The Invisible Force Inside You: How Gut Health Affects Your Brain, Energy & Wellness

0:08 SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Warriors Haven Podcast, the place where discipline meets purpose and everyday people become unstoppable. I'm your host, Jaisha Sutherland, a retired Army drill sergeant, single mom, and the founder of the Warriors Haven. Around here, we talk fitness, mindset, and the mission of building a stronger you, mentally, physically, and financially. Because this isn't just about the gym. It's about life, leadership, and living on your terms. So gear up, lock in, and let's step into the Haven where Warriors are made.

0:54 SPEAKER_04: Hey friends, welcome back to the Warriors Haven podcast. I'm Jay, your favorite drill sergeant. Now, like I always start, I love asking questions. So what if I told you that one of the biggest forces influencing how you feel every day is something you can't see. You can't touch, and you probably don't think about until something goes wrong.

1:20 SPEAKER_04: Your gut. Because while you're going through your day, your gut is busy communicating with the rest of your body. And here's where this gets really interesting. Your gut doesn't just help you digest food. It is part of a much bigger conversation happening inside your body. Today we're going to talk about that conversation with someone who has spent more than 40 years working in medicine. Dr. David. And I'll let him pronounce his last name when I bring him on. And I'm going to ask him to explain this in a way that makes sense to all of us.

2:02 SPEAKER_04: No complicated medical language, no trying to impress us with big words. What's happening? Why does it matter? And what can we actually do about it? So friends, we're talking about these invisible forces. It's part of the theories. The things that influence our lives without asking for permission, our environment, our habits, our thoughts, our identity, our energy. And today we're going somewhere a little different. We're going inside the body because there are things happening inside of us every single day, again, that we don't see.

2:41 SPEAKER_04: And sometimes we don't understand the signal until the body starts yelling. So today we're talking about the gut. And we're not just talking about digestion. We're talking about the connection between the gut, the brain, energy, inflammation, food, dress, and ultimately how we function. Dr. David, the fatic. I hope I'm saying that right. And functional medicine physician who has practiced medicine for more than 40 years with a clinical focus that includes root-cause medicine and brain health. He's also the author of Optimal Brain Wellness, a book focused on practical strategies for supporting memory, clarity, and long-term brain health.

3:33 SPEAKER_04: Dr. David, welcome to the Warriors Haven. And please help me unbutcher your doctorates and your last name.

3:43 SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I'm David Teidelbaum. I'm an osteopathic physician. We are fully licensed to practice all phases of medicine and surgery. Well represented in the military, by the way. My practice is it's uh my niche is neuromusculoskeletal medicine, meaning I deal with things like chronic pain, uh back pain, neck pain, headaches, quartz injuries, wounds, wound recovery, that kind of thing. And uh also I have a special interest in brain health, which is really why we're here today. And you can't really discuss brain health without getting into gut health.

4:21 SPEAKER_02: The two are completely interrelated, so we can talk about that as well.

4:26 SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love it. I love it. So before we get technical, I want to start with something simple. When you hear the phrase gut health, what does that actually mean?

4:35 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Well, if you really want it simple, it would be having a bowel movement without straining every day. That's the primary symptom of a well-functioning gut. Uh, also a minimum of things like bloating or indigestion, uh, perhaps correlated with the foods you know are going to aggravate, but you go ahead and eat them anyway because they taste good, or you're in the potty or something. Um but that's uh it's pretty much how functional is your gut. And if it's working very well, then that you're ahead of the curve.

5:07 SPEAKER_02: Because uh, I think it's 40% of Americans have digestive problems on a regular basis.

5:13 SPEAKER_04: Wow. Wow, that's a fascinating statistic. So, Dr. David, most people they hear gut health and immediately think about bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or maybe even like probiotics. But what is actually happening inside our gut every day? And if you were explaining the gut to a fifth grader, what would you say it does for us?

5:38 SPEAKER_02: Um well, when we take in our food, part of it is uh chewing up the food well, but part of it is absorbing the nutrients that are there. And uh it gets a little complicated in that process. But you have actually a team working for you. Um it's the military analogy would be like uh you have an army within you. Within your gut, you have over uh tens of trillions with a T trillions, tens of trillions, up to 40 trillion microorganisms, including bacteria and yeast and other things. And when you feed your team well, they break it down.

6:13 SPEAKER_02: Uh they break down the foods you eat, particularly fiber, fibrous foods, and that's where you get your nourishment. So that's uh the team approach is the way to look at it. You feed your team well, it will take care of you.

6:27 SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love that. I love that. So is the gut basically just a food processing system, or is it doing much more than that?

6:36 SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's doing much more, and that's that's some of the very exciting research that's going on currently. We find that it communicates with the brain continually through not just the nervous system, which we've known for a long time, but it's a huge part of your immune system. Uh, between 60 and 80 percent of all your body's immunity centers around the gut. So there's your immune system. There's also hormones. Uh, when you're when all those little guys, your 10 trillion guys who are working for you, break down food, it turns it into different chemicals.

7:07 SPEAKER_02: They're called postbiotics, actually. And we're just starting to learn all the wonderful things they do. But uh, first place they're capable of restoring the gut lining. These chemicals, you know, again, you feed your gut well, it takes care of itself, but it also takes care of you. And then it produces other chemicals that are brain healthy and improve our thinking and uh mental clarity.

7:29 SPEAKER_04: Oh, that is so fascinating. So, Dr. David, what are some signs that our body might be trying to tell us that something is off?

7:38 SPEAKER_02: Well, the obvious ones will be uh constipation, diarrhea, bloating, indigestion, uh, heartburn, um, food intolerances. Um that's probably most of the symptoms that people will be aware of. I encourage people not to think of symptoms as just something that we need to stop. So obviously, if you're having loose stool or you're having constipation, obviously what you want is for it to stop. So of course. But looking at it more as symptoms of, okay, what's going on? What's wrong underneath, rather than just something that we need to swelch is uh the better, healthier way to look at it.

8:19 SPEAKER_04: Yeah, not looking for that fast immediate fix, really getting down to what's probably really causing. Um, oh, I love that. Uh and friends, this fits perfectly with our invisible forces conversation. Something can be happening every day without us consciously thinking about it. So let's talk about something that I think is going to surprise a lot of people. The gut and the brain communicate. Um, explain that to us like we're sitting at the kitchen table together. And how does the gut talk to the brain?

8:50 SPEAKER_02: Well, there's uh one of the key communicators is a nerve called the vagus nerve. It's a huge nerve. It starts at the base of the skull, well, the base of the brain, comes out through the base of the skull, down the neck, uh, goes to all the way down your food tube, your esophagus, to your stomach. Then it keeps going all the way through the small intestine, which is a long path, and gets about halfway through your colon before it stops. And the vagus nerve influences uh the digestive process all the way down.

