Kevin St. Clergy (5:47)

Well, I'm so glad you're here, and we wanted you on the show because it really fits into the blind blaming concept. Because I'm sure you see people walking into your office that blame one thing when it's actually something else.

Dr. Josh Axe (5:57)

Oh, constantly. And by the way, sometimes they're blaming it, but sometimes they first heard it from their doctor because they'll go into their conventional doctor and oftentimes they'll say, oh, you've got high cholesterol, or you have type 2 diabetes or breast cancer. That's because of your genetics. And the reality is, when you look at the medical literature, that's completely false. 95% of health conditions today, for the most part, are lifestyle related. I mean, you have these genetic or epigenetic switches that you can turn on and off. So there is a genetic component, but pretty much almost every single time those genes have to be turned on, and that's done via lifestyle, such as poor diet, lack of sleep, lack of sunshine, emotional stress. These things will turn on these genes. And so, yeah, it happens constantly, but most of the time it's not because the patient or the person listening to this podcast thinks to themselves, oh, it's my genetics. It's because their doctor who isn't up on the research, that's what they've told them.

Kevin St. Clergy (6:50)

And it looks like that you focus a lot on gut health that I misread that I read a lot and got through Some of your books, like Eat Dirt, I really enjoyed. And it seems like our modern lifestyles have disconnected us from the healing power of nature, especially when it comes to food.

Dr. Josh Axe (7:05)

I always say there's really three connections we have to have to have our highest level of health. Connection to God, connection to others, and connection to the earth or nature. And when it comes to God, that really is connected to our identity and our purpose and living out for eternity, knowing that it's just not here. That sort of eternal mindset's important. I think the second part is we know via studies. In fact, the longest running study on longevity in health is done by Harvard. It's a 90 year study. The number one determining factor of someone being healthy and having a long life is having a strong sense of community, family and friends. So if you feel like you've got a really great family, close friends, and you feel really emotionally and relationally supported and part of a community, that's actually more important than diet. It's more important than exercise. It's the single greatest factor and part of that is what that does. Hormonally. We're really deficient today in a hormone called oxytocin. We have a lot of dopamine, which you get from doing a slot machine or scrolling on your phone all the time or watching TV or being on your computer. Okay, that's a lot of dopamine being released. But oxytocin is known as the connection hormone. You're actually having a deep personal, emotional connection. That hormone is most released when breastfeeding a mom to a newborn. But it's also released when you're giving a high five or a hug or just feeling connected to somebody. So that's really important. And then to your point, being connected to the earth, our body is meant to live in tune with nature. And we have something called circadian rhythms, which are probably the most important factor for us. Having a healthy neuroendocrine system, so a healthy nervous system and a healthy hormonal system. And when we're not out in the sun during the day or not being exposed to being outside, that throws off our cortisol levels and melatonin levels. And at night, when you're getting light that you shouldn't have, that throws off your cortisol and melatonin levels, so you sleep poorly. So that's very important. Of course, diet and a number of other things are important as well. But yeah, if you want to be healthy, being very deeply connected, as you pointed out to nature, is critical.

Kevin St. Clergy (9:09)

I'm going to go back to those three things because I think they were important. Your connection with God, where you talk about having a sense of purpose, that's actually in my book. We developed this thing called an obstacle deep nexus analysis. It's basically going through five areas of your life to find out what is really going on. And it's interesting to say that you think that people need a sense of purpose. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that? What do you mean?

Dr. Josh Axe (9:31)

There's another study that was done and they found if somebody retires from work and they don't find something else to fill that void of having a purpose. Because oftentimes when you're working it's you're providing for your family, you're supporting yourself financially, you're contributing to society in some way. If you go from working and retire and then you just are going to say, hey, I'm just going to live on the beach, I'm going to just relax and do nothing. It actually is detrimental to your health. It takes years off your life because you lose your sense of purpose versus if you say, well, you know what, I'm going to go from this job to my new job of being a grandma and watching my grandkids and having this other part time job and serving this community here, okay, Doing things that are still where you're being a big contributor that will extend your lifespan. And what's also fascinating is only 25% of people are clear on what their purpose is according to another medical study. So a lot of people don't know what their purpose is. But your purpose also in Chinese medicine is known to drive your cellular health, your mitochondria. It's important for healing. And so there's quite a few reasons why it's very important for our health.

