The B.rad Podcast

What an honor to meet this mega-bestselling author in person in Los Angeles and crank out an interesting podcast! Ashley has been spreading the word about her two very important books for over a decade, speaking and consulting internationally to sports teams, business leaders, and parent and school groups. She also operates a cool non-profit tutoring program for inner city kids in LA. Her books, written with Stanford professor Po Bronson, have rocked our world and make us rethink the most basic notions about parenting and the nature of healthy competition. Interested researchers and readers are transcending dated and harmful cultural values and embraced the new possibilities communicated wonderfully by Ashley and Po.   The first book was called Nurtureshock: New Thinking About Children. The world of Carol Dweck, Stanford professor and author of Mindset, was highlighted. The idea that this effusive praise, obsession with boosting self-esteem, and helicopter parenting to ensure kids don’t suffer or fail was called into question. Kids need healthy struggle and setbacks to grow and develop resilience and determination. They benefit from adopting a “growth mindset,” where the emphasis is on effort and improvement rather than results. The research from Nurtureshock was the inspiration for the next book, Top Dog. If you are interested in competition and peak performance in any area (business, athletics, parenting), this book will provide lasting insights and strategies to be the best you can be, and not succumb to the dangers of a lame, ineffective approach to competition.   Interestingly, Ashley relates that she has been rethinking the emphasis placed on effort and instead prefers to focus on improvement. We all know how misdirected effort may not lead to improvement and can even be unhealthy—such as with an overtrained athlete or the college student who pulls all-nighters and eats Top Ramen in the name of delivering maximum effort. In these examples, excess effort or a narrow focus on effort alone will not lead to success or happiness. Reference my podcast about the Japanese Soccer Team and the Japanese cultural ethic of doryoku, translated as honorable effort. You could infer this means dispensing effort in a focused and productive manner to stimulate improvement.   Ashley garnered attention years ago for stating that the long-standing practice of giving every kid a trophy is a bad idea. After much reflection and controversy, Ashley is more certain than ever that this is a really bad idea! Listen to her go off about the many ways in which our cultural trophy policy cheapens the experience for everyone.   We also get into the groundbreaking article that changed my mindset and approach to parenting on the spot when I first read it in 2007. It’s called the Inverse Power of Praise and I did a blog post about it that I send to anyone who will listen. This article led to the NurtureShock book project. The article calls into question the self-esteem movement that has led to the widespread concerns about helicopter parenting today. Ashley talks about how to set rewards to generate optimum outcomes for competition. A local 5k promoting a healthy community (everyone gets a finisher medal, that’s fine), versus a contest to discover the most distinguished performers. A college application process for an Ivy League admission could be a good example: many competitors, few prizes.   You will love this show and be compelled to grab these books and go in for a deep immersion. Following is some details about Ashley and Po’s work, and accolades, to get you excited about Ashley and Po’s work: Ashley and Po have won nine national awards for reporting. Merryman's been on countless radio and television shows, while email, Facebook, and Twitter are filled with demands to read her essays, such as "Losing is Good for You," "How Not to Talk to Your Kids," and "Creativity Crisis." Among the awards for Top Dog was a "Best Book of the Month" by both Barnes & Noble and Amazon, while Salary.com said it was the #1 book that every entrepreneur must read.     Top Dog is an astonishing blend of science and storytelling that reveals what's really in the heart of a champion. It's about the thrill of victory and the character-building agony of defeat. Testosterone and the neuroscience of mistakes. Why rivals motivate. How home field advantage gets you a raise. What teamwork really requires. It's baseball, Wall Street financial analysts, the SAT, sales contests, and Linux software. How before da Vinci and FedEx were innovators, first, they were great competitors. Olympians, professional athletes, and their coaches are already carrying Top Dog around in gym bags. It's in the briefcases of Wall Street traders and Madison Ave. madmen. Professional risk takers - from Silicon Valley venture capitalists to Vegas gamblers - are racing to master its ideas, while educators and philosophers are debating it the halls of academia.     Merryman and Bronson's previous book, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, is also a New York Times bestseller, translated into sixteen languages to date. But beyond that, it has become one of the most influential books about children ever been published. With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, Merryman and Bronson demonstrate that many of modern society's strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring--because key twists in the science have been overlooked.    Merryman has written for Newsweek, Time, the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York, the Guardian, and many more. A frequent commentator on radio and television, Merryman has appeared on shows such as: Fox & Friends; CNN's AC 360 and CNN Newsroom; The Charlie Rose Show; The Tavis Smiley Show; @KatieCouric; Canada AM; BBC World News; NPR's Tell Me More and On Point; and many others around the world.    