9:21 SPEAKER_02: The uh so there's the direct nerve connection between the brain and the gut. There's also the hormonal connection, particularly cortisol, our stress hormone, that's uh produced in response to stress, and that impacts both the brain and the gut. So stress is a big ideal uh that connects them. I mentioned the immune system. There's uh two-way communication. The gut produces immunity, the immune byproducts are actually uh there's a communication with those chemicals with the brain. And um hormones, immune system, nervous system.

10:06 SPEAKER_02: I'm leaving one out. Anyway, that's uh the the connection is clear and strong.

10:13 SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah. Um so why might someone experiencing brain fog, low energy, or difficulty concentrating, um, and never why never really think about their gut. Why, why do you think that's that that that is?

10:32 SPEAKER_02: I think uh our concept of them is they're two different things. There's our brain and how it functions, but there are all kinds of connections between the two, uh, between the brain and the gut. And they that's why you can't separate them. That's one of the key things to be aware of. There are, if you don't feed your gut well, the chemicals I talked about earlier will not be produced if you don't take in enough fiber, which is one of the major deficiencies that uh Westerners have. We just don't eat enough fiber.

11:04 SPEAKER_02: We've moved away from a plant-based diet, which has a ton of fiber in it, all your fruits and vegetables and green leafy vegetables, all of that has big quantities of fiber in it. When that gets to your digestive tract, it breaks it down and turns it into chemicals that your body needs. If you don't get enough of those, it doesn't produce enough of those chemicals. But those chemicals are essential for brain functioning.

11:27 SPEAKER_04: Yeah. Oh, I can see how that correlates now. You know, once I kind of dipped into the nutritional part and I was explained, you know, just how important that is and the foods I was eating was impacting how I was actually performing, it actually has made so much more sense, which has led me down the rabbit hole and then being able to find you and I think now being best friends because I'm fascinated with the brain as well. So um, Dr. David, could someone that is trying to fix the brain while ignoring an important part of the conversation be happening with the gut?

12:04 SPEAKER_04: Like are could they completely be ignoring what's happening in their gut to what's possibly the what they could be able to fix in the brain?

12:13 SPEAKER_02: Yes. Uh in fact, we find that pretty commonly. You can't you can't expect the body to repair itself if you don't feed it healthy food. Uh and the converse of that, if you continually feed it junk food, you just can't expect your body to function well.

12:29 SPEAKER_01: Right.

12:29 SPEAKER_02: Um, you can make up for some of that with useful resiliency. The older you get, the more cautious you have to be about taking care of yourself.

12:36 SPEAKER_03: Yes.

12:37 SPEAKER_02: Um the if you if you really want your brain to function well, it's important to be on a clear diet to minimize excesses of things like too much sugar, which generates inflammation. Inflammation actually slows down brain function. The inflammation can actually get into your blood vessels and directly affect brain function. So the big things we've altered our diets so much, tons of sugar and processed foods. Processed foods many times process out. The even if they have good ingredients, sometimes they're so processed that the nutrients have been at least partially, if not completely, processed out of them.

13:16 SPEAKER_01: Wow.

13:17 SPEAKER_02: We're taking in a lot of oils into our diet. A lot of the seed oils, which are actually unhealthy for us, they're heavily processed to, you know, they look beautiful in a jar. It looks uh, you know, you got a bottle at the store and it's it's clear and nicely colored, and you think, oh yeah, this has to be good. Uh no, it's been processed, hydrogenated, and those actually can be toxic to us. So just while we're on the subject quickly, because I know you said you want takeaway points when I present uh a takeaway point, you should do all your cooking either in olive oil if it's low heat cooking, or avocado oil if it's higher heat cooking.

13:53 SPEAKER_02: Uh olive oil tends to smoke and denature if you get it too hot. So for higher heats, you want to go with avocado. Those are the two best and safest. The other oils which have permanent permeated almost all of our processed foods are just really not good choices for us.

14:10 SPEAKER_04: Oh, wow. Thank you for sharing that. So, friends, this is where the invisible forces idea becomes really, really powerful because I don't understand the signal. I might blame myself if I'm not really kind of knowing what's kind of going on. I might say things like, I'm lazy, I'm unmotivated, I'm getting older, I just don't have the energy anymore. But sometimes the body is communicating something before we understand what it's actually saying. So kind of pivoting into the food, as you kind of mentioned.

14:41 SPEAKER_04: Um, let's let's talk about food. We hear nutrition advice in everywhere. I mean in everywhere, Dr. David. Eat this, don't eat this, take this supplement, avoid this ingredient. But I want to simplify it. When we eat, we're not just feeding ourselves, we're also interacting with the environment inside of our gut. Is there a fair way to think about to think about it as far as good nutrition goes?

15:09 SPEAKER_02: Yes. Yes. Um a simplified way to look at it is eat things that are in their natural state where nothing's been done to them. So that's the obvious that fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, uh, those kind of things. Uh animal products are fine, you just don't want to overdo it. Um you also, if you want to get cognizant of the animal sources, grass-fed is really better for us than what happens in feedlots. Uh, a lot of people aren't aware of this, but the animals are fed grain for up to several months.

15:43 SPEAKER_02: Completely changes the composition of their meat, but it uh it actually makes it taste better, puts a different kind of fat in there. So you're going for uh marbling and flavoring. The problem is it's not what the animals normally eat, so consequently it changes them. And the meat you eat is not as healthy. Um same thing with poultry. If they're farm-raised, uh, if they're raised, you know, the free range thing can be sort of bypassed just by giving them enough square footage even in a lousy environment.

16:14 SPEAKER_02: But the what they're fed is important. If you feed them strictly commercial grains with a lot of antibiotics, yeah, no, that's going to pass on and to the people who eat them.

16:23 SPEAKER_03: Right.

16:24 SPEAKER_02: So a general rule is the simpler the food, the better off it is.

16:30 SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's a good key takeaway. I hope the listeners all over the word world write that one down. So what happens when someone eats a highly processed diet for years?

16:42 SPEAKER_02: Well, it's it stresses your body beginning really in the digestive tract. Uh, that'll stop functioning well for you. When it stops functioning well for you, then when you even when you do eat nutritious stuff, it doesn't absorb as well. The uh and it's not just eating a bad diet, it can be a lot of things. Uh taking antibiotics can it's oftentimes necessary to um restore problems like if you have a urinary tract infection, but you take it by mouth, it goes through your digestive tract, and sometimes it alters the normal bacteria content you have.

17:15 SPEAKER_02: So the bad guy bacteria take over, and that can really affect how much nutrition you're absorbing. Even if you eat a good diet at that point, you may not be able to absorb it without repairing the gut. So um the if you eat a bad diet over time, then it's gonna affect you in many ways. And you'll see it throughout your body, your complexion will change, for example. You won't have a healthy radiant complexion. Uh, you might even get acne or pimples or splotches. Um it'll affect your muscle tone. If you're not taking in enough protein, you're taking in um toxins.

