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EP08 Surviving Christmas with Mark Varitimos
83 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Mark and I discuss intelligent ways to navigate challenges at Christmas, including how to best utilize alcohol, potentially harmful foods, how to navigate challenging relationships and much more.
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Transcript
Keeping It Casual: Christmas Relationships and Self-Management
00:00:01
Speaker
All right, welcome back everyone to the Nick Taskey podcast. Today I'm joined again by Mark Verudimos. I'm just going to try and keep things pretty casual today, but with the festive season coming up, Christmas and everything, we'll kind of focus generally on making it through Christmas kind of relationships.
00:00:19
Speaker
how to manage yourself. You know, I suppose we're all going to eat some bad food. We're going to pick up some bad habits potentially over Christmas, get into some tense situations maybe. And we're just going to keep that as
Finding Balance: Health Principles During Christmas
00:00:33
Speaker
our general theme. So welcome Mark.
00:00:36
Speaker
Yeah, thanks Nick. Appreciate it. And I had a little chuckle around the tense situations. So yeah, some people can get a little bit triggered over Christmas. So yeah, look, you and I thought we'd come together and do a podcast. You know, we've both been applying health principles for quite a while. I'm not sure if you remember, I know you've been doing it for a few years now, Nick, but
00:00:55
Speaker
you know, when the Christmas season, you know, when you've been really good health wise for the first or second time in that Christmas season comes up, sometimes it's like, you know, what do I do here? You know, so it is a little bit of trial and error. It's a little bit of finding a good balance. So, you know, we'll just go through some, you know, some tips and some strategies and try and do whatever works for you. And then we'll just kind of go from there. So yeah, so just to kind of cut in a little bit.
00:01:22
Speaker
One of the first things or something positive I took away from potentially last Christmas or the Christmas before was the contrasting feeling of like actually feeling unhealthy again.
00:01:35
Speaker
you know, speaking on having followed the principles for a long time and then deciding to completely let loose for a week. Um, I just remember feeling like now I know that what, what it actually feels like to feel healthy because having that contrasting feeling, um, when you're feeling you've eaten everything disgusting and, and all of the Christmas desserts and you know, drunk, all the alcohol and all that sort of stuff. It's, it's like night and day.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's a really good point, actually. And you know, when I work with my clients personally, they'll sometimes have some good weeks and then sometimes have one or two bad weeks for whatever reason, you know, it could be social circumstances or sabotage. And then they're like, Oh, I felt so bad or you know, I actually put the weight back on or I couldn't sleep properly. And it's like,
00:02:26
Speaker
Cool. Well, we now actually know what some of the answer is like, well done, you know, so, so we know what we're doing is working. So, um, look, I've, I've never, you know, I've worked with, I couldn't tell you how many clients, but I've never seen like a straight linear progression that just goes upwards in terms of progress. Um, it's normally like a, like a few steps forward, maybe one or two steps back. That's very, very common and if not almost very
Alcohol and Health: Social Role and Impacts
00:02:53
Speaker
normal. So,
00:02:54
Speaker
So the two steps back is like a nice reminder as to, um, uh, what to do better in my view. And it's a good chance for reflection as to, you know, why it's happened. Uh, and then ideally you take stock and then you move forward again. Yeah, that's a, that's a pretty good point that you make there. I've never seen anyone who's, I mean, who's, who's progressed completely linearly and never taken a step back is just like, it doesn't exist.
00:03:22
Speaker
Yeah. No, I don't think so either. I think so either. Cool. So let's, let's, um, let's dive into some things and I'll just sort of speak at things at random and, you know, feel free to fire some questions at me. So I think the big one for a lot of people is alcohol. Um, so, so this can be hard cause like there's a lot of alcohol around, around Christmas time. Um, you know, it is a big part of our social fabric, especially here in Australia. Um,
00:03:50
Speaker
I don't know if it's my social circles, but it seems to be more...
00:03:53
Speaker
accepted if you don't drink alcohol, or maybe people are just used to me now, I'm not really sure. But even then, you know, you and I have still had a drink together every now and then. So you know, I'm not perfect in this regard. And I'm okay with that at the moment, you know, so you know, I almost think if, you know, trying to be too healthy can be a sickness in itself, and it can cause quite a bit of stress. So, so you know, if a situation calls for it, you know, I'll have a drink, I don't know, at the moment, you know, maybe like
00:04:23
Speaker
one drink a week, one drink of Fortnite, something like that. So, okay, cool. So, you know, what's so bad about alcohol? Like, some people actually have those questions, okay? So, you know, alcohol has been shown to damage our gut, you know, the mucous membrane. It's been shown to cause some shrinkage in some certain areas in our brain. It's been shown to affect our hormonal system, specifically testosterone.
00:04:51
Speaker
You know that's that's kind of a little bit more long term short term in terms of hangovers you know why do we get a hangover you know often it's like dehydration you know probably general inflammation in the body.
00:05:07
Speaker
another reason is actually when we drink alcohol the reason why people love it is when we drink alcohol it actually triggers the release of a neurotransmitter called gabber i don't know if you've heard of gabber or not but um so gabber's got like a very calming effect on the body so people drink alcohol like oh cool you know like i tell my boss to go get f'd or whatever it might be you know so
00:05:30
Speaker
So it's like, cool, I've got GABA, awesome. So, you know, very calming effect on the body and actually sort of almost blocks or definitely reduces the production of something called glutamate, which, you know, is linked with managing your levels of anxiety. So again, so you've now got these two
00:05:47
Speaker
you know, neurotransmitters or potentially just chemicals that are sort of, you know, making you more calm and making you less anxious while you're
Managing Alcohol Consumption and Health
00:05:54
Speaker
on alcohol. And that's why, you know, the inhibitions actually kind of drop away. So, so my point to this story, because I'm kind of talking about hangovers is so you've got this, you know, this calming effect, this
00:06:07
Speaker
this lower anxiety effect, but then so when you come off the alcohol and actually has to come back into balance, and it can actually even overshoot. So all of a sudden, now you're like not as calm as all at all, and you're actually more anxious. So in this, but in the body's attempt to rebalance, it can actually overbalance if that makes sense on the other way. And now you're becoming more anxious. So that's another reason why
00:06:34
Speaker
you know, it's been linked with actually affecting mental health, or at least in the short term and actually also in the long term, but it can really mess around with your neurochemistry. So, so
00:06:45
Speaker
Um, it sounded like you're about to ask a question. Yeah. Well, one of the things I was going to say about alcohol is, is the effect that it has on like blood glucose or blood sugar levels. Right. So you get this initial spike in blood glucose followed by low. And that's typically why you see people, you know, hanging around the kebab shop or, you know, eating fast food at the end of the night. Right. Get hungry. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. I hadn't actually thought about that, but you're actually right. Um, yeah. Uh, yeah. No, you're spot on. So.
