← 10% Happier with Dan Harris
10% Happier with Dan Harris
Unlocking the Body's Innate Capacity for Healing: From Colds and Injuries to Anxiety and Heart Health | Dr. Victoria Maizes
01:19:28
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang. As we all know, there are many problems with our medical system today. I love my doctors, but they tend to be super busy and it can be hard to have in depth conversations with them. Also, there's the fact that most doctors are trained to focus on treating disease with medicine as opposed to preventing disease and thinking about all the factors that go into why we get sick and how to heal our lifestyle. In my experience, most doctors really don't have time to go deep on things like sleep, the quality of your relationships, your spiritual life, et cetera, et cetera. That's why integrative medicine is really interesting, because it takes into account factors that many doctors may write off as extraneous or just might not have time to get into, but that can be key to preventing and treating illnesses. So today I'm going to talk to an integrative doctor who's got some really impressive credentials and who, as you'll hear, is a font of useful information. Her central thesis is that we all have what she calls the rapid recovery reflex. In other words, our bodies are brilliant at healing. For example, anytime you get cut, you can watch over the ensuing day or two or three as it heals. It's phenomenal. Although many of us take it for granted, your body is innately wired for self healing and there are evidence based ways to ramp up your ability to heal quickly, from everything from colds and flus to musculoskeletal pain to heart conditions to anxiety and beyond. We're going to get into all of that today with Dr. Victoria Mazes. She's the founding executive director of the Andrew Weil center for Integrative Medicine. Her new book is called Heal Unlock your body's rapid recovery Reflex. In this conversation we talk about what integrative medicine is and isn't. How lifestyle, sleep, stress and relationships factor into healing. Why a pill for every ill, A slogan some doctors use often falls short. What the rapid recovery reflex is and why the body wants to heal. The aspects of modern life that block recovery. Why patients have more power than you might think. How AI can help people ask better questions and work smarter with doctors. How environmental toxins and social connection quietly shape our health more than many people realize. Tips for handling colds and flus more effectively. Smarter ways to recover from pain and injuries and practical tools for reducing stress and anxiety without immediately turning to medication. Speaking of stress and anxiety, we've got lots of meditations. Not to be confused with medication. We've got plenty of meditations over on my new app 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up@danharris.com there's a free 14 day trial if you want to check it out before you spend any money. We've got a growing library of guided meditations from many of the world's greatest teachers. We also do weekly live video meditation and Q and A sessions where you can get your questions answered. We've got community features so you can connect to your fellow meditators so you don't feel so alone in this weird meditation thing. Danharris.com, join the party. Okay, we'll get started with Dr. Victoria Mazes right after this. Running your own business is awesome, but it ain't easy and there are lots of little details that crop up for which you're going to want a really good ally when you want more Start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides and tools and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business all in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. 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Join the thousands of parents who trust fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes@meetfabric.com happier that's meetfabric.com happier M E-E-T fabric.com happier policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. Dr. Victoria Mazes, welcome to the show.
- [06:26]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
- [06:28]
A
Pleasure. Let me start with some basic questions for the uninitiated. What is integrative medicine?
- [06:35]
B
It's such a great question because people often conflate it with alternative medicine, which it is not. It is a larger paradigm of medicine that includes what we usually get in conventional or Western medicine, but also pays a lot of attention to lifestyle. And it intends to form a really meaningful relationship between you and the provider. And then it includes the things that are evidence based from outside of conventional medicine. Things like when would you take a supplement? When is acupuncture appropriate? Things that are evolving, like vagus, nerve devices and even psychedelics.
- [07:17]
A
I mean, the word holistic is coming to mind, but I know that has a specific meaning in your world. But it's a kind of broader lens on our health rather than just focused on disease and what medicine we should take.
- [07:32]
B
Absolutely. So two parts. One is we definitely engage with people around mind, body, spirit, community. It's a much larger look at who people are, and we make recommendations that reflect that much larger look.
- [07:48]
A
I grew up with a couple of doctors, his parents, and I'm married to a doctor. My wife is, I think, quite open to the stuff we're talking about here today. But my understanding of the in the medical community is that there has been some skepticism around alternative medicine, or are you just folding the latest fads into your treatment of your patients? How do you push back against skepticism among your peers?
- [08:13]
B
It's a great question. I've been in this field a very long time, and I would say that the skepticism has really diminished over the years. This is now a field that has board certification the way most other specialties do. And there's a huge body of evidence that supports what we recommend. So in my new book, heal Faster, everything that I write is based on evidence. In integrative medicine, we sometimes hold what we call a sliding scale for evidence. So, for example, you might accept a lesser amount of evidence if your recommendation is for breath work. You'd want a lot more evidence before you recommended chemotherapy. So when things are presumably safe, you might say, okay, we have good evidence for safety. We're willing to accept a little less evidence for efficacy where things are riskier. You want to have a lot of evidence that it's also going to be efficacious.
- [09:16]
A
So evidence based, I think, will make most people, physician or not, comfortable, especially if you're prone towards skepticism. The fact that there's an evidence base for the things you're recommending for me at least, really is soothing and mind opening. However, you talked earlier about the fact that integrative medicine is designed to give patient and physician a broader lens through which to view health. But my experience in going to see doctors is that they don't have a lot of time. And so talking about the overall context of my life, it rarely comes up. I complain about a thing, they recommend some medicines, and they're off to the next patient. So how practical is this approach?
- [10:02]
B
I worry about that treadmill of care. Many years ago, I left the practice of primary care medicine in Northern California because I didn't want to put band aids on problems. I think integrative medicine is committed to looking for the underlying roots of the illness. Now, you're right, there's a time factor, and doctors are on a treadmill and often don't have a lot of time. But I think we sacrifice many important things. When we don't take the time to hear someone's story, we put them on a medicine. They may be on that medicine for years and years. That's expensive. We may order an MRI or a bunch of lab tests. Instead of taking a more careful history and finding out what's really going on. That's expensive. And the other thing I would say, and this is one of the points in Heal Faster, is that we have become a society that has a pill for every ill. And we treat people with medications that while they may be effective at managing the illness, they don't reverse the illness. They don't prevent a gradual progression, for example, in heart disease or in metabolic syndrome to diabetes. So that what we do in integrative medicine is we see, can we get to the root of the illness, which often lies in someone's lifestyle. It often is a factor of what they're eating, how stressed they are, whether they're exposed to environmental Chemicals, Are they getting good sleep? Are they isolated, or do they have emotional support? And when you address those underlying factors, often you're able to halt the progression of a disease, reverse a disease, and get somebody on a track towards being healthy as opposed to managing a chronic illness.
- [11:59]
A
So that all sounds great. Given, however, the reality of the treadmill that we just. That you just described, I'll just go back to the question of practicality and the how of making this more of a reality for more people.
- [12:14]
B
Yeah. So, first of all, I practice at the University of Arizona, so anyone can come and see me at the University of Arizona. And we have doctors practicing integrative medicine all over the United States. In our fellowship at the University of Arizona, Andrew Weil center for Integrative medicine, we train 160 physicians and nurse practitioners in this each year. So they're in every state in the United States. You can find them. That's step number one.
- [12:42]
A
Let me just jump in on that. Sorry.
- [12:44]
B
No worries.
- [12:44]
A
Just to put a fine point on that, I think what you're saying is, if you like the sound of integrative medicine, look up integrative medicine practitioners in your area, see if they're covered by your health insurance, and go for it.
- [12:58]
B
Great advice.
- [12:59]
A
Okay, it's just me restating your advice, but I interrupted you. What was the second thing you wanted to say there?