17:55 SPEAKER_02: There's really two parts to it. If you want to oversimplify, there's what you eat and there's what you what you eat that's good for you, and what you eat that's not good for you. So everything falls into one of the two categories. There's very few foods that are actually just completely neutral. So if you're eating things that are good for you, then everything works better. Yes. If you're eating things that are bad for you, everything works but worse. You're gonna get toxic, uh, you're not gonna feel good, you will get brain fog, and things just won't work as well, where you won't sleep as well, and that's a big issue as well.

18:28 SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

18:29 SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there's I know there's a lot of the research coming out now pertaining to sleep. I've coup I've had a couple episodes on that as well. Um, so coming off of we hear, you know, have fiber, fiber is really important. And you just mentioned it as well, getting it from the plants, the vegetables that are naturally just in it's naturally in them. Um, we talk about the fruits and the vegetables, but what about fermented foods?

18:54 SPEAKER_02: Fermented foods are good. They're actually a way to restore your uh normal gut bacteria. Fermented foods are just foods that have allowed, been allowed to or processed to have uh bacteria grow in them. So yogurt is the most common one. Kiefir is a yogurt compound like yogurt-like compound. It's made differently, so you can actually drink it rather than eat it. Uh, then there's uh kimchi and miso, these are fermented plant foods. Um and they're they're they can in and of themselves help. What we're learning, and this is very recent research, this is so this is hot off the press, the strain of uh bacteria you take is actually the most important part.

19:40 SPEAKER_02: And that's where the problem comes in. If the yogurt that you're eating or the kefir or the kimchi or whatever, sauerkraut, if it doesn't have the appropriate bacterial strains in it that you need, then it'll be limited in how it can help you repair. And what they're finding is part of the gut brain connection, which uh is really fascinating, is if you give certain strains of probiotics, this is what they're called probiotics, meaning they have something live in them.

20:07 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

20:08 SPEAKER_02: If you take in probiotics and if you have depression or anxiety, either one, and you're taking medication, if you add probiotics to it, the right strains of bacteria in the probiotics, you you'll respond better to the medication that you're taking. You'll have better outcomes. So this is again, it's a hot new field of medicine. I think Big Farm is probably right on the verge of getting in this because there's, you know, they're interested in profits. There's huge profits to be made here. And so I think what we'll see is very excuse me, specific probiotics available through capsule form, sold by the major drug companies.

20:47 SPEAKER_02: And I think that'll be coming fairly soon. And they'll be designated for which disease you have. They'll have the strains that are most likely to help you. In the meantime, again, uh you wanted practical advice. If your listeners are interested in trying this, uh go with a probiotic. Uh, you can get done commercially, that has the most strains in it. You can actually count the strains, or they'll it's an advertising point. So there's some that only have one or two or three strains. There's others that have as many as in the 20s or 30s.

21:21 SPEAKER_02: So if you want a shotgun, and again, I'm not necessarily recommending you do this without you know medical supervision, but they are generally safe. Uh, if you want to see if that'll improve your digestion, then you have to try it and give it a month or two and see if that uh in itself won't help you. And same thing with anxiety and depression. If you want to try it, it should be safe enough to do. But again, you know, talk to your prescribing physician.

21:46 SPEAKER_04: Oh, that is so, so fascinating. So as a vet uh myself, I really struggled with depression, anxiety, um, and obviously the military prescribed and You know, I I do more of the holistic approach. So you're telling me that my yogurts, my okos that I love with my strawberry in it, and I add my pumpkin seeds is what's really keeping me happy. Is that what you're saying, Dr. David?

22:14 SPEAKER_02: It's contributing, yeah. It probably is.

22:16 SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love it. I love it.

22:18 SPEAKER_02: But while we're on the topic, you mentioned you mentioned adding things to it, which is just what you should do. The yogurts that come already flavored because they have sugar in them, you'll lose some of your bacterial content before you even open the package. So you're better off just taking a plain yogurt and then add to it whatever you want. If you have to add a sweetener to it because you don't like the taste, I understand that. The only two sweeteners that I really think are good are either uh honey.

22:46 SPEAKER_02: And um this is frightening. Apparently, the Chinese have now concocted a completely artificial sugar-based substance that you can't tell the difference from that and honey. So, and I'm not blaming the Chinese. I think they're the first ones to come up with it. I'm sure we'll follow suit. So make sure it is all natural honey. Um, maybe buy it from a local uh farmer's market if you can, or 100% pure maple syrup, which is not the corn syrup that's often sold in, you know, they'll say maple light syrup.

23:18 SPEAKER_02: You have to read the label. But it's 100% maple syrup, that's actually not an unhealthy choice.

23:23 SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love that. I love that. Again, friends, I hope you're writing this down. You're taking notes. So, Dr. David, if someone's listening right now doesn't know what a healthy gut environment looks like, can you give us the simplest picture possible?

23:37 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Well, uh a healthy gut. What would it look like? You're talking about the gut itself? You're talking about the Yeah, okay. Well, it's a long food tube. You can look at it that way. Uh, the inside of it shouldn't be clogged up, it should be clean. There's this amazing uh waveform that goes through your small intestine in between meals. And again, it happens, you're talking about the invisible force. You can't feel it, you can't see it, but there's a waveform motion that goes through that cleans out your small intestine in between meals.

24:11 SPEAKER_02: Uh, that's why many people actually do better if they don't snack all day. They'll actually feel better if they only eat intermittently and it'll be healthier for the gut. It gives it a chance to rest. Uh so these waveform motions not only propel your food through, but it's like a sweeping motion. And that's all done for us, uh you know, uh spontaneously. So uh other things that can help clean out this food tube is make sure you drink plenty of water. There is a flushing benefit to drinking a lot of water.

24:43 SPEAKER_02: Um those are those are the big things. Again, if you can think of a clean uh food tube made of human tissue, that's uh what a gut should look like.

24:54 SPEAKER_04: So now I'm I'm curious now, because you you just said um the snacking part. I'm a big snacker and I like snacking in between my meals. And you said it can almost kind of be like an overload for the gut. So I guess contradicting information at this point. And I would like for you to clarify, we're told to really eat, have the protein, because it revs up our metabolism and it helps us burn at a faster rate. So then we also add the snacks to kind of keep that revving going for our metabolism. So does that counter, is that counterproductive with what you're talking about for the gut and putting it in overload?

25:30 SPEAKER_04: Or is it something completely different? Can you explain?

25:34 SPEAKER_02: It really depends on your activity level.

25:36 unknown: Okay.

25:36 SPEAKER_02: Uh if you're if you're a relatively sedentary, and I realize a lot of your listeners are military, um, so I don't, I think you guys, they they keep you moving at a fast rate. You're going to need more protein than the average population.

