I thought, yeah, I've got a shuffle going on. I'm not gonna run this full bore, full bore. I can't, but I'm moving forward and I'm getting closer to the next stage station and we're going to pick up HANA, you know, 74K and then we're going to do the same from there, up and over. Kinlock. Uand even with my, you know, like going through that,uI found a way to keep moving. Speaker 3: (41:39) It was almost as if the blisters, they were just blisters, they were going to go away. Toddlers grow back. And that's how I kind of quickly processed it. But it was just keep, even if you have to walk up the Hill, walk up the Hill, yeah, it's fine. Cool. so yeah, we got to, you know, from the 63 to Kinlock, which is a 74 and I think I mentally was getting into happy site. You know, like I, my body had quiet and down. The pain had kind of reached a point but hadn't got worse. And mentally I was I was over, you know, picking up the pace of 74 was a significant milestone. And we were, I think I could see the end you know, it was, we were close and it was just a case of getting through it. Yeah. And I was, I was still trying to bring myself back to the now going through my little checklist I mentioned earlier. And it was a way of just kind of putting into a little box the different pains or feelings I was experiencing. Discomfort around my feet, discomfort around my legs, you know, it got worse or sorry I've got bad, but it wasn't gonna get any worse. Speaker 2: (42:58) It's quite funny on that point. That yeah, when the body starts to scream at you, it's a bit like when it does pre-race, you know, when it throws it, you know, a sickness that you at the cold or some something that or try and stop you doing it and also does it arise. We are getting to the point where you like, the pain is so bad. You're thinking, how the hell am I going to carry on? And then when you do persevere, once again, the brain seems to go, Oh well she's not stopping. We've got to keep going. So I better stop putting those signals out. I don't know how it works. And I'd be interesting to see if other athletes have experienced the same thing, but it doesn't actually get any worse than bad. It's already bad, but keep getting worse. Speaker 3: (43:40) Yeah. And you know, it's, I don't know whether it was a combination of you know, mental fortitude or whatever word you wanna use or we'd reached a significant milestone. So getting up and over Kinlock Hill was huge cause it in 90 K there's two little eight stations and hitting the eight, the ice station at 90 K, as soon as you turn the corner off the ice station, it was like a wall of noise from the finish area had made its way up to up. You could hear it. And it was like, wow, we are so close. So any, it was like another wave just picked you up and was going to carry you down this, this fricking mountain. And you know, you could just, where that point, we were kind of walking shuffling and it was in the dark and it was quite wet. Speaker 3: (44:30) So you'd probably didn't have any other choice to be honest. And it was just, you know, you could feel the end. So we just made our way down the mountain. And we were joking amongst the three of us, you know, pace from Johnny about, you know, what we're going to have to, we was our favorite post race mill, just really silly crabs that was just getting us through the finish to the finish. And yeah, so yeah, we, we, we hit that last cause like a sty that you've got to climb over and it's like a physical barrier where you're leaving the trials to a four wheel drive tack that literally throws you out at the finish line and climbed over that STI. And it was just, we've done it. We know we're almost there. Speaker 2: (45:20) And you can see, you know, you can see that you can hear the people and you can feel that you're getting near and you can light at the end of the tunnel after a very dark long tunnel. Speaker 3: (45:29) Yeah. And it was, it was funny. It's like, wow. You know, you crossed the line, we crossed the line together. I had a big of a bit of a hug and you know, like we've, I think it was a realization for me that, wow, we'd, we'd just done this. There's a huge achievement personally, yeah, Speaker 2: (45:48) It is a huge achievement. What did you feel at the finish line? Because some, sometimes in sunrises I felt like, you know, I've just broken down in tears, absolutely with relief and I can actually stop because you dream about being able to stop and other times it's just no emotion because you just like numb. You sort of wanted that beyond anything. What was your reaction? Speaker 3: (46:10) So what I didn't mentioned is on that way up and over Kinlock Hill towards the 80 and 90 K stations, I, I was going through a real roller coaster of emotion, you know, just trying to get to that final eight station. When I'd, I was on the home stretch, I was, I'm really struggling to hold back the tears. And Johnny was in front of me. My pace was behind me, so they had no idea what my facial expression was. But so, so I thought, and I actually Johnny Johnny and I said, look, there's going to be some tears at the finish line, Hannah pacer be prepared across the finish line. And my overall overwhelming feeling was done it job done. And yeah, it was just satisfaction. I think it was w with no tears at the finish line because I think that emotion had passed and I think it was just sheer bloody relief. Yeah. Keep going. And I think it was excitement of now being able to eat real food like chips or dip or pizza or just something other than you know, a gel or you know, the equivalent paleo equivalent. Yeah, Speaker 2: (47:27) Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the horrible stuff. You're sick to death of what in and you thought EEG and it starts really, really interesting. The emotions that you go through. I did a a hundred K rice with Neil, you know, my, my offsider running hot coaching and it was his face on hundred and I mentioned this before, but he got, you know, he's a, he's a strong, tough med, but it's 70 Ks. He was in tears. He was in so much pain and he couldn't see his way to the finish line. You know, when you get into that deep dark space of absolute despair. And it also, and I cried pretty much every race, you know there's this, I don't think there's ever been an ultra where I haven't balled my eyes out somewhere. It's just part of the thing. And what happens is that when you get, when you have given everything at your body, you are so raw and you're so emotional, like everything is like any little thing can sit you off. Speaker 2: (48:27) Hello D and I was like 180 Kazan or something into death Valley, 270 K the same thing guys. And I was in such a world of pain and there was a 60 kilometer strike road that was just blowing my mind. And Neo was running behind me and he exited. We hit my ankle when he was running, just, just a couple of steps behind. And he hit my ankle and he tripped me up. And the adrenaline rush of being tripped and falling just opened the floodgates of the emotions. Like, cause I was holding it together desperately. And when I fell on the drill and came out, I was just bawling for the next hour, still running up, polling my eyes out and just could not control myself, you know. And he was like mortified. I swapped people who are, who are cruising for me. And it wasn't, it wasn't about him. Just that shock of falling just released everything that you are holding on so tightly toe. It's a ultra marathon and doing something like this huge achievement that you've just done is really it's life squeezed into a 50 an hour or 50 narrow or whatever it was, timeframe. Speaker 3: (49:46) It's, yeah, every emotion that you can possibly feel you in a, in a human lifetime, you can, you know, you just go through a roller coaster of emotions. And I think for me that, you know, from 60 K through two sort of 80, 85 when we crossed that last day station that was probably mentally quite tough, you know, just to keep moving one step after another. And then you, it was just sheer, utter relief. Yeah. Job done. Yeah. Speaker 2: (50:21) Yeah. So now you've done your Europe year in the hundred K club, you're an ultra marathon now done, you've done a few FFTs already in this, your first hundred. How are you feeling? You're three weeks out, have you, what w what often happens with runners, and I won't free that with you, but how did you go through a bit of a elation stage and then a ho down the other side stage and a bit of a depression before you started coming out the other end? Are you still in that roller coaster of a post race situation? How are you keeping now? Oh, we lost you there for a sec. [inaudible] Yup, yup, yup. We know on the pool was sorry about that people. So yeah. Did you F what are you going through now? Emotionally? Speaker 3: (51:16) So I I think I, I probably relaxed too quickly post race. I, I'm is my wife's 40th birthday, a couple of days after. So you know, that new, that normal discipline around diet and hydration probably relaxed a bit too quickly. And I suffered that first week not only with like aching niggles and blistered feet, but I had a, a really heavy, bad, nasty cold. So my immune system was absolutely smashed from the race I think. And just my body going, I think know, thank God that's over. But I, I started walking you know, daily on the Monday. So I had Sunday off, started walking and then walk, running again by Wednesday just to keep the body moving. And I got through the cold and I'm back running. But I've, I've seen some advice in the group around from Neal around, you know, try and keep that long, run to no more than an hour. Speaker 3: (52:14) First month I had a chat with Neil actually around you know, what is my recovery looking like? And I wanted to I, I S I swore during the race I would never do this, but I've started to look at what next and I actually, I'm getting itchy feet around. Myla so 160 K so but it's not for, it's not for cause North burn really appeals to me from a sheer physical challenge. I don't think I wanna go back to Tara [inaudible] and do the a hundred or the 160, because the environments are similar to telco. Yeah. So I'm drawn to really challenging races, physically challenging, like really gnarly mountainous, hilly, tight races. So North really appeals to me. Yeah. So that's a 20, 21 goal, I think. I want to, somebody said to me the other day, take some time to smell the roses. And I'm just going to enjoy running and just mountain biking. You're having fun, but my body's coming. Right. yeah, I I'm just gonna still run absolutely by just, I just wanna run for the enjoyment Speaker 2: (53:26) Of it at the moment for my, for my 2 cents as, as when, when after a race, you often do have an immune system because you have knocked the hell out of your immune system. Really. You've, you've used that point every, a lot of your hormones, like your endorphins and serotonin. So you can go into it at depression about usually 10 days out seeming to teen dies yet is when you usually have a bit of a mental job. You can be on a high for a couple of days straight after the race because you're, you saw you're tired, but just so stuck with yourself and you're on this adrenaline. Your body's been in a fight or flight state during that race. And so it's still in that fight or flight state often for a good couple of days. And then you start to come down from it and that's when you can start to get sick. Speaker 2: (54:10) And you also usually ravenously hungry at this time. So you just pigging out like no tomorrow. And your body is actually goes into a repair state after, you know, a couple of days and you come down and often that can be quite a Rocky road for people. Not always, but it is number one, you've lost the big goal that you had that is now achieved and done and there's a bit of an empty space in your life and then you're, you're also, you've had a bit of a trauma, you've gone through some trauma, so there's some post-traumatic sort of stuff going on. Some you're still working through. What the hell was that that I just experienced, especially when you do overseas races and you are out of your actual cultural environment on top of it all. And then after team dies, you might start to come out of it. Speaker 2: (55:01) That sort of adept, which often happens and then is when your mind starts to go, what next? Because you've got a big hole and you sort of need something to be aiming towards again. Yeah. Thing is, and this phase is, it's great to have and I'm glad you say 2021 because that means that you're being like sensible in, in, you're going to let your body get over this experience and then build yourself up again. And you have some other races, no doubt along the way that will build you to Wallington northbound 2021 and North burners approach little tasks a hundred mater. Like if you, if, if you wanted an easy a hundred water, that ain't it, you know, I bet any easy a hundred motto cause a hundred most soccer balls. But that one is a particularly tough, tough, tough one. But super exciting and an amazing, have been really lovely family. Speaker 2: (55:54) I was cofounder of that race and loved it and I sold it last year to the guys teary and Tom and, and they, they've done a fantastic job with it. And it's really a special special event and it's a small family event as opposed to the big Tyler widow. I'll post that. It's a lot more this corporate feel. It's a lot more intimate. And I also think for me that I wanna quite life is so precious. I want to, I want to spend time being as well and not just getting lost, chasing massive goals all the time. Oh, you're so wise. Honestly, like honestly the, a lot of people go into this phase because I've seen it like, you know, after having trained so many people and gone through this process with so many people, you get to camps, you get the ones who say on never even want to do that to myself again. Speaker 2: (56:44) And then they gone out of, out of it. Hopefully if you've prepared people well, like don't actually fall off completely, but often they need a really decent break or you get other ones who go, that's totally lost without the next huge thing. And I, and I fell into that camp for many, many years on this hamster wheel of having to do events because I didn't know what the hell else to do with myself if I wasn't completely, this was my identity and it was very tied up with who I was and my self esteem and my confidence. And so when, like three years ago, and I actually retired from the long staff because my mom but it was overdue, it was overdue to have a break, you know, at least a break if not, you know feminine. Like, because I was just in this hamster wheel of, of trying to outdo myself all the time. Speaker 2: (57:39) And you can't, you know, there comes a point where you can't do more than you did. You know, you can't keep topping it and keep trying and you just blowing yourself out completely and you're not allowing yourself that recovery time in between. And I can even see it in some of the top, top elite, you know, famous super crazy ultra runners out there that I'm friends with who are still doing it as they're getting older and older and older and this like the fifties and sixties, but that, that they, they the obsessive, you know, and then not as healthy as I could be if they actually took a step back now and I'm going to take some time out for a year or two and just reassessed where my body's at. And it's really hard to do that to step away for a while because you know that to get back to that level, why are we're out now and do a hundred K or something. Speaker 2: (58:36) I couldn't go and just do it because I haven't been trained to get back there would be in your mind, the hard part is when you've done so many is that you expect yourself still to be there even when you are not there. And it really hard one for people coming back from injuries for older runners, people who have retired and then we'll come back out or then I they did to get I've got a lady at the moment who's been struggling with a really bad illness and was comparing herself to how she was two or three years ago as to how she is now and rebuilding and keeping and being very disappointed in herself because she still thinks she's back there instead of going, starting from scratch again in moving forward in what was, is gone and not comparing yourself to who you used to be. Speaker 3: (59:27) Yeah, I think, yeah. And I think you know, when I did coast 10 years ago, coast to coast I started and stopped very abruptly, the whole endurance small sport journey and it took a few years to reconnect with running. I don't want to stop running, but I, there's no way I could do why I probably could, but I, I would just, I wouldn't be best prepared. Do you know what I mean? Speaker 2: (59:53) Wouldn't be the best husband and you wouldn't be the best father, the best person you are at work. You know, so it these things and this is what I try to get across to people is that when you take on these message goals, you are sacrificing some other part of your life and it's, it's and that's fine if that's what you've decided you're going to do, but to understand the impact that it's going to have on your husband and wife and your children, what impact, you know, for positive infinitive it can, but if you are doing it back to back to back to back, it can actually have a negative effect on your family and your friends on it. So what's weighing all that sort of stuff up and understanding where we are as my focus going now? It's something I battle with constantly because part of me wants to go back and do all that crazy stuff right now when I have other priorities, it's just life. Sometimes it's very hard to, to knock it down on yourself and to feel guilty cause you're not doing everything. Speaker 3: (01:00:54) Yes. Yeah. And, and life's important, you've gotta enjoy it as you go through it. And if, yeah, I dunno. That's so I, I, yeah, I finished and I'm happy, but I'm actually at peace now with the fact that next year is some smaller races. But the big one is me potentially in 2021. Speaker 2: (01:01:12) Yeah. And you've done this one and what your friends said celebrate and smell the roses. That is a fantastic principal to take away. And it's something that someone told me at the end of a big race when I just went, Oh, what, you know, I wasn't as fast as so-and-so and I didn't, you know, I bet it's a bit a longer race and they went for goodness sake, you know, after I'd just run a mess. Okay. Right. They just said, you know, cannot, can you not just congratulate yourself, celebrate your wins, integrated into your psyche and who you are before you go chasing the next goal. Yeah. Actually type this hundred K telco run and put it in your hat and go, I fricking did that in our religion for doing that. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna suck this, I'm gonna suck this one dry before I go and chase the next. Speaker 3: (01:02:04) Oh, totally. Yeah. So I think I think with the the English get into the rugby world cup final thing, I'm going to have a little beer or two this weekend. Speaker 2: (01:02:14) Yes. I was saved and then I apply. Well they were, they were absolutely amazing. And, and hits off their guys too. You know, you, you can always be no. So, Hey man, thank you very much for sharing your story. I hope this is empowered and lots of other people listening to this. I hope it's made you think maybe I can do it if Matt can do it. And to understand the journey that you go through and then it isn't or you know, roses, it is difficult along the way, but that you can overcome any final words that you'd want to. If you were talking to you two years ago, what sort of advice would you give Mitt Speaker 3: (01:02:57) If you believe in yourself and believe in others around you? And Oh yeah, just if you want something, go after it and, and no, no distance, no goal is too big, if you know what I mean. Life is, you get one lap in life and you've got to make the most of it Speaker 2: (01:03:17) I made to that one. Speaker 3: (01:03:19) Yeah. So thank you Lisa. I really appreciate the opportunity. Speaker 2: (01:03:22) No, it's been absolutely fantastic. It's wonderful to have you in a running hot coaching tribe in. If anyone else wants to join us, of course we'd love to have you come and join us and check us out. I'm sure Matt will agree it's been a a good journey with, with having a bit of structure to your training and having some goals and someone to, to ask questions to and to make sure that you're doing things right. So Matt, congratulations once again on your huge success and your mess of victory. And we'll talk to you again so no doubt. Awesome. Thanks Lisa. Speaker 4: (01:03:55) [Inaudible] Speaker 1: (01:03:55) That's it this week for pushing the limits. We showed her write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team, at least at www.lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