Honors for Merryman and Bronson include: the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Journalism; the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Award for Science Journalism; an "Audie" from the Audio Publishers Association; and two Clarion Awards. And their work is considered so substantial that scientists themselves rely on their reporting. Their work has been cited as a research authority in 80 academic journals and 260 books, and it is being used as text in universities around the world. You'll find references to their work in publications by the White House to speeches by politicians around the globe.     Merryman lives in Los Angeles, where she has directed a small all-volunteer tutoring program for inner-city kids for 15 years; in that time, her program has helped over 800 children. For her civic involvement, she received commendations from both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. An attorney, Merryman previously served as a speechwriter in the Clinton Administration. Merryman holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, a J.D. from the Georgetown University's Law Center, and a Certificate in Irish Studies from Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Knowledgeable health experts are really making gut dysfunction the heart and center of a variety of real issues that can arise within. The recent discoveries being made is that the impact on our guts is enormous. Tim Noakes says insulin resistance and gut health are the future of medicine. Most of our immune function and half of our serotonin function happens in the gut. When you have a stomach that isn’t performing optimally, the digestion and assimilation of food as it’s passed doesn’t correctly absorb nutrients, and you're left with uncomfortable gas and bloating, and nutrient deficiencies as well. High stress puts a ton of pressure on your digestive system. For example, when performing a triathlete circuit, it’s your stomach that will be the first to suffer the consequences.    Getting off carbs is one of the best ways we can save our stomachs. You burn fewer carbs at rest, AND during a workout (including the warmup and peripheral movement before the meaty, hard stuff) where you definitely do burn carbs (glycolytic). BUT you can make carbs from fatty acid metabolism or have ketones replace your carb needs. You don’t need a bunch of carbs coming from your diet. Excess carbs end up wreaking havoc on your gut.   Tommy points out that if you cut dietary carbs, you can still meet your glucose needs. By making carbs via gluconeogenesis (your fat metabolism makes glycerol split off of fat).Glycogen stores carbs in your muscles and liver. It binds with 3-4 grams of water/gram of carb ingested. That’s why you quickly lose 10 pounds when you dramatically cut carbs out of your diet.   Polarized training is tremendous to metabolic efficiency. Working out at Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF) or at brief intensity works with our genetics and PB laws. We want to stay in a range of completing daily movement and entering a very short cycle of fight or flight overall. Going all the way to the threshold is a punishment not just for our hormones but our poor guts. If you don’t want a leaky gut, polarized training is the way to go.   Tommy counters the boilerplate keto talk that fasting is actually the ultimate health practice and that eating fewer calories equals longevity. I think my calorie increase experience has increased energy AT REST because I’m not overcompensating for exercise while fasting and on keto. This is the best step toward metabolic efficiency.  We also have to consider the emotional stress of adhering to keto. Peter Attia got tired of it after three years after all.   Tommy also believes that athletes that are doing depleting workouts also get autophagy. Personally, I like the intuitive approach where I may be fasting/keto several days and other days may pound out workouts in the morning.   How awesome is it to ‘eat more food till you get fat’? …Yes, you will find ways to increase thermogenesis. It is hard to believe though because the calories in/calories out concepts are so ingrained in us.   Tommy was talking about how we know what to do, but need the psychology part. Why is this so? We have so much temptation in modern life to engage in digital entertainment, exhaust ourselves in work or training. We also have poor mechanics like sleeping habits. We’ve become so far removed from knowing what our bodies really need.   Lack of respect appreciation for the importance of movement - Katy Bowman lazy athlete mentality. If we sit, we store fat, if we move, we burn fat. Don’t be a fitness freak. Nutritionmovement.com - mechanotransduction   Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

By now you know my affinity for cold water therapy, so it’s no wonder I was able to use my refined primal instincts to track down and land author Scott Carney as a guest for a fascinating discussion surrounding Scott’s book, What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength. The title says a lot, but what’s interesting about Scott’s journey is that he is an investigative journalist who specializes in exposing fraudulent gurus! His book, A Death on Diamond Mountain, uncovers the tragic consequences of an extreme meditation operation. When Scott was assigned to cover the amazing death-defying cold exposure exploits of Wim Hof, the “Iceman,” and his outrageous claims that his breathing exercises can make an ordinary Joe superhuman, he was delighted to head over to Hof’s training camp in Poland for a good old fashioned ass whuppin’ with a keyboard.  At the time, Wim was not the household name (if your household is into peak performance and alternative health) he is today.   