25:49 SPEAKER_01: Yes.

25:50 SPEAKER_02: You need your muscles to be strong and active. And protein is the major food group for you. So having a proteinaceous snack, a protein-loaded snack, uh, when you're doing that, that's uh I can't really argue that. As far as overall gut function, uh, if you're not in that realm, then giving your gut, especially if you've been having problems with your gut, giving it rest periods is a healthy thing to do to help it revitalize. Oh, thank you for talking about um that it's popular now to do periods of fasting in between meals.

26:22 SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people do feel better if they do that.

26:24 SPEAKER_01: Yes.

26:25 SPEAKER_02: The science on that actually is not solid. Uh, it's more of a popular trend than a science. But if you if you've been doing that and it helps you feel better, you know, I have no problem with it at all.

26:36 SPEAKER_04: Yeah. Okay. Oh, thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. Um, now let's bring this back to something we've talked about um throughout the Warriors haven't and it's stress. I've kind of talked other episodes about it. Um, we usually think of stress as something happening in our mind, but stress also affects our body. What happens to digestion in the gut when someone is constantly stressed?

26:59 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh it's just a very, very bad situation. It's it's been argued. I think this is probably common novice, but I won't spend a whole lot of time on it, but it's been argued. Uh many people say, you know, people have been stressed throughout history. Why is that why are we talking about stress now? And part of it is our 24-hour news network, part of it is uh the lifestyle that we've adopted, part of it's the urban lifestyle. We don't really slow down. And so a lot of people just go from uh work to, you know, they watch the news, uh, they get bad input uh continually.

27:36 SPEAKER_02: I mean right now uh the average person knows all about the war in Russia. But there was a time, you know, a hundred years ago where we didn't have a clue what was going on in Russia. Right. Right. So now that's part of our daily thought stream. So it's been argued that we feel like we're constantly under attack. So our fight or flight uh nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system, as it's called, never gets to shut down. So you have to actively work at shutting it down. Uh techniques like meditation or yoga or just listening to calming music, you know, do a fast from the news.

28:15 SPEAKER_02: If you want to fast from something, don't listen to news for a few days. The world will get by just fine without you.

28:20 SPEAKER_01: Right.

28:21 SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh let yourself clear out because stress, among other things, releases the hormone cortisol. That is really tough on your digestive system. Cortisol is our fight or flight hormone, so it's extremely useful when we need it. Especially you're in the military. Yeah, you need your cortisol. You need to be in fight or flight, but all the time it just simply wears you out. You're it stresses your entire system, including the digestive system, uh, stresses your brain as well, promotes inflammation.

28:52 SPEAKER_02: For some people, it actually slows gastrointestinal motility. For others, it speeds it up. There's an individual response. But um that's uh yeah, it's very, very tough. It really alters your digestion.

29:06 SPEAKER_04: So we're always in this go, go, go. This just seems like what our world is constant rush, you know, like never stopping. Can constant feeling of that rushnessness like affect digestion?

29:22 SPEAKER_02: Yes, directly. Really? I think most people have actually had that personal experience that you're under stress and something happens with your digestion. Uh, may require a sudden trip to the bathroom, or it may just be bloating or gas, or it may be um, well, the expression having butterflies in your stomach.

29:40 SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.

29:41 SPEAKER_02: That's there's a reason we can all relate to that expression because we've all experienced it before when something goes wrong um and suddenly you feel queasy or apprehensive about it.

29:52 SPEAKER_04: Yeah. Oh, wow. This is so fascinating. So, Dr. David, what happens when someone eats while they're distracted, stressed, or just emotionally overwhelmed?

30:04 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Oh, I'm I know very few people who don't do that anymore. It's uh it's a terrible thing to do. Your body uh digests best if you eat slowly and carefully. In fact, in the military, I learned this from you guys. Yeah. If you get uh shot down behind enemy lines, God forbid, and you're on very, very limited rations, what you're taught is chew your food, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, chew, keep chewing until it almost is completely dissolved. That way, when you swallow it, you will maximize the nutrition from each bite that you have.

30:36 SPEAKER_02: So good advice, yeah. That's it's really how we should be eating all the time.

30:41 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

30:42 SPEAKER_02: Good digestion should start at the mouth. But uh, I have a son who's a firefighter, for example, and he just bolts his food. He was almost trained to do it because if the alarm went off, they'd have to leave whatever they were eating.

30:54 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

30:55 SPEAKER_02: So he eats really fast. He can't stop himself now, he's been doing it for too long.

30:59 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

31:00 SPEAKER_02: Um, anyway, so that's an aside. So uh if you take your time and calm down, eat in a quiet environment. If you're gonna play music, play calm music. Don't read your cell phone while you're eating.

31:14 unknown: Yeah.

31:14 SPEAKER_02: Too calmly quiet. That's the ideal.

31:17 unknown: Gotcha.

31:21 SPEAKER_02: Uh, just have a peaceful, wonderful meal time. Having said that, that's not what I see around me. I see people eating in their cars on the way to work. Yeah. People zipping in a fast food restaurant, grabbing something at lunch, wolfing it down, maybe enjoying the first bite of it after that. They it's just a matter of shoving it down your gullet. Yeah. Is that good for digestion? No. It's very tough on your digestive tract. And you're actually losing a lot of energy that you would gain from the nutrition of the food trying to digest it.

31:52 SPEAKER_04: Oh, wow. Yeah. I've had to remind myself after you know, my time to taste it. Like I always have to just remind myself, oh, taste, taste what you're eating. And that kind of helps me slow down. Um, because it is, you know, we've just been programmed in that that go, go, go next thing, right? We don't have a lot of time. Um, so can someone eat what looks like a healthy diet, but still have problems because of the way that they're living?

32:23 SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely. There's there's so much that goes into it. There is diet is huge, um, but there are many things that are huge. Socialization is huge. Uh, relationships are huge. Excuse me. If you have good, functional, uh, warm, loving relationships. It said everybody needs someone who's crazy about them. If you don't have that in your life, yeah, that's a perpetual stress. Friendships are important. The older you get, the more you'll cherish your friendships. You can take my word for that. Friendships are really important.

32:54 SPEAKER_02: Camaraderie is important. So socialization is important. Spirituality, um, people who go to church who pray regularly are actually statistically healthier than those who do not. Having a good relationship with God helps you uh when you are facing stressful times because you have a spiritual source to fall back on. So that's useful. Uh a good night's sleep makes a big difference. If you live in an environment where you can't get rest because there's too much noise, or roommates or the neighbors have a loud stereo or something, all of that affects your quality of health overall, including your digestion.

33:34 SPEAKER_02: Um so it's not just eating well. Um, and exercise is huge. Um if you're in the military, my understanding is they take care of that for you. But if you're not exercising on a regular basis, that's it's very important. It really helps your digestion, the movement of your pelvis when you're walking or running actually helps you with bowel function.