We are living through multiple crises. Not only are we going through the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is also a hidden epidemic going on. Over the years, people have become more obese. In 2013, only 34% of our population was within a healthy BMI range, and this statistic is falling exponentially over the years. We need to take action now because obesity is not about how you look — it's about real health consequences.  Dr Katherine Sowden joins us in this episode to talk about women's and public health. She explains how obesity changes our bodies and causes various diseases and cancers. She shares that it’s often not even people’s fault. There’s a range of factors that encourage this epidemic. Exacerbating the socioeconomic and cultural factors is the food industry. Dr Katherine emphasises that we need to start educating ourselves on our health. Only then can we make better choices to prevent these diseases. If you want to know more about taking preventive measures against cancer and other diseases, this episode is for you.    Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn about the current state of public health and how to be a proactive patient. Discover the ways obesity can lead to an increased risk of cancer, particularly in women. Know how you can make better health choices to avoid developing cancer.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  A new program, BoostCamp, is coming this September at Peak Wellness! Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes with Dr Elena Seranova:  #183: Sirtuin and NAD Supplements for Longevity  #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity   Connect with Dr Katherine: Auckland Women's Gynaecology I Ormiston Specialists I Email   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third-party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of ageing while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Episode Highlights [04:06] The Current State of Women’s Health One of the most significant issues in women's health is the normalisation of obesity.  This situation comes from a lack of understanding of the importance of nutrition and movement to our health.  Endometrial cancer is a progressive order that is caused by having too much estrogen. One of its leading causes is obesity.  Obesity can also decrease fertility since it affects the ovulatory cycle by affecting the production of progesterone.  Before, we used to see endometrial cancer affecting women over 40, but now there are cases as young as under 20.  [07:59] Effects of Obesity Women’s relative risk for endometrial cancer is one if they have a normal BMI. However, when they’re in the range of 30-35 and over 40, this is raised to 2.5 and 7.1 respectively.  There are now many obese young women who are in this constant state of a hyper estrogenic environment.  The definitive treatment of this cancer is hysterectomy, making a huge impact on women’s choice for reproduction.    In addition, obesity can increase the risk of breast cancer too. [10:43] What Changes Does Obesity Make?  Obesity leads to an abnormally high aromatase gene expression, which is in charge of estrogen production.  With obesity, the body converts more of the androgen peripheral tissue into estrogen too.  This problem does not apply only to women. Obese men also have hormone issues and tend to have feminine features. [14:04] How the Food Industry Affects Our Health One of the main drivers of the obesity epidemic is the wide availability of obesogenic food.  Lower-income families tend to consume more of these foods since they are cheaper than healthier options.  We can remove taxes on fruits and vegetables to help address the problems in the food industry — as other countries have done.  Even if junk foods seem cheap, these are costing the country more. Public health will collapse as more young people develop diseases.  Obesity doesn't just cause cancer — it can also lead to diabetes and heart disease.  [16:19] What Needs to Change?  The market needs to change to make healthy foods more accessible. The food industry also needs to assess the way they use additives and preservatives.  It's not totally our fault that we're obese. This epidemic is driven by socioeconomic and cultural factors, in addition to the food industry.  Widespread normalisation of a high BMI is also harmful since people don’t understand its consequences.  While doctors can help treat your diseases with pills and surgeries, it will always come with risks. It’s your responsibility to prevent hospitalisation. Medication should not be your first and only option.  [23:19] Start with Educating Yourself Preventing disease progression starts at an early stage.  Some medical interventions may not be the cure to fix your health. There is a need for a holistic approach to health.  In public health settings, most doctors only have 20 minutes to get to know a patient. This amount of time does not give them a complete picture of what the patient needs.  Personalised health care starts with self-education. Do your research so you can ask specific questions to your doctor within the limited timeframe given to you. Dr Katherine shares that not only does obesity have compounding effects on health, it can also affect surgeries! Learn more about this in the complete episode.   [31:13] How Obesity has Risen Over the Years Even if our lifespans have increased because of medicine, people are also dying earlier because of diseases.  A study in New Zealand found that the standardised incidence of endometrial cancer used to be 1.9 per 100,000 population in 1996.  This rate increased to 24.2 in 2012, with the Pacific Islanders' at 46.06.  In 2013, around 34% of the population were within the range of a healthy BMI. This percentage has decreased sharply over the years.  Preventing cancers, such as endometrial cancers, starts with losing weight and changing lifestyles.  [37:05] Start Early It’s more difficult to reverse cancers and diseases than taking preventive measures.  Diseases and cancers don’t happen overnight. It’s the result of malignant states developing over time.  Not all cancers are preventable, but we can decrease our chances of developing them, especially with estrogen-dependent cancers.  [40:20] Stop the Vicious Cycle Nowadays, it's commonly seen as politically incorrect to discuss obesity. Remember that our physical states impact our health, whether we like to hear them or not.  Understand the consequences of obesity. These include the increased likelihood of infertility, cancer risk, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, and many more illnesses.  Start with adopting lifestyle changes in terms of nutrition and movement.  Eating unhealthy foods can cause a vicious cycle of degrading health, both physically and mentally.  You can also seek more personalised healthcare from health coaches and other allied health professionals.    7 Powerful Quotes ‘We tax cigarettes, we take alcohol. Why aren't we taxing some of this junk food? It is of no benefit to people whatsoever.’ ‘We need to do something and even if it is unpopular. So for example, taxing sugary food and drinks. It's got to be worthwhile.’ ‘We can do operations that do amazing things, and really cure people of cancer, and improve their quality of life, but equally it shouldn't be the first option.’ ‘But I think we've always got to look at the patient as a whole person. The least invasive cure, the better.’ 'The more people we can keep out of the hospital, the better because it means we can deliver quality personalised health care.' ‘The more you can educate yourself, the better. So that when you get that 20 minutes in the public system, you've got the questions to ask, you know what you're going in for.’ ‘It's also seen as politically incorrect to discuss obesity. But it's not politically incorrect. That's factual and it's a crisis. We need to stop pussyfooting around it.’   About Katherine Dr Katherine Sowden is a highly respected gynaecologist and has been the Clinical Lead in Counties Manukau Health since 2014. She is also a Consultant Gynaecologist in Auckland Women's Gynaecology and Ormiston Specialist Centre.  Dr Katherine is a fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. She is currently the departmental lead for non-tertiary gynaecological oncology and focuses on the management of premalignant gynaecological conditions.  She provides a wide range of gynaecology services. You can find out more about her practice in Auckland Women's Gynae and Ormiston Specialists.  You can also reach Katherine by email.       Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can make better health choices to prevent cancer. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

In this episode Run Coaches Lisa Tamati and Neil Wagstaff look at the structure of a good run training system.  The many elements of a holistic program - run sessions, skills and drills, mobility and flexibility work, strength work, sleep and recovery, nutrition and supplementation and mindset. They look at the benefits of video analysis and when to build in technique and drill work and when and how to build in strength training that is specific to running. How mobilty work plays a part and the role of your hormones and rest and recovery and much more.   We would like to thank our sponsors Running Hot - By Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff If you want to run faster, longer and be stronger without burnout and injuries then check out and TRY our Running Club for FREE on a 7 day FREE TRIAL Complete holistic running programmes for distances from 5km to ultramarathon and for beginners to advanced runners.   All include Run training sessions, mobility workouts daily, strength workouts specific for runners, nutrition guidance and mindset help Plus injury prevention series, foundational plans, running drill series and a huge library of videos, articles, podcasts, clean eating recipes and more.   www.runninghotcoaching.com/info and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel at Lisa's Youtube channel  www.yotube.com/user/lisatamat and come visit us on our facebook group   www.facebook.com/groups/lisatamati You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com    We are also holding another live event on the 31st of August- 1st of September in Havelock North, New Zealand - Its a weekend running seminar  Join us for a weekend of fun, inspiration and education around everything Running Do you want to run with less pain and injuries, avoid burnout and over training? Do you want to have a better running technique? Want to improve your times? Want to learn how to maximise your training time and train efficiently while getting optimal results? If you answered yes to any of these questions then this weekend is for you! Suitable for absolute beginners just starting out on their journey through to elite ultramarathon runners looking to improve their 100 mile times. So come and meet some great like minded people and hang out with the Running Hot Coaching team and completely change the trajectory of your running career.   What's included Saturday 31st of August (9am-4pm + Dinner) Run video analysis and review Drills and skills for runners Core and strength training for runners Flexibility and mobility for runners Nutrition for runners Mindset training Dinner and tales from the trails with Lisa Tamati and Neil Wagstaff (Meal and entertainment included in the package price, drinks extra) Sunday 1st of September (9am-12:30pm) Putting it all together into a programme that works for you 2 hours walk/hike/run on Te Mata Peak (suitable for all abilities) Find out more and register here: https://training.runninghotcoaching.com/how-to-revolutionise-your-running-training?fbclid=IwAR2bFPz6A26CMbzrMhqRyIcdCs9Sgb25mnYv3jTbneouxyyWtzqIx9ZZrKI The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.  

If you want to work towards success, you need to start living a life that’s indistractable.  We know we need to be focused. Yet, how many times a day do you get distracted from doing your most important work? It's easy to get sucked into hours of scrolling through social media or mindlessly skipping channels. These external triggers often take the blame when we get distracted. However, did you know that a more dangerous form of distraction is one where we think we're being productive? The secret is that the opposite of distraction isn't focus: it's traction. Behavioural designer Nir Eyal joins us to talk about how to form good habits and break bad ones. He discusses the four steps to becoming indistractable and staying on top of your goals. We also learn how to change our mindsets around self-limiting beliefs and pessimistic thoughts. Finally, Nir shares his expertise in creating effective habit-forming products and building an engaged community.   You have the power to become indistractable. Tune in if you want to know about how to create a distraction-free life!  Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Discover the four steps you need to take to become indistractable. Understand the true meaning of distractions and why we need to let go of limiting beliefs.  Learn how to make habit-forming products and services along with a strong community engagement. Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  A new program, BOOSTCAMP, is coming this September at Peak Wellness!  Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes with Dr Elena Seranova:  #183: Sirtuin and NAD Supplements for Longevity  #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity   Connect with Nir: Website I Twitter I LinkedIn Books by Nir:  Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life Steven Kotler and The Flow Collective Mindset by Carol Dweck Factfulness by Hans Rosling Peter Diamandis and his books Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/. Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching. Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com. Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again. Despite their words, I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books. Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third-party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection. Episode Highlights [04:57] Nir’s Background As a behavioural designer, Nir helps companies build products and services that encourage individuals to develop healthy habits. The same strategy and technology addictive platforms like Facebook use can help people form good habits.  Nir has written Hooked to help people build good habits. Meanwhile, Indistractable teaches people how to break bad habits. People often know what to do to create a better life but don't take action. As such, Nir believes that learning to be indistractable is the skill of the century. [06:25] On Indistractable: Understanding Distractions The opposite of distraction isn’t focus; it’s traction.  Traction is any action that will bring you closer to your goals and values.  Therefore, distraction is any action that will pull you away from your goals and values.  The most dangerous form of distraction is the one where we think we're being productive.  We often prioritise the urgent and easy work over the hard and important ones.  [10:40] Social Media and Addiction There’s a widespread belief that social media will make you addicted. But in reality, this is learned helplessness.  When people believe that they’re addicted, they often don’t do anything about it.  There’s nothing wrong with social media. The problem is how we use it.  We are not powerless against technology.  [13:22] How to Gain Back Control People don't accomplish a goal because they quit early and don't feel like doing the work. We often blame our distractions on external forces. However, around 90% of these are due to internal triggers.  Internal triggers are uncomfortable emotions that we want to escape. We do this by distracting ourselves.  In reality, time management is about pain management.  [17:43] Letting Go of Limiting Beliefs Nir warns against anchoring our autonomy on neurotransmitters. When we believe we have a specific nature, we limit our agency. Before labelling yourself a certain way, do the work.  People find success when they act before they make excuses.  Believing in ego depletion is also harmful. Find out why in the full episode!  [24:49] The Indistractable Model: Steps One and Two The first strategy to becoming indistractable is mastering your internal triggers through visualisation.  Don’t envision the outcome. Doing so can be harmful because it makes you feel like you’ve already done the work.  Visualise what you'll do when you're tempted to go off track. The second step is to make time for traction. You can’t call something a distraction unless you know what you’re distracted from.  Having a to-do list can be harmful; plan daily schedules instead.  [27:44] The Indistractable Model: Steps Three and Four The third step is to decrease external triggers.  Finally, prevent distractions with pacts or pre-commitments.  [30:40] What You Should Measure  We have a lot of self-limiting beliefs. You need to distinguish whether these are things you cannot do or just ones you don't want to do.  When doing something, the consistency of your actions contributes more to your success than the intensity.  Understand that accomplishing your goals takes time.  Instead of looking at your output, learn to measure your progress through your inputs, such as time and effort.    [37:57] Be Willing to Put in the Hard Work  There’s no magic pill for our problems and goals. Everything takes time and work.  Keep showing up and doing the hard work.  We now have access to so much information; you just need to get out there and learn.  Remember that if you’re looking for distraction, it will come.  [41:58] Adapting to Changes Around Us All new things have consequences. The good thing is, we humans are highly adaptable. In the same vein, you have the power to adapt and control how you consume ‘addictive’ social media. Not the other way around.  Nir believes that the world is getting better. However, good news does not get much media coverage.  Try to be more optimistic. Only then can you seek solutions to problems and not resign yourself to the situation. You don't need to worry about everyone's problems. Your human capital is best directed toward issues where you can make the easiest and most significant impact. [50:48] How to Make Habit-Forming Products Use habit-forming products frequently and soon. It should be something that you use within a week or less.  First, tap into internal triggers and specify which uncomfortable emotion your product wants to solve.  Second, reduce friction. Make your product as easy as possible to use.  Third, create variable rewards. Uncertainty is what excites people and gets them hooked. Finally, it helps to make people invest in the experience. Listen to the full episode to dive deeper into making habit-forming products!   [55:19] The 3 C’s of Engagement Fostering engagement can be done through content, community, and conversation.  Curate content that will give value to others.  Empower people to help one another so you can create a strong-knit community.  Lastly, have conversations with people to share knowledge and wisdom.  7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘The opposite of distraction is not focus. If you look at the origin of the word, the opposite of distraction is traction. You'll notice that both traction and distraction end in the same six letters, a-c-t-i-o-n.’ ‘Traction, by definition, is any action that pulls you towards what you said you were going to do. Things that you do with intent. Things that move you closer to your values and help you become the kind of person you want to become.’ ‘We have this model in our heads: traction, distraction, internal, external, right? Now we know that the four big parts of the Indistractable model. So now, we work our way around these four steps like the points on a compass.’ ‘One of my life mantras is: “Consistency over intensity”. I think that's how we change.’  ‘We want that instant relief. We want that instant solution. Look, the things that are worth having in life, they take time.’ ‘What's going to lead us out of our problems is not running away from these problems, not throwing up our hands and giving up. But rather, engaging with these problems, right?’ ‘[Habit-forming products] appreciate in value, meaning they get better and better the more we interact with them because of what I call stored value.’ About Nir Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. He helps companies create behaviours that benefit the users and educates people on building healthful habits in their lives. Nir previously taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. He is the bestselling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. He also shares his insights with his newsletter at Nir and Far and has written for Psychology Today, The Atlantic, TechCrunch, and the Harvard Business Review.  Nir is also an active investor in habit-forming technologies, such as Eventbrite, Kahoot!, and Anchor.fm.  Interested in learning more about Nir's work? You check out his website. You can also reach him on Twitter and LinkedIn.        Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so that they can learn what it takes to form good habits and become indistractable.  Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

As the saying goes, trust your gut — and this isn’t only figuratively. One of the most overlooked aspects of health is our digestive system. We tend to ignore and underestimate the symptoms we experience around our gut. But with its link to our brains, our guts play a much more significant role in our overall health. The simple act of eating healthy foods can completely turn your life around. Kirsty Wirth joins us in this episode to share how reexamining gut health impacted her and her son's life. She talks about the road to recovery, specifically her family undergoing fecal microbial transplant (FMT). Kirsty highlights the importance of in-depth gut health testing, cutting out junk foods, and consuming healthy foods. She further discusses the two types of fermented food and how we can incorporate it into our diet. If you’re having trouble with your digestive system and want to know which healthy foods to choose, this episode is for you.    Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn how an undiagnosed gut issue can lead to an autism spectrum misdiagnosis. Discover the importance of eating healthy foods when looking after your microbiome. Find out the two types of fermented food and their effects on the body.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  A new program, BOOSTCAMP, is coming this September at Peak Wellness!  Listen to my other Pushing the Limits episodes:  #170: The Search for the Perfect Protein and Why So Many of Us Are Deficient with Dr David Minkoff #183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova Connect with Kirsty: Instagram I Facebook I Email  Kultured Wellness Get your Kultured Wellness starter culture here! Join a Kultured Wellness Programme today! Kulturing Kuriosity podcast Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don't Have To by Dr David Sinclair   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third-party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third-party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Episode Highlights [04:55] The Story Behind Kultured Wellness Kirsty started Kultured Wellness because of her personal experience and what her son went through.  She started having tummy upsets from age two onwards. She would constantly swing between constipation and diarrhea.  Acquiring viral encephalitis at age 13 and being hospitalised for a week was a landmark time in Kirsty’s life. Gut problems became a constant issue from then on. Her husband, who is a nurse, told her constant diarrhea is not normal. So, she dabbled with various diets but didn't stick with them. It’s not until they found out about her son’s conditions that Kirsty took concrete action. [09:55] Kirsty’s Son’s Autism Spectrum Diagnosis At 13 months, Noah suffered from infections and tummy troubles. Fortunately, his recovery progressed well. But at 18 months, Noah became completely non-verbal, underwent behavioural changes, and suffered from constant diarrhea. The paediatrician said that Noah’s condition was normal. However, his condition only worsened.  Then, Noah was diagnosed with autism. This gave them funding for treatment and support. [13:56] Discovery of an Underlying Gut Issue The possibility that Kirsty passed on her diarrhea issue to Noah was always at the back of her mind. They found a doctor who listened to their suspicion that Noah has an underlying condition.  After testing Noah’s stool sample, they discovered that he had Clostridium difficile, a type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This bacteria releases endotoxin that compromises the gut and the blood-brain barrier. They found that the endotoxin in Noah's body had attached to the brain receptors responsible for socialisation and learning. [17:21] Undergoing Fecal Microbial Transplant (FMT) Kirsty and her two children participated in a research study in Canada. There, they underwent a fecal microbial transplant. Their guts were flushed with antibiotics to get rid of everything, including the Clostridium difficile. These were then replaced with donors’ microbes.  Kirsty’s children were the youngest people to undergo FMT. While they were there, Noah started becoming more sociable. Not everyone needs to undergo FMT to recover their gut. There are now many ways to modulate the gut, one of which is eating healthy foods. Tune in to the full episode to hear more about Noah's recovery and development as a teen! [25:42] Getting Diagnosed with PANDAS PANDAS is an autoimmune neurological condition associated with an antigen. Both Kirsty and Noah got diagnosed with it. It stands for Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections. Listen to the full podcast to learn more about PANDAS and how Kirsty acquired it! [33:13] Looking After Your Microbiome Test, don’t guess. Get a comprehensive stool analysis. Kirsty uses two tests for her clients. You need to be intentional in choosing healthy foods. Include fermented and nourishing food for your gut. Also, remember that diets do not work. No amount of willpower can go against our primal built-in set point. [46:10] Two Types of Fermented Food and Their Effect on the Body The first is the wild type. This includes histamine-forming foods or lactate-forming metabolites. Our gut has microbes that consume histamine and help us not develop histamine issues. The second is uncultured ferment. These are specific ferments in a controlled environment with specifically chosen strains. People struggling with lactate-forming metabolites should choose D-lactate bacteria strains.  These strains break down and down-regulate histamines without causing reactions. [48:50] Incorporating Fermented Healthy Foods into Your Diet You can start with small amounts of uncultured ferment to build out your microbiome.  Then, you can start dabbling with wild ferments. Kirsty develops cultures with nine different strains that have efficacy for autoimmune, neurological, and digestive conditions. Kultured Wellness offers a starter culture that you make yourself. Listen to the full episode to know the ingredients and the procedure! [53:05] On Probiotics and Digestive Enzymes One capsule of probiotics in the market has around 3 million CFU or colony-forming units.  Meanwhile, a cup of Kultured Wellness yoghurt has 41 billion CFU. The absence of digestive enzymes and stomach acid is a major problem today. Fermented food helps with this problem because it has already been pre-digested from the fermenting process.  Fermented food doesn't require a robust amount of digestive enzymes. In fact, it supports the excretion of stomach acid. [57:06] Parting Advice  Be curious and try your best to connect with your body. You’re in a state of fight or flight all the time when you’re unwell. We should not be focusing on DNA; it's the microbes that affect our DNA. Being curious, taking responsibility, owning it, and wanting more for yourself is crucial.   7 Powerful Quotes ‘I have seen how important your gut is and how it can completely change the pathway of your life. It can completely change who you are as a person.’ ‘You don't just suddenly wake up one day and you've got cognition issues; that's coming from somewhere.’ ‘So the first thing is just test, don't guess... We [can] really find out what is happening in our gut, and we can find out what it is doing to the rest of our body.’ ‘If you want to make change, you've got to front up to make the change.’ ‘If they don't include fermented foods and they don't include nourishing foods for their gut, they're relying on willpower. No one can get anywhere with willpower.’ ‘It's what everyone finds hard and doesn't know, is that you should never rely on willpower. Diets will never work.’ ‘DNA is not what we should be focusing on. It's actually the microbes and those fungi and viruses that make up our whole body that actually interacts through that.’   About Kirsty Kirsty Wirth is the founder of Kultured Wellness and an expert in cultures, gut health, and probiotics. Kultured Wellness is a company dedicated to providing knowledge and healthy foods for optimum gut health. As an integrative health coach, Kirsty's area of interest is in how lifestyle, environment, and diet can impact gut health and the immune system. Drawing on her background and years of research, Kirsty educates people on the root cause behind underlying conditions. Her mission is to spread the word about the benefits of healthy foods, particularly fermented food in nourishing the gut's microbiome. If you want to learn more about Kultured Wellness, you may visit their website. You can reach out to Kirsty on Instagram and Facebook. You can also send her an email at mailto:info@kulturedwellness.com.     Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can be inspired to eat healthy foods for their gut health.  Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