Despite a sketchy first impression, Scott immersed himself into the program and experienced extraordinary immediate results.  After a week of devoted breathing and cold exposure training, he hiked to the top of a snowy mountain in Poland in the dead of winter…in his running shorts! Scott reports that he was, “boiling hot the whole time.” Yes, this is crazy stuff, and a few minutes on YouTube searching for Wim Hof will blow your mind. This dude set a Guinness World Record by remaining packed in ice for 1 hour, 45 minutes—plenty long enough to kill an average person.   Scott reports that performing simple breathing exercises can prepare your body to withstand extreme temperatures to the extent that it’s actually pleasurable and invigorating. Listen to my podcast about cold therapy as I detail the physiological benefits as the peripheral psychological benefits of nurturing increased focus and resilience through cold therapy. As Scott relates, “half of your problem is simple fear.” When you can manage that sympathetic (fight or flight) response upon cold exposure and train the parasympathetic (rest and digest) system to dominate, you can apply this technique to manage the assorted stresses of daily life much better. This is of critical importance when we realize the extent to which we abuse the fight or flight response in daily life, and how many autoimmune conditions can be managed via the practice of breath control and cold exposure.   Scott describes the technique of controlled hyperventilation, exhaling and holding your breath for as long as possible and being able to do more pushups than ever before while holding your breath! Yes, it sounds goofy, especially if you are steeped in the medical sciences, but Wim routinely submits himself to laboratory scrutiny, and has astounded researches by virtually shutting down his immune system after being injected with a bacteria!  The book is not just about the Wim Hof method, and Scott offers interesting insights about how legendary waterman Laird Hamilton uses breath exercises to hone his skills and boost his safety factor when surfing big waves. In summary, Scott delivers the important insight that we have absolutely gone soft in modern life, pursuing ever-increasing comfort at the expense of losing our edge that makes us human. “Dying comfortably is a nice goal, but it shouldn’t be the rule to live by the whole way.” Scott is working on a new book furthering theme of reawakening our primal survival attributes, so stay tuned and find him on social media, which neither of us are big fans of. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inflammation is the root cause of all disease. It's normal and healthy when you have a good workout or twist your ankle, or even when you get stung by a bee, and your body puts up its defenses to heal – inflammation helps with recovery. Chronic inflammation, however, is the body’s reaction to copious stress that leads to a breakdown over the long term which can affect all different parts of your system over time. What starts as inflammation in your gut can lead to depression, anxiety, lethargy, or weight gain, just as an example.    When Tommy speaks of being careful of liquidating all your assets, he’s referring to the notion that causing absolute burnout to your mind and body will lead to chronic inflammation and a host of other problems over time. As an athlete, I used to be hard into the game in believing in just “listening to my body” and paying attention to my rising levels of cortisol as I was taken hard into fight or flight mode. Push harder your mind and body will figure it out! That’s what instinct is for! The problem is that once your brain is finally listening with cortisol heavily pumping into your system, your training has probably already gone too far, and this leaves your body fighting much harder than it needs to. This had been a puzzle that has repeatedly fooled me - “listening to your body” doesn’t work because what happens when you’re jacked with a wallet full of cash? You go buy a boat and don’t realize the actual cost until the bill arrives a month later. How do you prevent liquidating all your assets? By using instinct PLUS a higher level of reasoning. Be mindful and follow your desire to train with subjective guidelines as Kelly S. points out.   The Stress of modern life also has us prematurely liquidating our assets if we’re the type of person that gets highly stressed out during a traffic jam. Stress inevitably creates an unbalance, and if it isn’t managed correctly, you’re on the road to a case of unwarranted inflammation. There are those that lead a hectic and high stimulating lifestyle but always approach their day in a relaxed, unhurried pace.  This is the way to keep things balanced even in high-stress situations and a behavior we should try to model. It’s up to you to decide how you’ll react. Dis-ease leads to disease.   Modern athletic training consists of six times more training than what the busiest hunter-gatherer conducted. I read a triathlete book/article (Ironwar?) which posed the theory that a modern-day elite Ironman triathlete is working harder than any human in the history of humanity! This increases the risk of atrial fibrillation (inflammation and scarring) and CV disease (James O’keefe Ted Talk). These guys training so hard believe they're getting back to their roots, but they’re far exceeding it, in a harmful way, which makes us question the credibility of the paleo and keto diet premise that promises low carb intake of delivering fasting like benefits.   Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I welcome author and motivational speaker Amberly Lago to the SoCal podcast studios to tell her amazing and inspiring story. Amberly is the author of True Grit and Grace: Turning Tragedy into Triumph. Amberly offers a message of personal potential, acceptance, and living life to the fullest. Unlike the next motivational speaker or peak performance advocate, Amberly comes across as authentic, vulnerable, and overall the real deal. She offers up empowering insights and in the next breath describes how tough it is to use the tools we know we have at our disposal in daily life. Her story is going to blow your mind and give you a fresh perspective about managing whatever challenges you face each day with a little more sensitivity and gratitude.   One day in May of 2010, Amberly was coming home from another great day as a personal trainer and fitness enthusiast (hitting a PR for an 11-mile run that day!) and sustained a terrible motorcycle accident. She was T-boned by an inattentive driver, thrown 30 feet down busy Ventura Boulevard in LA. Her right leg was nearly shattered and the femoral artery was severed. Refusing the option to amputate her leg, Amberlyendured 34 surgeries and a severe complication of contracting the dreaded condition of Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome. As Amberly details her story of suffering and recovering, beautiful insights arise from the nuances of the conversation and her speech patterns, so listen carefully! She talks about how her husband’s support carried her through the dark times, and came in different forms—including setting her straight when she was complaining too much. She talks about the “toolbox” she has developed to deal with her chronic pain and other life challenges, which consists of keeping physical, mental, and spiritually fit each day. She realizes that the chronic foot pain she deals with to this day serves as a natural governor for her to keep her Texas-tough competitive intensity in check, and emphasize downtime and stress management techniques.   Amberly talks about the importance of mindfulness—staying focused on the present and redirecting any “coulda, shoulda, woulda” ruminations from the past, or stressing about the future. She talks about how her morning routine gets her into a healthy mindset to tackle her day, especially the practice of expressing gratitude for three things in your life as soon as you wake up. Amberly offers up some memorable quotes, but in her case, it’s not just a pithy quote, it’s how she really lives her life. “Start where we are, use what we have, do what we can.” Can it get any better than that for direction on how to live a happy, healthy life?!   Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After getting our gut check at the end of the first show, Tommy keeps the momentum going with some memorable sound bites and takeaway action items for a long, happy, healthy life.  Referencing the gut dysfunction that ended the first show, Tommy explains that the body can find other ways to replenish necessary carbs through internal mechanism and reducing your need by becoming fat and keto-adapted.  We talk about my successful experiment, inspired by Tommy and Chris Kelly in September of 2017, to start consuming additional nutritious calories to fuel athletic performance and speed recovery. In evaluating my comprehensive test results generated by the Nourish, Balance, Thrive program, along with my complaint of crash and burn patterns (feel great, performance magnificent athletic feats, then drag ass for a couple-few days or longer). Yes, Tommy said you can even eat ice cream now and then! I transitioned from a sustained pattern of fasting until noon or later to starting my day with my Brad Kearns super-nutritious green smoothie every morning (check my someday-viral YouTube video of that name). Tommy inspires athletic types to understand that more nutrient-dense food can support peak performance, general health, and longevity. He theorizes that if you under-consume calories while striving for athletic excellence, you may slow down your thyroid and experience a decline in general everyday energy levels and metabolic function. Granted, if you are carrying excess body fat that you want to remove, are trying to recover from metabolic damage from carb dependency and/or yo-yo dieting, or have blood risk factors like high triglycerides, you may have a greater benefit from carbohydrate restriction to achieve rapid fat loss.   We’ve heard in the low carb community how fasting improves autophagy (the natural cellular detoxification process) and that having an efficient metabolism is a longevity booster, but Tommy reminds us that athletes get similar autophagy benefits from endurance exercise depleting cellular energy, and that studies show those with a faster metabolism might live longer. Tommy keeps it pretty simple with the suggestion of eating as much nutritious food as you want without gaining fat.   We also learn how the real culprit for body fat accumulation is consuming fat and carbs in combination. Food manufacturers know this can have addictive allure, and have carefully designed most of our go-to shit products to contain both refined carbohydrates and usually unhealthy processed fats.   The show ends with Tommy offering color commentary on his delightfully simple and memorable five tips for living healthy:   Sleep enough: Make sure you have a quiet, dark environment and avoid excess screen time in the evening.   Move more: Lift. Walk. Sprint. Jump. Climb. How cool that Tommy combines all forms of exercise, training and movement together. It’s not about logging your miles or hitting spin class every day, its about an overall movement strategy.   Reduce stress: Meditate. Do yoga. Nap. Spend time outdoors. We often neglect this stuff on the other side of the balance scale. Tommy reminds us that stress is subjective (read book, The Myth of Stress). Is a traffic jam stressful, or is it just another great opportunity to catch up on podcasts?  Socialize: Put down the iPhone. Have fun with friends and family. Have sex.