33:59 SPEAKER_04: Oh, wow, that is so fascinating. So, friends, this is another invisible force. You don't see stress moving through your body, you don't see it changing your physiology, but your body knows that it's there. So, Dr. David, you've worked in medicine for more than four decades. One thing that really stands out about your work is looking beyond the obvious problem and asking what might be underneath it. What is looking for the root cause? What is it and why is it so important?

34:44 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh it's huge in medicine. I don't think this is being taught anymore. Uh, I know medical students, at least at one of the local colleges, are being taught to work a 15-minute office visit. That's part of their training. Uh, when I was in school, we were taught if you listen to the patient long enough, they'll tell you what the problem is. We've somewhat lost that. We've completely shifted to being dependent on technology for making diagnoses. And I don't have a big problem with using technology, but it should be.

35:14 SPEAKER_02: Again, when I was in school, what we were taught is your technology is your backup, your live testing is your backup for what you've already decided is most likely the problem. Maybe if you roll out the second and third uh less likely problems. Um so finding the root cause is huge and it takes time. You have to listen to a thorough history by the patient because sometimes they'll clue you in on stuff, but not until they've talked a long time. Uh, this can be frustrating for doctors who are on a time limit.

35:44 SPEAKER_02: And they uh 75% of physicians now are employed by other agencies. So what that means is someone else gets to tell them how they're going to run their practice. Right. So uh, you know, I understand all that. Um having said that, it's probably not the best way to practice medicine.

36:03 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

36:04 SPEAKER_02: Uh the old way where you practiced in a small town, you actually knew half of your patients, you knew what their habits were, you knew what their marriages were, uh, their other relationships, you know what they did for a living, uh, you knew what was going on. You know, just going to local coffee shop, you be cued into what everybody's going through. Having that knowledge is huge and working with people. If you come to me with a digestive problem, okay, well, what's going on? When did it start?

36:30 SPEAKER_02: Is it been lifelong? Or did it start? You tell me, well, it started uh last minute. Okay, what else happened last minute? Right.

36:45 SPEAKER_02: Somebody died that was close to you. Uh you got transferred somewhere you didn't want to be transferred, you got laid off. We need to know all that to approach in the best fashion what you need for your particular problem.

36:59 SPEAKER_04: Oh, wow, yeah. Having a having a dig. So if somebody constantly has digestive problems, what questions would they be asking instead of immediately reaching for just another quick fix?

37:13 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Uh to if you constantly have digestive problems, one of the things we'd want to look at is food sensitivities. And the best way to do that, I think, is with an elimination diet. They do have some testing for it. Now testing may or may not be uh accurate. A lot of the online stuff that's being offered is uh not too useful. The categories, I'll just list them out for you, that people are most sensitive to include dairy, uh wheat, and some of the other grains. Uh corn, um nuts, processed food, the artificial sweeteners, some people react to those.

37:59 SPEAKER_02: Um maybe lift eating out one. But there are um there are foods that you can be sensitive to, and the best way to figure it out, if it seems to be something you have a suspicion that you're worried about, then the best thing to do is just don't eat it for two weeks and see how you feel. Usually within two weeks, if it's an offender, something will feel better. And if that's the case, it's a good indicator that you're food. Um you can go to people who will test you for this.

38:35 SPEAKER_02: You know, if it's done by a skilled laboratory, that can actually be a useful thing to do. So if you have chronic problems, one thing we think of is food sensitivities. Uh probably the most famous is gluten. I think probably everybody knows someone who's either gluten sensitive or completely gluten intolerant. If you're completely gluten intolerant, there's a disease called celiac.

38:56 SPEAKER_01: Yes.

38:56 SPEAKER_02: And your lifelong you're stuck not eating gluten the rest of your life or being vegetable if you do. But even gluten-sensitive people pretty much have to follow the same pathway. And uh that's uh that's uh it's a grain byproduct. That's what if you get a muffin, you know, and it holds together in your hand, it doesn't just crumble into dust. That's because it's packed with gluten. That's one of the things they use, like glue for pastries. Oh wow. That's why they have it in them.

39:27 SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's really, really fascinating. So, Dr. David, what are some common mistakes um people make when trying to improve gut health?

39:39 SPEAKER_02: Well, if you um if you're counting on supplements to make your health good just by itself, it's uh it's like throwing seed into a garden where the soil is bad. You really need to help your body repair first. So uh a big part of it is going to be increasing fiber. Uh it's said that only 5% of 10% of Americans uh take in enough fiber. So the best way to do that is plant-based diet, you can do that through supplementation. A key thing about fiber, don't add it all at once, or you'll uh you can really stop yourself up.

40:16 SPEAKER_02: So add it slowly and increase water intake while you're doing it. I mean small amounts over several weeks. Don't do it all at once. Um and then you can certainly increase fibrous foods. That you can pretty much do anytime as long as you're drinking water with it. That is like oatmeal, almost all your fruits and vegetables are heavy fiber. Um so that's going to be part of it. Uh you want to um again, it's you want to take in more of the good stuff and take in less of the bad stuff. So you can't keep throwing down uh you know processed foods, fatty foods, sugars, and expect things to get better.

40:58 SPEAKER_02: A lot of people don't realize this. A Coca-Cola has 40 grams of sugar in it. I'm talking about your standard can, I'm not talking about the giant size. This standard Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper, all of them, I'm not picking on Coke. It's 40 grams of sugar. So how much is that? Well, that's 10 teaspoons. Now, if you were sitting across anybody, even if you didn't care about them, but you're with them in a restaurant, they ordered a glass of tea, and they start putting sugar in there, and they go one and two and three and four and five and six until they get up to 10 teaspoons of sugar.

41:30 SPEAKER_02: I mean, in the first place, I don't know if they can stir it up enough to dissolve it, but even if you didn't care about them, you'd have to say something like, don't you think maybe you can get by with five, you know, or three?

41:40 SPEAKER_04: Yeah, don't you think that's a bit much?

41:43 SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yes. And that's what's in a soda in a soda. So if you're one of those people who drinks a soda every day or two, you're way beyond how much sugar you be should be taking in right there.

41:53 SPEAKER_04: Right. Yeah. And I think, you know, we're just not, we're just not cognizant. And and not cognizant in the terms of like what we're doing, I mean in education. Like we're just not educated enough to understand, and or we haven't done the research for our own bodies of what our actual bodies need. And I can say, me personally, Dr. David, I had to really kind of go through like my own like profile of what Jade's body actually needs, what that looks like, what my plate actually needs to look like for my body to function in an optimal ready to be able to like function for my day-to-day, and my numbers are very, very different from you know, three or four of my other battle bodies.

42:41 SPEAKER_04: Like it is to be, you know, what I need to annotate is very different from my data body that is interested. It's like it's just understanding what our body is.