00:07:15
Speaker
Yeah. So that's another one as well. Okay. So then it's kind of like, well, what do you do? You know, aside from drinking less drinking, less is actually the best answer just to let you know. Um, um, but let's, let's sort of say that, Hey, look, you are trying to drink less. So how else do you manage it? So, you know, drinking loads of water throughout, um, an alcohol session or straight afterwards can be really good just to help that those dehydration symptoms. Okay. Um,
00:07:40
Speaker
So drinking loads of water. And I'm sure most people have heard eating with alcohol is also excellent. So that will just protect the membrane, the mucous membrane of the gut a little bit. So the alcohol won't directly go right through into the stomach. It'll just actually be a little bit protected. Your digestive enzymes will be flowing a lot better. There's a certain enzyme that helps break down alcohol.
00:08:07
Speaker
that will help you process the alcohol and actually helps you digest the alcohol better and a little bit slower as well. Which to your point will actually- So is there a particular kind of food, Mark, that you would like that you would have people eat with alcohol? Personally, I would think that foods that are higher in fat than protein are probably better to have with alcohol than something heavy in carbohydrate.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah, look, that's generally what I recommend and lean towards. Mainly because as you mentioned around blood sugar levels, that can actually help just stabilize the blood sugar levels quite a lot. So especially fat, like high quality fat can just really help slow it down and stabilize it.
00:08:51
Speaker
But you and I have spoken offline, we might even go into it, you know, here around the importance of genetics as well and just individuals. So, you know, some individuals just might feel better on the carbohydrates. But yeah, I think as a general rule of thumb, if you're experimenting with this for the first time, high protein and fats probably a better way to go.
00:09:11
Speaker
Yeah. Like I think one of the best things that you can do is have like, you know, I think it's pretty common to have like cheese and crackers and probably a bit of salami or something like that. Um, if it was me, I would probably try and aim for the more of the cheese and salami and, and steer a little bit clearer of the crackers if you can. Um, but in speaking about that, um, you know, protecting the gut lining a little bit, I think that the, like the fat and the protein are also contributing to that more than any kind of cracker or anything like that would.
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I think as well. That's what I think. So we've kind of got, well, how do you manage it? So cool. So we've got like, yeah, drink more water, you know, eat food with it, which would be really good. You know, I also think a form of electrolytes would be good, especially afterwards, like a coconut water or a pinch of high quality salt in your water would be really good just to help rehydrate you. You know, I haven't actually really been able to find any evidence around the mixing of drinks and whether that's worse.
00:10:14
Speaker
You know, I, it's been a while since I've mixed drinks. Like it would have been a good, you know, maybe 10 years or so. But, you know, as I remember back to my, my days, my early twenties, uh, when I mixed drinks, you know, for fun, it was like a laugh. Um, you know, I got the sense my hangover probably was worse. Um, you never really know. Like it's hard to know. I guess like that could have been mental as well. Um, you know, I was drinking soft drink with alcohol at the same time as well. So.
00:10:40
Speaker
So yeah, it's hard to know. So I haven't actually found any evidence around that, to be honest, and I'm open to seeing it if it is there. But then it's like, well, what about some other alcohols? You know, what's better beer or wine or spirits or anything like, or things like that. So I certainly think, you know, if you've got a gluten sensitivity, you should probably
00:11:04
Speaker
be careful having beers and look for gluten-free beers, like beers on a rice base would be really good. Beers on a corn base could also be okay. And again- That would be more of you like Asahi, Sapporo, those Japanese kind of beers are generally like rice beers.
00:11:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. If you've got a gluten sensitivity. And look, and I think I've made it pretty clear in the podcast, I don't think alcohol is particularly healthy. I'm just sort of trying to, you know, talk about different options out there. Yeah. So you've got beers. So yeah, ideally, if you want to drink beer, you know, you'd go try and do a gluten free, especially if you're gluten sensitive.
00:11:44
Speaker
uh the wines you know if you can you know trying to do like more the organic wines can be quite good um especially the you know the commercially commercial wines um they have a lot of different additives in there so you know where you can you know try and do an organic wine if you go into a party and you're taking a bottle of wine you know a few extra bucks you can actually buy an organic one because you know grapes are actually quite highly sprayed um uh and then you've got your spirits so the spirits
00:12:13
Speaker
There's this theory that the clearest spirits will lead to less hangovers and there is actually a bit of research behind that. So the clearest spirits will have less or lead to less what they call congeners in the body and congeners have been linked with more severe hangovers. So yeah, if you wanted to drink spirits, probably the clearer ones are better. Specifically vodka and gin have been linked with sort of less congener production in the body.
00:12:42
Speaker
Okay. That's interesting. I think that probably those alcohols are actually more highly distilled as well. Like, especially with your more expensive Vodkas, um, names are avoiding me at the moment, but things like Grey Goose and Siroc, like those sort of brands are like double or triple distilled, which probably has some effect. Um, and again, those more highly distilled ones and your Vodkas are going to be like more gluten free as well. Um, and I mean, one of the things that.
00:13:11
Speaker
I guess you might've touched on a little bit earlier, but to clarify a little bit is that when we talk about leaky gut syndrome, anytime you're drinking alcohol, you're going to separate the gap junctions in the gut lining, right? There's going to be some protein leaking through those gap junctions and into the bloodstream.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely research about alcohol affecting the gut. Oh, you've put me on the spot as a specifically linked with intestinal permeability or leaky gut. I'm sure you could find research on that. I'm fairly sure there's some pretty strong evidence. Yeah, I've read broad research on the fact that it just causes inflammation in the gut, which, you know, does actually generally lead to leaky gut and
00:13:52
Speaker
And you know, the research is still up and coming on the whole leaky gut thing because it was kind of considered pseudoscience, you know, just a while ago. So I think it's becoming more accepted now. Yeah. And I think the other thing again,
00:14:07
Speaker
In my mind, any kind of food that you're eating when you're drinking alcohol, you're more likely to develop an intolerance to. So if you've got that... Oh, yeah. Wow. I hadn't thought of that. Well, yeah. Well, I think in my mind, if you've got that intestinal permeability and then those foods are, those particles, those proteins are leaking through into the bloodstream or through the blood-brain barrier, you're more likely to develop an intolerance to that food.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, wow. I see you're trying to thought. Yeah, I actually even thought about that to be honest with you. So yeah, no, it's really interesting. I have to give that some thought and see if there's anything out there on it. But yeah, okay. Yeah, no, good point. The other thing that I've really noticed with alcohol for me is that it has a real kind of cortisol elevation effect. Like one of the things that I've noticed in myself is that it sounds kind of counterintuitive, but
00:15:01
Speaker
It's actually has like a, a stimulus or stimulating effect. And I think a lot of people have probably had the experience of, you know, if you are having a big night out, you can stay awake until early hours of the morning. Um, whereas if you weren't drinking, you'd probably be more likely to go to sleep.
