(Do) You remember that Pixar film "WALL-E"?

I think "WALL-E" is prophetic in many ways, of, like, the path we could go down,

where people are just sitting, looking at a screen, and we've lost all sense of reality.

You talked about how... how vicious stress is as a cause, I guess, for inflammation.

You know, people tend to think of stress as being a really, really bad thing.

I... I hear often that some kind of stress is... is a good stress.

What is, in particular, the type of stress you're talking about that is leading to this... this shame-flammation?

I... I'm assuming it's chronic stress.

Yeah, human species⏤the human species wouldn't be here without some grit and resilience.

And I think, in some ways, you could argue that we're really lacking our resilience and grit.

And that's something that I'm teaching my patients and in the book,

for people to, sort of, gain a resilience to handle stress; there's nothing wrong, inherently, with stress.

And even if you look at the research around hormetic effects or hormesis,

like, people are doing the cold punches you see all around the wellness space or sauna therapy or high-intensity interval training, or even things like fasting.

These are all hormetic effects that humans would've spent times in, like, difficult times, periodic times of stress.

That actually makes ourselves more resilient and... and our souls more resilient in... in many ways.

But it's the chronic stress where it's out of alignment with that ancestral health perspective.

It's... it's⏤there's a... that evolutionary mis... mismatch that I mentioned earlier.

That is something that we haven't aligned with.

We have these... these different stress adaptation responses in the body, and the body is releasing things like cortisol and adrenaline.

And we never allow this sympathetic fight-or-flight stress aspect of our autonomic nervous system to calm down.

So, we're always in this fight-or-flight stressed state to varying degrees that people never are able to regulate themselves

and never able to support that parasympathetic, that resting, digesting, that hormone-balanced state of their... their nervous system.

So, yeah, it could look different for different people.

But the things that I hear the most with... from people, it's their jobs.

It's... it's like a lack of, I would say, healthy boundaries with their jobs,

and their family can be a source of stressor, finances can be a sort of stress, and their health.

I think when you don't feel well, that's stressful as well.

Those are the most common things that I hear from people.

This fight-or-flight response, this, sort of, prolonged state of feeling like you're kind of in fight-or-flight,

which is, sort of, characterized by being short of breath or feeling a bit on edge or nervous.

What is the consequence of being in that state for too long?

'Cause a lot of people can probably relate to that.

Well, it's⏤that is, in part, what's driving these... these vast epidemic of health problems in our world today.

When you're talking about 50 million Americans having autoimmune condition(s),

hundreds of millions worldwide are having autoimmune condition(s), Type two diabetes.

I mean, it's the vast majority of people in the West are somewhere on this insulin-resistance spectrum,

meaning they have things like PCOS or weight-loss resistance or insatiable cravings or prediabetes or type two diabetes.

All of these health problems that we are plagued with as a world are, in part, fed by chronic stress.

It's just a matter of how much your body can handle.

And that's sort of the conversation in the book about bio-individuality, right?

Some people have the buck analogies, sort of, that bucket analogy⏤some people have massive buckets.

And they can handle a lot of things in their life before it's gonna hit that tipping point.

What is the tipping point?

The tipping point is health problems where something's got to give, and they realize they're diagnosed with a health problem,

and it's stressors, the foods we eat, trauma⏤all of these things accumulate.

You can't change your bucket size, but you can change what you put in it.

You can't change your genetic tolerance for stressors, but you can change what you put in it.

So, it's really a message of agency, right?

It's a message of "What can I do?"

We all have different abilities or thresholds to handle things in our life, but we all have the ability to clear these things out and to heal, ultimately.

You know, have... hearing all of this, it makes me feel so deeply that the way we've chosen to live our lives is really un-human.

And when I think about what we can do to change that from, like, a real systemic level, it seems like it might just be too big of a job.

Because of the direction of travel of everything⏤ technology, the way we're... we're organizing our lives in terms of, like, cities and work and profession⏤professionalism and social media, etc., etc.

Are... are you optimistic that there's things we can do to change it?

And what are those, like, real systemic things we have to do within our own lives as individuals, but also as a society?

Yeah, I mean, it's something I think often about, and I think that there's a growing amount⏤

pockets of people, if you will, that are... that know, intuitively, they have to do something different to see something different.

And being in functional medicine for the past 13-plus years at this point,

I have to say, what was once considered radical or fringe 13 years ago⏤the idea that stress and trauma could trigger autoimmune issues⏤

is now very much talked about in conventional settings.

And the things that may have seemed woo-woo and strange 13 years ago, now is being researched by reputable institutions.

I... I talk about the research of the book around "shinrinyoku", which is the Japanese term that translates as "forest bathing",

which sounds weird when you think of it in English, but it's actually a beautiful description.

I believe... the Japanese art of using nature as a meditation, using nature as a medicine.

And how research has show, like, just spending few minutes in nature and taking it in with all of your senses, like, a sensorial effect of nature,

lowers inflammation levels, lowers stress hormones, balances the human immune system,

actually improves the human microbiome because of the... the things you're smelling in and taking in with all of your senses.

So, I... I think the fact that researchers are looking at these ancient arts is a good sign that we, as a culture, are looking for something different.

'Cause I think, in many ways⏤do you remember that Pixar Film "WALL-E"?

I think "WALL-E" is prophetic, in many ways, of, like, the path we could go down, where people are just sitting, looking at a screen, and we have lost all sense of reality.

I don't⏤I think, whoever wrote "WALL-E", the people at Pixar, we can go a different direction.

You know, this is such a... an interest⏤strange question to ask, based on what you've said.

But I was just... just as you finished speaking then, I was thinking about how we know this stuff,

Like, you know this stuff, I know this stuff; it's not the⏤in terms of like getting back to being a little bit more human in the way that we organize our lives.

But we⏤I was gonna ask you the question, like, do you do it?

Yeah, I mean, to me, I don't think you have to pick between modernity and decreasing that chasm between genetics and epigenetics.

So, I live in a modern world, I run a telehealth clinic.

So, I use technology to speak to people around the world at⏤for the past 13 years, and we ship labs to them.

So, I, very much, am a fan of technology and⏤people are listening to us right now around the world.

I love the decentralization, the democratization of health information because of technology.

It's wonderful.

But I think the, sort of, unfettered lack of healthy boundaries with this phenomenon that we only have, relatively, a few years of experience with as... as a world,

I think that that's something we just have to learn how to check ourselves, and we are all trying to figure it out right now.

So, do I live it? Yes, I live it, but I... I live it in a balanced way, where I have boundaries with technology.

Like, my son's here in the studio with us right now.

He's 16 years old; he just got a phone at 16.

And so as a parent, I'm making these decisions of⏤there's kids that are like 8, 9 years old having social media.

And we have the US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy say recently that⏤

He says, and this is the US government saying, "Children under the age of 14 shouldn't have social media."

If the US government's saying it, who takes well-measured, conservative advice for these type of things when it comes to wellness, historically,

if they're recommending it, I could only assume that we have an issue at hand.

So, yes, I... I think it's just a matter for all of us to make these decisions for ourselves out of self-respect, not out of shame, but out of self-respect.

What do I need?

What healthy margins, what healthy boundaries do I need to live a more sane life, to live a more joyous⏤to live a... a more meaningful life?

Some people can handle, probably, more technology than me; some people could probably⏤

We all have, again, this bio-individuality when it comes to these things.

But I think we just need to... to, out of self-respect, check ourselves.

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