43:17 SPEAKER_04: So, for everyone that's listening again, we do have Dr. David on this episode thinking it's time to explain things to do what's the please go back to your primary position if you can ask these questions and do the research that it needs for you. So, another question for you, Dr. David. Um, what symptoms should people take seriously enough that they shouldn't simply try to do another diet or another supplement?

43:49 SPEAKER_02: Oh, uh you're talking about symptoms so bad that you need to seek medical care?

43:54 SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes, from like digesting your your gut health.

43:56 SPEAKER_02: So the big the big warning signs for blood in your stool? Or a black tarry stool. If you bleed in your upper intestinal tract, by the time you pass it, uh your body's already digested some of the blood, so it comes out as black. Uh stool that floats in the toilet that could mean you're having problems digesting fats. So too much of it staying in there. Um if you uh have diarrhea that goes on extensively, yeah, you need to see somebody, it'll ultimately drain too many nutrients out and you can get in trouble.

44:30 SPEAKER_02: Um constipation over time, that's that can be a problem as well. Um those are the biggies. Severe cramping on a regular basis after you eat, yeah, you may need medical help with that to deal with them.

44:49 SPEAKER_04: Oh wow. Yeah, definitely things to to write down and really just be cognizant, pay attention to. So as I said, friends, that is very important. And I hope you guys that are listening are really taking all of the same. There's important distinctions that Dr. David is really giving us throughout this episode. And if this talk has a practical tool, okay, but what I mean by practical, I don't mean records.

45:48 SPEAKER_04: We've talked about the data, we've talked about the brain, we've talked about it. Now I want to give people something they can actually use. If someone listening says, okay, Dr. David, I'm starting today. What are three simple things they can begin doing immediately to support their overall gut and brain wellness?

46:12 SPEAKER_02: Three things. Okay. Um, first thing is if you're not already moving, then go ahead and move. I've looked at probably over 200 studies of uh long-term longevity and uh overall health. And although everything's important, diets important, sleep's important relationships, everything we talk about, it's all important. But if you had to pick one thing that stands out in every study over the long term, it's going to be movement. It doesn't have to be exercise, but it requires some kind of regular movement on a regular basis.

46:42 SPEAKER_02: If you don't do that, you'll regret it. So one is keep moving. If you're already moving, uh, the next thing is move to a plant-based diet. What we know is if you make too many changes at one time, you're probably not going to stick with them. We just learned that through medicine, basic psychology. So I would say add in something simple, like add in vegetables, add in one vegetable per meal, starting off, or at least two vegetables a day and maybe one piece of fruit. Um, keep with the basics. Um, allow yourself a if you want to repair your digestive health and it's been a problem, try and work out a schedule for yourself in the morning where you get up, do some exercise, have uh drink maybe eight ounces of water before anything else.

47:33 SPEAKER_02: Then you can have a cup of coffee, have your breakfast. You will have a reflex after that. It's called the gastropilvic reflex. What it means is that after you eat, you'll feel an urge to go use the toilet. If you give yourself enough time to do that as part of your morning routine, then itself is huge. A lot of people suppress that, suppress it long enough, the sensation goes away. You lose the ability to feel it.

48:01 SPEAKER_02: So there's uh there would be that. Give yourself time, eat slowly, keep relaxed. Um, that's two third thing. Um sleep is huge, so I would say if you possibly can grant yourself at least seven hours of sleep. The sleep cycle is 90 minutes. Uh, you need to get in four or five of those a night for a good night's sleep. So it requires a certain time period to accomplish that. If you've ever been awakened, uh maybe in the military or even by your alarm clock, and you just can't quite shake the brain thought, it's probably because you're in a deep stage of the that 90-minute cycle.

48:42 SPEAKER_02: And if you're in a deep stage and someone ravels you out of it, it takes a long time to pull your head out, so to speak. Um on the other hand, if you're woken up, you know, the alarm clock goes off, you pop up and go, man, I'm ready to go. Okay, you were you your timing was great. You just probably had just finished your 90s 90 minutes Michael now, you're ready to go. So I would go with um what is that? Exercise, uh, dietary cleanup, and uh sleep. If I had to pick three.

49:14 SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love it. And I feel like those are really the most powerful ones. You know, I love to read and I love to meet with experts that are in the field just like you, and ask all these questions also, and learn, you know, of course, as I write my solo episodes as well. Um, you know, in the military to believe is one of the very last conversations that we do have for me to meet in the product.

49:42 SPEAKER_04: I know it's it's a non-negotiable for me now, but I have to work on that. You know, it's not something that we happen for J overnight, it's been a couple years of working data to be other activities to meet out the night with all the means with all the medicine online analysis, talking about if you're talking about what happened in the load of sensitivity. But you don't identify your blood negative at a standard of another individual for specificity.

50:16 SPEAKER_04: You call it your body optimal brain bonds, but doctors guided the natural treatment for memory clarity and for vending needs of cognitive difficulty. And what I really like about the productivity is that it doesn't reduce the brain need health to one magical. You talk about things like movement, physical intensity, breath management, social connection, and other everyday behaviors of the bigger picture. So I want you to help me connect the dots. If the gut is one part of the system and the brain is another, what does optimal brain wellness actually look like in everyday life?

50:58 SPEAKER_02: No um we are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual beings, and each one of us is an individual. So learning how to optimize your life uh should be, I think, a series of improvement steps as you go through life. And that's my attitude towards uh developing healthier, a healthier lifestyle. There's many, many, many temptations in our culture and in our society to lead an unhealthy lifestyle. In fact, it's been estimated that 70% of our chronic diseases are lifestyle related. So uh, and it's uh everything from the way we eat to uh getting involved in unhealthy relationships, following unhealthy activities and such.

51:47 SPEAKER_02: So um putting it all together, uh it's a series of individual choices. The example I like to use was drinking green tea. Turns out green tea is one of the healthiest things you can drink. So when I first learned that, I thought, okay, how can I incorporate that? And I realized we have a coffee maker at work that heats up water. So I can make a glass of green tea, and I'm currently working four days a week. So that's easy. So I make it in the morning and I just sip on it throughout the day. By the time I'm gone, it's gone.

52:18 SPEAKER_02: Um, and then when I'm home, I like making green tea, but then I put it over ice, especially during the summer. I find it refreshing. So it's simple. So why do I use that as an example? Because there's so many simple things we can do.

52:30 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

52:31 SPEAKER_02: Uh I do recommend you take a multivitamin. There are supplements in the book that I recommend for brain health. One of them is uh that's kind of fun is mushrooms, uh, particularly lion's main mushrooms. The literature on that for improving brain function is actually pretty solid. So they make it where you can get it in a powder and you can add it to your coffee. Or they do make some coffee drinks out of mushrooms now, just capitalizing on that. And uh, and actually I do recommend those. I do that myself.