Balancing Health Goals and Social Interactions
00:15:19
Speaker
So I think there's probably something to that as well. Yeah, it has been linked with, um, higher production of cortisol for sure. Um, alcohol, um,
00:15:27
Speaker
I get the sense that it would probably even be there a little bit the next day as well in that, in that hangover phase, even though you might be tired, but if it's a stress on the body, then, you know, then that can trigger the adrenals to release cortisol. So yeah, I think, um, I think that's perfectly reasonable. Yeah. And I think, um, you also touched on this before and you said, you know, alcohol is probably not the best choice of things to have. And I guess the caveat to this conversation would be, you know,
00:15:56
Speaker
Like you said even before, there's potentially disease in trying to be ultra healthy. And the other side to that is we want to prepare people for the occasion where you're just going to be in situations where you're going to want to have a drink or you're going to want to eat some bad food and that's okay.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, look, it happens. Everyone, in my view, has got this different level of what suits them individually. And it can vary on a number of factors, like how sensitive their body is could be a really good example. If their body's really sensitive, then they just can't do it. The same as
00:16:40
Speaker
you know, someone who's celiac, they just like, oh, severe celiac, they just can't tolerate any gluten at all. So, so it's really, it's really dependent, I think, on how sensitive the person's body is, you know, how healthy they want to be, how good of results they want to have. So it's a tricky one. And it's a constant evolving process. So, you know, I remember when I first got on this train, you know, this health train back in 2010, after I read
00:17:07
Speaker
I had Eat, Move and Be Healthy by Paul Chek. There was some holidays where I could feel myself stressing out. It was like, do I do this? Do I do that? All right, we're all going out for pizza. What do I do here? It can be a little bit stressful.
00:17:23
Speaker
And even now, while my compliance is extremely high, I still falter every now and then. But to have that social benefit, that's just the trade-off and it's a really individual choice.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, I remember thinking like when I started eating mostly organic food and going to places and thinking like, oh, what if it's not organic? And I'm at the point now where I'm like the advantage of having that social interaction and just, you know, relaxing at the time and just enjoying like the company and the food. It's not to say that I don't try and opt for like grass fed steak over grain fed or that I don't.
00:18:04
Speaker
that I completely relax all my rules, but I don't let myself stress to the point where everything has to be perfect.
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And look, I think if, you know, if you've got a social circle, that's not encouraging of that, like, you're not encouraging of your health goals, then, you know, you may have to reconsider, you know, how often you, you are with this social circle, or, you know, who you want to hang out with. So, you know, you may not find anyone as strict as what you want to be. But, you know, hopefully, your, your family and friends are fairly supportive of what you want to do.
Challenges and Solutions for Healthy Eating
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah, completely.
00:18:41
Speaker
And that's a really important point you make. I think for a lot of us, I mean, we could go down multiple different rabbit holes with this one.
00:18:52
Speaker
I don't know if Brisbane's like a particularly great place for access to really healthy food. Like when you go to a place like Sydney, you've got these restaurants like Ruff and Bear and you know, these places with more access to organic foods and you know, really high quality foods where it's a little bit more difficult to find those sort of places in Brisbane. Is that been your experience?
00:19:13
Speaker
Yes, I used to live in Sydney, so they were pretty advanced and they have cafes that have a lot of organic food. I don't know that many places in Brisbane that do, if I'm to be completely honest, but I eat out maybe twice a week, three times a week, and then have
00:19:31
Speaker
uh the rest of my meals home cooked you know all organic you know that that ratio for me is okay like yeah I agree with that you know so so yeah no it's not too bad um you know I think Brisbane's grown a lot actually the last few years
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah, and eventually, you know, the more support people give and the more people, you know, change, I think people are gradually changing their buying habits and the more that happens, the more of those sort of or access to those sorts of foods and those restaurants and facilities will open up.
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. The demand will increase. Yeah. So let's okay, cool. So we sort of spoke about alcohol around around that Christmas period, which I think is a pretty important one. And then just staying well hydrated in and around those times. You know, and we're sort of talking about foods when we talk about sort of nutrition strategies leading into Christmas as an example. So, so, you know, I think
00:20:27
Speaker
It's gonna be hard to be organic over Christmas if you're going to family and friends and that kind of stuff. I think that can be quite difficult unless you lead the charge with bringing food. But then it's like, so what do you do otherwise? Well, I think my first...
00:20:42
Speaker
piece of advice would be to really try and avoid or at least replace foods you're sensitive to. So, you know, the big hitter for a lot of people is like gluten as an example. So, you know, if you can just start there as a minimum, you know, avoiding foods you're sensitive to, you know, that will take a long that will
00:21:03
Speaker
you'll go a long way to really take and carry yourself over Christmas. And a lot of people when they eat food that they're sensitive to, that can flare up their gut, that can lead to bloating, it can lead to constipation. Then all of a sudden, you've got this
00:21:18
Speaker
neuro inflammation, which can which can lead to adverse moods. So it's like, hey, look, you know, you might pick out a Christmas, but then you might be in a crappy mood on Boxing Day, you know, so just trying to be mindful of I think specifically food sensitivities are probably your best bet. If you're, you know, sort of slightly new to this game. If it's absolutely unavoidable,
00:21:44
Speaker
you know, which is rare, you can normally talk your way out of these kind of things, but if they're absolutely unavoidable, then I try and just have foods that are kind of enzyme rich to try and break it down. So, you know, I might get home and have like a big glass of lemon water or lime water or something like that, which, you know, I'm not going to say that that completely reverses it, but at least helps break it down a little bit. And I've found it with other people helps break it down. So lime water, lemon water,
00:22:10
Speaker
Aloe Vera water can be quite good as well. And I think actually in a private conversation we had, you were like, hey, look, they're starting to discover enzymes that can break down gluten a little bit better as well. Yeah, that's true. One of the other things that I would add, and I'm not quite sure where you sit with this now, but I think particularly with alcohol, one of the best supplements that you can actually take is something like a charcoal, like an activated charcoal.