Health optimisation often involves a good diet, sleep, and exercise. But do we know how to implement practices that are compatible with our bodies? For some people, intense exercise can lead to more oxidative stress and inflammation! Not only that, some of us take medication and pills to treat pain and hormones, but are these really helping?   Small actions today can lead to big problems in the future.     Kashif Khan from The DNA Company joins us in this episode to talk about how understanding our DNA can help us make better choices for our health. Diseases can be prevented with healthy habits. But before you try any DNA testing, you should understand the nuances within the genetic industry. With Kashif’s advice, you can learn to choose a provider that can help you take actionable steps. If you want to know more about the science behind DNA testing for health optimisation, then this episode is for you!   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Discover how our bodies are a whole system of processes and how our genes can be affected by many factors such as lifestyle and behaviour. Learn the differences in DNA testing companies and how you can get the best value out of your reports. Understand how to boost your immunity and prevent diseases!      Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  A new program, BoostCamp, is coming this September at Peak Wellness! Past episodes with Dr Mansoor Mohammed: Episode 181 - Understanding Your Genetic Hormone Pathways Episode 160 - Understanding Your Own DNA   Connect with Kashif: LinkedIn I Twitter I Facebook      Know how you can change your lifestyle based on your genes. Learn more on The DNA Company.  Tiny Habits by Dr. BJ Fogg Books by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler The Future Is Faster Than You Think  Bold Abundance    Episode Highlights [04:09] Understanding What Your DNA Means Every process in your body is being driven by genetic instructions. Kashif’s company set out to make these instructions more actionable for their clients. You can do a quick online search of ‘DNA testing near me’ and get many hits, but you won’t get the results you want out of these. Many of our diseases are preventable; consistently making the wrong choices can lead us to develop these illnesses.     Those choices will not be the same for everyone. You can look at your genetics to see what the right choices are for you.  [08:11] Know What You’re Testing For Most companies offering DNA testing tend to make conclusions based on a single gene. However, the body is more complex than that.  Many of these DNA tests don’t really dive deep into your health. To make their business model profitable, many businesses in the genetic industry sell their patient’s data to pharmaceutical companies. The genetic industry has been used as a data collection machine. Kashif’s vision for their company is to turn this situation around and derive key insights for their consumers.  [12:35] The Role of Hormones in Health  Kashif observes that their company has had the biggest impact on women's healthcare.  This is due to the massive gap between what women need and what is provided by traditional healthcare.  There is a widespread belief that women are supposed to have hormone-related issues like PMS. However, this should not be the case. Tune in to the full episode to find out how Kashif helped pinpoint his niece’s hormone issues using DNA testing and analysis. [19:26] Covering Up the Symptoms The healthcare industry tends to look at a problem in isolation and try to treat it with medication.  Treating hormonal issues is not as simplistic as prescribing pills for the hormones a patient lacks. Listen to the full episode to hear more insights on this topic! For instance, we’re led to believe that women are prone to breast cancer when they reach menopause. However, this condition is preventable.      [24:01] Applying AI to DNA Testing Kashif’s company found it challenging to train clinicians to interpret results from DNA testing.  To remedy this problem, they are using AI technology to create personalised reports and recommendations.  As a result, their reports are now much more comprehensive. It even analyses your mood and behaviour—crucial factors when it comes to dealing with your health. [30:05] Understanding Your Mood and Behaviour   Lisa’s high adrenaline and lack of dopamine receptors manifest in an action-oriented behaviour.  Kashif shares that having low dopamine receptors can also lead to addiction or depression. That's because you are predisposed to not experience reward and pleasure.  Curious to know how your genes affect your mood? Find out how DNA testing can shed a light on this in the full episode!  You can view your gene expressions two-fold: a weakness and a superpower. For instance, you may think that you are irritable. But that also makes you detail-oriented. [35:50] Change Takes Effort Kashif’s company is focused on solving and preventing problems.  People may get great recommendations, but the real challenge lies in implementation and change.  Community and accountability are important to help people stay on track. Group accountability with people in similar situations can increase motivation and persistence.  [42:21] Prevention is the Key The current healthcare system is based on a reactive model rather than a preventive one.  Diseases can be prevented; we don’t need to reach a point of crisis until we take action.  In the US, the Center for Disease Control created a Diabetes Prevention Program, the first of its kind in the country.  [47:31] Health at the Cellular Level Diseases are born from inflammation, which is based on cellular health. Cellular health depends on the body’s capacity for detoxification and oxidative stress.  Simple activities like golfing can have long term effects. Kashif shares that golfers may be in danger of inhaling pesticides in golf courses.  Exercise may work for some people. However, people with weaker SOD2 are prone to oxidative stress and more toxicity in the blood.  Your genetics will dictate what kind and how much exercise you should do. Listen to the full episode to learn more! [56:34] The Future of Healthcare  Beyond DNA testing and analysis, it’s important to have someone knowledgeable on your end. They can help patients get the most value out of the reports. New technologies tend to go through different phases. These involve deception, disruption, dematerialisation, demonetisation, and democratisation.  The technology in the genetic industry is becoming more accessible. It is now near the latter phases of technology development.    7 Powerful Quotes ‘We didn't go study DNA. There's enough science out there already. We studied people. We said, “Let's start at what's wrong with this person? What are they expressing as a symptom? Let's drill down genetically to see where is the system failing.”’ ‘Of all the things we do, female hormone health is where we had the biggest impact. Not because we're the greatest, but because it's the worst experience in current healthcare.’ ‘The DNA world looks at things in terms of disease. So you can speak at it that way. But there's so much more to it than that if you know how to interpret it.’ ‘We believe coaching is primarily around accountability. So we have coaches we train that understand the reports, that can help.’ ‘We're all coming out of the same model, I suppose this reactive healthcare model. Really, we're inventing the future of healthcare.‘ ‘That's only then when you have that persistence and the resilience to actually go through with these changes that you're actually going to get new results.’ ‘This reactive system that we're living in at the moment and the current model is just bloody bandaids on festering wounds.’   About Kashif Kashif Khan is the founder and CEO of The DNA Company, a functional genomics company. They help people understand their unique genetic code and how to unlock their physical potential. If you’re looking for ‘DNA testing near me’, their company is the one to call. They ensure actionable advice through a comprehensive genomic profile.  Kashif is also the co-founder and CEO of Younutrients. Their company provides supplement formulations personalised to people’s unique needs. In addition, he is also an investor and serial entrepreneur. He has helped build, scale, and run several businesses across different industries. He has advised early-stage startups and Fortune 500 companies including the Royal Bank of Canada and Cirque du Soleil.  Interested in Kashif’s work? Check out The DNA Company.  You can also reach out to Kashif on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.          Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can be inspired to search for ‘DNA testing near me’ and optimise their health.  Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

.You’ve most likely experienced pain at least once in your life. When you visit a medical doctor for pain relief, they might prescribe you painkillers. Similar to other traditional medical programs, you would find that this is passive. This is because your clinician is trained to treat the pain as a symptom rather than target the underlying cause of it. But fret not. There is a novel neuromodulatory approach that is now being developed by researchers to mitigate chronic pain. This week, Exsurgo CEO Richard Little joins us on Pushing the Limits to explain how neurofeedback technology can revolutionise how we handle chronic pain. Their device is relatively inexpensive and can drastically improve the quality of life of millions of people worldwide.  If you want to know more about how medical innovations are changing the landscape of healthcare, then this episode is for you!   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching  If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com. Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books. Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third-party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection. Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Understand the nature of pain and how it affects the lives of those who experience it. Learn the process behind neurofeedback technology which could change how we deal with chronic pain. Discover why medical technology is the cheaper and better alternative to opioid pills when it comes to chronic pain relief. Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  Exsurgo  Dr Peter Diamandis' books: The Future is Faster Than You Think Abundance Episode Highlights [05:18] How Richard’s Story Started He is an engineer and not a clinician by profession but got inspired by his personal history to help people in the medical field. Their core mission is to make life easier for patients and clinicians while getting a better result and saving money. Currently, they are in the field of neuroscience. Their products can relieve chronic pain as effectively as prescription drugs but without side effects. [07:27] How the Neurofeedback Device Works Exsurgo specialises in a neurofeedback device that trains the brain not to respond to pain impulses. It was made through the concept of neuroplasticity––the trainability of the brain and its signalling patterns. This device measures electrical activity in the brain related to pain. When connected to a wireless device, these signals are transmitted to a game that rewards you whenever your pain signals go down.  This technology can hopefully be able to counteract the opioid crisis and the drawbacks of pain pills. [14:46] Chronic Pain is a Negative Feedback Loop Pain can cause difficulties in getting quality sleep, which in turn causes anxiety and negative moods. The torture of chronic pain extends to other aspects of patients’ lives.  Richard's company has found that a biochemical and electrical change in the brain also results in positive physical changes. Listen to the full episode to learn the story of a school headmistress who reduced her chronic pain and finger inflammation with Exsurgo’s help!  They are in the process of pushing the boundaries of what current technology can do, as research on chronic pain and inflammation are still lacking. [19:53] Behind Richard’s Innovations Richard's mother had a shocking and sudden stroke. Exurgo initially aimed to handle stroke rehabilitation. Eventually, they pivoted to chronic pain as it was the most significant issue the industry faced at the time. His friend had multiple sclerosis, which affected his ability to walk. So, they set out to build a robotic leg and exoskeleton to help patients' mobility. Over time, many doctors have asked for Richard’s help to build medical devices for their patients. Due to advancements in medical technology, patients’ expectations of health care have increased. However, these innovations typically cost thousands of dollars. [26:49] Exsurgo’s Mission Richard aims to build devices to help both patients and clinicians while remaining relatively inexpensive.  They also use gamification to make their treatment options more appealing to the public. They offer a subscription model for their products so that patients can do their rehab at home. [34:48] Learning About Pain Pain diagnosis is still largely unscientific and arbitrary. However, technology is developing at such a rapid rate. We will soon be able to predict who will experience pain after surgery. We will be able to relieve pain before it happens using neurofeedback. Richard’s company is looking into anxiety, depression, and concussions. Tune in to the full episode to know more about how they plan to apply their research on concussions! [38:59] The Disconnect Between Tech Projects and Medicine The medical technology field is heavily regulated. It costs millions to get products out to the market, making people hesitant to invest in them. Most technologies still fail, so having a burning passion for helping patients is necessary if you want to survive in the field. Shareholder alignment is crucial when it comes to funding medical innovations. [45:50] The Opiate Crisis Due to the opiate crisis, pharmaceutical companies are now recognising that they need to do something different. This issue needs the joint efforts of the private sector and the government to be resolved.  [47:18] Getting their Device to Market  They are currently in clinical trials, which are the value of a company. Exsurgo hopes to launch the product sometime early next year and make it as affordable as possible. They were surprised by the number of people with chronic pain hoping to get a hold of their product. So, they are aiming to keep up on the production side.  Richard shares that he made many mistakes and rode the ups and downs before getting to this point. A crucial piece of his current success is choosing and working with the right investors and clinicians.  [1:00:14] The Technology Behind their Work Brain-computer interfaces are all about understanding the patterns and applying them to solve various medical issues. Every time someone uses their device, they get millions of lines of data. The more data they gather, the more they can improve their technology.  Listen to the full episode to learn exactly how the product works and what the whole team does to develop it! 7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘Our kind of basic mission is to make life easier for clinicians and patients while getting a better result and saving money. If we can do those things, then we've done something fantastic.’ ‘If I can make the clinicians' life easier, and the patient's life easier to fit into both of their workflows, their daily life, while getting a good result and saving money, then we have something that would be worth doing.’ 'We all know what it's like when you have exercises to do by the doctor or the physio, we don't want to do them, you know, so gamification actually really helps with that.' ‘It'd be easier to give up than it would be to keep going, I'm sure in a lot of the things that you do. It's that passion, and it's a drive, and it's that connection to the patients, once you see it, you can't unsee it.’ ‘Make lots of mistakes. Keep trying. You don't start off on that journey. I wasn't sitting on an oil rig one day, and I knew I'm going to build some medical device companies.’ 'The patients are too important. I couldn't live with myself if I gave up on this journey because patients are going to suffer.’ ‘There's a brilliant team behind all of this, you know, there's so many specialties and so many different things. They're all driven by that same passion to actually help people at the end of the day, and it will affect millions, 10s of millions of people's lives over the next coming years.’ About Richard Richard Little is an innovator, entrepreneur, engineer, and roboticist. He is the CEO of Exsurgo, a neurofeedback company. They are developing a cutting-edge device that could revolutionise the way we deal with chronic pain and improve the lives of millions of people worldwide. He has held different directorships and C-level positions in engineering, military, and medical businesses. One of these is Rex Bionics, where they developed an exoskeleton that could provide mobility to wheelchair-bound patients. If you want to learn more about Richard and his work in the medical technology space, visit his company website.  Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn more about the future of pain relief. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

How can we hack the human body to reach its full potential — and beyond? Right now, we can't stop aging. However, we can slow it down by optimising our health to lead long and fulfilling lives. One day, we may even be able to age backwards. Through biohacking, we can use the latest medical research to our body's advantage. Dave Asprey, the Father of Biohacking and longevity expert, joins us in this episode. Working with renowned doctors and scientists, Dave has created a solution to innovate and hack our systems to push the limits of what the human body can do. He also shares advice on fasting, longevity, and the measures he takes to live a long and healthy life. If you want to learn more about biohacking to improve your health and well-being, then this episode is for you! You’ll find out what it takes to live a longer and more fulfilling life.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third-party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn how Dave Asprey started the biohacking movement. Discover more about the science of fasting and how this can be beneficial for those who want to live longer. Dave Asprey shares his takes on anti-aging research and the current state of the pharmaceutical industry.    Resources  Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes: #183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #187: Back to Basics: Slow Down Ageing and Promote Longevity with Dr Elizabeth Yurth #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #196: Rethinking the Function of Mitochondria for Our Health with Dr Elizabeth Yurth Connect with Dave Asprey: Facebook | Twitter | Youtube |  Instagram |  LinkedIn | website Bulletproof Bulletproof Coffee Bulletproof Radio How to Live Your Life After Great Loss – Amanda Kloots with Dave Asprey Check out Dave’s books:  Head Strong The Better Baby Book Fast This Way The Bulletproof Diet Super Human  Enrol for free: Dave Asprey 14-Day Sleep Challenge  Moldy documentary   Episode Highlights [05:15] Dave’s Journey to Becoming the Father of Biohacking  In his mid-20’s, Dave already exhibited the diseases of aging. He tried exercising and going on a diet to lose weight. However, Dave didn’t reap the results he wanted.  With his experience in Silicon Valley, Dave started to look at his body's systems as a hacker would. This change in perspective led to the birth of biohacking. Since then, he has shared his findings with the world through his programs, speaking engagements, products, and books. [10:37] What Fasting Can Do For You For ten years, Dave worked with a community of people teaching intermittent fasting as part of the Bulletproof Diet. Autophagy is when the body cleans out old cells and old proteins.  You don't get the full effects of autophagy if you eat three meals a day or consume carbohydrates and sugars. There are different benefits to having periods where you go without eating food. Fasting is not about suffering; it’s about knowing how not to be hungry as you fast.  [14:51] Biohacking Tips on Fasting Have black coffee in the morning. This drink amplifies your body's ability to make ketones. You can also choose to add grass-fed butter and MCT oil. The combination gives you more hunger suppressants.  Finally, you can add prebiotic fibre to your black coffee. It’s a fibre that doesn’t raise your insulin and blood sugar levels. As long as you don’t have any protein and carbs that raise insulin, your body remains in a fasted state. [18:32] Fasting From All Sorts of Things  Fasting from oxygen, which is called ‘breathwork’, is a big part of biohacking.  We could choose to go without the things that are causing the biological effects we don’t want. Fasting is about what you're trying to achieve, like getting rid of harmful proteins in your body to bring in good nutrients. [20:07] How to Deal with LPS When a living organism feels threatened, they react in three ways: fear, food, and fertility. You either run away, eat everything, or ensure the survival of your species. Fasting threatens your gut bacteria. In response to fasting, they secrete toxins called lipopolysaccharides (LPS) to keep the other bacteria from competing.  In response, your liver will ask for sugar to oxidise the LPS. Fasting can make your gut bacteria unhappy and cause cravings. Toxin binders like activated charcoal work incredibly well to counteract this effect. According to Dave, activated charcoals induces a 15% life extension in rats who take it regularly. [23:30] On Supplements to Take When Fasting Your fat stores toxins. If you’re losing weight, you’re gaining toxins unless you bind them. Advanced supplements include senolytics and spermidine. Spermidine was not readily available before; it used to be a very expensive research chemical. Dave instead took probiotics from Japan that helped his body make spermidine. A chapter in Fast This Way has a list of safe, effective supplements to use during a fast. [26:15] Fasting is Like Exercising While fasting, you need a certain amount of oxidative stress. If you were to remove all the stressors during a fast, you won't get the benefits of fasting. [28:41] The Paradigm Shift in Our Medical System Dave traces back the problem to when the FTC allowed pharmaceutical companies to advertise in the US.  