- [13:05]
B
I wanted to say that in integrative medicine, we really want to make sure that everyone does have access to this. And so we have an organization that's called I Am the Number four US which is Integrative Medicine for the underserved. And it's a large number of physicians and nurse practitioners who are committed to providing integrative medicine to people who show up at FQHCs, which are federally qualified health centers or community health centers, and they have the training in integrative medicine. They share best practices. One of the ways in which we make this more accessible is by offering group visits, because there's a fair amount of education involved in integrative medicine. What constitutes a healthy diet? How do you remove some of the environmental chemicals you may be getting exposed to? How do you get a good night's sleep? So some of that information can be conveyed well in a group visit. And then there's, of course, the emotional support that comes out of group visits where people share what they're doing and what's working.
- [14:06]
A
That sounds really cool. We're going to get in a minute into all of your really interesting, fascinating, and I think very helpful tactical recommendations for specific Vexations like the cold and flu and chronic illness and anxiety and muscular skeletal pain. But before we do that, just staying on a high level here, I'm going to tell you about an experience I had recently. Not because I'm particularly interested in airing my medical history, but because I'm wondering if it would be instructive for our listeners.
- [14:35]
B
Awesome.
- [14:36]
A
For example, I have a great primary physician. She is not an integrative medicine person and she's very busy and that's not her fault. I think it's the system she's in. And from what I can tell, she does a great, great job of managing and taking care of her patients within a tornado. I am very lucky person in that I have good health insurance and a married to a doctor and I host this show. So I'm talking to people who have a sort of broad lens on human thriving all the time. So I've I had this problem for years of insomnia. It often manifested in this overwhelming physical restlessness. I started to develop the suspicion that it was this condition that I had seen commercials for when I was a kid, restless leg syndrome, which as I've often joked is the most ridiculous sounding syndrome in the world. But here we are. And so I just started doing a bunch of my own research, which I always feel sheepish about because I know doctors love and I'm being sarcastic when people come in armed with bullshit information from Dr. Google and now Dr. Chatgpt. But I started sort of with a sense of humility, really talking at length with ChatGPT about this condition and I learned a lot. And then I brought that to my doctor and said, look, I know I don't know shit. It's just me talking to a chatbot. So this is not gospel, but I think this may be what it is. And I think these are the medication tweaks we can make. I think I should come off one of my medications, go on an iron supplement and experiment with another medication. And she went and looked up everything I said, checked it and said yeah, I think you're right. And I also, we also talked about some lifestyle changes, et cetera, et cetera. So long way of saying I feel like patients do have some power in all of this. It's dangerous to like blindly do what a chatbot says. You should check it with your doctor. But there's a certain amount of information in my experience that you can gather and then kind of calmly and non dogmatically present to your physician if she or he is willing to listen. I said a lot there. How does all that land for you?
- [16:51]
B
Well, I love informed patients, and I would say that many people who come to see me or any integrative medicine doctor have done their own research and often have a fair number of questions. Years ago, when the Internet was really quite young, Dr. Andrew Weil, who I've worked with for about 30 years, was one of the first people to have medical information on the Internet. It was called Ask Dr. Weil. And I remember sometimes we'd be traveling to speak at a conference, and at the airport, someone would recognize him because he had the big, fluffy white beard. And they'd say I had, and they'd name some condition, restless leg. And nobody could help me. I couldn't find anything. And then I went on your website and I found. And they named something and they'd say, and now I'm well again. It was so awesome to hear people say that. And now, of course, it's ever so much more sophisticated what people can find. With the caveat being that there's a lot of garbage on ChatGPT too. And so that discernment, which you describe by vetting things with your doctor is a good idea. It may be that five years from now, that won't be necessary, that there'll be a highly vetted form of ask your doctor on AI that will actually feel quite good about and people will be able to do it. Maybe they did, you know, 100 or 200 years ago when they'd asked their neighbor or, you know, ask their, you know, wise medicine person, herbalist, you know, whoever it might have been who had the wisdom, and they would sort of go from there. We will now have that available and accessible. But as you alluded to, there can be a lot of inaccurate information there too. So you do want a vetting process.
- [18:46]
A
Yeah. Yes. Okay. I hope that's useful for people to hear. I'll add one other little thing that I learned in the process that again, I'm interested to hear your view on. But given how busy doctors are, I found that talking to an LLM at length, saying to the LLM, really dumping out all of my medical history and all of my, you know, amateur theories about what could be going on and what be. Might the right treatments be, and then having the LLM write up a very concise paragraph that I could then text through the the patient portal to my doctor really helped. Like, she really appreciated the concise medical history, me saving her time and having to do a lot of, like, detective work. So I don't know. Do you I'm just curious to hear if you think that's useful advice to, to pass along to individual patients.
- [19:39]
B
Well, I do think that doctors are really busy and so being efficient in your communication is a blessing. I always recommend to people that when they have especially a complex problem, they make a list of their questions so that when they're in the doctor's office, and often when people are in a doctor's office, they feel a little anxious. That way they can turn to their notes and say, you know, yeah, I have this one other question that we didn't touch on yet. And their needs can be met, but in an efficient way where they've really thought through. And it sounds like the LLM was helpful to you in that portal communication. So I think that's great. And I'm just going to say, you know, we doctors are using these AI systems as well. There's one called Open Evidence where you actually have to put in your medical license. And then it is only giving you information from high quality medical journals. And so it eliminates some of the challenge of garbage in, garbage out. And there is also a platform, kind of like a Facebook for doctors. It's called Doximity, and it helps you by writing memos. For example, I just had to write a memo for one of my patients who was flying and he was experiencing some low back pain. He was worried he wouldn't be able to walk from one long gait to another. And so I just quickly asked my LLM to write the note for me. And it did. It did a beautiful job. It needed no editing and just sent it to my assistant who put the patient's name and address in and, you know, we sent it off to him. So we're all using these, these tools.
- [21:17]
A
Okay. I didn't plan to go down this road, but I'm glad we did.
- [21:21]
B
Well, it's, it's, it's the world we live in.
- [21:24]
A
It is, it is the world we live in. And I, again, I hope, I hope that digression was useful for listeners. Okay, so you've mentioned your book. It's called Heal Faster. And in the, the, the central idea in the book, which is very compelling to me at least, is something called the rapid recovery reflex. Can you say a little bit more about what that is?
- [21:45]
B
Absolutely. The idea is that we have an innate system that leads us to recovery. We know this, we've all experienced this. If we have a little cut finger and we watch it, the wound heals. We don't really have to do anything special. Our body knows how to heal that wound. When we get a viral infection, the common cold, we get those each year. Our body knows how to fight that and get well again. And so more often than not, the things that come our way, our innate healing system, our recovery reflex, is able to overcome whatever it is and bring us back into homeostasis, bring us back into this state where we once again experience robust health. And it's really the exception when that doesn't happen. And then as an integrative medicine doctor, I'm interested in looking for, well, what are the obstacles? Why isn't this person returning to a healthy state?
- [22:48]
A
What are the common obstacles in your view?