00:22:37
Speaker
charcoal is an absorbent and so my understanding is that it's working to detoxify. It's not absorbing the alcohol but it's charged, it's electrically charged. It's helping to remove that alcohol from the system. Yeah, I have read that. I will add to that and I don't mean to
00:23:00
Speaker
Yeah, I don't mean to supersede it, but the only thing I need to add to that is if you're on medications, charcoal can actually detox medications. So you just gotta be a little bit careful around the medication side, that's all. Ah, yeah, that's a really good point that you make, yeah. Any kind of blood pressure medication is, I know those ones are, what's the word? They don't work well with charcoal. Yeah, okay, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure.
00:23:28
Speaker
Okay, so we spoke about kind of alcohol, hydration.
Family Interactions: Triggers and Growth
00:23:35
Speaker
We spoke about like different sort of food sort of choices. And we sort of spoke about organic as well. I think the other thing we speak about leading into Christmas, the other thing that can really flare people up is just kind of like managing your energy levels, managing certain people, all those kinds of things.
00:23:59
Speaker
Maybe we go with, um, you know, um, people get quite triggered going into family situations. Um, you know, some people actually really hate Christmas. I actually personally love it. Me personally, but, but some people hate it. Um, yeah, yeah, I love it. Everyone's got time off. We all hang out, but, but some people hate it. And I've even worked with, um, some empaths that like kind of really feel energy. They get actually like really knocked out leading into Christmas where they can feel kind of like all the,
00:24:27
Speaker
anxious energy going into like Christmas day functions and stuff like that. And they just get really sleepy, you know, around about Christmas Eve or the 23rd of December. So, so which is like really interesting. So, so then like, well, what's happening? Well, you know, a lot of what I say is, you know, I can, I can generally sort of refer to research, which, you know, which is great. And then some of the stuff I say is a little bit more woowoo. So, you know, I'll go there a little bit now, because, you know, measuring
00:24:55
Speaker
you know, relationships and relationship interactions, it's very hard to quantify via, via research. So, so, you know, if you if you read books that where people are, you know, a little bit more clairvoyant by nature, you know, there's an excellent book called The Survival of the Soul by Lisa Williams. So she's a psychic medium. And she talks about, you know, we're all part of, you know, you and your family may be part of a soul cluster. So you're actually kind of almost meant to come together.
00:25:25
Speaker
to learn from each other, um, which is really, really interesting. So then, so then we're almost supposed to get triggered by family and be challenged by family in different ways. So let me put this in like a little bit of a practical sense. So let's just say you go to family functions over Christmas or Christmas day. Um, and you get quite triggered that everyone's talking about how well they did financially and you didn't do well that financially that year, you know, that can be quite triggering.
00:25:53
Speaker
And it's like, cool, we got a choice, you can either hate on your family, or you can make a choice to actually improve your financial situation. You know, if that's actually what's triggering you. If you don't care about your financial situation, then it shouldn't actually really trigger you, quite frankly. So, so it's like, if you're getting triggered by these things, have a look at what it is and what you may actually potentially need to change. If you're triggered by
00:26:16
Speaker
you know, I gave you one example there, you know, if you're triggered by people talking about their work passionately and really living their purpose, and you're working in a job that you don't like, if that's triggering you, you actually now have a really clear sign of what you may need to change. So you know, another another one can be, you know, when family have got, you know, they've got lots of babies, and you know, you really want to have babies and you're triggered by that cool, you know, that's another change you may need to make. So
00:26:44
Speaker
The triggers, in my view, can actually show us where change needs to be made. On the flip side to that, that doesn't mean you tolerate abuse or abusive relationships. There's this balance between trigger and setting good boundaries. So if people aren't going to treat you well, then that's a decision you have to make of, well, I'm just not going to deal with you. Other examples, like if you're dealing with a highly emotional
00:27:14
Speaker
family member. I don't know if you've ever, you know, we've both studied through the Czech Institute, there's one of their readings, you know, one of 1000 books Paul spits out is
00:27:26
Speaker
a book called Nonviolent Communication by, I think it's Waylon Myers, a very, very short book, only about probably, you know, 50 to 80 pages, something like that. And he talks there about, hey, look, you know, if you wanted to communicate nonviolently, you just talk about your needs. You know, you can, you can talk about how you feel when there's like quite a fiery situation, and then people can potentially lean into a little bit more empathy when that happens. Yeah, so rather than saying something like,
00:27:54
Speaker
You did this to me saying when this happened, I felt this way.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you can just explain a little bit more, um, like where you're coming from as opposed to, you know, you're, you're the boss and you did this and you did that. So, so how would you tell if someone was intentionally, uh, versus, uh, just you being triggered because, uh, you know, like the financial situation or something like that. You know what I mean?
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, look, it's a really good question. I don't know if I've got a straight answer other than with experience and awareness and time, you know, so even now, you know, I got a little bit triggered last week in a in a personal development call and have been pumping a bit of anger, but I just I've started to work through it now. And it's like, cool, I think I think I see the light here. So, you know, and I've been I do this
00:28:50
Speaker
been doing this work full-time for almost eight years and I still get triggered and still don't quite see what it is. So yeah, I think it just takes a little bit of time and experience in my view and probably getting it wrong sometimes and right sometimes.
Navigating Social Media and Health Insights
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah. And I think the flip side to that as well is
00:29:08
Speaker
We're also going to trigger people like, uh, like as much as we try, I think not to trigger people, you know, sometimes the general attitude, sometimes the fact that maybe you're potentially, um, you know, maybe for people like you and I where we're healthier than other people or, you know, maybe we look a little bit physically better or something like that. And potentially the attitude that comes with that can be triggering for people as well. Yeah. I hadn't actually thought about that, to be honest with you. Um,
00:29:37
Speaker
When you first mentioned, you know, people might get triggered by us, I was probably considering more in terms of social media posts, you know, sharing certain health opinions. So it's like, you know, you can't avoid triggering people. But I actually hadn't thought of that in terms of like health status.