Kevin St. Clergy (10:39)

Well, that's fascinating to me because when I sold my companies a couple years ago, I planned on just living on the beach. And I got home after getting my dream car and my buddy asked me, I owe him a lot for this, especially with what you just said. He said, so, Kev, what's next? And it really hit me hard. I was like, what's next? I don't know. I haven't thought that far. It's just last 20 years, this is all I wanted to do. And now that I have it, I'm not sure. And it bugged me so much. After everybody left for the small gathering, I came back in and I wrote what's Next on my dream board. And I saw a little book in the corner that Said how to write a TED Talk. I was like, well, that sounds like something interesting and something I could pursue. So that's what led me here with the book. But it's given me a whole new sense of purpose and a whole new drive. And even though I'm working harder than I ever been, I'm also healthier than I've ever been because I found a coach that has a good community around. It, I think is important for people like me who went on a little weight loss journey, and not a little one, a big one, but everything you've said so far, like, had me getting outside. We're checking my gut health today. I just announced that today. He's like, look, I don't think we've done this yet, but we need to check your gut health. I had no idea what he was talking about. And then I was preparing for our talk today. I was like, but I'm talking to somebody who can probably tell me more about that. So it's been very interesting because he has me walking outside for at least 30 minutes minimum, which has gotten me to walking outside for an hour a day. And for the last year, I've walked about 15,500 steps a day and dropped about 30 pounds of fat. And I feel better than ever. But it was interesting because all the doctors wanted to do is put me on more meds, More meds, more meds. And I wasn't getting better. I was getting sicker to the point where I think I had metabolic syndrome or I'm not. I don't think I did. I think I had it. So talk to us about Eat Dirt. What was the purpose of that book?

Dr. Josh Axe (12:23)

Yeah, well, in that book, I really go through how to heal a condition called leaky gut syndrome. And really how gut health is tied to almost every health problem you can imagine, Everything from autoimmune disease to hypothyroidism, to hormone imbalances, to mood disorders like anxiety and depression, skin issues, you name it. And as Hippocrates said over 2,000 years ago, all disease begins in the gut. So in that book, I really go through how to really start to heal and seal up your gut microbiome. And it's amazing what happens if you heal your gut, how almost every other condition you have can just disappear or improve. A lot of times people think about their gut as it's digesting food. Well, it is burning, breaking down, and digesting food. But it's also essential for absorbing nutrients. It's essential for converting things in your body and nutrients. It actually creates nutrients. So your gut health is very, very important. And 70% of your immune system lives in your gut. So also, if you have an immune deficiency or immune system problem, the biggest thing you want to fix is your gut. And we have about 37 trillion cells in our body. We have at least 40 trillion bacteria in our gut. So we know we have more microbes in our gut than cells in our entire body, which is really, really fascinating. So for most people, especially coming out of COVID our gut microbiomes are worse than ever. A lot of people took antibiotics as kids. Taking an antibiotic drug is like dropping an atomic bomb in your body. I mean, you're absolutely decimating your good bacteria population, which again, is absorbing nutrients, creating nutrients, creating hormones. 95% of your body's serotonin, your good mood hormone, is created in your gut, like a lot of these neurotransmitters. So for people here who are struggling with low energy, poor hormonal health, poor immune health, poor digestion, I mean, it really is critical that you focus on healing your gut. And a big part of it starts with getting rid of sugar, getting rid of seed oils, getting rid of processed inflammatory foods, Focusing on foods that heal the gut, Things like bone broth, wild organic meat, essential fatty acids you're going to find in things like extra virgin olive and coconut and avocados, doing more fruits like apples, berries, and pomegranates are wonderful for helping heal the gut lining. And then supplements, especially probiotic rich foods and probiotic rich supplements are essential. So there's quite a few things. And a big part of the reason why we call the book Eat Dirt is what One of the most essential ways to heal your gut is spending more time outside. If somebody just starts doubling the amount of time they spend outside, or spending an hour a day walking, or starting a home garden even, it's just an herb garden. Have one planter and just put your hand in there a couple days a week. What that does for your gut microbiome is absolutely incredible. So for people just to implement two habits or three of, hey, let's change your diet a bit, spend more time outside and spend time having a little herb garden, it'll make a dramatic difference on your gut health and the health of your whole body.