- [22:50]
B
A lot of them are going to be familiar to people. In the United States, we don't eat the healthiest diet. We sometimes call our diet the SAD diet, which stands for standard American diet. We know we eat a lot of ultra processed food. That ultra processed food has all sorts of unusual chemicals in the emulsifiers and flavorants. And they, they change our microbiome, which is all of the normal healthy microorganisms that are in our gut especially, but also all over our body that are important for our metabolism and for digestive function and even for our mental health. So that unhealthy diet that we consume is a really big issue. Many of us don't get enough sleep. That's usually defined for adults as seven to nine. And that also affects our immune system, our ability to lay down memories, our metabolism, our sense of well being, even how long we live. There's data that shows that getting healthy sleep affects our longevity. We are exposed to environmental toxins. These show up in cleaning products. They show up in pesticides that are on our food. They show up in our shampoo, in our conditioner, in makeup for women, in, you know, antiperspirant for men. They're absorbed through the skin into our bodies. We live in a stressful society and that stress affects our health and well being as well. And we need to learn how to mitigate stress. I don't think human beings have ever been stress free, but probably we move more quickly into a relaxed state than we do now, where often we're living in what we consider a state of chronic stress. A lot of us don't exercise enough. Movement is really critical to good health. Getting outdoors. Most of our jobs require that we spend a lot of time indoors. And yet sunlight and being outdoors and exposed to natural light sets our circadian clocks, which affect when we digest, when we rest, and all sorts of other functions of our body. So we are not living in alignment with the ways in which our recovery reflex would best work. And then of course, there are other things. I mean, COVID 19 took us all, you know, by surprise back in 2019. 2020. And our immune system had never seen it before. And so we had to adjust to yet a new viral infection. People break a bone, bones heal, but we have to line up the two ends of the bone for it to heal. So it's, it's not just our lifestyle, but our, ourselves.
- [25:36]
A
Big, you mentioned a lot of things there and I want to, if you're up for it, I want to go deep on, on all of them. And actually, I'll add two things to the list. But you mentioned sleep, diet, exercise, environmental toxins, stress and nature. And like I said just to the listener, we're going to dive into specific physical ailments like heart conditions and cold and flu and even anxiety and talk about what we can do about those. But just staying at this level, the level of the obstacles to our rapid recovery reflex. Let's tick through some of these obstacles and see what you recommend. Let's start with sleep. 1. My restless leg syndrome came back last night for a variety of reasons. And so I'm acutely sensitive to the issue of sleep. From an integrative medicine point of view. What are the ways that we can improve our sleep?
- [26:28]
B
Yeah, it's a big question. I think there's been a lot written and studied and there are a few categories. One is what we call sleep hygiene. So sleep hygiene means that you do your best to go to bed at the same time every day and wake up at the same time every day. That also is a good strategy for your circadian rhythm. We don't all feel tired at the same time. Some of us are a little bit more night owl, some of us are a little bit more in the morning lark. So it's not that everyone has to go to bed at 10 and wake up at 6:30, but we should figure out, well, what is our time when we are ready to go to sleep and go to sleep at that time and wake up? And that's true on the weekends too. We want to make it as regular as possible. It's good to sleep in a room that is dark, quiet and cool. All of those help. When we're exposed to light at night, it suppresses our ability to produce melatonin, which is this neurohormone that our brain, our pineal gland produces. And it's what essentially tells our body that it's time to sleep. And so when we're exposed to bright light at night, or even the light of our cell phone, the blue light that's coming off our cell phone or a computer screen, that interferes with our ability to release melatonin. So you want to reduce the amount of bright light at night. And there are people who wear blue lens blockers to really do that. There are other strategies, like just turning off the bright overhead lights and, you know, using a lamp and dimming the lights a bit. Quieting before you go to bed. I don't think it's good. I know you were an an, but I don't think it's good for anyone to watch the news right before they go to bed. It's too stimulating, it's too agitating. So that's not something you want to do right before you go to bed. And then there are specific things one can do to relax the body and the mind. Whether that's meditation before you go to sleep, whether that's guided imagery, whether it's binaural sounds, breath work. There are things that you can do to kind of quiet your overall system to put you in a good space for falling asleep. And then the other thing that really affects people is they wake up in the middle of the night and they can't get back to sleep. And some of those very same things that can be used, breath work, can be used to relax you. There are some supplements that sometimes I advise as well.
- [28:55]
A
What are the supplements?
- [28:57]
B
Well, I do recommend melatonin. Melatonin, as I mentioned, is a neurohormone and we tend to make less of it as we get older. The thing that's nice about melatonin is it has a very short half life. The half life is the time that it takes half of a particular substance to be metabolized and gotten rid of. And for melatonin, it's only 25 minutes. So that means in about two and a half hours it's totally gone. So you could take it. If you're having what we call sleep onset insomnia, you're having trouble falling asleep, you could take it about a half hour before bedtime. I like the sublingual. It gets into your bloodstream really quickly, much faster than an oral dose. Or if you wake up at 2am and you're just tossing and turning and you can't fall back to sleep, you can have some on your bedside table and put it under your tongue and they'll work in about 15 minutes and again help you get back to sleep. It'll be out of your body by about 4:30 or 5 in the morning, so you don't have that hungover feeling. Another one that's nice is valerian. Valerian is a botanical, very safe, been used for many, many years. It's sometimes combined with hops or passion flower or some of these other herbal remedies that have been around for a long time, been studied for sleep. They don't cause dependency the way some of the sleeping medicines, they're considered quite safe.
- [30:17]
A
So melatonin or valerian, are these prn, you know, as needed or standing dose?
- [30:25]
B
I like people to use these as needed. I mean, ideally, over time you find ways to gently allow yourself to fall asleep. You know, we use this language, this strong language verb, I'm going to sleep or falling asleep. But the reality is it's more like this quiet acquiescing, letting go into sleep rather than going to sleep. I mean, all of us have had this experience where we said, I'm going to sleep. You put your head on the pillow and you are not going to sleep, you are wide awake, you're tossing and turning. And so it's really a much more passive quieting of the nervous system to gradually allow yourself to fall into sleep. And that state, I think, is really nicely generated with things like guided imagery. And I am a big fan of apps. There are quite a few apps that I recommend to people. For example, one is called Insight, like having insight into something. Insight Timer, it is free now, there is a paid version, so I'm not going to misspeak, but there's more than 200,000 free things on it, so you never have to get the paid version. You can use this. Most Americans have a smartphone. Once you've listened to whatever you are listening to, whether it's guided imagery, whether it's a boring bedtime story, whether it's binaural sounds or music, whatever appeals to you, it'll just turn off on its own so you don't have to then get up and turn it off. And that obviously interrupts your sleep. So I'm a big fan. I also tell my patients that they should find something, something that resonates and keep using it, because then essentially you're entraining your nervous system where over time you say, oh, yeah, when I hear that sound, that is what leads me into gentle sleep.
- [32:23]
A
Coming up, Dr. Victoria Mazes talks about why what you eat and when you eat matters. The case for small doable movement, including getting outside, and how environmental toxins and social connection quietly shape your health more than you might realize. You've heard me say this before, but it bears repeating because it's incredibly important. Sleep is so, so crucial if you want to upgrade your life or even just keep things on an even keel. It's, as I often say, the apex predator of healthy habits. Nothing good happens if you're not getting enough sleep. And I recently got some sheets in the mail, beautiful sheets that have made my night night routine, my nightly routine before bed, even more pleasant. And they come from a company called Cozy Earth. Cozy Earth has all kinds of stuff that I wear actually sweatpants that I can pad around in any time of the day, but especially at night. They have pajamas that my wife wears that are awesome. They've got throws all sorts of stuff. They've got a 100 night sleep trial. You can try out their stuff and if you don't love it, return it hassle free. In my experience, you won't want to return it. There's also a 10 year warranty because once you feel this level of comfort, you'll want it to last for a decade. Share a little extra love this February and wrap yourself or somebody you care about in comfort that truly feels special. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code HARRIS for up to 20% off. That's code HARRIS for up to twenty percent off. And if you get a post purchase survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Celebrate everyday love with comfort that makes the little moments count. The best B2B marketing often gets wasted on the wrong people. I can't tell you how often I'm scrolling and I get served ads for stuff I have no interest in. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over a billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. It's why LinkedIn Ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of all major ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com happier. That's LinkedIn.com happier. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, let's talk about diet. You said most Americans are unfortunately or sadly on the standard American diet. Sad. Whether we're on that or not, there is an overabundance of processed foods. So what are your general recommendations for improving our diet in a way that will allow us to maximize what you're doing? Calling the rapid recovery reflex, the ability of our body to heal on its own from injuries and other conditions.