00:29:55
Speaker
Uh, if someone else is kind of, you know, suffering a little bit. Yeah. I know one of the things that I, I found myself doing when I discovered the check stuff was trying to share it with everyone. And I had, you know, certain people who were just like, we're not interested in that. And we never will be. And it's, it's kind of like, you know, you know, you're so excited about something because you think you've found.
00:30:17
Speaker
you know, you're the bear of the light and you've got the answer and you kind of like drunk on this idea and then it's kind of, you know, understandably triggering for people who just aren't interested. Yeah, I think, you know, when you, specifically when you learn something new and you feel as though you've got a pretty good handle on it, like I feel a lot of people want to share that, which is perfectly fine. And then
00:30:40
Speaker
you know, they'll start sharing it, it probably won't connect with a lot of people because you're kind of doing it more for your ego as opposed to kind of, you know, potentially coming from this real place of wanting to help and you don't actually really know how to deliver the information either. Well, I didn't anyway, just really wanted to help and, and yeah, and if anything, you start to sort of start to build a wall. So yeah, and then I think over time, it's kind of like, I think you get a better read for people.
00:31:09
Speaker
um, of, of what information to deliver as well. It's almost like, um, you know, a new finance graduate or new law graduate, they kind of, you know, they, they can go into a new job and think they know everything. Um, um, but actually they really know nothing. So I'm not sure about you, but you know, I used to actually think I knew a lot more than I used to, you know, so, so, um, so yeah, I think there's a few things happening there. I think it's kind of like, you're really excited to share. Um, you really want to help people, but there's also,
00:31:39
Speaker
you know, maybe a little bit of ignorance as to, I look, maybe I, you know, maybe I don't know everything either, but even though you're still sharing it. So yeah, that's a good point I thought about. What I started to incorporate was, you know, sharing when asked, um, if someone, if someone wants my opinion on something, um, about what I think I have a degree of expertise in and I'm happy to share, but, um, otherwise I kind of, you know, just from that experience, um, tend to, tend to keep my, my,
00:32:09
Speaker
my thoughts to myself, you know, unless it's with someone like you who, you know, we're always chatting about this sort of stuff anyway, so have a mutual interest. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think with health, one of the best things you can do is just lead by example. Yeah, completely. Actions speak far louder than words, right? Yeah, with health specifically, it's just leading by example.
00:32:32
Speaker
then people may ask questions and it's literally the best form of credibility you can have. If you're talking about health and you are healthy, that for me is all forms of credibility. Completely.
00:32:45
Speaker
And I don't mean to put you on the spot with this one, but what are some things that potentially people could bring to Christmas or prepare for Christmas that would make things, you know, as far as food or as far as drinks go? We might have covered most of this, but are there things that you would potentially specifically bring to you, like a Christmas lunch or a Christmas dinner that might make things a little bit healthier?
00:33:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think people are more conscious about it now.
Healthier Christmas Meals and Weight Management
00:33:13
Speaker
I mentioned before, like, you know, you can do, you know, you can do like a fruit jug of water with coconut water in there if you wanted to. That could be a really good, like sweet tasting kind of drink. You know, water with mint, water with berries, water with coconut water, all those kind of things can be awesome.
00:33:31
Speaker
You can do fruit sorbets, which are really, really good. You can do fruit in general, which are really, really good. Animal food or well-sourced animal food is great. I think vegetables are generally pretty good and suit most people. Rice generally suits most people. So there's loads of options. You take those and you could just basically do anything.
00:33:54
Speaker
And then I sort of spoke about the alcohol side, cool, you know, where you can sort of reduce it. But if you can't, you know, organic wine, I think could probably be better than a commercially farmed wine as an example. Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
00:34:09
Speaker
Um, and as, as far as, you know, a lot of the time I think I used to experience this quite a lot is you have these leftovers in the fridge. Um, and so, you know, the day after Christmas boxing day, you probably eat the same food. And then depending on, you know, how many people came to Christmas lunch and how many leftovers are left, you might end up eating that food for a week. Um, so I think, I think there's kind of multiple ways that you could approach that. Like one is.
00:34:37
Speaker
If you've really carefully curated the foods that you're eating and you know that they're high quality, then you can continue to eat them for the rest of the week. But there might be a lesson in just deciding, hey, I've had enough of this food, pavlova or Christmas pudding or whatever it might be. And instead of keeping it until you've eaten a whole lot, you could decide to throw it in the bin.
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, look, it's interesting. I haven't checked this website for a while, but I did a few years ago called NutritionAustralia.org. And I had some stats there that were like, you know, the average person puts on anywhere between 0.8 to 1.5 kilograms over Christmas. And, you know, there could be a number of reasons for that. There could be cool overeating, you know, eating processed foods, eating food you're sensitive to, like all those kind of things to lead to weight gain. So
00:35:27
Speaker
You know, weight gain definitely is a thing over Christmas. It just depends how serious you want to take that, I guess. And yeah, and like I said, probably starting with avoiding your food sensitivities are probably the best bet.
00:35:42
Speaker
One of the other tips that I would potentially have for myself, and I don't know how you approach this, but carbohydrates after exercise, in my opinion, are the best times to have carbohydrates, either just before or just after. And so if you know you're going to have like a really heavy Christmas lunch or you're going to have that Christmas pudding, then potentially do like a weight or a resistance training workout as close to lunch or dinner as you can.
00:36:16
Speaker
Yeah, so what's been shown when you exercise is the glucogen levels in and around your muscles start to deplete. So if you have some glucogen soon afterwards, that will help replenish the muscles a little bit. So you could do it that way. So if you sort of just kept your general exercise routine up throughout Christmas,
00:36:38
Speaker
Um, yeah, that could actually really help as well. If there was a list of foods that you would avoid at all costs or that you would, uh, prioritize, uh, uh,
00:36:53
Speaker
maybe seed oils, maybe something like a pavlova, or I see things like body shapes and that sort of stuff going around. What sort of foods would you really be going out of your way to avoid?
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, look, this is this is quite an individual question. So I'll ask you the same question. And then I'll give it I'll give an answer for me, the general public, and then and then I'm actually interested in your answer. So so for me, personally, you know, I generally just don't handle gluten that well, unfortunately. Yeah, I actually really used to love the taste of bread. So so that for me is like, I just can't do it. So gluten, I can't do
00:37:39
Speaker
I can't really do dairy outside of ghee. Ghee, I can eat that all day, but everything else I can't really do. Then in general for people, so you got gluten, dairy I think is actually quite individual. Some people can actually handle it okay, seem to handle it okay. Then you've just got processed foods in general, so you process sugars and soft drinks and stuff.