We're good at recognising short-term patterns but terrible at seeing long term consequences. Our reactions to COVID are exaggerated. In reality, the actual risk is much lower.  However, pharmaceutical companies amplify the risk because they make money from governments through the virus. We need to take the pharmaceutical companies away from the doctors. [34:57] Being Vi-Curious Dave was not opposed to vaccines before the pandemic. He identifies himself as vi-curious, or vaccine industry curious. In Superhuman, Dave writes about the four big killers. He notes that he’s looking forward to getting well-tested vaccines for these diseases. Having this conversation about being preventative and optimising your health is necessary to understand how our biology works. There are some unknown risks to both the vaccines and the virus. Being vi-curious means you’re in the middle of those who are vaccine-promiscuous and anti-vaxxers. It’s where 90% of the people are. [40:35] Doing Something We Don’t Want to Do We’re stiff-armed into doing things we don’t necessarily want to do. You don’t have to react with anxiety or fear. Instead, you can react with intelligence, logic, and thought. We have a long history of not having as much control as we want. Medical freedom is one of the most precious rights. It means you have a right to decide what you put into your body. [42:00] Dave’s Take on Longevity   Dave believes that he can live until he’s 180.  If we don't destroy the planet, we can do 50% better than today because of all the constant advancements in technology and research.  We are cracking the core biology behind aging and our ability to replenish our systems. Sooner or later, technology that was once expensive will be more readily available.  Dave aims to show the effectiveness of these technologies. By increasing demand and supply, prices will drop.   [47:11] Individuals Over 60 Tend to Be Happier When we're young, we worry about what everyone else is thinking about us. Then, when we’re middle-aged, we’re more concerned about what we think of others. However, when we're old, we realise people don't think about us as much. People who have enough energy and don't have medical problems at this age tend to be much happier. Dave hopes that we can go back to awake and powerful elders. The goal of the anti-aging community is to have people whose brains work like young people but have the wisdom of age.  [49:15] How Dave Asprey Creates an Impact  For five years, Dave taught at the University of California and worked at the company that held Google’s first servers. Biology behaves very much like how the internet does. If you can hack a system, that means you can hack the human body. These experiences prepared Dave to start the biohacking movement.  If what you’re teaching is efficient and you keep sharing it, you can build a movement of your own.  Doing so takes a lot of time and energy, so it has to be worth it. In Dave’s case, it is.   7 Powerful Quotes ‘Fasting isn't a lack of energy going into the body. Fasting is going without. And the hallmarks of fasting are insulin doesn't go up. And your levels of something called mTOR don't go up.’ 'Maybe you're in the middle. In fact, I will tell you right now, 90% of people are in the middle. And it's the angry people who yell at the extreme anti-vax and the extreme vaccine promiscuous side — they're bullies.' ‘You're already stiff-armed into doing all sorts of stuff you don't want to do it. But you don't have to react with anxiety or fear. You can react with intelligence, and logic, and thought.’ ‘Medical freedom is one of the most precious rights. That means you have a right to choose what you put into your body and what you don't put in your body from a food perspective, from a supplements perspective, and from a pharmaceutical perspective.’ ‘We are cracking the core biology behind aging and our ability to replenish and repair and rejuvenate our systems. So it's your job: age a little bit less quickly, prepare yourself a little bit better. Every year, the technology gets better and better.’ ‘People who have enough energy and don't have medical problems as they age tend to be much happier because they've learned the skill of being happy. It turns out we can teach our younger people that, and the way we've always done that is through coming-of-age rituals.’ ‘The more successful you are, the more the crazy 5% sociopaths and psychopaths yell and scream and complain online.’   About Dave Dave Asprey is an entrepreneur, author, host of Bulletproof Radio, and founder of Bulletproof. He is widely known as the Father of Biohacking. Over the last 20 years, Dave has worked with numerous medical and scientific experts to uncover and develop innovative methods to push the potentials of the human body. Through this, he has created the Bulletproof Diet and innovated Bulletproof Coffee and other wellness products.  Dave has also written extensively on his experiences with biohacking technologies and research. He’s a four-time New York Times best-selling author. His mission is to empower individuals worldwide on the techniques of biohacking to lead long and fulfilling lives. You can reach Dave on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You can also check out his website and Bulletproof to know more about him and his work.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your connections, so they can find out how biohacking can help them lead long and fulfilling lives. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

We live in a fast-paced world, with more everyday demands. And we know that we need good health to keep up. Nutrition, exercise, and mindfulness are often hailed as important pillars. However, there is something even more fundamental for better health—sleep. Sleep ensures we can actually perform. With better sleep, we’ll be living better lives. But, how many of us actually prioritise sleep?     Dr Kirk Parsley joins us in this episode to explain how sleep affects our lives. Poor sleep can significantly change our bodies and performance. He also shares that we can achieve good sleep through lifestyle changes. A better life is not about taking more supplements or using gadgets and tools; it’s about creating new and better habits.  If you want to know more about the science of sleep and how sleep affects our lives, then this episode is for you.    Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn how sleep affects our lives and why it is so fundamental to our health.  Understand that it’s more important to change our behaviours and lifestyle rather than depending on supplements.  Discover the ways we can create the right conditions for better sleep.     Resources Get Dr Kirk’s Sleep Remedy here!  Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  A new program, BoostCamp, is coming this September at Peak Wellness!  Listen to my other Pushing the Limits episodes:  Episode with Mark Divine Connect with Dr Kirk: Website I LinkedIn I Instagram I Facebook I Email  You can also get the free downloadable resource on decreasing stress before sleep here.   The Unbeatable Mind Podcast with Mark Divine Dr. Kirk Parsley - How to Supercharge Your Sleep Dr. Kirk Parsley on Sleep And Longevity Melatonin Supplementation with Dr John Lieurance in the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.     Melatonin: The Miracle Molecule by Dr John Lieurance Dr Harch’s Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy America’s Frontline Doctors How to save the world, in three easy steps. from Bret Weinstein’s DarkHorse Podcast   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa’s Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Episode Highlights [03:28] How Dr Kirk Started Working on Sleep Dr Kirk used to work for the SEALs. Later on, he enrolled in the military’s medical school. After getting his degree, Dr Kirk became the manager of a sports medicine facility for the military. Here, he worked with other medical experts.  Those in the military will usually lie to healthcare providers so they won’t get excluded from work, but they tend to be more honest with Dr Kirk because they have worked with him before.  After testing for vitamin deficiencies and adrenal fatigue, Dr Kirk realised that many of his patients were taking Ambien, a sleeping drug.  After learning more about sleep, Dr Kirk realised that every symptom his patients were presenting could be explained by poor sleeping.  [17:31] Sleep’s Various Cycles With a sleep drug, you are just unconscious and not sleeping.  Proper sleep needs to go through a repetitive pattern of deep sleep at the beginning of the night and then REM sleep by morning.  The different cycles are important since they affect our bodies in different ways.  Sleep can help boost your immunity and memory! Learn more benefits in the full episode.  [20:12] How Sleep Affects Our Lives If you don’t give yourself time to recover, sleep pressure can accumulate and have progressively worse effects.  If you go to bed with high stress hormones, this can worsen your sleep. Poor sleep then leads to higher stress levels, and the cycle gets worse.  People who get poor sleep age faster, not just in appearance but also in their physiology.  Poor sleep can lead to protein structure breakdown, decreased blood supply, aged tissues, and more.  As we age, we also face the problem of not repairing as fast. This is how sleep affects our lives.  [23:56] The Foundation For Better Health We are often taught the basics of health are sleep, nutrition, exercise, and stress management.  However, these pillars cannot function without sleep as their foundation, emphasising how sleep affects our lives.  For example, exercise becomes counterproductive when you’re sleep deprived because you’re not recovering.  Poor sleep can also change your insulin sensitivity and gut biome, which changes your nutrition levels. Because of how sleep affects our lives, it should be our priority. Sleep deprivation is the fastest way to break someone down, this is why it’s used as an interrogation technique.    [28:35] How Do We Sleep? We need eight hours of sleep a night. Make your sleeping routine simple. The more complex it is, the more likely you will fail.  First, convince yourself that sleep is important.  We are all born to sleep, and we don’t need to learn how.  Before electricity, people used to fall asleep three hours after sunset. Tune in to the full episode to learn more about the neurochemical process of sleep.   [35:36] Creating the Right Conditions for Sleep During sleep, our senses still work, but they don’t pay as much attention to external stimuli.  For our ancestors, the sunset will lead to decreased blue light, decreased temperature, decreased stimuli, and increased melatonin.  Better sleep is just creating these conditions in our environment.  If we take melatonin, we should be careful to take only small amounts.  [39:20] Melatonin Supplementation Some have argued that melatonin supplementation does not downregulate our brain receptors, but there are no definitive studies on this yet.  In fact, measuring melatonin is difficult due to its quantity and concentration in each part of the brain.  It’s okay to take melatonin supplements but not in physiologic amounts.  [45:15] Can We Reverse Aging? You need to understand your genetics and what ratios will work for you.  While good habits and supplements can improve your overall health, we don’t know if it undoubtedly reverses age.  Our bodies are more complex than we think. Shorting yourself two hours of sleep can change over 700 different epigenetic markers.  We can only describe biology. We don’t know how to manipulate it most of the time.  Dr Kirk also shares his experience with hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the full episode.  [1:03:36] Paradigm Shifts in the Medical Industry There is a lot of dishonesty in both the media and the medical industry.  Many doctors and medical experts have been silenced on potentially better cures, especially during this pandemic.  Western medicine is effective in treating the sick, but it doesn’t keep people from getting severely sick in the first place. A lifestyle change is more important than taking supplements.  [1:12:22] The Importance Of Behaviour Change  People often don’t want to work on their behaviour because taking medicine is easier.  We also need to be aware of how the food industry is tapping into our addictive mechanisms to keep us eating more.   Caffeine consumption can also ruin our sleep. More than 200 milligrams can give the opposite effect of staying awake and alert.  Learn exactly how sleep affects our lives, together with caffeine and sugar consumption, when you listen to the full episode. [1:19:40] Widespread Impressions on Sleep and How It Affects Our Lives People have grown to believe that sleep is for the weak and lazy.  This belief also impacts our children, especially since they are still developing.  Losing two hours of sleep can decrease testosterone and growth hormone by 30% and increase inflammation by 30%, among others.   Dr Kirk delved into researching how sleep affects kids after giving a lecture for American kids overseas to professionals in the school system. Kids’ brains are still developing. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that allows us to simulate things, experiences a shift during adolescence. [1:26:34] How Sleep Affects Our Lives as Kids Dr Kirk delved into researching how sleep affects kids after giving a lecture for American kids overseas to professionals in the school system. Kids’ brains are still developing. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that allows us to simulate things, is formed during adolescence. Furthermore, adolescents also require more sleep because of a shift in their circadian rhythm. Requiring kids to do more with less sleep interferes with their development. [1:31:40] How Sleep Affects Our Lives When We are Sick A new field in medicine called chronobiology is studying how sleep deprivation precedes any psychiatric disease or psychological flare-up. An Ivy League hospital managed to get their patients off medication by regulating their circadian rhythm and chronobiology. [1:34:34] It’s More Than Switching Things On and Off Medications can be difficult to get off because they have too many side effects.  For example, most antidepressants are not just working on serotonin. Instead, they affect several neurotransmitters as well.  Physiological doses are artificial and can cause you more trouble.  Learn how sleep medication and affects GABA receptors that slow down the brain when you listen to the full episode. [1:41:17] Dr Kirk’s Sleep Remedy Dr Kirk discusses how cavemen took around three hours after the sun went down to fall asleep. In the present day, what can people do in those three hours? To fall asleep, stress hormones need to come down due to lifestyle. Dr Kirk’s Sleep Remedy involves getting the proper ratios of substances. His product comes in the form of tea, stick pouches, and capsules.  [1:46:27] Dr Kirk’s Final Advice Change your environment by decreasing blue light and stimulation.  Learn to slow everything down.  Just like how you slow everything down to get a kid to sleep, so should you do the same for an adult.   7 Powerful Quotes ‘You aren’t actually sleeping when you're on sleep drugs. You're just unconscious. Your brain is dissociated, but it's not sleep.’ ‘Often, if you're sleep-deprived, more is worse for sure. You don't really need to do any exercises. You just stay active until you've recovered, and then you can exercise again.’ ‘Insulin sensitivity is decreased by 30%, just by losing two hours of sleep. One night with two hours of sleep. So you go from sleeping eight hours of sleep to six. If you're pre-diabetic, you're waking up diabetic.’ ‘Even though I'm known for sleep, the hardest thing for me to coach people to do is to sleep.’ ‘The most sleep-deprived years are the most horrible years of the brain development.’ ‘Get rid of the blue light. Decrease the stimulation. Lower your body temperature. That’s sleep hygiene.’ ‘Part of lowering stress is just slowing down your thinking. You can't work on your computer until 9:59 and get in bed in 10 and think you're gonna be asleep.’   About Dr Kirk Dr Kirk Parsley was a former Navy SEAL who went on to earn his medical degree from Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda in 2004. From 2009 to 2013, he served as an Undersea Medical Officer at the Naval Special Warfare Group One. He also served as the Naval Special Warfare’s expert on sleep medicine.  Dr Kirk has been a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine since 2006 and consults for multiple corporations and professional athletes. He gives lectures worldwide on wellness, sleep, and hormonal optimisation. He believes that many diseases and disorders are unnecessary complications of poor sleeping habits. We can achieve the highest quality of life possible by changing this habit problem.  Interested in Dr Kirk’s work? Check out his website. You can also reach him on LinkedIn, Instagram,  Facebook, and email.       Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn how sleep affects our lives and what we can do about it. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript of the Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by www.lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Well, hey everyone! And welcome to Pushing The Limits. This week, I have another amazing guest for you. I managed to get some incredible people. I have Dr Kirk Parsley with me. He is an ex-Navy SEAL, and also a medical doctor. A little bit of an overachiever, this one. He spent many years in the SEALs, an incredible man. He also was involved with the first sports medicine rehabilitation centre that was working with the SEALs, an incredible expert on sleep. And that's what we do a deep dive into today. We also talk about hyperbaric oxygen therapy. We also go into areas about the current state of the medical system, one of my favourite topics. And I hope you enjoy this episode. It’s really, the most important thing is around sleep.  Sleep is something that all of us, I think, are underestimating its importance. And that this is the biggest lever, not food, not exercise, not meditation, not mindfulness, not anything else. Number one of all leverage points is sleep. So how the heck do you get enough sleep? What is enough sleep, and how to get it is what this episode is about.  Before we head over, I just want to remind you we have Boost Camp coming up. This is our eight-week live online program. There, Neil Wagstaff and I, my business partner and longtime friend and coach are doing. And we're going to, if you want to come and hang out with us live every week and learn everything about upgrading your life, basically, your performance, how to optimise all areas of your life, then we would love you to check the information out, head over to peakwellnessco.nz/boostcamp.  On that point, if you're also interested, come and check out our flagship program, which is our epigenetics program, where we look at your genetics, and how to optimise those specifically, all the areas of your life: your food, your nutrition, your exercise, your mood, and behaviour, your hormones, all these important areas, specifically to your genetics. One-on-one time with us and help us to understand everything about your genetics. It's an incredible platform and amazing AI technology behind us. And we'd love you to check that out.  Go to peakwellnessco.nz/epigenetics. Or reach out to me if you didn't get that. We will also have the links down in the show notes, if you want to just click over to that. Or you can just head over to my website, www.lisatamati.com. And hit the work with us button for our programs listed on there as well. So without further ado, now over to Dr Kirk Parsley.  Well, hi, everybody! And welcome to Pushing the Limits. This week, I have a superstar, who is a good friend of Commander Mark Divine, you may have heard previous weeks on my podcast. We have Dr Kirk Parsley with us today. Welcome to the show.  Dr Kirk Parsley: Thank you. I feel very welcome and happy to be here. I'm still here. I’m happy to be sharing this airspace with you or whatever it is sharing.  Lisa: I’m really super excited. I've heard you a number of times on Mark’s show and just thought how hefty you're on because you're such an expert. We're gonna dive into a little bit into your background, but you're an absolute sleep expert. So I'm really keen to help my audience with their sleep, and their sleep patterns, and all of that good stuff. But before we get into that, we were just chatting about genetics and endurance. So, give us a little background. You've been a Navy SEAL. You've been in the military, in the naval military. So give us a bit of background on yourself, personally. Dr Kirk: Yes. So ironically, I actually dropped out of high school. I was a terrible student my whole life, didn't have any interest in school. And after you don't do well for long enough, you just convince yourself that you can't do well. And so you're just, ‘I'm just done. I can’t do it’. I was always very physical, very athletic. Just fortunately, genetic lottery, I won, just be an athletic and strong guy. And it came pretty easy to me. But I worked hard at it because I didn't do school work. So when I dropped out of high school, to join the military and do the hardest training in the world. And that was what the SEAL training was supposed to be, as the toughest training in the world like, ‘Well, I'm gonna go do that.’ So I went to do that.  This was a way long time ago. This is 1988. So, it was long before anybody knew what SEALs were. They didn't have the notoriety they have now for sure. And when I would come home from the Navy and tell people as I was a Sealer, like, ‘What do you mean, you work for SeaWorld or something? What do you do?’ Kinda. So, I went through SEAL training, I would say I made it through SEAL training, I became a SEAL. That was pre-9/11, obviously. So we didn't have the combat that the SEALs of this generation do. So it's not really comparable. We were still mainly working in Southeast Asia doing police work and training other militaries.  I did three deployments. It was really the same thing over, and over, and over again because there was no combat. So you just did the same training, and then you deployed, and then came home, and you did the same training. And of course, I was like, ‘Maybe, I'll go do something else.’ And I thought I would be—I was dating a woman who would become my wife. She was getting a master's in physical therapy. And I was reading her textbooks on deployment to make myself a better athlete. And I thought, maybe I could be a physical therapist. And so I started working, I started volunteering in a physical therapy facility in San Diego, called San Diego Sports Medicine Center. And it had every kind of health care provider you could possibly imagine. And this building, it’s just this healthcare Mecca. It’s the most holistic thing I've ever seen to this day.  I decided pretty quickly, I didn't want to be a physical therapist, but I don’t know what else I wanted to do. But I got to follow the podiatrist around, and acupuncturist, and massage therapists, and athletic trainers, and conditioning coaches, and the orthopedist, and the family practice, and the sportsmen. I just got to follow them around and see how everybody worked. And a group of young doctors there, who were probably only five or six years older than me, and they were saying, ‘Well, you should go to medical school.’ And I was like, ‘Pump the brakes, kiddo. I didn't even graduate high school. I'm not getting into medical school.’ And then the senior doctor overhears the conversation. He comes out of the office. And he says, ‘Kirk, the question isn't, “Can you get in?” The question is, “Would you go if you've got in?”’ And I said, ‘Of course, I’d go.’ So, well, there you have it. So, he sort of shamed me into it/  I studied hard and got really good grades. And then when it came time to apply for medical school, this was pre-Internet, so you had to go to the bookstore and get your book review and look and see what schools are competitive for. And when I was going through one of those books, I found out that the military had their medical school. The military was a closed chapter in my mind. I'd done that. That’s something that I figured I'd always do in my life. But it was never meant to be my whole life. And so I had done that. I was, I figured I was done. But I was already married and had kids. And I was like, ‘Well, the military will pay me to go to medical school. Or I can pay someone else to go to medical school and my wife can work while we're in medical school.’  