Remember, Tommy is deep into the scientific research that validates how this breezy stuff can optimize hormone and immune function. He mentions the dangers of lingering in the “cognitive middle gear” that really trips Brad out because he realizes he is messing up this one big time.   Eat real food. Simple as that, let’s all tone down the hair-splitting and controversy surrounding the nuances of healthy eating. Both vegans and hardcore keto folks have lots of common ground and that’s what we should focus on.   Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What an honor to talk with the #1 bestselling relationship author of all time, Dr. John Gray! John’s 1992 masterpiece, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus: The Classic Guide To Understanding The Opposite Sex, launched an enterprise that is still leading the pack to this day. His 2017 book and the centerpiece of this interview is called, Beyond Mars and Venus: Relationship Skills For Today’s Complex World.   Too young to have heard of Mars and Venus? Check this: “Now viewed as a modern classic, this phenomenal book has helped men and women realize how different they can be in their communication styles, their emotional needs, and their modes of behavior; and offers the secrets of communicating without conflicts, allowing couples to give intimacy every chance to grow.”    Over the past 25 years, John has authored numerous sequels and ascended to the highest level of prominence as an author, speaker, therapist, and—most interestingly—scientist delivering cutting-edge insights on how innate gender differences and hormone balances affect relationships.   John’s recent work is a real breakthrough because it breaks down relationship dynamics to the hormonal level. It also identifies ways in which we can achieve an ideal balance of testosterone, estrogen and numerous other hormones and neurotransmitters that help us become the best man or best woman we can be—especially in the midst of rapidly evolving cultural roles that make it difficult to stay in balance.    After binging on the 10-hour audio recording and conducting this interview, I dare say the experience will be life-changing. You’ll have to listen to a future show with Mia Moore to find out what happened with us the day after the interview!    Dr. Gray’s insights cover the stuff underneath the dysfunctional patterns that we get stuck in, the frustration and confusion of not being able to understand or connect with our partners, and the cultural prevalence for unhealthy distraction (Gray observes how males are addicted to porn and video games, and females are taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication in record numbers). One thing is for sure—with John Gray, you are in for a wild ride. This show is incredibly fast-moving and will compel you to read both his first book and current book very carefully if you want to thrive in loving relationships.    At one point, John breaks down in describing the difficulty of losing his longtime spouse, Bonnie, to cancer in 2017. Soon after, he goes on an epic binge of profound insights for how men can rebuild their testosterone and feel valued and appreciated, and how women can reawaken their estrogen-dominant, nurturing selves who love to be heard and receive pleasure. This is a challenge because the free and progressive modern culture has allowed us to awaken all sides of ourselves, whereby in previous generations men played the breadwinner role and females played the caretaker role. From his basic premise, John takes us deep into the bedroom, describing how great sex can wash away lots of relationship conflict, the importance of female orgasm for both men and women, and how to have sex for 10 hours (sneak preview of a future book project!).    John is an animated guy with a profound gift for analyzing relationship dynamics and telling you exactly how you can succeed, maintain passion and spark, become Soulmates instead of the dated concept of “Rolemates”, and escape from the frustrating patterns and repeated failures that seem to be the norm in modern culture. If you are not absolutely inspired and touched by this interview, email me for a full refund. This guy is a classic! Enjoy John Gray, Ph.D., author of Beyond Mars and Venus. Order it right now- it will transform your relationship.   Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I have a powerhouse session with Dr. Tommy Wood of Nourish, Balance, Thrive where a great many topics are covered that can transform your health. This is the first of a two-part show, so fasten your seatbelts for a wild ride covering a wide range of health, fat burning, and longevity topics. Tommy is a medical doctor trained at Oxford and Cambridge, with a Ph.D. in neonatal brain research from University of Oslo. Of British and Icelandic heritage, Tommy has landed in the Seattle area, where he and his wife both do professor-ish stuff at You Dub, or the University of Washington. He is the Chief Scientific Doctor for the comprehensive health and peak performance testing and consultation service called NourishBalanceThrive.com. This is the absolute cutting edge of progressive health for athletes and anyone wanting to achieve peak performance. The NBT program goes beyond traditional medicine to identify hormonal and nutritional deficiencies through extensive blood, urine, stool and saliva testing, expert consultations, and targeted supplementation.  