00:38:02
Speaker
you know, kombucha is very available these days and that can be a good alternative to soft drink, even though I don't think it's kind of like a, I don't think it's necessarily like a 10 out of 10 health wise, but I think it's still up there. So yeah, I think there's probably still a few questions around it.
00:38:19
Speaker
So yeah, you can do like a kombucha instead of soft drink. And like I said, you know, I think for the general public, you know, gluten, consider dairy, if you think you're sensitive to it, and then just processed foods. In terms of the seed oils that you mentioned, that's a little bit harder to avoid, I think, like, you know, a lot of restaurants still use seed oils.
00:38:41
Speaker
A lot of people still use seed oils. They're not used in massive amounts, I guess, in cooking. It's normally just on the pan, a few drops on the pan.
00:38:52
Speaker
like it would be ideal to avoid seed oils, but I don't know if it's actually entirely possible. Yeah. One of the things that I've kind of noticed is that a lot of commercial dips, especially a lot of the cheaper ones, and even sometimes the more expensive ones are quite heavy in seed oils. If you read the ingredients list on any product, the first thing on the list will be
00:39:17
Speaker
you know, the highest amount of that ingredient. Yeah, exactly. What's in there and the last thing they'll be the least amount. I'd say yeah, I would probably try to avoid things like dips, especially the cheaper ones. Okay.
00:39:34
Speaker
And probably really steer clear of things like soft drink. That's just something that I just personally have no real taste for and that I know will quite severely affect my health. It just makes my energy feel terrible. Yeah, okay, sure.
00:39:58
Speaker
Look, people like that bubbly kind of, you know, flavor. So then it's like, well, what do you do? So, so, you know, I mentioned kombucha and soda water, you know, I haven't mentioned soda water, but soda water is another option. Even then,
00:40:13
Speaker
I don't recommend that people live on that stuff. I think there's still some questions. I think it still creates little gas pockets. At a guess, it would probably create little gas pockets in the digestive system. So I don't think, like I said, it's a 10 out of 10, but it's miles better than the soft drink that you mentioned. So I've looked at the labels pretty closely around soft drink. And if I remember correctly,
00:40:39
Speaker
if I remember this correctly. So I think it's 600 mils of soft drink is, it's around about, it's around about, it could be around about 16 teaspoons of sugar. I want to make sure that's correct though. I don't entirely know. But basically what you do is you go to the back of the label of a soft drink. You look at the grams of sugar.
00:41:04
Speaker
and you divide that by four. So if there's 16 grams of sugar, then you divide that by four, that would be four teaspoons of sugar in that soft drink. And soft drinks easily have that, I just can't quite remember the figures at the top of my head, but they easily have, you know, they go in the teens, no problem. So if you're okay to have, you know, 10 teaspoons of sugar, and that's okay, then go for it, but I wouldn't personally recommend it.
00:41:34
Speaker
Yeah, there's been some interesting stuff said lately about, you know, even your diet soft drinks or your or your coconut sugars and things like that. And I'm almost starting to think that things like a spartan and artificial sweeteners might even be worse than sugar itself.
00:41:52
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, a spa team, I actually think is starting to get pulled from some of the products because it's been linked with different mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. So it was actually discovered by accident by a scientist when he was working on something else. He's like, Oh, this chemical kind of tastes good. And they just started throwing soft drinks. They're like, cool, this is sugar free. So
00:42:14
Speaker
So yes, some of these have actually been linked to, like I said, different mental health conditions and neurological conditions, including ADHD. So I agree. I don't think they're the answer. I've been asked before, well, what's better? Is it the sugar one or the sugar-free one? And the answer is neither. But I don't know which one I'd recommend out of those two.
00:42:43
Speaker
Are there specific symptoms that you think that people could potentially correlate with the kind of foods that they've eaten specifically around like Christmas, do you think? Like that maybe people are unaware of? Like one for me straight off the top of my head would be lethargy.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah, certainly. So I personally it's actually quite a fallacy. People like I just had lunch and I'm feeling tired, which is normal, right? Because I'm digesting. And it's like, no, that's not normal
Energy Management: Caffeine and Alternatives
00:43:09
Speaker
at all. Like, if you're having if you're feeling tired after a meal, um,
00:43:14
Speaker
The quality of the meal is not there or the specific mix of carbohydrate protein fat is probably not suited to your body type. So it's either the quality or it's the macronutrient mix is off. You shouldn't really feel tired after a meal at all. You should actually. Yeah. I mean the amounts, um, uh,
00:43:43
Speaker
That can definitely lead to a bit of lethargy in my view. The amount is a different conversation because it's kind of like, have you been under eating all day then all of a sudden just eating a massive meal? And it can also actually be a mental emotional thing as well. So the amount is a tricky one.
00:44:06
Speaker
One of the things I commonly notice in people who are eating with food intolerances or are eating low quality foods pretty often is that they'll start to drink more caffeine or they'll start to look for energy rich foods. So you start to feel a little bit tired. You have a cup of coffee after lunch or you have an espresso. Maybe you decide that
00:44:28
Speaker
You know, you just really like craving or feending for a soft drink. Those sort of things for me are like a really good sign that what you've eaten isn't agreeing with you.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yeah, look, coffee, having worked with people quite a while, coffee is one of the hardest things to take away from people. It's highly addictive, as it is by nature. It provides energy, it actually triggers a cortisol release, so it gets you that energy. And people are like, well, do I actually really have to come off it? I just love the taste. I
00:45:03
Speaker
My personal view is that if you're dependent on coffee, then you may have to consider coming off it, which is hard to do in itself. Because it's like dependent. What's that? Sorry. I've done it a few times. I've got personal experience with it. Okay, cool. It's very hard. Like, you know, I've got some long term clients who have not come off coffee because they're just not ready to or they don't want to because it's quite addictive.
00:45:30
Speaker
But if you're dependent on it, in my view, that's an indication that your energy could be lacking and your nutrition and lifestyle factors might not be actually aligned because you need to require, you need to lean on coffee to have energy. So, you know, I personally haven't had a coffee in 10 to 15 or at least 10 years and probably 15 years. So, so it's definitely possible. You don't actually need it and you can function really well without it.