I made enough to support my family and go to medical school for free. And then to pay off in the military’s, they'll train you to do anything. You have to give them years of service and your job. So once you finish your medical training, you have to be a doctor for the military for eight years. And so I figured, ‘I'll get back to the SEAL teams, I'll go pay something back to the community that helped me, was hugely formidable in who I became in my life.’ And went back to the SEAL teams, really well-prepped to do sports medicine and orthopedics. And I knew quite a bit about nutrition, and performance, and strength and conditioning. I was pretty sure I had the exact pedigree. When I got there, they had just gotten the money to build a sports medicine facility, which was actually their vision was exactly what I told you that I worked in in college. That's exactly what they wanted to build. I'm like, ‘I got this.’ So they put me in charge of building this out. And I was a significant part of us hiring everyone we hired. So we hired our first strength and conditioning coach, our first nutritionist, our first PT, our first everything.  We built our own sports medicine facility. And then orthopedics was coming through every week, and they had to do rounds there. And we'd have pain rounds, pain management rounds come through. We had an acupuncturist coming through. And we hired all these people from the Olympic Training Center, and professional sports teams, and the best colleges. And so, we had all these brilliant people who knew way more than I did about what they do.  Lisa: So you went from there to there.  Dr Kirk: Yeah. And so at that point, I was the dumbest person around, right? Because we had all these experts in every little niche that I knew this much about. We hired experts who knew that much about. And so in the military, when you're the dumbest guy, they put you in charge, right and say, ‘Well, you manage this,’ right? And so, I’m managing all these people who know more than I do, however that works. But my office was in this facility that we built.  The SEALs are a lot like professional athletes in that you put them on a bench, so to speak, right? Because they're injured, they need some help. So they can't work. It's the worst thing. Worst thing. So when they see a health care provider, they just lie because they don't want to be— Lisa:  They don’t wanna be taken out.  Dr Kirk Parsley: They will take money out of their pocket, and go into the city, and find a doctor to treat them so that the doctor at work doesn't know, so they don't get put on the sideline. But because I was a SEAL, and there were still a lot of SEALs at the SEAL team. It was close enough to my time. There are still a lot of SEALs at the team who I worked with, and I trained with, and deployed with. And so they knew me. And I had a good reputation. And so they trusted me, and they come in my office and they say, ‘Let me tell you what's going on with me.’  They reported this litany of symptoms that didn't have any pattern that I could recognise. And so they were saying that their motivation was low, that they're very moody, that they couldn't concentrate. They're super forgetful. Their energy was low. Their body composition was shifting. They felt slower, and dumber, and colder. None of them were sleeping very well. They're all taking sleep drugs. They had low sex drive. They had a lot of joint pain, a lot of inflammation. And I didn't have the slightest idea. I’m like, ‘And I know it sounds like you're obese and 65. But I’m looking at you and you’re not. So I don't know what's going on.’  I just started testing everything I could possibly test. I tested literally 98 blood markers. They were giving 17 vials of blood. Now just shotgun approaches, test everything, and see what's abnormal. And I started seeing some patterns. And they had really low anabolic hormones, so the DBTA, and testosterone, and dihydrotestosterone, pregnenolone. All of that was low. They really have high inflammatory markers. They really had poor insulin sensitivity for how healthy I knew they were, and how well they ate, and how much they exercised. But it's still within the normal range. But it wasn't. Everything was in the normal range. But everything that should be really high was just like barely in the normal range. And everything that should be really low, it's just barely inside of that range. They didn't have a disease. And I was a medical doctor, so I had learned how to treat disease, then they didn't have disease. So I was like, ‘I don’t know. What am I going to do?’ So that led me to having to train with outside providers. And fortunately, at that time, the SEALs did have the reputation. They'd already done all these amazing things. This was in 2009. So, I think they'd already shot Bin Laden and at that point. So I could call anybody, right? I'd watch somebody’s TED Talk, read their book, I'd see them lecture. And I’ll just call them and say, ‘I’m a doctor for the West Coast SEAL team. Could I come train with you? Can I consult with you? Can I ask you some questions?’ And everybody was generous and said, ‘Absolutely’. So I get to learn a lot really quickly. I take a lot of leave from work and just go sit in these guys’ clinics for four or five days. And just pick their brain, go see patients with them, and take notes, and learn. And then I just call them every time I have a question. And I just got to learn really quickly. It’s like this team of experts who knew everything about the alternative world.  I was trying to treat people for adrenal fatigue. And I was trying to treat people for vitamin and mineral deficiencies, which are obvious from what was going on. And I couldn't quite figure out what it was. And about 100 patients into it, and probably after 30 guys came in, I could have told everybody, they could just sit down. I'll tell you what you're going to tell me. I could have just just route it off; it's so similar. And about 100 guys into it, embarrassing that it took so long, but I remember this guy telling me that he took Ambien every night. What do you guys call it? Stilnox, I think, right?  I was married to an Aussie, so I know a lot. I mean, I know you're not an Aussie, but I know a little bit about your world, as in your language. And I remember putting a note in the margin, ‘Seems like a lot of guys take an Ambien.’ Then I go back through everybody's records, 100% of the guys who had been in my office were taking Ambien. So I thought, ‘Well, maybe that's an issue, right?’ So, let me go look at the side effects of Ambien. And it was a fairly new drug. And the pharmaceutical industry, they get to cherry-pick their data. So they were like, ‘Oh, it's the safest drug ever. There's nothing, no problems.’ And I'm like, ‘I don’t quite believe that.’  Unfortunately, like every other doctor in America, I didn't know anything about sleep. I never had a single class on sleep in medical school, didn't have the foggiest idea what should be happening. I knew what you called a mechanism of action on this drug, which means molecularly what does it do. Well, it binds GABA receptors and has an effect called GABA analog, and benzodiazepines are the same, things like Valium. And so that's about as much as I knew, Well, what is GABA doing? What is GABA supposed to do? And then you can't really understand that without understanding what's actually going on in sleep.  Then, I had to learn about sleep physiology. And what's supposed to happen during sleep? And what are the normal shifts and changes? And what does that do? And if that doesn't happen, what effects do you get? So after studying quite a bit, I figured out the general Occam's razor principle of the thing with the least assumptions is, literally, every single symptom that these men told me about, could be explained by poor sleep.  Now, I didn't think that it would be, right? I wasn't naive, but it could have, then, right? So if this was definitely the most powerful thing, because being a Western doctor I wanted to give them Cortef and raise their cortisol. I wanted to give them testosterone and raise their testosterone. I wanted to get like, I wanted to give them medication to improve their insulin sensitivity. I wanted to just go in there and do it. But I couldn't do that, right? Because you can't give SEALs medication that they're dependent upon. Because then, what if they go out on the field, and they don't have their medication, they can't do their job and it’s a waste. So that puts people on the bench, that disqualifies people. So I couldn't do that.  I had to figure out, well, what else can I do? So like I said, sleep seemed like the unifying theory. So let me see about that. And this was right around the time that everybody was catching on to the important vitamin B3. And that was associated with poor sleep. So, I tested all my guys. Every one of them had low vitamin B3. So I'm like, ‘Yeah, I'm going to give them vitamin B3. I'm going to be a hero. Everyone is gonna love me. I'm the best doctor ever.’ And it helped a little bit. But it wasn't everything.  Like I said, I had this epiphany with this sleep drug. And once I learned enough about the sleep drug, you aren't actually sleeping when you're on sleep drugs. You're just unconscious. Your brain is dissociated, but it's not sleep. Because sleep has to have, as one of its criteria, you have to have this predictable sleep architecture. You have to be going through these sleep cycles that take you through these different stages. And a particular pattern is repetitive, and it's primarily deep sleep in the beginning of the night, and almost exclusively REM sleep by morning, and you have to do that transition.  If you don't do that, then it's not sleep. It can be partially sleep, if you're just getting poor sleep. But I was having these guys do sleep studies. And they were coming back with 99.9% of their sleep study being stage 2 sleep, which is just the transition. It’s what we call a transitional sleep phase. So it's not deep sleep or REM. So they weren't really getting any of the benefits of sleep. And of course, that's an oversimplification. They're obviously getting something, or they'd be dead. But we don't know what they're getting.  That’s all we know is that healthy sleep does this, and when you go through these cycles, we know these things happen. Like when you're in deep sleep, we know that's when you're the most anabolic, and you're secreting your anabolic hormones like growth hormone, and testosterone, and DHEA is being ramped up, your immune system’s being ramped up. We know this happens. And then we know in REM sleep, what's going on in the brain: the physiological changes, forming more durable neural tracks, that neurological memories, shifting things from working memory into long term memory, pruning off useless information, these little buttons that grow on the side of your nerves that are starting to bud new information. You're like, ‘I don't need that.’ You clean up all that. You get rid of weak products and you get the brain working better.  The whole purpose of going to sleep tonight is to prepare myself for tomorrow, right? Whatever I do today, that's what my brain and body are gonna think it needs to do tomorrow. It's gonna use today as a template to try to make me better tomorrow at doing what I did today. And if I don't get enough sleep, if I don't get to restore, I still have to do tomorrow. And how do I do that? Well, I do it the same way you do anything. I’m stressed out. I use Marinol and a bunch of cortisol and DHEA. And I start robbing all my nutrients for my cells. My blood glucose is going up, I'm getting fuel sources that way, epinephrine and norepinephrine stimulate my brain and my tissues to be able to get energy where there’s really no energy there. And then I'm going to bed with these really high stress hormones, which are supposed to be low when I sleep, and then I'm trying to sleep with high stress hormones. Then, I get worse sleep. Then, I need more stress hormones tomorrow. And that's what breaks people.  In fact, when you see somebody who doesn't sleep well for even six months, they look so much older. ‘Why does he look old? That doesn't make sense. Is it just because they're tired? Is it tired old?’ But if you think about it, you're born into this contract. You're born into this contract; you can't get around. It's just like you're born knowing you're going to die, 100% certain you're going to die. There's also this other contract that certainly is your body ideally worked for about 16 hours, and it needs eight hours to recover. That's the way it works. That's what you're born into. There's small variations there. But obviously, you can't get around that.  If you don't get those 8 hours, you didn't recover from those 16 hours. And so if you think about it logically, obviously, when you're a kid, you need more sleep. So it's not a great example, when you're really young. Kids actually sleep a lot more than eight hours by and large, but you see them actually getting better every day, right? They're growing. They're getting smarter. They're getting more coordinated. You can see that every day. But if you think about, say, like, once you hit 25, and your brain’s fully formed, and everything's static. If you could recover 100% every night, and wake up the next morning as good as you were that other morning, you wouldn't age, right? There would be no aging because you would have recovered 100%.  Lisa: It’s very important, yep.  Dr Kirk: Everything that you're deficient in, if you're missing 10%, you're going to age that 10%. And if you're missing a little more, you're going to age faster. So when you see people who haven't been sleeping well for a year, they are literally older because they've been recovering less and less every night. So yeah, there's a breakdown in their protein structure. There's decrease in their blood supply, their peripheral vascularisation. Their tissues are aging. There’s a buildup of waste products that aren't getting out, and that's toxic. And that’s damaging the mitochondria and forming more senescent cells, and all these other things, they're building up. And every marker that we have, even genetic marker, when you look at your children and linked methylation on the genes. Every marker, they look older. And then when you look at them, they look older. That’s why.  That's really what aging is. It's really just the absence of being able to recover 100% every night. And as we get older, we just don't repair as fast. And that's, unfortunately, when most people quit sleeping as much. And now that's double whammy there. You're getting twice the aging effects that way. And there's no reason to sleep less when you’re old. It’s typical, but it's not something you have to do. I've had 84-year-old women who haven't slept more than 4 or 5 hours in 20 years, and I get them to sleep eight hours a night.  Lisa: I've got one over there who's rustling around, walking around behind me. She’s 80 years old, nearly. Hey, mum. And she's struggling with sleep in the early morning hours. And therefore, you know her memory and things. So I want to pick your brain on that. Can I just slow you down a little bit because we just covered a ton of ground here. Dr Kirk: You just asked me about myself, and I just couldn't stop. Lisa: No, but you were on an absolute roll. So I didn't want to interrupt you because there was so many things, but my brain’s just going like, ‘There's so many questions!’  Dr Kirk: That was just meant to be an overview.  Lisa: That was an overview. Now can we dive deeper into some of the weeds because now I understand why you've become, classically, the sleep expert because obviously that was the biggest leverage. In other words, this is the biggest leverage point that you see. When we think of the SEALs, we think of the SEALs as being these gods of amazingness that can do everything. But what you're saying is like these guys are pushing their limits: endurance, and in fatigue, and all things like that. And so they're going to be the Canaries in the Gold Mines in a way because they're going to be coming up against the limits of everything.  For you to say, as an ultra marathon, so I’ve come up against the limits in certain ways, like with sleep deprivation. And I sort of understand some of the things now that you were talking about. So you've ended up finding out that this is probably the biggest leverage point in anybody's life, basically, for their health is their sleep. So people, take a bit of a grip on that one. It's not necessarily the food or nutrition, it's the sleep. Would you agree? Dr Kirk: When I first started lecturing, I used to say there were four pillars of health: sleep, nutrition, exercise. And then the fourth pillar is audience dependent. It could be mindfulness, stress medication, it could be community, whatever it is that controls your stress hormones, and your emotions, and your mood, and all that stuff. Then after a while, I shift to there's three pillars sitting on the foundation of sleep. Because if you take the sleep away, none of those are going to work. There’s nothing you can do. In fact, if you exercise when you're sleep deprived, it's counterproductive because you're not recovering. And we all know that you don't actually get better when you exercise. You damage yourself when you exercise. Then when you sleep, you recover, and you come back stronger. When you deprive yourself of sleep, you change your entire gut biome, you change your insulin sensitivity. You change everything here. And now your nutritional status doesn't work anymore. And when you don't sleep well, as I said, you increase your stress hormones. So you can do the mindfulness training and all of that stuff, meditate and all that, but you're just going to bring yourself down maybe to where you would have been if you just slept well and didn't do any kind of training.  It's really the foundation for everything. And I say that all the time. It sounds hyperbolic, but I'm 100% convinced it’s true. There's nothing that you can do that will, nothing that will break you faster than poor sleep, and poor and insufficient sleep. There's a reason we use it as an interrogation technique.  Lisa: Exactly. Yeah.  Dr Kirk: There's a reason we break people down, intentionally, this way because it depletes all your resources. It interferes with your brain function, your willpower, your problem solving, your speech, your ability to formulate plans, your motivation, your mood. Everything goes almost instantaneously with one night of lack of asleep. Never mind keeping somebody up for three or four days in a row. They're just a mess. They’re just in input mode. They just want you to just, ‘Tell me whatever I have to do. I’d do it. Then I'll sleep. Anything I can do to get sleep, I'll do it.’ You don't have to rip people's fingernails out of stuff. You just deprive them from sleep.  Conversely, there's nothing that will improve the quality of your life and your performance faster than sleeping. Well, if you're an inadequate sleeper, which most people are. They don't even know they are. Everybody has these 30-day challenges and 60-day challenges. I'm like, ‘I only need seven days.’ Again, one week where sleep is your number one priority. And you do everything right, and you get eight hours of sleep, at least eight and a half hours in bed every night, and you're sleeping approximately eight hours a night. And give me that for a week. And then, if you're not convinced this the most powerful thing, go back to wherever you're going. But nobody's ever gone back.  Lisa: A lot of us, I can hear people saying, ‘Yeah, but I go to bed, and I can't sleep. And I wake up at 2 am. And my brain is racing and I've been told to do some meditation. And maybe it's my cortisol.’ Let's look now because if we haven't got the message across now that sleep is the number one thing that you should be prioritising about everything that you do, we haven't done very well for the last half an hour.  How do we sleep? What foods do we need to eat before we go to bed or not eat? What supplements can we take? You've got your sleep remedy that we'll get into a little bit. What routine can I do to optimise? What light-dark cycles? All of these things that can be leveraged points for us in optimising our sleep. And how do we test that we're actually in that deep-sleep phase? What are one of the best tools that you've found to work that out? So that was a mouthful, but yeah. Dr Kirk: So the first thing we need to do is get away from that phonetic question right there, which is what everybody's going through in their heads up like, ‘What about this? What about that?’ And so my job is to make this really simple. Because simple things we can do, and the more nuanced your plan is around sleep, the more likely it is to fail. And we're doing big, macro movements here. So the very first thing is, what you said, I think we've already covered. The very first thing is to convince yourself that sleep is the most important thing. And to make it your priority for at least one week to get everything going.  Now, when I say your priority, I mean the true meaning of that word. There's only one thing there's nothing else, that’s the one, including raising your kids, and your dog, and your exercise routine, and everything else. The most important thing is to sleep. The most important thing for winning. If you aren't quite convinced yet go to PubMed, or go to Google Scholar, or something like this, then put in sleep and anything else you care about: being a parent, mood, dating, sex drive, athleticism, strength, endurance, concentration, memory, I don't care. Whatever it is you care about—strength and this, strength and business, strength and I don't care. Anything you want.  Read to your heart's content. It will convince you that the one good thing about sleep, in the sleep sciences, it’s not actually controversial. There's no one out there saying, ‘Oh, you don't really need to sleep.’ Everybody agrees. There's nuances and people are different. Everybody agrees you need about eight hours of sleep a night. And just convince yourself that is the most important thing. Once you're there, that's the most important thing.  After that, recognise, ‘Okay. I'm going to make this my number one priority.’ Recognise that you're born to sleep. You don't need to learn; you need to unlearn some stuff, right? You're designed to do this. And this should feel good. You should enjoy sleeping. You should usually look forward to going to bed and waking up in the morning, like, ‘Man, I feel so much better. I'm ready to go do my day.’ This should be as easy as selling sex but it's not. People resist this forever. I have no idea why. It's great. Why don't you like sleep? I’ve always liked sleep. So then you just think, ‘Okay, when did sleep go bad for humankind?’ Probably in the last seventy years.  Lisa: Yeah, when we got electric light.  Dr Kirk: That's about it, right? It's only been, really since rural electrification, right? Since they got electricity out to everybody. That's really when it started. When you look back in America just 100 years ago, look at people's journals in the winter, they spent like 14 hours a day in bed. That’s a certain thing they do. So if you think about it, and just say, ‘I know this is simple. I'm going to let myself fall into it.’ And then I'll tell you, there's all the sleep hygiene. You can get on the Internet, and you can find, ‘Oh, do this. Drink a hot cup of tea. Drink milk. Do this. Make your room really cold. Make your room really dark. Make your bed really soft. Make your bed really hard. And get a white noise machine. Get rid of all the EMF.’ A million people are going to tell you all sorts of different things to do. And I'll cut through all the BS, and then you can pick and choose. The real answer is all of that stuff works, to some extent. All of that's important to some extent. The way I work with clients is at least 95% of all the successes is from lifestyle. And then all these little gadgets, and your mitigation tools, and supplements, and all this stuff back, that’s the other 5. It’s 95% behavioural. So you just look back, how did we evolve to sleep? Nobody teaches people how to sleep, right? You're born as a baby; you sleep. So how did we sleep as adults in cultures 100 years ago? Well, when the sun went down, we fell asleep about three hours later, and we woke up around the time the sun came up. It was pretty much that easy.  