- [35:43]
B
Two important pieces. One is what you eat, the other is when you eat. So the what you eat is really critical. I do like to personalize my recommendations, so I'm going to give some broad things. One is it's better to eat whole foods that are less processed. So that means, you know, you buy fresh eggs, you make them with some butter and salt. Those are three ingredients. You don't necessarily need more ingredients. Of course, you could add lots of veggies and have a scramble, but all of those are whole foods. As opposed to, you know, buying eggs in a container that have already been scrambled for you and that you're going to pour out of a container. And you don't really know what the additives are doing to you. So whole foods, whole vegetables, whole fruits, whole grains, that's going to be a much, much healthier choice in your diet. We like to recommend the anti inflammatory diet that is going to focus on several things. One is antioxidants. You get those from fruits and vegetables. Another are omega 3 fatty acids which reduce the inflammation in your body. That comes from fatty fish. We have an acronym, SMASH fish, which is salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herring. Those are smash fish, rich sources of omega 3 fatty acids. But also walnuts and purslane and flaxseeds are also sources, vegetarian sources of these fatty acids. And you want also to have a sufficient amount of fiber in your diet. There are foods like mushrooms that come from Asian cultures that are anti inflammatory and are healthy to be eating. There are spices like turmeric and ginger that are anti inflammatory and healthy for us to be eating. Many of the diseases we are now learning are at their root inflammatory. So if you want to remove the root causes of an illness, looking at inflammation, reducing inflammation is critically important. And your diet is one of the ways you do that. The when is again related to that circadian rhythm. You don't want to be digesting while you're asleep. While you're asleep, the job of your body is to reboot, to restore your homeostasis, to reset your equilibrium. It resets your metabolic processes. And so if you've eaten right before you go to bed, you are digesting instead of resetting your metabolic system, instead of letting your digestive system rest. And so it's recommended that you stop eating three hours before you go to bed. So that by the time you go to bed you are able to be in that resting state rather than the digesting state.
- [38:29]
A
What's your take on intermittent fasting?
- [38:32]
B
So intermittent fasting is a larger idea that respects that idea of resting your digestive system for periods of time. And there's different ways to do intermittent fasting. The most common way that's being done right now I believe is what's called tre or time restricted eating. And there you stop eating for some period of time, which sounds so. But the truth is, before I really learned about time restricted eating, I noticed I'd go through the kitchen on my way to the bedroom and as I walked through the kitchen, those chocolate covered almonds would just call me. And so I might have a few chocolate covered almonds right before I went to bed, essentially, which meant that I wasn't truly resting my digestive system. And then I'd wake up, you know, eight, nine hours later and I'd go into my kitchen, I'd make some coffee and I'd have something with my coffee again. I'm starting to eat. So maybe I had an overnight fast of let's say eight hours. It's really healthy to have at least 12 hours as an adult. You want to put your digestive system to rest for 12 hours. Now that's not that difficult. If you Finish dinner at 7pm, you start eating at 7am if you finish dinner at 8pm, it's 8am and you're welcome to drink non caloric fluids. So you can drink water, herbal teas, black tea, green tea, coffee, but you have to wait. I tell my patients, you can't have your milk or your cream in your coffee until the 12 hours have passed and then you go back to it. So that's the most common form of intermittent fasting. There are also people who fast one or two days a week. There's something called five two where five days you eat normally and two days you eat four or 500 calories. But there's a large body of evidence at this point to support time restricted eating for reducing the risk of heart disease, for reducing the risk of diabetes, for supporting weight loss. And so I am a fan of that form of intermittent fasting.
- [40:39]
A
Okay, you mentioned exercise. I think everybody knows the deal there, but is there anything specific to add on that tip?
- [40:46]
B
Well, the main thing I'd say is any amount is good for you. Sometimes we feel the barrier of time and we go, well, I don't have an hour, so I might as well give it up. 5 minutes is good for you. 5 minutes in nature is even better for you. 10 minutes is yet better. But increments of as small as five minutes in nature have been shown to have an enormous value in terms of our health. And so what I would encourage listeners is any amount. If you're working really long days, can you take 10 minute break at some moment during your lunch break and go out with a friend perhaps and have a little walk and take a break? We're also more creative, we're more productive when we take those exercise breaks. So it actually is good for your employer if you do it.
- [41:35]
A
Okay. So I think most of us have heard the recommendations on sleep, diet and exercise before, although it is always immensely useful to hear them again. Where I think is, and I'll just speak for myself, where I know less is around environmental toxins. And you were talking about things like shampoo and deodorant, which immediately, you know. So it definitely gets my attention because I use those things and I've not thought much about what the danger of toxins might be and how to know what's in which product, et cetera, et cetera. So can you give us a little bit of a primer here?
- [42:12]
B
Yes. So when I talk about this subject, I'm always aware that it's anxiety provoking. And so I like to start by saying to people that the perfect is the enemy of the good. As humans, we've always been exposed to some environmental toxins. I mean, there are heavy metals in the soil. Sometimes they're in our food because they're in the soil. When we learned how to make fire to cook our food, we were exposed to the products of combustion. So it's not like one period of time in the distance past we were just pristine and now we're doomed. But we are exposed to more environmental chemicals because this is the progress with industry, that we have a lot more on the marketplace than we once had. And there is now an enormous marketplace because of consumer demand that allows us to choose more wisely to choose products that have fewer chemicals. So I think lots of people know, for example, that you can use clear vinegar as a cleaning product. And that's not gonna pose any health threats to you whatsoever. You can use baking soda again, it's gonna be something that has no dangers. But you could go to the grocery store and there are. One is by the environmental Working Group. It's called Healthy Living. It's a free app. Another was developed in France. It's a little more food than product oriented, but also quite helpful. It's called UKA Y U K A also free. And so you can scan the barcodes and when you use the healthy living app, it tells you, is this a carcinogen? Is this a reproductive toxicant? Which means it's going to be a problem if you're trying to have a child, is it an allergy? So people who tend to have allergic reaction to things are gonna have problems. And because of this green movement, you can go to stores and find better, safer, healthier products that aren't going to expose you. This is cleaning products. It's your shampoo, your conditioner, it's healthier lines of makeup. It's really the wide array of things that we put on our bodies and then we get exposed in our food. Well, their organic is a better choice because they're not allowed to use most pest pesticides. And so that dramatically reduces the amount of pesticide in our water. We can use a water filter. If you own a home, you can put a water filter on your faucet. If you don't own a home, you can get one of the Brita or Z filters that again will dramatically reduce the amount of toxins that are in our water supply.
- [44:52]
A
That's very helpful. When you were listing obstacles to our rapid recovery reflex, again, the body's innate ability to heal, there was one thing you didn't list. But I think you talk about it in the book and is very, to me seems really important and very much evidence based, which is, I think, what psychologists call social support. In other words, the quality of your relationships.
- [45:18]
B
Yes.
- [45:19]
A
Is it worth saying a little bit more about that?