00:45:58
Speaker
Yeah, like I've got to say, I really love coffee, but I come off it periodically. I don't like to be dependent on anything, but I do love a good coffee. The other thing that I'll say is that I remember hearing a statistic and it was something like it was either 40 or 50, I believe, percent of visits to doctors are because of low energy. And so, you know, the amount of people who are
00:46:28
Speaker
you know, walking around with sub-optimal energy levels is just like obviously through the roof.
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah, wow. Look, it broke up a little bit as you're speaking, but I think I've got most of it basically that most people are walking around with low energy levels. I'm not sure how they'd measure that, to be honest with you. I'd be quite interested in the metric. So I said just before that, it's something about approximately 50% of business doctors. And this may have been in the States. I'm not sure if it was in Australia, but with food for low energy.
00:47:00
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, um, you're saying doctors are low on energy. Is that right? No, no. 50% of people who go to the doctors, the reason for their visit is low energy. Okay. Now it's, it was just breaking up a little bit. Sorry. I couldn't actually hear it. Um, yeah. Uh, yeah, that may be, that may be accurate. Um, you know, there's, there's certainly, you know, a lot of people probably that I work with once I get above the age of around about
00:47:28
Speaker
40 or so, you know, give or take. Yeah, like low energy is starting to get reported. And, you know, we were actually just talking just before this call around energy levels, like I'm 42. I don't feel my energy having
00:47:44
Speaker
declined at all, you know, maybe I don't have quite the energy I did when I was 18. But, but yeah, it's it's still at a good level. And I don't think I think it's a bit of a fallacy that you just you know, your energy will just tank. You know, as you get older, I think you can still have pretty pretty good energy. I don't know how we can measure that necessarily as opposed to like just like your own sort of subjective feedback.
00:48:10
Speaker
Do you have any advice for people who, you know, a lot of energy lines again, ways of potentially digesting food a little bit better or from gaining energy without having to rely on things like caffeine after the Christmas lunch or drinking a soft drink or, you know, any number of things that people use to kind of hack the system?
00:48:34
Speaker
Yeah, so look, we've spoken about the nutrition and sort of hydration at length. Obviously, good quality sleep can really help. Naps can really help, can be really, really good for energy. Well, it's the best really tool for energy. You know, taking time out can be really good. You know, we had
00:48:53
Speaker
I actually really enjoyed the little debate we had or conversation around sort of cold water and sauna therapies. Cold water has been linked with increasing energy. I think we both brought up some good points where I think my concern is
00:49:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's just proceed with caution, basically. And I think you kind of agree with that. And you brought up a really good point. You brought up a really good point around, because I was like, hey, look, there are some reported side effects to this cold water therapy. And then you're like, well, maybe it's a genetic thing. And I thought, yeah, actually, it potentially is.
00:49:28
Speaker
with both. I think you've read a bit of Western A Price's work at a guest. So his book, Nutrition and Physical Regeneration is excellent, quite in depth, but excellent.
Sun Exposure and Sauna Benefits
00:49:40
Speaker
And, you know, after we had that conversation, I actually kind of thought,
00:49:44
Speaker
you know, if, if, if inland Aboriginal started doing cold water therapy in the middle of summer, would their bodies actually be able to handle that? Well, they started doing the middle of winter with their bodies actually handle it that well, like, you know, they were the photos I saw, they were very slim, but still well built. Um, so you know, is that actually suited to their genetics as an example, or when he was in, um,
00:50:04
Speaker
in Africa, I think specifically it was in Kenya, hanging out with the Maasai. Are those body types suited to cold water therapies compared to the Scandinavian Alaskan types?
00:50:21
Speaker
So kind of got off track there a little bit but in terms of energy perks cold water can do it but you know proceeding with caution so you know maybe just a cold shower is fine you don't necessarily need to freeze your butt off in a
00:50:37
Speaker
you know, in a cold pool with ice. And everyone's different with that. So certainly if the elderly, I think we should definitely proceed with caution. People that are a lot more athletic and have built up a tolerance to the cold, you know, they can definitely do it more often in my view. But yeah, jumping in in cold water has been shown to increase cortisol levels, which can give you some good, some good energy.
00:51:05
Speaker
I don't know, did you want to add anything to that on the cold water side? Um, no, not, not specifically. I think, um, I enjoyed that debate as well. And I think you brought up some good points. Um, I will say the other thing that's pretty common at Christmas, um, I think is going to the beach. Um, so, I mean, that's, that's probably one of the ways that, uh, or one of the benefits of having, you know, Christmas in Australia and in the middle of summer is that, uh, you've got a great opportunity to go and do some.
00:51:34
Speaker
immersion in water and get grounded and get some salt water and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, I mean, you know, to touch on that and to bring it back to some of the things we spoke about. So
00:51:46
Speaker
There was actually a bit of research to show that when you drink alcohol, your skin actually becomes more sensitive to sun. So you're actually more likely to potentially get sunburned when you're drinking alcohol. And I don't know the exact mechanism of action, but there's a bit of research around that. So it's like, cool. So you sort of watch the alcohol intake in and around the sun. There's also a bit of research out there to show if you wear sunglasses, it can actually shut off the
00:52:11
Speaker
you know, some of your melanin production and as a result, you can't actually take as much sun. So because if you're wearing sunglasses, part of your body actually thinks it's dark, you know, so there's no need to have that protection. I think also being well hydrated, so your skin's well hydrated.
00:52:30
Speaker
So you can absorb lots of sun and then having good quality skin comes down to good quality nutrition. Now, I personally think that probably requires for most people some good quality fats. So, you know, where they can just really absorb that sun quite well. And we've both, you know, you referred me to the book called Deep Nutrition, which I read by
00:52:50
Speaker
Catherine Shanahan. Catherine. Yeah, that's her name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. So she spoke about how important it was to have good quality collagen in and amongst the skin to help you really absorb that sun. And she saw no problem with getting sun if you had that.
00:53:06
Speaker
So sun exposure, there's actually been some more research about it lately, how beneficial it is. You know, I don't know about you and growing up in Bundaberg, but in Brisbane 30 years ago, the slip, slop, slack commercials were hammered everywhere. So, um, and now it's like, I don't know, I personally have a new sunscreen in about 15 years. I just manage my time in the sun. So if I started to feel burned, it's like, cool, we'll go under an umbrella or go under a tree. Um,
00:53:31
Speaker
Uh, and you know, you can build a tolerance for it over time. And like I said, the levels of hydration, um, high quality nutrition can see you actually tolerate sun a lot better. So, um, you know, what's it been linked with? Been linked with loads of benefits now. Um, so, uh, yeah, I don't know where to start. So, you know, um, better hormonal profile, um, um, better support for your immune system in terms of vitamin D, um,
00:53:58
Speaker
It's actually even linked with improving addictions, I think, in animals, if I remember correctly. So because vitamin D actually in the sun actually is quite addictive. So, you know, you can actually have that addictive, you know, part of you met instead of going and, you know, doing other unhealthy addictions.