Okay, so let's reverse engineer that a little bit. I think most people know that blue light is a stimulus for being awake. We don't truly have a sleeping program. If you think of it like software, we don't have any sleeping software. We just have lack of awakening software. So we have things that go on in our brain and body that make us still awake and make us interact with our environment. And then when you take those things away, we're in what we call sleep. The blue light, actually, has nothing to do with the vision. There's nerve cells in the back of your eyes. It senses blue light. That's all they do. And then they fire pathways back to the circadian pathway membrane, essentially. And then the pineal gland secretes melatonin. The melatonin is a hormone, the starter pistol. It initiates all these cascades. And then one of the cascades that it initiates is the production of this peptide called GABA, capital G-A-B-A, gamma-Aminobutyric acid. And what that does is it slows down the neocortex.  When you think of the human brain, the picture of the human brain, we all have that big, wrinkly, massive crescent shape. That's what we call the neocortex. And that is how we interact with the world, right? All of our senses get processed in that, and then all of our movement is processed from that, right? So when we're asleep, all that's really different with our sleep, about in a general sense, right? There's nuances in every neuron and every molecule. And then, in the neural sense, there's a barrier between us and our environment is how it's phrased. What it means is we aren't paying attention to our environment anymore. Our eyes obviously still work, right? You can turn the light and you can wake somebody up. Our ears still work, you can make your noise and wake somebody up. Our sense of touch still works. You can shake somebody. They can roll into something sharp, and their pain receptors will wake them up. Heat will wake them up. Cold will wake them. So we still work. Everything still works. We start processing it. We’re not paying attention to it.  What helps us do that is GABA. So GABA involves neurons. A neuron has what’s called a resting potential. So there's like an electrical current in here. And when you put in enough electrical current, it goes like this. And that neuron fires. And then, does whatever it does and forms pathways. Well, GABA lowers that. Now, it takes more energy to make that thing fire. And you can overcome this by just putting a lot of energy into the cells. So if you've ever been exhausted, woken up exhausted, didn't get enough sleep for whatever reason. Like, ‘I'm going to go to work. I’m gonna come home. I’m going straight to bed. I'm gonna sleep 12 hours a day.’ And then your friends talk you into going out or you get a cup of a drink. You stay up ‘til midnight, ‘I feel fine.’ And then you suffer again the next day, right? Because you just overcame that.  You can actually read about this because this still exists, believe it or not, they're still I think 35 or 45 pretty large communities around the globe that have never experienced electricity. And they just lived like hunters and gatherers. They go out. And the men go out and hunt. And the women pick, and nurture their kids, and weave. And just when you think of your caveman doing, they still live like that today. And we study these people. And we did actigraphy. So it's not true sleep, say. It's just movement to know when they're likely to be asleep. And what we find is, the sun goes down. Again, the blue light goes out of their eyes. It fires, the brain starts secreting melatonin that leads to a cascade of 365 billion other chemical changes in the brain, right? But that initiation has to happen. Once that initiation is going, one of the things it does is secrete GABA, increase GABA production in lots of regions of the brain that starts slowing the brain down.  The sun goes down. They don't have electricity, right? The best they have is a fire. So what else happens? Their body temperature goes down. So when the sun goes down and it is dark, we can't see well at night, we can't see very far. So there's way less stimulus, right? They don't have flashing lights. They don't have loud music. So there's not much to stimulate them. So they sit around a fire. Maybe if they're lucky, if not, they just stare around the dark, and they have some quiet, calm conversations, and then they drift off to sleep.  That's all sleep hygiene is. That's it. Those three things: decrease the blue light, decrease the stimulation to your brain, and drop your body temperature. You need a cool place to sleep. One of the things that you can do to speed these things up is to concentrate the right nutrients in your brain. If you are going to take melatonin and just take a very, very, very, very small amount. You just want to initiate. You don't want to put so much melatonin in your brain that your brain doesn't need to make melatonin because then you start running insensitivity to melatonin, and now when you take it away, you don't have, you're essentially melatonin deficient because you've downregulated the receptors, and your brain is not sensitive to melatonin anymore. Lisa: Can I just stop in the first, one second. Dr John Lieurance is his name and he was on the Ben Greenfield podcast, and he's written a book about melatonin. And he argued that melatonin, interesting work, doesn't downregulate when you take melatonin, and doesn't cause that downregulation. All the other hormones do. If we take testosterone, we're going to downregulate our own testosterone, if we take right whatever. He said that they didn't. And he was advocating in his book for actually, super-physiological doses of melatonin. Certainly when you're doing things like jetlag, or whatever you're trying to reset, but also for a raft of other ailments to help with many diseases. Have you heard of his work or? Dr Kirk: I’m familiar with him and his work.  Lisa: Yeah. What's your take on that? Because I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ Dr Kirk: So, I disagree, obviously.  Lisa: Yeah. That’s what I want to know. Dr Kirk: But specifically, so what he's talking about, 90% of his work is about the antioxidant. Lisa: Yes. Is it an antioxidant? Yep.  Dr Kirk: The studies that he's quoting are saying that melatonin doesn't downregulate. We don't know for sure. It's like, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. The only way we would know is if we could actually drop a catheter into somebody's brain and sample their fluid in their brain 24 hours a day and study this over months. And so we can't say for sure. We can do animal models. Again, it's hard to quantify because from the time the sun goes down, which is about three hours before you'll fall asleep, to the entire time you slept, until the sun comes up, you're looking at somewhere between 11 and 12 hours. That entire time your brain will only produce five to six micrograms of melatonin.  Lisa: Tiny amount. Dr Kirk: So how do we study, right? It's really hard to study, and you think of it in a mouse model, how much smaller the quantities are we're looking at that point. And the concentration of melatonin in each region of the brain is not the same, it depends on some cells in the brain can actually be stimulated by melatonin. It's somewhere. It’s different. And same with GABA. GABA doesn't go to every region of the brain because it can stimulate regions of the brain. But what we do know, so first, I always go with, we don’t know anything. We have research that makes us believe certain things are likely to be true based on the best science we have right now. So we don't know anything. And I believe that to be true about everything in science. Just wait a week, it might change. But what we do know is that every other hormone does this.  Lisa: Yes.  Dr Kirk: But if it doesn't do this, it's the only hormone in the body that doesn't. Pretty unlikely. But what we do know with 100% certainty is that it does downregulate melatonin receptors. Lisa: Right. Dr Kirk: It can take away melatonin receptors. If I normally have 10 melatonin receptors, and I go down to just having one, now even if I'm sprayed with melatonin, I only have one. And I have to have this supersaturation for this one receptor to do all this work. And if I go down to normal physiologic levels of melatonin and this one receptor, there's just getting an occasional melatonin coming by, I'm going to be, it's no different. It doesn't matter whether I'm not producing enough, or I don't have enough receptors, it's the same end result. You have to have melatonin binders stuffing pulled into the cell to have it function. Lisa: So can I ask one question there like, so for elderly, who, from what I understand, in my basic research on melatonin, is that their melatonin production goes down with age, and, therefore, they could benefit from melatonin supplementation. Is that a thing or? Dr Kirk: Yeah, I agree. And so what happens is that the pineal gland calcifies just like our arteries. And every vessel, everything in our body calcifies, right. That's sort of aging. Lisa: One of the majors.  Dr Kirk: And so it calcifies, and you do almost certainly secrete less melatonin, right? And again, the only way we would know is to drop a catheter into somebody's brain. But I'm not saying that you shouldn't take melatonin at all. I'm just saying you shouldn't take super physiologic. So his example of when you're speaking about the melatonin work earlier, right? His example is, well, this is a great antioxidant. Now, if I do these super physiologic amounts, there's all these benefits to it. Well, if I give you 10 times the amount of testosterone that your body ordinarily has, you're gonna feel fantastic. If I give you something that secretes a bunch of epinephrine and norepinephrine, like cocaine. And you have this huge rush of norepinephrine; you feel fantastic. And you're super productive, and your brain’s really sharp. Does that make that a good idea? I don't think so. I don't deal with anything super physiologic.  Again, I'm the behaviourist, and 95% of all your health is going to come from re-approximating the way you revolt. This body takes hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to this planet. And now we're just like, ‘No, we're smarter. Like I’m a 35-year-old biohacker. I read a bunch of books. I know I can do it better than–” We know nothing about the body. Lisa: Can we all mean for people–we also know that people tend to die. If we wanted to extend our healthspan and their lifespan, but healthspan mainly, can we, with hormone replacement therapy, there's a raging argument: should you be on hormone replacement therapy, should you not? If you’re wanting to optimise. Now, there's downsides. And you need to understand your genetics, and you need to understand all of those aspects.  There is benefits for us to taking testosterone or DHEA or all these things in the right physiological doses of, say, a 30-year-old, like, I'm 50 or 52, I want to be at the level that I was, say at 30–35. I understand my genetics, I know where my risk factors are. I can keep an eye on all of that sort of stuff. Can I all meet that so that I live and function longer? Because I think the core question here is how do we optimise? Yes, we've developed like cavemen but then they die at 70–80, as well. Can we extend that with the knowledge that we currently have? Dr Kirk: Well, so I don't ever promise anybody that I can make them live longer. I say, ‘You might live longer from this.’ If you think about it, think about it this way: at first, we talk about what sleep does, right? And if we could catch up every night, we wouldn't age. So what are we doing when we're doing things like hormone-replacement therapy? We're doing metabolomics. And we're doing all sorts of supplementation around that, or we're doing artificial things like hyperbaric, and near-far IR sauna, and ice baths, and doing all these steps to stimulate the production of the thing.  Of course, now we have antibiotics, and we have all sorts of treatments to keep people from dying as young from certain diseases. So certainly, we should be able to either, probably add years to your life. But if not, definitely we can add life to your years, right? If you're going to die at 80 either way, one version of this, you could die hiking Mount Kilimanjaro, another one you're dying in a little chair in a nursing home. So I don't know.  The question is, even with the longevity work that people are doing, really smart guys like Sinclair and all these guys are doing all these things, and they're doing all these things with clearing senescent cells, we're doing all these things with peptides. And now I give my patients peptides for certain things. I don't know nearly as much about the longevity stuff as I’d like to. And we and we're reversing aging genetically, right? We're going in there and saying, ‘Actually, over the course of a year, with a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of tries, a lot of modalities, really focusing on your lifestyle and doing everything. Ideally, we can actually, probably, reverse your genetic age a little bit.’ Are we actually reversing age? I don't know, we made your telomeres longer. The increased the methylation on your genes, and those are markers for age, does that reverse it? We don't really know, right?  Lisa: We haven’t been around long enough to work it out.  Dr Kirk: Right. It's like with omega-3s. If your omega-3s are this, then we know that certain things go this way. Well, but if we supplement your omega-3s, is that the same as you having that nutritionally. Or vitamin B3? Is that the same? We don't know. We're thinking that it probably is. And we're thinking if we're reversing the markers we know for genetic aging that's making you genetically younger. But maybe there's some totally different information in there on aging that we don't know anything about yet. That's possible, too.  I think from what I know about you, you probably agree with me. I think epigenetics is more important than genetics, anyway. You have certain genetics and you change half a dozen things about your day, and your epigenetics are totally different. If you short yourself 2 hours of sleep, you change 735 different epigenetic markers from just 2 hours. All your pro-inflammatory ones are the ones turning on, and all of your anabolic ones are the ones turning off. And again–  Lisa: That's still the biggest leverage point, isn't it?  Dr Kirk: It’s still a crazy complex to think that you can decipher what 735 changes in epigenetics mean. We have some ideas of what certain things, how does all that work in synchronicity, but even though we're the smartest animal on this planet, we still have a very feeble mind. Lisa: We’re still dumb.  Dr Kirk: When it comes to understanding the complexity of our bodies, we can't understand the complexity of the planet, much less our bodies. And life is just this amazingly complex thing. We don't have systems in our body. We divide the body up in systems as a way to learn it so that we can systematically learn and we can test about the learning, but the body doesn't work in systems. Lisa: I have such an issue with it, too. It's nothing like the way that the medical model breaks us all down. Dr Kirk: The reductionist model doesn't work for life. And if you think about it, most of biology is purely descriptive. All of it is, we've come up with better and better ways to test things and look at things, and then we can describe what's going on. We don't know how to manipulate it most of the time. If we do, it's really clumsy. And it's causing 500 other changes because we wanted to flip this one switch this way. Then what are the downstream effects? We don't know. We'll find out in like 30 years after 100,000 people go through this. It's really clumsy.  I don't know if can I make somebody live longer. I'd never make that claim. But can I make people look, feel, and perform better? Absolutely. I can do it all the time. And me, personally, like you're saying, I just approximate use. Their arguments, there are people out there saying, ‘Well, these hormones will cause this or that.’ I’m like, ‘Okay. If high estrogen levels cause breast cancer, why don’t young women get breast cancer? Older women, they're the ones who are getting breast cancer, why?’ That thing with men and prostate cancer, giving them testosterone is gonna cause prostate. No, it's not. If that were true, then a 20-year-old would have prostate cancer, and a 60-year-old wouldn’t, right? It's a lack of this. And I think breast cancer is a lot like prostate cancer. What we know with prostate cancer now is that if you give somebody testosterone, and they already have prostate cancer, they’re sensitive to androgen, then you can expose them. Lisa: You can ignite it. Dr Kirk: Or women have found for 5 or 10 more years, maybe. I think breast cancer is the same way. And it just makes sense. And so– Lisa: And how you clearing out your liver and all that strain, all of those things that those changes that happen, but yeah, totally.  Dr Kirk: And also, every single mechanism that I just talked about that is reversing aging, or slowing aging, or whatever the phrase you want to use. Every single one of those things is improving mitochondrial density, improving mitochondrial function, and doing– There’s a thing that’s called neovascularisation and angiogenesis. So it's improving blood supply. It's improving lymphatic flow, and it's improving mitochondrial density and mitochondrial functioning. That's pretty much health, right? I'm sorry, what was your question on— Lisa: The mitochondrial aspect of it. I truly believe that's the core of so many of these diseases. If we can get our mitochondria, and it’s just not easy than that. And if we can get those working properly, and we can– that's the downstroke, the most lowest level where we can and again, sleep and things become the leverage point. Dr Kirk: Right. And if you think about what all of the health crazes are moving towards, all those things are doing that, right? So the ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting, both of these things are increasing mitochondrial density. Both are increasing mitochondrial function. They’re both really anti-inflammatory. Anti-inflammatory leads to higher blood supply, better immune function. Immune function is anabolic, right? So that’s what’s repairing and building things back up. The near-far IR sauna’s doing same thing: mitochondrial density, mitochondrial functioning, hyperbaric oxygenation, decreasing cytokines, inflammatory cytokines, increasing the oxygen saturation throughout all the cells, causing new blood vessels to form, carrying more. And it's all mitochondrial density.  What else are we doing? Cold ice baths. I suppose it is trying to increase, they're going to increase your blood flow to save you from freezing, right? And how you're going to do that? It has to grow new blood vessels, and how's it got to do that? It's got to get more energy. Well, how's it going to do that? It’s got to make more mitochondria. All of this stuff. And the other thing that does is it increases things like BDNF, so it’s helping to repair and restore our brains and then that's leading to better hormone functions because our brain is the hormone master; it’s the orchestra leaders, the maestro. Your pineal gland, and pituitary, that's where everything's coming from. Lisa: Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing the Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years, and we need your help to keep it on air. It's been a public service free for everybody. And we want to keep it that way. But to do that, we need like-minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a patron for Pushing the Limits Podcast, then check out everything on patron.lisatamati.com. That's p-a-t-r-o-n dot Lisa Tamati dot com. We have two patron levels to choose from, you can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand or $15 a month if you really want to support us.  So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us; everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power divider, and future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much, much more. So check out all the details, patron.lisatamati.com. And thanks very much for joining us.  Can I ask you a little bit, because I know that you have done hyperbaric work in your naval days. And I've got a hyperbaric right behind me, there in the corner. And I'm very big on it. And it was a cornerstone of my mother's rehabilitation after a massive aneurysm and brain injury. What's your take on it in regards to brain injuries in regards to concussions, which is in epidemic levels in our world? And also for things like dementia and Alzheimer's? Without obviously, being your absolute area of expertise. But what is your take on hyperbaric for all of these things? Dr Kirk: So I think hyperbarics is actually going to turn out to be the most effective tool in the toolbox. I think you have to use all the tools. And I have all the tools at my house. Right? I don't have hyperbarics. So I just actually came back from doing a couple of months of hyperbarics in Tampa, and I have a great recommendation for guests if you want to talk to somebody who really knows hyperbarics, and he's a longtime friend of mine. I was in the Navy with him, who's a Navy master diver, and he's just got his PhD in biomedical engineering, and he has a hyperbarics facility. He did the first research paper on the long haulers for COVID, reversing all the long hauling syndromes. He's done a paper on Lyme disease. He's doing a paper right now on dysarthria from strokes and others, and he and I were investigating brain injuries, TBI.  Lisa: Wow. I definitely want to meet this guy.  Dr Kirk: Yeah, so I was the guinea pig. And then another SEAL friend of mine. Because SEALs my age have the most problems, right? They usually are at this age. But I have my best friend from SEAL training. So he’s just my best friend overall. He was in the SEAL teams for 26 years, nearly 26,27,28 combat deployments. So he’s been blown up with a grenade, he's been blind in one eye, he’s been, in the head, 20 plus surgeries. And that's the norm. That's the norm of how guys come out when they're my age, and they stay the whole time. I don't obviously have nearly the trauma that he does. So I wanted to bring him in, too.  Much like I do with the SEALs I just said, ‘We're just going to test everything, and we're just gonna test everything we can think of.’ So I did pre- and post-EEGs, I did pre- and post-PET scans for consumption. I did–what’s it called–psycho learning batteries of tests, testing to problem solve. I did a bunch of hormone stuff. I did genetic aging before. I did all this stuff. Then I just went and did a standard protocol, which is essentially one hour at depth. So one hour bottom time at 280, at 100% oxygen, five days a week. Take Saturday and Sunday off. I did that for eight weeks.  Lisa: Yep. That’s 40-odd or 50-odd sessions, yep.  Dr Kirk: Yeah, so 40 sessions. And it’s a big commitment. It’s a big time commitment. It's expensive. But I just want to see if we can use it for the SEALs because I still do a lot of work with guys who are getting out of the SEAL teams or are out of the SEAL teams. And they break down when things are– really, really hard life. And they can’t put it in the end, they don't have their community, and they don’t have their compensatory techniques anymore. They're going to new jobs where they don't know their way around as much in there. And plus, they've been gone most of their career. Now, they're home with their wives and their kids. And it's a new thing. It's hard for them, it's super stressful. And so I do everything I can to help these guys out. And anytime there's a new modality, anybody tells me, not that hyperbarics is new, but the partial results with TBI is that we're 5, 10, 15 years old. That's a new postulate. And so we're doing our best to test that, and we're about to do it again. I'm going to go to– Lisa: I so wanna hear the results of that, please. Because I think it's the most underrated thing that I've ever come across. And you know, and I've been studying it or a couple of years.  