- [45:21]
B
Yes. Thank you so much for filling in my blank. Yes, absolutely. Evolved tribally, we evolved to be in relationship with other human beings. And sadly, at this moment in time, lots of adults don't actually have a single friend, a single close friend. And this is a problem because one of the ways we can quiet our nervous system is through connection with other people. There is robust evidence to show that when we have close relationships, we live longer lives. Some of this shows up as men who are married usually live longer than men who are not married. It's the support of the wife. There is evidence that these connections can be family connections. They can be with religious organizations, they can be volunteering. So with different kinds of community connections and emotional support, wherever that comes from. Some years ago, the researcher at ucla, Shelley Taylor, had a very surprising finding. She said that we have underestimated the nervous system with Just talking about our stress, freeze, flight, freeze kind of reactions. And she said women actually have another reaction. It's called tend and befriend. So if you imagine a time where perhaps people lived in environments where they were, the women who were often in charge of the young children had babies, you know, they couldn't necessarily fight off the saber toothed tiger, they couldn't necessarily flee. They had babies and young children. And so by coming together with other women to tend to the children together by befriending others, that was another critical way that they managed the stress and that they quietly their nervous system. So I think emotional support is well supported and critically important and it's good for us to think about who are the people we would call an emergency. And if for some reason you're not coming up with any, this is an area in your life you may want to pay some attention to.
- [47:40]
A
Yes. And one practical piece of advice, and I've mentioned on the show many times, but it bears repeating, it comes from our former surgeon general who wrote a book about loneliness. You know, one very practical thing to do if you're feeling like you don't have enough social support is volunteer. Great way to meet people.
- [47:57]
B
Yes.
- [47:58]
A
Reminds you of your innate nobility. I was, you know, especially specifically in the. On the subject of men, there's a married couple, they come up in my TikTok feed all the time. The wife is on camera, the husband never shows his face. But they're, for reasons that I don't fully understand. But he's very funny and she's very funny and they have very funny conversations that seem often unscripted and anyway, so I must like them enough that the algorithm knows to keep serving them up. But there was a conversation between the two of them the other day in which he was being really stupid in a way that I, it was more ignorant than stupid. He just doesn't know better. But he was, she was asking him, hey, you know, what do you talk to when you're about to go golfing and you're in the locker room, what do you talk to the guys about? He's like, what do you, what do you mean, what do we talk about? She's like, well, if you've just had a fight with me, you know, like, what would you tell? He's like, well, what would they do? They wouldn't know. They, they, they don't know you. They couldn't tell me what to do. And he was going on to say that like, yeah, he's not there to, for emotional support. He's there to golf. And if he. Any other time, he's just home. He's home with you, which is so dumb. And again, I'm not criticizing him. I think he's a really smart person. But it. It's truly ignorant because you don't need your friends to solve your problems. You need your friends to support you in whatever problem you're having with through sympathy, being seen, being validated, being heard. And many men operate on this philosophy of invulnerability. I'm the Marlboro man, solo wandering the high plains with. About to get lung cancer because I'm smoking. And, you know, this psychology, I think, is. Is very dangerous. What say you to the rant that I just went on?
- [49:44]
B
I really like the rant you just went on. And I know from listening to your podcast that you are in, I think, two different men's groups or emotional support groups. And I think this willingness that again, to be. We're being stereotyped a little bit, but that it seems that women have an easier time having these closer emotional connections than men if. If we're again holding to that stereotype. But it's really healthy for us to be able to unburden ourselves, to be able to share what's on our mind and on our heart with people who, as you say, don't fix it or solve it, but who listen to us. And the relief that we feel in that unburdening can be profound.
- [50:33]
A
Yes. I have many, many recurring dinners with friends of some, not all men, but two groups that are specifically men's groups. And they're not veiled at all as emotional support groups. I mean, it's just. I have one group that I was at dinner with last night. It's like 10 to 12 guys who all live near me in the. In the suburbs. And it can be. Most of us fled the city during COVID And so I have mixed feelings about being in the suburbs. And so we were in this really nice room in the basement of a local restaurant in the suburbs last night. Night. And it was mostly just shooting the shit. But that is incredibly healing. And so there need be no top spin of emotional support or doing it for health reasons or whatever. It's do it because it's fun.
- [51:22]
B
Yes.
- [51:22]
A
The health benefits, the psychological benefits will emerge. You don't even need to talk about it.
- [51:28]
B
Yeah. But I guess I'll ask you a question because it is just fun. And it can just be fun. But I'm wondering whether, over time, if the going was rough in your Life. These could then be people who you would turn to and who you would allow yourself to be vulnerable with. I mean, to me, you're an unusual person because you're vulnerable all the time on air, but a lot of people aren't. A lot of people feel like they have to be strong and they have to, you know, put out a kind of mask of themselves where they're always on top of things, where they always know the answer, where they've always got it right. I mean, I'm in the medical profession. It's rare for people to say, I don't know, or I'm having a hard time or I need help.
- [52:12]
A
Yes, yes. I think there are some cultural problems in the medical community that I've witnessed firsthand, both as a patient and as a child of and spouse of doctors. Where, you know, this intellectual humility, which we know is so helpful not only for happiness, but highly functioning organizations, is just not a cultural value for many medical communities. But in terms of the question you actually asked me a million percent, so I have my agenda for doing it. One is that I'm. It's just fun. I love hanging out with my friends and meeting new people. But absolutely, I. I think for these men I can watch with great pride, unexpressed pride. And none of them listen to the show, so I'm not in danger of them knowing it. Unexpressed pride that, like, I know these guys are making friends who will be there for them when they need it. And yeah, I just don't think for. For many, for the men I know, at least. And this is true even for me, I wouldn't want to join an emotional support group group. But I would do want to join a group of really cool, interesting people who are going to eat nice food together and just let the emotional support element sneak up on people.
- [53:20]
B
Yeah. Sometimes our naming of things are barriers. I know people who have cancer who don't want to go to a survivors group. That's not their image of themselves. And yet they probably would find value in being able to talk with other people who have gone through a similar experience. Experience.
- [53:37]
A
Yes. Yes. I often just refer to it as just the carpool lane. And you know, you can move faster. Okay. I've been teasing this since the jump. Let's talk about specific health problems and the integrative. Integrative medicine approach to it. So colds and flus, what do you know that we should know about how to prevent and then once they come, treat colds and flus.
- [54:01]
B
Yeah. So prevention is always preferred. And some of the things are so basic. Careful hand washing. We learned about the value of masking. If you're going to be in an environment where lots of people are sick. Doctors wear masks all the time. If they're taking care of someone with an infectious disease that they don't want to catch, there are things that we can do beyond that, so. So we can add zinc. Zinc is available as a yummy kind of lozenge. It's often mixed with some vitamin C or some elderberry. Both are also good for you at a low dose of zinc because higher doses of zinc can upset the stomach. But you could take about 25 milligrams a day. It helps your immune system function better. It's been shown to help reduce the likelihood, the severity of getting a cold. And so at the very first sign that, oh, I think I'm getting something, you could just start to take a few zinc lozenges a day to help boost your immune system ability to fight that off. Garlic. Garlic is a food, and I'm not suggesting anyone take it as a supplement. It's really inexpensive and available as a food. So you take a clove of garlic, you press it, so, or chop it. That activates the, the active component in a whole clove of garlic. If you hold it to your nose, it doesn't smell at all. But the minute you chop it, it gets that wonderful garlicky smell. You've converted a chemical called alliin to allicin. It's the allicin that has the active antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal component. So you wanna crush or chop or press the garlic, let it sit for 10 minutes, and then you wanna include it in your diet. Diet in some way. When my kids are little, I'd mix it in with some cream cheese and spread it on a bagel or toast. And they thought that was yummy. And it is a way of helping to fight that viral infection. You could put in a little bit of salad dressing and put it on your salad. So there's different ways to incorporate that raw garlic in your diet. You don't want to just chew on a whole clove. It's going to burn your mouth, it's going to hurt your stomach. Another thing that you could do is some vitamin C. As I mentioned, some people complain that vitamin C's data isn't as strong as it could be. There's some evidence to support vitamin C. It's an easy thing to include either by eating a fresh orange, by drinking a beverage like an Emergency, just very easy. You want to increase the fluids anyway. So those are a few things. If you do get sick, I 1 really recommend you rinse your sinuses. Now, nobody likes the sound of that. They're like, what, you want me to put salt water up my nose? That's going to be horrible. And I have a hard time convincing people to do it. But once you do it, once you get over the hump, you thin all of that mucusy secretion, so it's just easy to blow it out. It's easy to open up those nasal passages and be able to breathe more easily. If there's stuff in your sinuses, you get your sinuses to drain. There's some evidence to show that if you do that, it helps prevent. Prevent COVID infections or have a milder case because you're reducing the viral load in your nasal passages, which is how Covid gets into your body. So doing that sinus rinse is a really great idea for reducing your symptoms.