00:54:17
Speaker
Um, I believe that, uh, Dr. Jack Cruz would also tie that to, uh, potentially blue light toxicity. And so, um, you know, the, the level of dopamine, um, is actually lower. And so potentially those people who are getting benefits from more sun exposure are boosting their levels of dopamine. Yes. I'll read that for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a really good point. Um,
00:54:43
Speaker
Yeah. I know you follow Dr. Jack Cruz's work quite extensively. Does he have any views on infrared saunas? Because that's like a specific light, whereas some would be like a full spectrum light. So infrared saunas is obviously red light. I don't know. Do you have a view? Yeah, my understanding is quite in favor of them. But I think that he would say that, you know, full spectrum light is the best light.
00:55:13
Speaker
I think so as well. You don't want to mess with nature too much. And I actually heard they've now started to do saunas with sort of trying to do that full spectrum light. So it'll be interesting to see what kind of trends come up. Yeah. The other thing that I think
00:55:27
Speaker
people should be careful with those sort of saunas is they've actually, or some of them, probably the cheaper ones produce quite a lot of non-native EMF. And so while you might experience the benefits of near or far infrared light, you're still getting that EMF exposure. Yeah. And you're in a box where you're basically being radiated with it.
00:55:56
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, look, I think, yeah, I'm always a little bit cautious around trends, you know, so, you know, people start buying infrared saunas, I just get slightly nervous about trends because I've seen trends come and go. I don't know why it's kind of gone away from that traditional, you know, rocks and putting putting water in the rock like the heated rocks. So that seemed fairly safe to me. Maybe there was some breathing issues around it for some people.
00:56:26
Speaker
So yeah, we'll see where the sauna cold water therapy trend goes. But like I said, I've seen trends come and go. I personally think you just got to do whatever's right for you in the end and do an input balance. I think some of the benefits from infrared are that you can get like a deeper sweat at a lower temperature because the infrared light is actually permeating the skin at a deeper level.
00:56:51
Speaker
But yeah, good point. I think most of the research that's been done on the longevity side of saunas has come out of like Eastern Europe where people have, you know, almost everyone has one of those old-style saunas at their house. And so, you know, massive benefit to just having, you know, a regular sauna. Yeah, exactly. That would be my inclination. You know, it's been linked with good blood flow, calming the body, you know, definitely detoxification because you're getting that sweat going.
00:57:20
Speaker
So I have read up on the benefits. I think, um, I think I just personally get slightly nervous around technological trends. Um, you know, some of them end up being okay. Um, you know, the earthing products seem to be okay. Even then though, there's a little bit of controversy over it. So, um, so yeah, we'll, we'll see where it goes basically. But in my view, it's like where you can, um, you know, trying to get back to nature as much as you can and,
00:57:47
Speaker
especially in Australia at the moment, you know, a sauna's not really required quite
Breathing Techniques: Energy and Detoxification
00:57:50
Speaker
frankly. Yeah, completely. Um, one of the, one of the last things that I'd probably add on potentially, I think we were talking about detoxification or, you know, uh, methods for maybe alleviating some of the symptoms, um, that might result as of, uh, eating some bad foods, but, um, breathing would be a big thing that, that I would incorporate. Um,
00:58:13
Speaker
You know, one of the things that I try to tell my clients is that, you know, especially with diaphragmatic breathing, you've got the kidneys that are sitting kind of in the lower part of the back and they're attached to the diaphragm. So the kidneys should be moving something like 800 meters per day if you're breathing diaphragmatically. And so you can imagine that. Really?
00:58:33
Speaker
if those kidneys aren't moving, you're missing out on that huge kind of pumping and flushing effect of the kidneys moving. And we know that they're a major organ of detoxification. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I didn't know that. I didn't know that little tidbit of information. Look, you're probably a bit better versed on the breathing side than I am. So, because you've done a little bit of, you've done a bit of Wim Hof work. Yeah.
00:58:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So have you found it for yourself and your clients in terms of different breathing techniques? So certainly diaphragmatic breathing, you know, I 100% agree with you, there's loads of research around that, how it can improve many things, including including sort of stress reduction and an alleviation of, you know,
00:59:20
Speaker
depression, anxiety, and so forth. But I think you've personally practiced some of Wim Hof's breathing techniques. Yeah. So I'm actually interested in that. I've used quite a lot of breathing techniques. I think
00:59:32
Speaker
You know, that's, that's probably a good place to start. Even, even before doing that, I think a great way to learn to feel the diaphragm is your method called piston breathing, where you're just focusing on that exhalation part of the breathing and you're, uh, so you're breathing out forcefully and then allowing air just to fall back in. Um, so to speak. Um, and so that style of breathing, um, you know, I guess it kind of replicates a piston kind of really allows people to be able to start to feel their diaphragm.
01:00:01
Speaker
And, you know, I read somewhere the other day and I remember hearing Paul Czech say this is that if a supplement bottle had a pamphlet in it that explained how to breathe diaphragmatically for people, then the efficacy of that supplement would increase substantially. You know, people would probably attribute that to the supplement, but just breathing diaphragmatically can just boost energy levels so much.
Christmas Health Tips and Summary
01:00:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. Um, yeah. Yeah. For sure. Was there anything else that you wanted to cover? No, I think that's about it. We said we'd chat for about an hour. So I think, um, I think that that's about it in terms of Christmas, but yeah, it's, uh, especially if people have just started on the health wagon, it can get a little bit tricky, uh, around Christmas time. Um, a little bit of trial and error. Like we said, it, it can sometimes be a few steps forward, a couple of steps back. That's very, very normal. Um,
01:00:58
Speaker
And yeah, I hope everyone, you know, we also spoke about, you know, potential family triggers. Hopefully that was beneficial. Um, I personally find it interesting. Um, uh, we spoke about some alcohol, the hydration strategies and yeah, I just hope everyone has a good Christmas, save Christmas and comes back firing for the new year. Me too. Merry Christmas. Thanks for joining me, Mark.