Dr Kirk: Absolutely. Lisa: I know what it did to my mum. My uom went from being like a baby. No, hardly any brain function to being full driver's license, full life, full everything. She's walking and training at the gym every day. And that thing there in the corner was the catalyst for it. It gave me that stuff to do. And I've got a family member with brain injuries, I can't give him the repeated brain injuries from sport. And can't you see what this is? How powerful this is? But it's a big time commitment. Even when it's sitting in your sister's house. But it's really important that people do this and get access to this.  We just had a Sunday program, which is our current affairs, a big current affairs program on TBIs. It’s from rugby players over here, professional rugby players and how many TBIs they get in a career. And they're coming out, ending up with dementia and Alzheimer's and brain injuries and mood changes, tossed around down the toilet, and all these sorts of things. And not once did anybody say hyperbaric. And I'm just like, ‘Oh, for God's sake.’ But what do we have to do?  Dr Kirk: I don't know why we're so bad at that. And under all of the royal colonies. The Israelis and the Russians–  Lisa: The Israelis are onto it. The Russians are onto it. The Russians, the Germans are onto it  Dr Kirk: The Russians, I think of, I say they have 180-some odd approved uses. Israelis are like 116. We’re 14, and then we just added one a few months ago. And half of ours are really the same thing. It's just nuances of the same thing. It's just we don't get to use it very much. And when I was in the SEAL teams, it was super hard for me to get it for wound healing, although it's the most obvious use for it. And I would want to put guys in there after surgery. And it was like pulling teeth every single time. I had to fight them. I had to fight the machine to get guys in there. And it's a huge difference, obviously. Lisa: Are you aware of the work of Dr Paul Harch? hbot.com is his website. He's done a hell of a lot in the hyperbaric space. Check him out. H-a-r-c-h, Dr Paul Harch, real expert in this area. And just on that point on about the machine, the medical machinery that we have, in our Western world, in New Zealand, it’s very similar to the States. What the hell are they doing? Why are we still in this preventive, in this disease-based system? Where we are only, like you were talking about, ranges before and these guys are still in the normal ranges, but they were having symptoms. Thyroid is another classic example of people that have not been picked up.  I've just been through a journey, which my listeners know, with my father who developed sepsis after a massive operation, and I won't go into the details. But I was trying to get intravenous vitamin C, and he was dying. And I couldn't. They had no other options where I've got this. I've got scientist friends, doctors who have given me the clinical evidence to proceed these to the ethics committees and all these things while I'm fighting for his life, and he's dying in front of my eyes. And I'm not allowed to give him intravenous vitamin C, which has been shown in a number of clinical studies to drop the mortality rate by 40%–50%, and I wasn't allowed to do it.  I'm just like, ‘What the heck is going wrong with our system?’ I wonder, right? But it took me 15 days. And by the way, my dad had multiple organ failure, and I lost the battle for him. The system is just– I'm getting, I'll get off my soapbox in a minute. But why is somebody who's been through the medical, the standard medical, and then gone out and done your own? Where are they going wrong? And is there a paradigm shift coming? Can you see a change coming? Dr Kirk: Now, I really wish I could say yes to that. But I’ve become so disheartened after COVID. I don't know the politics there. But the politics here, it’s just mind-boggling to me. I’m sitting here going– First of all, hydroxychloroquine has been around for like 100 years. It's been around forever. It's over the counter in 80% of the countries in the world. It's a very safe drug. There's almost no chance it's going to cause anybody harm. So whether anybody believes that it was helpful at the beginning or not, you had teams of doctors who are actually doing the work, the clinician saying, ‘This works.’ And then you have these researchers and politicians saying, ‘There's not enough evidence of that. Use this, and don't use that.’  Lisa: And the vaccine, it’s been on trial.  Dr Kirk: There is a doctor out here, she's a doctor and a lawyer. She got thrown in jail for giving somebody hydroxychloroquine. Lisa: You kidding me?  Dr Kirk: For prescribing somebody hydroxychloroquine, she spent four days in jail. They kicked in her house. They kicked in the door of her house with a SWAT team, with body armor and other weapons and rushed her and arrested this little 100-pound woman and put her in jail, didn't let her call a lawyer or anything. Lisa: That’s just evil. That’s unbelievable. Dr Kirk: There's never been anything in the news. And the news cycle that carry the news cycle to the extent of COVID period, but any really big event that I had any expertise in. So COVID was the first time that the big nation focus was on something I knew about, right? I'm not a virologist, but I know how the immune system works, right? I know what viruses are. I know their life cycle. I know how this works. I know how the medicines work. I have some expertise. And I can read what's out there. And I can learn it really quickly. And I'm just amazed at how dishonest and inaccurate the media was, and it’s probably that way for everything. I don't have enough expertise to realise that when everything else is going on. And so I've just become really disheartened.  That woman who got arrested, she was in, she was running something called the Frontline Doctors, and her and a bunch of other doctors went to the Capitol. And they held this press conference, and they told them, ‘Here's the evidence. Here's the evidence of the medicine. Here's the safety of the medicine. Here's what we've been finding clinically. We want to urge all doctors to do this.’ And the FDA cracked down and told people they couldn't do it. Why isn't a medical doctor could not call a pharmacist and tell them to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to my patients? A pharmacist could tell me, ‘No.’ A pharmacist said, ‘No, that's against the law.’ Lisa: To a doctor. And ivermectin is the other one. Have you— Dr Kirk: Ivermectin is exactly in the same way.  Lisa: What the hell? Dr Kirk: And then these doctors have had a website where they've been making videos, they've been posting, with their videos, all of their references, all the clinical— they’re only using peer-reviewed studies. They're going through mechanism, historical stuff. They're going through new stuff. And they're posting on there. Amazon just shut their website down. Lisa: Have you seen Dr Robert Malone? He’s the founder of mRNA. And he was on the DarkHorse Podcast with Bret Weinstein. It was a really long interview and really in-depth. But the thing was, this was censored. I watched them take it down. And I watch other people keep putting it back up. And then now they've gone over to a platform called, obviously, which they can't be censored because it's on the crypto saying which is like— But why, when this aside, I know why. But the science is there. The clinical evidence is there. This is a safe— Ivermectin has been on the market for 40 something years? 30 to 40 years. I don't know exactly. But it's off-patent. Nobody can make money out of it. And then if they have a therapeutic, they can't do the vaccine under the emergency law. Dr Kirk: I've heard that partial, and I think that's very realistic. Because— but the other side of it is that if there's one thing that's been proven in the last year and a half, the two years in America, is that the powers that be can do whatever the hell they want to do. So, they could have approved emergency use, even if they were 10 treatments because they just wanted to. They just do whatever they want to do right now. ‘You know, what? that's against the law.’ ‘No. Tough. We're gonna do it anyway.”  Lisa: We want to make some billions out of something, so we’re going to put it anyway.  Dr Kirk: I don't know. I'm very disturbed by it. But I would say 10 years ago, I was really excited that there was going to be a paradigm shift. I've been waiting for it to happen. I don't know why it doesn't happen. You know, like I said, I started studying all this stuff around 2009. And going well. And this makes a lot more sense. And, and now— But I'm not saying that Western medicine is all bad. Because if you're talking about somebody who's on death's door, somebody just got run over by a bus, or somebody who's severely sick, yes, Western medicine is great. But to keep people from getting severely sick, and to keep people aging well, and to perform well, that's a total different ballgame. And that's not what the medical professionals are trained to do. And the ones that are trained to do that get marginalised. They aren’t the real doctors. They’re not the natural. Pass. And a real doctor over here. It's like, ‘You're kind of like a doctor, but we're gonna put you in this little box.’ Lisa: A second-class citizen. Dr Kirk: Yeah, you’re a second-class citizen. Lisa: You’re not the real thing. Dr Kirk: If there's one thing that I've proven to myself over the decade I've been doing this now is that most of my values as being a coach. I'm a doctor, but I pretty much coach people in lifestyle change. 90% of what I do is I get people to change their behaviours. Lisa: And no one can make money out of that. Dr Kirk: And then I give hormones. And then I give peptides. And then I give nucleo supplementations. And then we do little gadgets that you want to monitor everything about yourself and learn. You monitor your heart rate variability, your sleep, and all that. And you want to get every piece of data and continuous blood glucose. Do whatever you want. All that stuff. Let's get you sleeping well. Let's get you eating whole foods and no junk. Let's get you exercising to the level that is appropriate for your fitness level currently. Let's get your stress hormones down, and get your mood and thinking all in line with some mindfulness training, or whatever you do with that. And that takes, honestly, it takes nine months. Lisa: Yep, exactly. That takes time. It takes massive effort. And it takes behavioural change, which people just don't want to do behavioural change because it's much easier to take a pill. It's much easier to take something simple and that's just the way humans are; we want it easy. Give me a pill of those. Dr Kirk: And this great salesman telling them that they just eat this superfood, or like whatever this, ‘Oh, weird bacteria, we found this on K under the Amazon, like this is the key.’ Not really. Nobody's ever been able to use it before. And that's the key. Now I see. That makes sense. And people want that magic bullet. And it's hard. It's hard for some people. Unfortunately, there's never really been that hard for me. I'm just not somebody who's had a lot of hunger cravings. I don't really crave bad food, it's easy for me to eat a good diet.  Lisa: And there's a lot of genetic factors and all of these things. When you look at our evolution, it makes sense that we go after fat, and sugar, and salt because that's what we don’t have enough of and so– Dr Kirk: –That’s what protects you from famine.  Lisa: But we need to understand how the big food industry then is tapping into those addictive mechanisms in our brain to make us want more. You can't eat one chip. Anybody knows, who’s eaten a pack, opened a pack of chips, you can't eat one chip; you're gonna eat the whole packet.  Dr Kirk: You don’t call them crisps? I thought you called them crisps over there.  Lisa: No, we call them chips. Dr Kirk: So I actually have this postulate of where doughnuts and coffee came from in here. So what I was saying earlier, if I don't get enough sleep tonight, so I don't recover, I don't get the right deep sleep, my anabolic hormones don't change around, my insulin sensitivity shifts, my appetite regulation, ghrelin and leptin regulators, my fat metabolism regulators, all of that off because I didn't sleep well, right? So I wake up the next morning, and I have a high-stress hormone because I didn't get enough sleep, and I'm using stress hormones to get through the day.  Another thing that happens when you're asleep is you flush the toxins out of your brain. Yeah, the lymphatic glow, right? And I use that word sparingly. And part of the dual partitioning and regeneration tool source. One of the things that we're doing is we're replenishing ATP, right? So ATP is triphosphate adenosine with three phosphates on it, and it goes down to ADP and AMP and then just an adenosine binds to areas of your brain and tells your brain where to start it. We burn all this out. We need to sleep.  That's what we call sleep pressure. That’s the drive that just makes you want to crash. And you know this well from being an athlete and pushing yourself to the extent that you can lay down on cactus and fall asleep. You’re just so damn tired, and you got to sleep. And then it only takes a few hours to flush that adenosine out, right? And then if you have enough stress hormones, epinephrine, norepinephrine, all that, you can get up and go again.  Our insulin sensitivity goes down, especially in our fat cells, and then our leptin sensitivity goes down. And so we're convinced we need to actually store more fat. And then we still have adenosine. And the way caffeine works, caffeine blocks the adenosine, right? So your body now believes that it's starving. The only reason that—so we're the only animal on the planet, that sleep deprives ourselves on purpose. Every other mammal, the only time they will ever sleep deprive themselves is if they're being pursued, if they're being preyed upon. Or if they're starving to death. If they're starving to death, they need to go further for food. And it shuts off the prefrontal cortex and makes you take more risks. You'll eat novel foods; you might try some things that might keep you alive that you wouldn't have otherwise try.  You wake up, essentially, with your body convinced that you're starving. One, you deprive yourself of sleep. So every day you wake up without enough sleep, there's some trigger in your brain that’s saying, ‘Are we starving? Are we being preyed upon? What's the threat? There's a threat on us, right?’ And now you have all this appetite regulation and fat metabolism,  all these regulators are off, and your body's convinced that you're starving. And what do you need when you're starving? You need glucose, right now. And then you need much of that. Right? And what is a doughnut? It’s tri glucose, right? So it’s like glucose for body fat.  Lisa: Sugar and fat. Dr Kirk: And then you drink coffee to displace the adenosine.  Lisa: It makes sense. Why would it?  Dr Kirk: I think that’s where coffee neurals come from. It’s very theory 101. Do with it what you want. Never been published. Lisa: But that is brilliant work. It's a brilliant deduction. And it's so true. And then we take more coffee to keep ourselves going. And then we cause these adenosines to come and then we can’t go to sleep. Dr Kirk: This is one of the most beautiful things. So I was actually doing a sleep lecture with three other sleep experts of all different fields. There's some psychiatrists there and some sleep practitioners that do CPAP sleep disease, specialists. And we were all going to do a series of lectures during the day. And we're waiting around for our car to come get us. And we’re sitting in the lobby, and the lobby had a Starbucks. And they just happened to have propped up in one of those little poles with a new slider menu, and it was just sitting right next to the bench we’re sitting on. And it had all the nutritional information of their drinks.  I'm sitting there looking at it. I go, ‘Oh, my gosh, they have a point. I'm getting a— Look at this.’ And they're looking at it. I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh, that explains a lot.’ So when you look at caffeine intake or the effects, the beneficial effects of caffeine intake, or what we call a hormetic curve, right? So more is better until more is worse, right? And when it starts getting worse is about 200 milligrams.  Lisa: Which is what, two cups of coffee?  Dr Kirk: It's not even two full cups of drip coffee, right? So after that, though, you actually get the exact opposite effect. So caffeine actually makes you start feeling more tired. Lisa: Wow. And wired. Dr Kirk: And Starbucks has these 800-calorie coffees, a 100% of the calories are from sugar, right? Because they have syrups and whatever in them and cream, and then with 600 milligrams of caffeine. So what happens when you drink 600 milligrams of caffeine, you say, ‘I'm feeling better. I'm drinking this over time.’ And then I finish my coffee. A couple of hours later, I feel awful. And what do I think I need?  Lisa: Coffee.  Dr Kirk:  Coffee. Go back and get another, more. Lisa: And people go and get it. And then they don't understand how long it takes for the caffeine to be processed out of the body. And then 12 hours later, they're not going to sleep, and they're thinking they haven't equated it to the third cup of coffee that they had today. Dr Kirk: Yeah, they have no sleep pressure like we're talking about, blocking your adenosine receptors. Plus, it’s led to some stimulation of stress hormones and their stress hormones to hide their sleep. Lisa: And on that point, you know, I was talking about my dad before and I was in the hospital with him for 16 days. We were fighting for his life. And that time, I had maximum two hours sleep a day because I was just there at the hospital, advocating, protecting him, wasn't leaving his side. If I could stand up, I was there. At 16 days, I was diabetic. My blood sugar levels were through the roof. And all of my— so and that led to a whole lot of downstream effects that I'm still unpacking now. And it's now a year later. This is how quickly it can happen. I'm in a time like that, you want to push. It’s the same when you're doing ultra-marathons. I ran ultra-marathons, 25 years doing crazy long distance stuff. When I ran through New Zealand, and I was running 500 kilometres a week, I got fatter. I figured that one out. Because there was over, I don't know how many calories I was burning; it was an excess of 10,000 calories a day or more. And I wasn't getting anywhere near that calories in and yet my body got fed, and my composition changed, my hormones were down, my sugar, all of these things. We think that the more we train, because this is another argument that I have a lot of my athletes that I train, is that more is always better when it comes to exercise. And that's not true. Dr Kirk: Sometimes, more is just more. And often, if you're sleep-deprived, more is worse for sure. You don't really need to do any exercises. You just stay active until you've recovered, and then you can exercise again. But I know exactly what you're talking about. When we were talking before we started recording, I tampered with endurance marathons and things like this. It just wasn't well-suited for it. But definitely the fattest I've ever been in my life. I just wasn't suited for it. And it was too much stress. It was causing my body to put on everything.  Lisa: And it was causing your body to put on fat. Dr Kirk: So I was just broken down. I was losing my hair. And the first time in my life that I ever had a belly. I've had plenty of times where I have like a six-pack. Where did this come from? Never had this before. And I was still pretty young, 35 at the time.  And I know for a fact that if you, there's research, it's not all tissues, but some of your tissues, the insulin sensitivity is decreased by 30% just by losing two hours of sleep. One night with two hours of sleep. So you go from sleeping eight hours of sleep to six. If you're pre-diabetic, you're waking up diabetic. If you're normal, you're waking up pre-diabetic. And then if you do that for several nights in a row, you might actually be driving yourself into diabetes within a week or two, and you don't really know.  There's not a lot of people who tracked themselves that much for us to know that certainly. But again, it's super complex because there's all sorts of hormonal regulations, and genetics, and vascular flow, and activities, and diet. But there's a lot of things going into that. But as a general rule, you can say if you lose two hours of sleep, testosterone is 30% lower, growth hormone is 30% lower, inflammation is 30% higher, leptin sensitivity is down 30%, insulin sensitivity is down 30%. This is in one night, you've only lost 25% of your sleep. And you're losing 25% to 30% of the benefit of sleep. No big surprise there. Right?  Lisa: But is a six and a half hours a day, the average scenario? And I can probably get six and a half. I don't know what the steps are. But six and a half to seven hours a day. How many people– Dr Kirk: Americans just dropped under six the last year. But when I started this in 2009, it was 6.5, 6.45 I think. Lisa: And we think that's enough. It's not close enough. Dr Kirk: No. It's like saying, ‘Well, I need only need 2800 calories a day. So 35 is close enough. I'll stay lean, right?’ No. It doesn't make any sense. So it's best to get as much as you can possibly get. And if six and a half is all you can get, and I understand that some people's life in that way. This isn't to bash the individual. That's a cultural problem. It's not an individual problem.  In some cases it is, but in most cases, it's a cultural problem. They've grown up believing that sleep is for the weak, and lazy people sleep more, and really productive people get up early, get both ends, and get all the work done. And they're the high achievers, and that's who you want to be, and they're going to make the money. They're the sexy ones. They're going to marry the good spouse, and they're going to have the beautiful kids, and because they're getting after it, and you're lazy, just sleeping eight hours a day. People buy into that, especially. I chose probably the worst two professions in the world. ‘That’s a luxury man. That's for weak people. And you get all the sleep you need when you're dead.’ Right? Now it’s a thing in medical school saying things, you're in the hospital like, ‘Sleep. Yeah, you're not getting here to sleep. There's people's lives in the line here, go make some bad decisions.’  It's a crazy, crazy world. And I tell you, people pay a lot of money to work with me. And I'm not saying that to be braggadocious. I'm saying for the point being, it's hard to get to work with me, right? There's a waiting list. I test. I seriously screen people because I don't want to work with somebody who's gonna be a pain in my ass. And I'm not working with anybody who's not super motivated. And you have to pay a lot of money because I don't work with very many people. I spend a lot of time with each person. Even though I'm known for sleep, the hardest thing for me to coach people to do is to sleep. And I could tell them, ‘We'll do anything.’ They're willing to do anything. And when I say, ‘Sleep eight hours a night,’ that's like, ‘Whoa, whoa, hold up.’ I'm like, ‘I want you to do yoga two hours a day. Exercise two hours a day. Eat nothing but kale.’ They go like, ‘Okay.’ ‘I want you to sleep eight hours a day.’ Like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. I can’t do that.’  Lisa: And you’re known for the sleep stuff. Dr Kirk: That's the most important part. But it's hard. There's a lot of social conditioning around that. Most people know they don't eat well. Most people know they don't exercise enough. Most people know that they're too stressed. It's hard to convince people they aren’t sleeping well. Lisa: And what about kids? Kids are going to school early. What sort of damage are we doing to our kids by making them— and adolescents are even worse because you never listen to your body clock changes. Can you just speak briefly to that? And then we will wrap up because I am taking up a lot of your time. Dr Kirk: I actually did a five-hour lecture, eight hours a day for five days in a row in Germany. I was lecturing the student, the faculty, the counsellors, the coaches, and the teachers of the school systems for the American kids that were in, overseas, military kids that are, you know. And so I was lecturing all of this. And that's when I really dove into the research. I didn't know a lot of this before, and this was probably six or seven years ago.  