- [57:31]
A
Can I jump in on that?
- [57:32]
B
Absolutely.
- [57:33]
A
How do you even do that? Like, I can make some salt water at home. I'm pretty sure I could do that.
- [57:38]
B
Yes.
- [57:39]
A
But then what mechanism am I using to spray it up my nose?
- [57:43]
B
Yeah, there's apparatus. So the traditional method was in ayurvedic medicine, they had what was called a neti pot, and it sort of looked like a teapot with a long spout. You put one spout in one nostril and tilt your head and pour it in. Usually did it in the shower over the sink. Most people don't like that as much as the newer NeoMed sinus rinse, which is a squeeze bottle. So it comes with these little packets of salt with a little bit of sodium bicarb, which buffers the salt. You boil water, you let it cool a little bit, you mix it in with that little packet. You don't want the water to be too hot about body temperature or more than room temperature, so that it's comfortable going in and helps clear the mucus in that way. It comes with instructions. It's a little odd at first, and then you get used to it and. And you pull it out every time you have a cold because it's so very effective.
- [58:40]
A
And you're spraying it up there and then it's coming right back out. Or is it like it's coming out the other side?
- [58:46]
B
Actually, yeah. You have it spray in one nostril, a little pressure, and then once you clear the passages, it comes out the opening on the other side because the side that the nozzle's in is kind of blocked by the nozzle.
- [59:00]
A
So that sounds pretty uncomfortable.
- [59:02]
B
I know that's why people don't want to do it. But as someone who does it, Reg, if I get sick or to prevent myself, you know, if I know I've been exposed to something, and as someone who's talked all three of my adult children into doing it and many, many patients, I'll tell you it doesn't take that much getting used to and it's very effective.
- [59:21]
A
Okay, I trust you, so I'm going to do it. Coming up, Dr. Victoria Mazes talks about some tips for handling colds and flus more effectively. I loved that information. I've been using it some smarter ways to recover from pain and injuries and practical tools for reducing stress and anxiety without immediately turning to medication. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Sometimes it can feel like everybody else has it all together in their love lives. Whether married, dating or single, the truth is many of us are still figuring out, figuring it out and finding our way. And no matter where you are in your romance journey, therapy can help you find your way, help you determine what you want, what feels heavy, and how you can take some of the pressure off yourself. This issue of our romantic lives, or lack thereof, can be particularly fraught in February, which is full of flowers and candy and stuffed animals and lots of talk about relationships and dating. And therapy can be a great way to work out your issues, whatever they are. I have found that individual therapy and couples counseling can be extremely helpful for me personally. BetterHelp has quality therapists who work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. They give you a short questionnaire to help identify your needs and preferences, and then their 12 plus years of experience and industry industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. And if you're not happy with your match, you could switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. Sign up and get 10% off@betterhelp.com happier that's betterhelp.com happier. I have to admit, one growing source of tension around the house right now is that there's a little competition brewing, brewing among my wife, my son and myself over everybody's favorite socks. Bombas socks. Bombas is a sponsor of this show and they sent me some socks recently. The problem is everybody loves these socks and now we're fighting over them. If You've got comfort on your 2026 resolutions list. I highly recommend Bombas. The all new Bomba sports socks are engineered with sport specific comfort for running, golf, hiking, skiing, snowboarding and all sport. I like to exercise every day. Bombas are perfect for that. However, they're also perfect for just wearing with my Nike low tops and looking good. And they've got more than just socks. They've got luxurious Sherpa Sunday slippers that feel like walking on clouds. They've got the new squishy Saturday suede slip on shoe for comfort on the ground. Go. They've got underwear and T shirts. They got a lot going on. And for every item you purchase, an essential clothing item is donated to somebody facing housing insecurity. One purchased, one donated. With over 150 million donations and counting, head on over to bombas.com happier and use the code happier for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B-A-S.com happier and then use the code happier at checkout. I interrupted you in the middle of your list, so let me get you started again. You also talk about things like elderberry and echinacea.
- [62:55]
B
Yes. So elderberry is yummy. It's a syrup. It comes from a berry and it has been shown to shorten the duration of a cold, but also shorten the duration of the flu, which is really awesome because the flu, flu is a much more serious illness. You can buy that as a syrup and you can buy it also as a gummy. It's widely available. Echinacea was an herb that was first discovered by Native Americans. It helps you get over a cold more quickly. You usually brew it as a tea, but you could also take it as an extract or tincture. I really like to have people brew it as a strong cup of tea, which means you're gonna let it sit in the cup of hot water for about 10 minutes with a lid over so you don't lose the volatile components. I have them add some black tea as well, some raw garlic, the way I talked about before, some freshly pressed raw garlic, some lemon juice, a little bit of honey, a little bit of cayenne pepper. And it sounds like it's going to be undrinkable, but actually when you have a cold it soothes that sore throat, painful throat. It helps you get over the cold more quickly.
- [64:07]
A
So our nice friendly doctor guest here is recommending both waterboarding and drinking poison. So this is.
- [64:16]
B
Oh my goodness, I hope not.
- [64:18]
A
I'm just messing with you.
- [64:20]
B
That would fit into the not to do.
- [64:23]
A
So you mentioned honey. That is actually, there's actually more to say about the value of honey in the cold and flu situation. Can you hold forth on that?
- [64:33]
B
Yes. So most cough medicines don't do much. The exception would be codeine. Codeine is actually a pretty good cough suppressant. But most of the things you're going to get over the counter don't actually do much. Honey does. Honey, any kind of honey that you're going to buy soothes the throat. It stops that tickle. It's actually been studied in different research trials and been shown to both soothe the sore throat and stop the coughing. It's also something that's safe to use with children over the age of one. We don't give honey to kids below the age of one. And obviously it's sweet and so kids like it.
- [65:16]
A
What about cough drops?
- [65:18]
B
I think cough drops can be lovely. I do recommend those zinc lozenges which might fit in that broad category of cough drops. But basically what you're doing there is you're sucking on something that's going to soothe the throat. Sometimes they have different kinds of, of menthol components which help soothe the throat and there are teas that have that component as well. So there'll be teas that are called something like throat coat or throat comfort. And they're a mixture of different herbal remedies that soothe the tissues in the back of your throat.
- [65:50]
A
And on the medical front, Tylenol or Advil if you have chills, yes or no?