What’s most cool about Tommy is that he is as absolutely ankle-deep into the science of health, metabolism, and longevity as anyone on the planet, but he emphasizes the simple, practical healthy lifestyle practices above all. He did a whole show on the Nourish, Balance, Thrive podcast channel about how owning a dog can significantly boost your health (get outside frequently, engage in spontaneous play). Brucebowen, the regal white boxer seen in the show photo, has received the highest possible honor by the American Kennel Club of being banned from championship dog shows out of respect for fair competition for all lesser breeds.   Tommy talks about how positive social interactions help us manage our level of systemic inflammation—a key predictor of disease and demise when it’s out of control. We then talk about the prominent fight or flight hormone, cortisol. Understanding how to manage the chronic stressors of daily life and optimize cortisol is the secret to recovering from training, staying healthy, and minimizing disease risk. Tommy encapsulates this important concept by explaining that cortisol spikes “liquidate your assets,” quoting from a book he recommends, “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.”  During my career as a professional triathlete, I was repeatedly fooled by the mechanisms of the fight or flite response that had me feeling great, albeit bathed in stress hormones on an artificial chemical high where I was liquidating my assets. A wallet filled with cash and credit card bills stacking up.   Tommy explains how we respond to stress differently, and how can teach ourselves to better handle traffic jams, work stress, and even training sessions, so the stress impact is minimized. Listen to Joel Jamieson’s podcast about Rebound Training where you can do workouts that nurture the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.    Tommy recaps his talk at Ancestral Health Symposium where he started with the compelling premise that today’s model of fitness and athletic training are wholly modern constructs that have little to do with our ancestral hunter-gatherer activity patterns. Studies from the modern day hunter-gatherer Hadza tribe in Africa show that they move around a lot but are never plunging into destructive chronic patterns like modern athletes. Tommy also talks about how gut dysfunction is very prevalent among hard training fitness enthusiasts, and how becoming fat adapted can help alleviate the stress on your digestive system caused by exercise.   Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fitness and biofeedback apps are all the rage at the moment. They can help engage our workout decisions, workout performance and help track consumption of calories and macronutrients. Sounds good right? While they certainly can have their benefits, this show contemplates how being connected this way to your body’s nutrition and fitness needs actually spreads the gap further between your mind/body connection and produces an overly regimented life dependent on various gadgets. While such devices are lovely pieces of technology, on one hand, they also lead to not correctly exercising your most important muscle – your brain!    I discuss how some of this technology isn’t even viable for the average user because it’s so sophisticated in understanding your heart rate variability; therefore, such tools are rendered nearly useless to the average user.   While apps like the Primal Beat HRV are beneficial for heart rate tracking, this show lets you in on what Mark Sisson thought after using one of the sleep trackers available on the market, and I reveal which gadget, according to The Guardian, is the only tool that actually can improve your health over time. Surprisingly, this device has nothing to do with fitness gains or body fat losses. Any guesses?  There needs to remain an elegant balance between the relationship between you and your high tech versus the connection you grow or maintain with your intuition. Let your mind and body be your guide and keep the apps as a learning tool, not as a tool that directs your entire strategy toward improved health.  Hope you dig the show!  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I am joined with Rick Mouw, the owner of Almost Heaven, who provides one-of-a-kind, beautiful quality, and hand-crafted sauna kits to his customers. Proclaimed as the largest manufacturer of do-it-yourself saunas, Rick is all for creating awareness surrounding heat therapy which comes from sauna use specifically. He stresses that a hot tub is more for relaxation purposes while saunas add a hearty dose of wellness into the equation. The structure is also nicely practical and low-maintenance as a bonus. My guest’s outdoor barrel saunas have an elegant barrel design, and you can tell they were made with love. My intention is not to sound like a salesman with this show but to provide you with the new and surprising discoveries that have been made about the insane sauna benefits which many of us weren't aware of previously.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-get-over-yourself-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.