53:01 SPEAKER_02: Um so the one from if you're gonna do that, just as a tip, uh stir up your coffee when you get down the last few sips, or it'll taste like mud because it does settle out while you're drinking it.

53:14 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

53:15 SPEAKER_02: So uh simple things like that are actually pretty easy to do, adding, you know, adding a piece of fruit to your diet every day and a couple of vegetables to one of your meals. Uh these these are relatively simple things, but if you add them all up, it's good. If you take a half hour before you go to bed. Uh if you're, I know you're you stay super active. Uh a good a good thing to help you sleep is to have a pad and paper and or on your cell phone if you want to make a list, you know, on your notes there.

53:49 SPEAKER_02: Everything you want to do the next day, do all that, write it all out before you go to bed. That way when you go to bed, you won't wake up processing, okay. I need to do this, I need to do that. So it's it's a simple tool, but it's actually pretty strong in helping people who are pretty compulsive to, you know, to get a good night's sleep. Um mental stimulation is important. Uh we used to think, well, if you just do cross-body puzzles, that's you know, that's good. Uh it turns out if you really want to build brain power, do something that you haven't done before.

54:22 SPEAKER_02: So if you uh have never played a musical instrument, that would be a good choice. Learning foreign language turns out to be apparently the best thing you can do as far as developing brain power. Um so things like that, uh, moving in the realm, something, you know, read something that you don't normally read. Yeah. Or even talking to somebody who's really intelligent on a subject you haven't heard before, podcast, you know, something like that. Uh those uh all those things can be quite useful for mental stimulation, spiritual stimulation.

54:56 SPEAKER_02: If you don't have a church, or if you're not, you know, if you had a bad experience with churches, I'd encourage you, don't throw out, you know, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. God is still God. The fact that people can really screw up things at church or in religious experiences, don't let it push you away from a divine source of comfort.

55:15 SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

55:16 SPEAKER_02: Seek him in other ways. The Bible does say those who seek me with all their hearts will find me. And I think it's worthwhile. You're talking about establishing a personal relationship with the divine creator of the universe. It's worth working for. So again, don't let whatever humans have done to you or messed with your head, don't let that keep you from uh seeking a relationship with God.

55:37 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

55:38 SPEAKER_02: Um and we haven't really talked about avoiding toxins, but that's worth going into. Um, so here's some practical examples for that. One is drinking water out of plastic water bottles, especially the soft bottles, is probably a bad idea. Uh, we're becoming aware that humans consume microplastics throughout their life. It can come from nose stick cookware, the uh the lime pans. You can get no stick cookware made out of uh bonded metals, that's very safe. But the the ones you get that are the old Teflon coated pans where they kind of get scraped up, that's a bad idea.

56:17 SPEAKER_02: Uh so avoiding drinking anything out of plastic bottles is a good idea. You don't you never want to microwave anything in a plastic container. That's a bad idea.

56:27 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

56:27 SPEAKER_02: Uh you don't want to store food in plastic containers where the plastic's actually touching the food. They can actually absorb little bits of the plastics that are in there. Oh, yeah, in a plastic bottle. So uh metal containers are much better, or porcelain, or um even the rubberized ones, some of those are just fine. Um other toxins are the air we breathe. Yeah, if you can get an air filter. I have one each of my treatment rooms at the office. I have one in my bedroom. And for our house, we have uh central air conditioning.

57:04 SPEAKER_02: So I have a uh I get the you could get by with a one-inch thick filter, the but I use the four-inch thick ones because they're HEPA. They they simply pick up more particles than the one-inch. So they cost a lot more, unfortunately. But for for me, that's a value that I have. And finally, I would say water. Uh, you know, we're blessed in America. You can drink water out of any tap and it's safe and it will not make you sick. But there's still chemicals in there to get that water to you safely. They have to modify it.

57:34 SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, I mean, you think of where that water comes from. You know, it's not it's not all out of wells. They're filtering a lot of it out of sewage and slush and other things you would never consider drinking. So to purify it, I recommend afford it, a reverse osmosis purifier, and they make some that are very affordable now and fit under the sink. Uh, if you're military moving around, you can actually take it with you. Um the if you're not going to do that, at least the charcoal filters are those are a good idea.

58:03 SPEAKER_02: They take out a lot of contaminants. It's not as good as reverse osmosis, but it's far better than uh nothing.

58:10 SPEAKER_04: Yeah. Oh, I love it. Thank you for giving all of those practical things that we can apply and look into. And and friends, you know, please, you know, go back and re-listen um to write some of these things down because you know they're very important and it's just things that I think we overlook a lot because we just have to go, right? We have things that we need to get done, but understanding our health is something that if we don't pay attention to and we don't take care of um can really cost down the road.

58:38 SPEAKER_04: So um, Dr. David, what is one thing that people can actually start doing for their brain that doesn't require buying anything?

58:48 SPEAKER_02: Um well, we talked about movement, we talked about sleep, those are free. Um let's see.

58:59 SPEAKER_02: The mental stimulation, social activities, the spiritual components. Uh take a news fast.

59:10 SPEAKER_02: All of that helps. Yeah. Whatever you can do to minimize your stress should be done. We're again, we're in a stressful environment. It can be a 24-7 cycle if you allow it to be. You pretty much have to voluntarily step out of it if you don't want to be consumed by it and perpetually have your brain beat up.

59:29 SPEAKER_04: Yeah. So I got another question. If you could give every person listening one brain health principle to carry with them for the next 20 years, what would it be?

59:48 SPEAKER_02: Add in healthy things one at a time and take out unhealthy things one at a time. Small steps make a big difference, especially multiplied over that 20 years.

59:59 SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love that. I love that. So I want to bring it back to the Warriors Haven podcast. We've talked about invisible forces throughout the series, and you've given us a lot, honestly, Dr. David, to think about. But I want to ask you this: what does it mean to become a better steward of the body and brain you've been given?

1:00:18 SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Um that actually goes back to my spiritual uh life and uh finding the why for what you do, what you do. Uh, everybody should, I think, take at least a little bit of time and ask yourself, why am I doing what I'm doing, especially when it comes to your health? And for me, uh, the first thing is God. I can't serve God if I'm not healthy. Uh, in like fashion, um, I've I've been blessed with a great relationship. My wife, Melinda, we've been married 45 years this month. And uh we have a lot of fun together, get along real well.

1:00:53 SPEAKER_02: And it's just it's been a joy. I can't really take care of Melinda or be there for her, or even the way we play and enjoy each other and our intimacy. If I'm not healthy, then I can't participate in those things. And then there's uh my family, my sons. I have three sons, and I've been surprised at how much role modeling for my sons will influence my behavior. Um I just uh I realize I am their primary role model for what aging is supposed to look like and for what relationships and health and life is supposed to look like.