- [65:58]
B
So, so Tylenol and Advil can both make you feel more comfortable, I think, especially if you have the flu and you have a high fever and you're very uncomfortable with body aches, they will both help in that way. The thing that's not quite as clear is the purpose of the fever. We know that fever is part of your immune system rapid recovery reflux. It is part of the way that your body knocks out whatever organism, virus, bacteria is causing the infection. And so if it's a low grade fever, if it's not that distressing, it might be better to skip the anti inflammatory or the Tylenol in favor of letting your immune system fully do its work. If it's high fever, if you're really uncomfortable, your child's really uncomfortable, then I think you say, okay, this is, this is worthwhile.
- [66:55]
A
Okay. So that, that response brings me to a whole other category which is musculoskeletal pain. And you've got a whole section about the integrative approach to Musculoskeletal pain in the book. And one of the things you say is that we might be tempted to reach for Tylenol or Ibuprofen or Tylenol or Advil, but we might want to think twice. Can you say more about that?
- [67:26]
B
Yeah. So for many years, our advice, if someone, for example, had an injury, had this acronym, rice, which stood for rest, ice, compression and elevation. And we now know that that's not actually a good idea or a part of it isn't a good idea. We have a very long, complicated acronym now called peace and love, in which you protect. That's the P. The E is elevate because that's gonna take down some of the swelling. But the A is avoid avoid anti inflammatories. And the reason we have people avoid is that the inflammation is part of the healing process. Earlier I mentioned how we've all had the experience of watching a cut heal. Well, if you really pay attention, you'll notice that there's a little bit of redness and probably a little bit of swell right around that cut. That is part of your body's inflammatory process to heal the cut. The same thing is happening. It's a little less visible perhaps when you have an injury, a musculoskeletal injury, you have some swelling, you have some inflammation, you might have some heat. And so we have people avoid anti inflammatories because we actually don't want to knock out that inflammation. That has a healing purpose. We also have people. People avoid icing, which used to be part of that RICE kind of protocol. And ice, it turns out, reduces the swelling and the pain. That's lovely. But in doing so, you have less of an inflammatory response, so you have less of that rapid recovery reflex response. You do want the inflammatory cells to come in to help with the healing. So it's a long way of saying that again, if the pain is really severe, it may make sense. Sense to say, well, I'm going to do this because I need to do something. But often compression, putting an ACE wrap, not allowing it to swell as much because of the external compression from the ACE wrap will be helpful enough. We also don't have people rest as much as we used to. We have people protect the joint with that ACE wrap, perhaps with a walking cast or something like that. And then we have them get up and start moving again because that's going to move some of the fluid out of the joint and it's going to help with the healing process. The only place that isn't true is if you break it, if you break it, then we want to immobilize it.
- [69:56]
A
That's so counterintuitive, the fact that I know it is. Continuing ordinary activities actually can lead to more rapid recovery. So I've had just now I'm going to overshare on some medical stuff on my side. This is much less sensitive. I have some tendinitis in my elbows, which is a pain in the ass because I like to exercise a lot, especially with weights. I've been surprised by the advice. It was the first time, actually. I've been told by a physical therapist, don't take pain medication. And I'm not, but it really rhymes with what you're saying. But he also said, like, do the same exercises but at a much lower weight. So I'm doing lateral raises for my deltoids and bicep curls for my biceps, but just with 5 or 10 pound weights. Does that. How does that line up with what you're doing? You're talking about?
- [70:46]
B
What are you noticing? Is it helping?
- [70:49]
A
It's been pretty stubborn, so I don't know yet. But I do notice that it doesn't hurt as much as doing it with the weight I would normally do. And it feels right to keep those muscles active.
- [71:03]
B
Right. A few things. One is tendonitis is hard because the tendons, which are these pretty fibrous and not well vascularized, which means there's not a lot of blood flow, don't heal as well as the skin, for example, which has lots and lots of blood vessels supplying every absolute bit of it. So tendons are harder. I agree with, you know, don't do something that hurts, which would be the full weight that you were used to. And yet you don't want your muscles to atrophy. And that is something that we've really shifted in medicine. I mean, we used to put people to bed rest after a heart attack. We used to put women to bed rest after they had a baby. And now, you know, you have orthopedic surgery for your knee and your hip, and that very same day they're getting you out of bed. And it's for several reasons. One is we know if we get you out of bed, you're less likely to have a blood clot. Blood clot is a serious adverse effect that you want to avoid. But also, muscle atrophy can, can happen very quickly and as we age more quickly yet. And so continuing to use the muscles is good advice. I'm going to give you one piece of advice that wasn't given to you by your physical therapist and that's that. I think acupuncture can be really helpful for tendonitis of different kinds. And that's something to consider and something I write about and heal faster. And the other is if the acupuncture doesn't do it. There are people who are now using prp, which is placed platelet rich plasma to help inflammatory problems like a tendonitis. Anything that ends in itis I t I s tendinitis, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis. Anything that has that itis means it's inflamed. And so the plate rich plasma PRP can be used, it's injected locally and it really helps with that kind of inflammatory problem. A lot of sports medicine, medicine and orthopedic doctors are using that.
- [73:08]
A
That's really interesting. What about heat heating pads or sitting in a sauna?
- [73:13]
B
I'm a huge fan of heat. I think it's really underused. Heat is going to increase the amount of blood flow to an area and so it's often a great strategy. We tend not to do it at the first moment because it is going to increase the swelling, if there's swelling. But after the first few days, heat is. Heat's so interesting and pain is interesting. Heat travels more quickly along the pain fibers to the brain than pain does. So there are these nerve fibers, they almost have different channels on them. And if you put heat on something, you might notice, wow, I don't feel pain anymore. Why is that? Well, it's because the signal, the heat signal traveling to your brain gets there faster than the pain signal and that's why you don't feel pain. So it's a great option for relieving pain. It also increases the blood flow, which increases the healing because that circulation brings all sorts of healing factors to help heal whatever the injury is. So that's awesome. And then sauna, of course, is a way of immersing your whole body in heat. And sauna is really having a moment. We have lots of studies that are happening with sauna. It actually has been shown to help reduce the risk of getting a cold. As we were talking about earlier, it's being used in people who have musculoskeletal injuries. It's being used for people with heart failure under supervision. So it's very interesting to see all of the different indications for that. Heat immersion as a health promoting step that one can take.
- [75:00]
A
Cold plungers are also having a moment. But we just talked about your dim view of icing. So what do you think about cold plunge plunges?
- [75:08]
B
Well, of course, icing an injury is different from a cold plunge. Right. The icing an injury is going to interfere with your rapid recovery reflex where you'd be normally sending all of these white blood cells and cytokines and other messengers for healing to that part of the body. A cold plunge is a kind of healthy stress to the system. So it's uncomfortable. I mean, you talked about the sinus rinse being uncomfortable. Plunging into icy cold water is uncomfortable, but your body responds to it with a wave of heat, of course, to restore your temperature, to restore your equilibrium. And it appears to also have an effect on your nervous system in terms of reducing stress. It's a very interesting and I think it does need more research. I don't know if you've ever looked at Wim Hof, sometimes called the Iceman, but he's the one who's really popularized cold plunges. And there are people who just love the euphoric feeling they get after doing this. It's a little bit of what we call hormesis, which is an intentional stress on the body that then helps your body reset set. Not everybody will like it. And if you're an older person, if you have heart disease, you want to be sure that it's safe for you by talking to your doctor. But for young, healthy people, these intentional stresses, like a cold plunge, like a hot sauna, could actually be very good for resetting our overall system.
- [76:53]
A
Okay, let's talk about anxiety from your standpoint again, from the integrative medicine standpoint point, what do you recommend for anxiety?