What we're doing to our kids is tragic. It's way worse than what we're doing to ourselves as adults. It’s way worse. The really concerning thing is that, obviously a kid's brain isn't fully developed, right? That's primarily what those 18 years are about. It's not nearly as much about the physical as it is about the mental. And one of the last things to form is the prefrontal cortex. And that's the part right from my temples forward over my eyes like that little way.  That is the part that makes us the smartest animal on the planet. That is called, what Robert Sapolsky calls the simulator. It allows us to simulate things. We don't actually have to do them to figure out if they're a good idea, right? I don't need to jump off my roof to know if it's a good idea or not. I've never jumped off the roof of my house before. And I can guarantee you it's a bad idea. It's like 30 feet to the ground. I'm gonna get hurt. There's no way I'm going to do it. I don't have to do it to know that's a bad idea. I don't have to flip my boss off to know that I'm going to get fired if I flip my boss off, right? All of these behavioural gates, that’s all prefrontal cortex. Also all of our willpower is prefrontal cortex. So your ability to have a plan and stick on your plan relies on you going, ‘I want the future. I want what my plan will get me in the future more than I want the immediate gratification right now.’ That's all willpower, that's 100% prefrontal cortex.  As soon as your prefrontal cortex goes away, you start negotiating that other way. ‘It's not that big of a deal. It's only one piece of cake, and I can still lose that 15 pounds for my wedding.’ Whatever people's goals are, right? And our problem-solving ability, our verbal fluency, our ability to recognise other people's emotions when we're talking to them, our ability to actually communicate and listen and understand what they're saying, our ability to regulate our own emotions and our own speech and communicate effectively, all of that is prefrontal cortex. This is the social part of our brain. Well, guess when that part's forming? Adolescence. And this happens in adolescence. What else happens in adolescence? There's a phase shift in the circadian rhythm, and the kids need to stay up later and wake up later. That's just the way their circadian rhythm is shifted.  Lisa: They’re not being lazy. They just...  Dr Kirk: And instead, we're waking them up earlier as they get older. And these kids are having to get to school at 7:15 in the morning, which means they're getting up at 6:15. They’re probably not falling asleep until 1 a.m. And it's worse because they don't just need eight hours of sleep. They need about 10 hours of sleep. So they're getting half as much sleep as they need. And then we're shoving them off to school. And we're saying, ‘Why are you misbehaving in school? Why aren't you paying attention?’ Will it be the same thing? Lisa: You are going to get ADHD. Dr Kirk: Yeah, you are going to have ADHD. It would be the same as if you and I had to get up at 2:30 in the morning and go be at work at 3:30 in the morning. And we're expected to learn. We’re expected to be able to communicate effectively, and behave well, and pay attention, and be energetic, but we couldn't do it. No, kids can’t do it either. And we're interfering with the development of their brain.  The prefrontal cortex isn't fully formed until you're at the earliest, maybe 20. For women, women's brains formed a little faster. But it’s up to 25 years old. And a lot of men are right at that mark, 23 to 25. And about a quarter of the women are still 23 to 25. So the most formidable years are high school, and college, and early employment. And what do people do on early employment? They go hang out with their friends. They go to the bar. They drink. They have fun. They watch movies. They go to bed. They get up early. They go to work. They do the same thing every day. So the most sleep-deprived years are the most horrible years of the brain. Lisa: And then we wonder why depression, and suicides, and accidents, and all of these things happen to our youth? And disproportionately is that part of it, at least because of– Dr Kirk: There's this fascinating new field in medicine called chronobiology. And what they've discovered is that probably, we don't know for sure, but it's probably every psychiatric disease, and probably every psychological, severe flare-up or whatever you want to call that. So it's a cycle that's always preceded by sleep deprivation. Everybody who's depressed didn't sleep well before they became depressed. And now that depression’s, about half of them, it's making them sleep a lot more. But half of them is preventing them from being able to sleep. So now they feel sleepy all day. Any time anybody has a schizophrenic break, there's a period right there. People with bipolar, before they go into their frenetic phase, they have a period of sleep deprivation. And then after their manic phase, they go into their depressive phase. And that can actually lead again, half of them are going to sleep less and half of them are going to sleep more. But there's always sleep regulation around it.  They're the first book I read on chronobiology at some Ivy League hospitals, I think it was Harvard, or one those Harvard, Yale, Cornell, something like that. And in their attached hospital, they took their psychiatric inpatients, and all they did is get them out in the morning and get them to walk around the yard and do this. And it was amazing. I think it was at least 50%, it might have been 75% of their patients completely came off their medications. These are people who are inpatient. They've been on hardcore anti-psychotic medication for years and maybe decades. And they get them, not just decreased, 100% off of medications by getting their circadian rhythm and chronobiology as well.  It's deeper than I know. I haven't studied it really deep. We have the ultradian rhythms as well as the circadian rhythms. And so, how all that aligns, I can't say what the neurophysiology going on to break people out of that. But again, does it really matter? It’s lifestyle.  Lisa: It’s easy if you want to try it. Dr Kirk: It's the same damn thing. Actually, if they lived as hunter-gatherers today, they would get up when the sun came on. And they’d have to go out and do things, right? And they'd be in the sunlight, and then it would get dark, and they would get cold, and they would fall asleep. So again, lifestyle handles 95% of this. Lisa: Yep. And we just, our ancient DNA. We just cannot escape our ancient DNA. And when we try to when we put people on drugs, and we do all these interventions, why don't we try this stuff first? Why don't we try this basic stuff? When you look at hospitals with 24-hour lights and their beeping, and they're waking people up all through the night and all of these things in our sickest populations, just mind-blowing to me.  Dr Kirk: This is the whole philosophy of how pharmaceuticals come about that's wrong. So take sleep jokes for instance. We talked earlier about Stilnox, right? So what that does, it acts like GABA. Okay, so I told you that GABA is slowing down the brain. So when I get stressed out, when I started living in artificial light, and air conditioning and heating, and I've taken myself completely off the planet. I make it hot when it's cold, cold when it's hot, dark when it’s light, light when it's dark. I do whatever the hell they want to do. Eat stuff that's not even related to food. Like, ‘I can do whatever I want. I can totally take myself off of this planet.’ Like mankind's got it all figured out. Then, of course, I now have sleep problems. Well, and then maybe I'm overstimulating myself. I'm watching movies, or playing video games, or going out to a nightclub or whatever it is, I'm over stimulating my brain. And I can't get to sleep at night, or I'm in bed and I'm going through a divorce or bankruptcy or whatever. My brain is just racing, and I can't slow down my brain.  GABA’s job is to slow down my brain. Well, my GABA is not doing it. So what does the pharmaceutical industry do, right? So they have a receptor that binds GABA, I have GABA floating around my blood, grabs it, pulls it in the cell, and it does what GABA does in that cell. So we'll say that's a one. One GABA does an action of 1, on a scale from 1 to 10, 1. So now they come out with benzodiazepines, also act like GABA analogs. And what did they do? They bind the GABA. They bind that GABA receptor, it gets pulled in. Instead of doing 1 out of 10, it does 100 out of 10.  Lisa: Oh my gosh, yeah.  Dr Kirk: And then they came out with the Z-drugs and like, ‘Hey, we got this even better.’ Now this Z-drug binds in here, this still not binds in there, pulls it in there, on a scale of 1to 10, it does 1000. Now, I have this super physiologic effect because in the pharmaceutical world, well, all we got to do is flip this switch. And if we flip this switch harder, people are going to sleep faster, and we're going to win, and we're going to sell our medication. That’s the way they think about it.  Instead of going, ‘Well, what if we relieve all the stress hormones that are keeping the GABA from working? Then we just use this GABA? And the one does its job?’ Because we were talking about the downregulated receptor, right? Well, if the Z-drug is 1000 times more powerful than GABA, how many receptors are you gonna have at the end of six months of using that? Over 100,000, right? It's pretty simple math.  Lisa: Can you have half of it? Can you up-regulate those receptors again? When you bug it for a long time. Dr Kirk: It takes a while. So what I did with the SEALs, now obviously, I couldn't just take away their sleep medicine and say, ‘Suck it up, buttercup.’ Right? I had to give them something. And so we came up with this concoction of these things to give them various reasons. And all the guys helped me figure out what works the best, but it kept them on their sleep drug. So what I did is I had the pharmacy make their Stilnox into a serum. So 10 drops was a full dose. So they did 10 drops for a week. And then they do nine drops for a week. And then eight drops a week, all the while undertaking the sleep supplement as well. And they're getting good sleep every night. They’ve cut down alcohol. And they've done their sleep hygiene. And they're doing everything to optimise their sleep. And over the course of about six to eight weeks, they're completely off of it. And then all the receptor density’s obviously back, and then they can just sleep fine and after that. Lisa: Does it work for everything? Getting someone off antidepressants. And you were trying to cut like tablets down this, but this much is really hard because you don't, you can’t— Dr Kirk: It is really hard. And it's really time-consuming. And sometimes you have to bounce back because the side effects become too much. And it's really hard to titrate off, especially antidepressants. Because especially, most antidepressants now aren't just working on one system. So they aren't working on say, like, just serotonin. They're doing a lot of things. We're working on multiple neurotransmitters. So you're down-regulating receptors for lots of things. And the ratio of neurotransmitters matters just as much as the presence of them. And not everybody's the same and so not everybody's receptors are coming back at the same speed. And not everybody's just sensitive to the same drugs. So it's hard to know how to get off of things.  I've actually had two patients over my career who just failed to come off of antidepressants. They just couldn't. We tried for the better part of a year. And it was too traumatic for them.  They would have such bad side effects from getting off the medications, and they're like, ‘I'm just gonna stay on it.’ And I did my best to coach ‘em out of it. But at the end of the day, I’m there as an advocate and a coach. So I don't demand anything of my clients other than, basically, I'm dogmatic about but everything else is, we're going to work with what you want to do. And we're going to build resilience and performance in whatever areas you want to. And you're going to eat, like, if you want to be a vegetarian, be a vegetarian. You may want to be a carnivore, you be a carnivore.  I don't care what you want to do, we're just going to figure out how to get the right ratios for you of everything and get the best performance out of you. And maybe if your genetics are such that you would do better without meat, but you really love meat, you're like, you're willing to take a little bit of less performance, and I'd rather have meat than be 5% better, right? It’s up to you. I’m just really here as a guide. Lisa: But you have developed a sleep remedy, which I've heard you say on another podcast is not a miracle. It doesn't contain some of the things that won’t actually help us without damaging us. Can you just talk a little bit about that? Dr Kirk: It's not a physiologic trick, right. It's not something like there’s these drugs. There's not– Lisa: It’s not magic– Dr Kirk: It's not overdosing you on melatonin so that we're just washing out all of your weight, promoting neurotransmitters, and you’re just falling asleep anyway. So, we're talking about the hunter-gatherers, the caveman, where ancestors lived. I said, it takes about three to three and a half hours after the sun goes down before people feel like falling asleep. Well, who in America spends three hours or New Zealand spends three hours getting ready for bed? One in one in a million maybe? Right? So all I tried to do with my product is say, what would ordinarily concentrate over those three hours? What would happen? Well, as we said, the primary point would be we have [inaudible]. It's not just like a fire once and it goes. It's like this, this is flowing around the blank brain and continually made changes overnight.  Then the other thing is GABA. As I said, that slows the brain down. And that's the other part. The body temperature, not something I supplement with, do anything with. But the stress hormones, we need those to come down. Those should be coming down due to lifestyle, but maybe they're a little high. So phosphatidylserine is the only not straightforward thing that from your ultra-marathons and so forth, I'm sure you know, that decreases cortisol levels by taking phosphatidylserine. And so if you look at the pathway for producing melatonin, it’s amino acid tryptophan that becomes 5-hydroxy-tryptophan. Then with the help of magnesium and vitamin B3, that becomes serotonin. Serotonin becomes melatonin.  Lisa: Yep. And then you got your pathway without–  Dr Kirk: That's all that’s in my supplement. There's no serotonin. Now, there's tryptophan-5-hydroxy to present magnesium, vitamin B3, and a little bit of melatonin. There's some GABA in there. And then there's some phosphatidylserine, certainly, to bring your cortisol down. It's just ratios that I worked out with the SEALs over. They were great patients to have because they're super motivated, and really diligent and taking notes, they come and report to me every day. And we just figured out the ratios like, ‘Okay, seems like we need a little more of this and a little less of that.’ I had no intention to making a product out of it. I was just helping them get off in their sleep drugs, and then they just harangued me into making a product out of it.  Lisa: Yeah. Dr Kirk: Because this is a pain in their ass. They're having to go to three different stores. This was before Amazon, you can just order everything, they're having to go to three different health food stores. And this came in a 30-day supply. And that came in 90 days. And that was natural. And that was a powder. And this is a liquid. They couldn't travel with it. And so they’re like, ‘Just make it something simple.’ That's why I made the stick pouches. One, because I want to make a tea because I want to create some sort of bedtime routine and ritual to help you perform something like that, and not just sit in bed and pop some pills. So that's why I made it. That's one of the reasons. And then the other thing is there's little stick pouches. These things last forever like it– Lisa: You can take it– Dr Kirk: And they can just you need five days of sleep, you just throw five of those in your pocket and you're done. Right? You don't need to pack a bunch of different pills and all that. So it really just made it out for those guys. And then it surprisingly turned into a little side business that I never really intended. But yeah. Lisa: This is fantastic though because— and we'll put the links in the show notes, people do to get this and I— Because I have all those things and I have to take all the pills currently. And I don't know the ratios, whether I'm getting the ratios right and I'm doing it right. And I need extra support because I sort of love it full-bore like you probably do. So we can do with some extra help. So we will put the links in the show notes to the Sleep Remedy.  There's nothing physiological, over-physiological doses, there’s nothing artificial in there that's going to cause you trouble. And that's the main thing when people, because they will just grab Ambien, or Valium, or those types of things. Because they’re desperate and I get that. But we can help ourselves with all the sleep routine things that we've mentioned that. A dark, cold, having a hot shower or cold shower, something changing the temperature, slowing your brain down, chamomile tea, all these things that we can do that are simple behavioural things. But adding that into the mix, I think, is a really key thing.  Dr Parsley, I've taken up so much of your bloody time. But I could honestly, we'd love to have you back at some stage because there was just more that I wanted to– Dr Kirk: Yeah. There’s a lot we didn’t really get to talk about. I’m always happy to do it. I don't know how long it took to schedule this one. But I think I can get them done in a couple of weeks, usually. I'm only doing maybe two a week right now. It used to be five a week, somebody always wanted me to do it, but I don't get as many requests now. I'm not as popular. So I can do about two a week so... Lisa: I think, and I've worked with– I've done this podcast for nearly six years. I've talked to experts in so many, many, many fields. And your wide-ranging experience, both in the SEALs and as a doctor is pretty extensive. So I think we're getting a lot more. And I think I just really enjoyed this conversation because it helps clarify a lot of things for me. And it's really put, I think the number one thing that I've also come to the conclusion of, in a roundabout way, that sleep is our biggest leverage point, not exercise, not food, not anything else but sleep. And it is not an easy one for us to just click and do. But we can help ourselves. So I think that the work you're doing is absolutely marvellous. And I would love to get your friend on who's in the hyperbaric because this is definitely one of my things that I'm good on promoting as well, big on it.  Any final things that you would like to share with the audience to just– any last bits of wisdom from Dr Parsley? Dr Kirk: With you, specifically, with sleep since that’s what we talked the most about. And that's what people mostly want to hear me talk about. But, specifically, with sleep. But again, I just like to reiterate that it is a really simple process. And the thing that gets in the way the most is all of these fears and concerns about doing everything perfectly when you're designed to do it. All you need to do is convince yourself it's really important. And then just start with a bedtime ritual, right? The sleep hygiene stuff, you can look up. But again, all you're doing with it, to decreasing the blue light in your eyes. You can get glasses. You can do it by changing your light bulbs. You can do that by getting rid of the light, bring candles. You can put computers, programs that get rid of blue light. There's all sorts of things you can do. Get rid of the blue light. Decrease the stimulation. Lower your body temperature. That’s sleep hygiene, there's a million ways to do that.  Then of course, part of lowering stress is just slowing down your thinking. You can't work on your computer until 9:59 and get in bed in 10 and think you're gonna be asleep. It doesn't work that way. You have to slow everything down just like you do with a little kid. The other metaphor is like, if you've ever been a kid, you'll remember this 45-minute protracted period of getting a kid ready for sleep. We still need that as adults; we just don't think we need that. And it doesn't need to be as elaborate but it's the same thing. What were you doing with a kid? Lisa: Put them in the bathtub.  Dr Kirk: Right? You're slowing him down. You don't let your kid bang trucks together and then throw him in a bed, turn off the light and walk out and think it's gonna work, right? Not gonna work. So stop roughhousing, slow down the activity, maybe watch a television show, or do a puzzle, or whatever it is. And then after you do that, you put them in the bath. Why are you putting them in the bath? You’re relaxing them, and you're lowering their body temperature, right? You don't give them a 98° bath. You might give them an 85° bath, right? Or I don't know Celsius. Now, so you're not giving a body temperature that is something below, so you're lowering the body temperature.  Then what do you do? You get them out of the bath, and you put them in really comfy jammies and put powder all over them. Decreases sensation, right? Now they're not feeling labels, not feeling zippers, not feeling anything touching them. So now they're calm, and that's one less sensation. Now you put them in a room, you make sure they're safe, they’re in a soft bed. There's nothing sharp poking them. They feel comfortable. They’re feeling comfortable next to you. You start reading them a story. What's the best kind of story? The story they already know: something rhythmic, something predictable, like Dr Seuss. It has the cadence. They know everything that's coming. And then they just sit there, and they're relaxing, you're slowing down their brain, their body temperature’s lower. There's no sensation. The lights are low. You're not putting on loud music. They're not moving around a bunch. And now they start feeling like they're going to sleep, and you convince them they're gonna be safe, and you walk out. It's the same. We need the same. Lisa: We need to turn the lights off.  Dr Kirk: You don’t have to put on onesies but yeah, but everything else, it’s all the same. We need all the same stuff. Lisa: Yeah, and I think, one of the things that, trying to get your kids asleep and obviously, psychologically safe, but having them in a dark room without a nightlight, if possible. I don't know if you know Professor Andrew Huberman. He was talking about the other day, the light getting to the eyes of the child, the night lights and things that we have on for kids are actually causing myopia, short-sightedness in children as well. That's another thing besides the whole sleep rhythm thing. But that was an interesting one as well. Dr Kirk: But one final thought: if anyone in your audience is specifically having problems with stress, they know they're having problems with stress or they suspect they’re having problems with stress, I'm sure you'll post it in your show notes. But my website, docparsley.com. There's a downloadable PDF in there. I think it's a docparsley.com/stress/ And there's a downloadable PDF that gives you a whole program for how do you decrease stress around sleep.  Lisa: Okay, all right. I’ll download it myself.  Dr Kirk: You're taking an hour to describe it. So I just point people towards the PDF. Lisa: Okay, people get on Dr Parsley’s website and get that stress download, that free download. Check out Doc Parsley’s Sleep Remedy. Make sure you start to implement all of these things and give us some feedback. Let Dr Parsley know what you think about all of this. Because I'm sure you'll be interested in feedback from people as well. Dr Parsley, thank you so much for your time. I really thank you for all the work you're doing and the amazing research and everything. This is absolutely amazing. Dr Kirk: And well, appreciate you having me on. Anyone who doesn't know anything about it but I get to share it with people, and I'm too lazy to have my podcast. That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.