1:01:26 SPEAKER_02: And below that are my patients, uh, which is I have to be healthy for them. Uh and also the role modeling and credibility. You know, if I'm 60 pounds overweight, I can't very well tell someone they need to go on a weight loss program. I mean, I can, but they're gonna say, well, why haven't you? You know, it's pretty obvious. Like smoke, you know, I can't do those things. Um, not that I have a big desire, but I can't. Um so those, and then finally there's my friends. Uh I've I've really cherish my friends.

1:01:59 SPEAKER_02: I like being there for them. I like hanging out with them. If we want to go do something, I want to be able to do it, whether it's hiking or skiing or whatever else that we want to do that's fun and physical. So uh that's those are my whys, which offer as examples. I recommend everybody take a little bit of time and just list out why you are doing what you're doing. For me, I actually do have them written down on I have a bulletin board in my uh in my closet, so I see it every morning as a reminder of okay, what am I doing here?

1:02:30 SPEAKER_02: What am I supposed to be doing? Yeah.

1:02:32 SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love that. So if you could speak directly to the person listening who feels tired, foggy, overwhelmed, or frustrated with their health, what would you want them to hear?

1:02:44 SPEAKER_02: Well, first off, you have my compassion. Um it it would really it depends so much on the individual and what um, like if you were to read my book, for example, you'll notice it's in Kinsai's chapters covering the things that we've talked about. So I encourage people when they read it, read, just read through the chapters and see which ones call out to you. That's where you want to spend your time. If you're already a major athlete and working yourself out, then yeah, don't read that chapter. It's you're not gonna learn anything you haven't already figured out.

1:03:15 SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

1:03:16 SPEAKER_02: Um so it's sort of I would um I would have to know the person and ask them a few questions to know even where to start, because everybody is again a unique individual. That's the basis of good osteopathic medicine is recognizing uh well, there's there's a Chinese thing, I also do acupuncture. There's a Chinese saying that a doctor who prescribes the same remedy for two people with the same symptoms and expects the same results is a fool. Everybody's an individual. You're gonna respond differently according to who you are.

1:03:52 SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love that. So I read this and I I want to see is it is it true? Were you also a veterinarian too?

1:03:59 SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.

1:04:00 SPEAKER_04: Okay, so I have to ask Dr. David, how did we go from being a veterinarian to being the doctor that you are now? What what where where did that come? Where did how how? Take me through the journey.

1:04:14 SPEAKER_02: There's a big there's a detailed story with it, but to cut it short. Um, I went to veterinary school. I was in the first place, I was pretty young. Um, I got in after two years of undergrad, which is you could do that with a lot of summer school in these days. I remember we're talking about uh darn near 50 years ago, half century ago I went to veterinary school. Um, so I got in, and in those days you could get out in three years. Uh, it was uh on a trimester basis, we went all year round. So I got out, and um, I had always felt leaning towards human medicine, but I just I really uh I loved dogs and I thought, you know, veterin is I think I might be happier doing that.

1:04:56 SPEAKER_02: So I'd like to emphasize being a veterinarian profession. I'd recommend it to anybody. So I did not leave veterinary medicine, but I did feel called. It was a divine calling. I felt like God was calling me to go into human medicine. Wow. So I realized I could either do that um or spend the rest of my life doing something I wasn't supposed to do.

1:05:19 SPEAKER_03: Wow.

1:05:20 SPEAKER_02: Even though I enjoyed it. So that that was the decision to go into medical school. So I had practiced veterinary medicine for three years, um, and then I went to osteopathic school.

1:05:30 SPEAKER_04: Wow. Osteopathic. Why not searching? Or just like a general general doctor? Why not one specific?

1:05:39 SPEAKER_02: No, that's that's the way I was headed. Uh I was uh there was a TV show on at the time. Yeah, most of your listeners are probably too young, but it's called Marcus Well, the MD. And it's a very smart, very capable family practitioner. He's an older fatherly kind of figure. He would make all these obscure diagnoses, save people's lives, and then wrap up the episode having a back there. Barbecue with them. I thought, okay, I want to be that guy. That's that's who I want to be. And that's who I was headed for.

1:06:05 SPEAKER_02: Um, at that point, one of my veterinary clients came in and said, You know, before you commit to being an MD, you ought to look at osteopathy, or at least go see this osteopath who's out in Richardson, which is a city very close to where I was living. He made a big difference in my son's life. So uh I had never heard of an osteopath. I didn't even know if that existed. My family was pure MD from the get-go. So I called the guy and he said, Yeah, you can come out and spend a day with me. And he did all osteopathic manipulation all day long.

1:06:35 SPEAKER_02: He just used his hands to treat people. That was his profession. And he spent 30 minutes with each patient. So he would bring me into the room and just have me sit there with my hands gently on the patient while he worked on them and did things. Um and it was very uh it was a quiet practice, it was subtle, it was the lights dimmed. The patients got very relaxed. Sometimes they fell asleep while he was working on them. And then he would leave me in the room with the patient while he went out to write his progress note and then come back and fetch me.

1:07:06 SPEAKER_02: Well, all day long, no sooner had the door closed behind him than the patient would burst into a testimonial of how much he had changed their lives. And I had never seen this before. And I'd worked with MDs and family practice, and yeah, that's great. You know, I'm certainly not putting that down, but I had never seen anything like this before. And by the end of the day, I thought, that's that's what I want to do. And it turns out that was less than 3% of osteopaths practiced by that's just the one God led me to, and that was my role model, and he ended up being my one of my mentors.

1:07:37 SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love that. Yeah, you know, even just trying to pronounce the word. I was like, you know, that's not one that you see or read about or hear much about. So I, you know, that was another another thing that was just also fascinating as well to have met you and to be able to have the conversations that we had. So, Dr. David, as I close up the episode with you, I just want to thank you so, so much. Thank you for coming onto the Warriors Haven podcast and having this conversation, not just with me, but with all of my friends all over the world.

1:08:08 SPEAKER_04: I think the biggest takeaway today is that not everything influencing our lives is visible. Sometimes the most powerful forces are the ones operating underneath the surface. And that's exactly what the Invisible Forces series has been about. Our environment, our habits, our thoughts, our identity, our energy, and today our gun because you can't see every signal your body is sending you, but you can listen to it. If today's conversation gave you something to think about, send this episode to someone who needs to hear it.

1:08:43 SPEAKER_04: And don't just listen to the episode. Pick one of the three tools Dr. David gave us and actually use it today because knowledge doesn't change your life. Applied knowledge does. I'm Jay, your favorite drill sergeant. And this is the Warriors Haven podcast. And remember, you don't have to become a completely different person. You just have to start understanding the forces that are already shaping you. Like I always end, friends, stay strong, stay focused, stay ready. I'll catch you on the next episode.

1:09:21 SPEAKER_04: Thank you so, so much, Dr. David.

1:09:24 SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jay. I really enjoyed it. It's good talking with you.