- [77:02]
B
I have so many things to recommend. I mean, one of the things that's so wonderful about integrative medicine is it really gives you a large toolkit, and it's a much bigger toolkit than just talking about medication. And the medications for anxiety, while they can be very effective in the short term, in the long term are quite problematic for a variety of side effect risks reasons. So from integrative medicine perspective, it's not that we never use medicines we do, but we like to use the least invasive, most natural, least likely to cause side effect first. So if you're going to have surgery and someone's going to give you an intravenous medicine to help your anxiety, wonderful. But if you're anxious every single day, you want to see how can I manage this? So what can you do? Well, there are mental things, emotional things, physical things, and spiritual things you can do. And each of those has a lot so, for example, a physical thing, exercise. Many people find when they take a brisk walk or go for a run, they relieve a lot of anxiety. But if you're anxious and can't fall asleep, you're not gonna go out for a run. You need something different at that time. So maybe you pull for an emotional thing listening to some guided imagery on an app, like I mentioned earlier. Or maybe there's a prayer you say before you go to sleep, and that spiritual practice helps quiet your nervous system and helps you let go of the things that you're feeling anxious about. There are physical things like dietary supplements that you can use. For example, L theanine, which is an amino acid in green tea that can help relieve anxiety. So there's a really, really big toolbox. There's even weighted blankets, which is going to have no side effect other than it may make you feel too hot. Not everyone likes a weighted blanket, but there's evidence to show that that's effective. There are devices like vagus nerve stimulators, which you would put over the vagus nerve as it runs through your neck. But you could do that by humming. Humming activates the vagus nerve. So there's just a wide range of things that are at your fingertips.
- [79:23]
A
What do you think about caffeine?
- [79:25]
B
I really enjoy my morning coffee and I'm with a lot of people who enjoy their morning coffee. So the evidence shows that coffee extends our lifespan. It reduces all cause mortality. Coffee is good for you. It's an antioxidant. It has a lot of good benefits. And there's two exceptions. One is if it makes you anxious, then it's probably not so good for you. And it does make some people anxious. I get anxious if I have too much. You know, if I have one cup of coffee, I'm fine. If I have three cups of coffee, I'm wired and I'm, you know, I'm not so fine. So you have to know where your caffeine sort of limit is. And the second is it really upsets some people's GI systems. And if you're someone who has that effect, it gives you an upset stomach, it makes you go to the bathroom too frequently. Then it also may not be your friend. And the last thing I'll say is it can also interfere with sleep. Coffee has a relatively long half life, and so if you're someone who's not sleeping well, the morning coffee is probably fine, but you probably don't want to have coffee in the afternoon or certainly not in the evening.
- [80:38]
A
Are there supplements or vitamins that we should take that might help with anxiety.
- [80:43]
B
There are many and there you can think about two classes. Things you take all the time and things you might take on an as needed basis. So two things to consider for all the time. One are B vitamins and you could take a B50 complex. There are eight different B vitamins. So the B50 gives you 50 milligrams or 50 micrograms of all eight of them. And that has been shown in multiple randomized controlled trials to reduce the feelings of stress and anxiety in adults. So that's one that you could take regularly. The other would be omega 3 fatty acids which are usually from fish. We sometimes call it fish oil. And there you have to be sure you get the right dose, which is 2 grams. So you have to turn the bottle around and be sure that you're getting 2 grams of EPA and DHA. So those are the regular use. But then there are things on an ad needed to basis. I mentioned L. Theanine, that would be one. There's another one that's called Inositol. It is in a powder. You take some before you go to sleep at night. It helps you sleep, it helps with anxiety. Valerian, which helps you sleep can also be taken intermittently and can help with anxiety. There's just many, many in this class of what we call nervines, which are are herbal remedies that can help. There are adaptogens that people can take that help relieve stress, like schisandra or Rhodiola. There's one called ashwagandha which you take before bed because unlike most of the adaptogens, it actually helps you sleep. We say it's for people who are wired and tired. They're so tired, but they're too wired to fall asleep. So ashwagandha can help them. Them.
- [82:33]
A
What's an adaptogen as opposed to a supplement or is it just a kind of supplement?
- [82:39]
B
It's a kind of supplement and it's unique in that it has this homeostatic or normalizing function. So it helps bring people back into that mid state people who are really stressed. It sort of brings them down a little bit. And there's a whole class of them that are from almost every culture except, except ours. In Russia they discovered Rhodiola. In China they have ginseng. In India they have ashwagandha and holy basil. So there's many different ones. Some are a little more activating. So ginseng for example is a little more activating. And some like the Ashwagandha are a little bit more quieting. And so you want to have some information about these before you just go to the store and grab one from the store shelf.
- [83:32]
A
Finally, let's talk about heart conditions. This is, as my understanding is, this is the biggest killer. So what should we know?
- [83:40]
B
Well, the first thing to know is that 80% of heart disease is preventable through your lifestyle. That's a lot. I mean, the number one killer in 80% could be prevented by eating an appropriate diet, getting appropriate sleep, reducing those environmental chemicals. One in nine deaths is from air pollution. And you could say, what can I do about air pollution? There actually are some things you can do to reduce air pollution. These are things. Stress is another one. People who rage or get very angry. And then of course, you know, managing your cholesterol, all of those things count. But lifestyle makes a huge difference. Exercise, having emotional connections with other people, people, these all help prevent heart disease.
- [84:29]
A
Are there more supplements that we should talk about here? I believe omega 3 fatty acids are helpful in this regard, but also vitamin D, magnesium, red yeast, rice, whatever that is.
- [84:42]
B
Yes. So the first thing I would say is for prevention, you don't need any of those for prevention. You need a healthy lifestyle.
- [84:49]
A
Okay.
- [84:49]
B
And that would be eating a Mediterranean style diet or a DASH diet. DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. Both of those have a lot of evidence to show that they help prevent heart disease. They help prevent a recurrence in people who have had a cardiac event. Getting physical activity, we argue about whether it's 7,000 or 10,000 steps, that's the magic number. But getting out there and moving your body prevents heart disease. Managing your stress prevents heart disease. The supplements are really more if you have high blood pressure, if you have high cholesterol, if you have diabetes, all of these, these conditions increase your risk of heart disease. And then there may be reason to add supplements.
- [85:35]
A
This has been great. Dr. Mazes, anything you were hoping to get to that we haven't gotten to?
- [85:41]
B
Well, first, I've so enjoyed talking with you. Thank you for this wonderful conversation. Thank you. The thing I want people to know is that you have this recovery reflux. And there are many things that you can do to be healthy, healthy and well. And even if you've gotten down the road a bit with heart disease or with diabetes or high blood pressure or osteoporosis in women, there are things that you can do to recover. And I think too often we sort of buy into, well, it's just all downhill from here. And I disagree with that. I think we have this amazing innate system that allows us to get well again if we do the things that we've now learned need to be done.
- [86:26]
A
It's a very hopeful message. Finally, can you remind everybody of the name of your book and also anything else that you've put out there that we should know about?
- [86:35]
B
My book is called Heal Faster, published by Simon and Schuster. And I have an earlier book for women who want to have healthy children. It's called Be the Essential Guide to Maximizing Fertility and Giving Birth to a Healthy Child. And then I have a textbook called Integrated of Women's Health that's really oriented for healthcare professionals.
- [86:55]
A
Doctor, thank you again.
- [86:57]
B
Thank you.
- [87:02]
A
Thanks again to Dr. Victoria Mazes. Great to talk to her. Don't forget to check out the new app. DanHarris.com is the place to get it. The app is called 10% with Dan Harris, but you can get it@danharris.com you can also get it if you search 10% with Dan Harris Harris. In your favorite app store, we've got Guided Meditations, live video meditations, community features, lots of stuff going on. Come check it out. Danharris.com finally, thank you very much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schmidt Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.
- [88:00]
B
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