Kevin St. Clergy (15:18)

Well, I agree, because when I started walking outside, if you could see the graph of the fat loss, it went like this. Yeah, it went straight down. And I was like, what's going on? He's like, well, I've been telling you to walk outside. I really Think that has something to do with it. These are some physicians who got tired of treating illness and wanted to help people be healthy. And they started a fitness program. It's really fun, but they're teaching a lot of stuff that you do. And so I hear you saying stress, diet, environment, all play a major role in how we feel every day. And if someone's feeling off, like you mentioned, low energy, brain fog or digestive issues, where should they start in uncovering the real problem?

Dr. Josh Axe (15:56)

One you can figure out yourself, or you could work with a practitioner. Right now I do have a practice that I recommend. It's called the Health Institute. And there are practitioners there that people can go and find and get even blood work done, really basic stuff, and figure out what's going on in their body. And so they can go to thehealthinstitute.com, check that out if they're interested or to find out themselves, which is a little more difficult. But still, there are at least some things you could do. I would say start with your diet. I would say starting with diet, movement and sleep and stress. Let's hit on those four. Those are the biggest things. So from a dietary standpoint, as I mentioned, just start eating real food. That's pretty big. Okay? Don't eat processed foods, don't eat fast foods. Again, try and do a lot of fruits, vegetables, sweet potatoes, avocados, organic meat. For breakfast, do a superfood smoothie every morning. Three ingredients, berries, organic, natural protein powder, and then maybe a little coconut milk or water, something like that. It could be two ingredients, just berries and protein powder or fruit and protein powder. You know, if you do that for breakfast every day, that's a phenomenon. What I do is I double up protein. I do about 20 grams of collagen, 20 to 30 grams of a plant based protein. And sometimes I'll throw a handful of spinach in there too. But I'll do this smoothie for breakfast that's great for people. For lunch, do some organic meat and maybe do like a sweet potato or rice and maybe a vegetable. And then for dinner, do meat and double vegetables and a healthy fat like avocados or coconut or olives or extra virgin olive oil, something like that. But if that's your diet, hey, you're going to be doing great, you're going to win. And then from a supplement standpoint, working with a practitioner can be great. As I mentioned, you could find one at the Health Institute or I think that listening to your body based on what you have going on, if somebody has thyroid issues. I really think that ashwagandha is a great herb along with a methylated B vitamin B complex. I think if somebody has low testosterone, as so many men do today, it's really an epidemic. I would recommend doing weight training along with lower your carbs, more healthy fats, lots of walnuts, lots of Brazil nuts, lots of pistachios. So nut butters would be great. Doing a lot of organic meat, 30 to 50 grams of protein, three to four times a day. Along with that, weight training. And then lots of time outside in the sun, just walking, spending time in the sun, and then trying to get eight, nine hours of sleep a night. So I think that's important for everybody and, you know, women going through menopause, I think for those women doing black cohosh, wild yam, shatavari is very good. If you've got gut issues, drinking ginger herbal tea, taking probiotics, doing L glutamine as a powder. So it really. I'm a big believer in personalized medicine. So sometimes it's hard to say, hey, this is what this person should do. This is why sometimes I recommend people. It is good for people, some people who need more help, who have a medical conditioner on medications for them to see a practitioner. But if not, you know, I would say just eating more real food, spending way more time outside, that's going to move the needle for a lot of people.

Kevin St. Clergy (19:04)

Well, move the needle for me. I'm so glad you say that. It's a great place to start. And then if you think you want to take it to the next level. I love getting a practitioner because I'll tell you who was shocked the most. Because when I got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, guess what my physicians told me to do? Take this medicine. No carbs. Well, my heart palpitations quadrupled on the keto diet for whatever reason, for me, maybe I was doing it incorrectly, but. And the medicine made me feel absolutely horrible. So I started eating real food, found these practitioners who helped me get back on track. And it was fascinating a year later when they see that I've lost 30 pounds to say, yeah, I eat rice, I eat sweet potatoes, I even eat white rice because I wore a CGM for a while just to see did it cause a spike in my insulin. And brown rice versus white rice did not cause a major issue for me. But I think what's helped the most is just walking 15,000 steps a day.

Podcast Host Announcer (19:54)

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Kevin St. Clergy (20:42)

We'Ll see you soon.

Dr. Josh Axe (20:43)

One of the biggest misconceptions people have is that there's one diet and that's good for everybody. I can tell you from seeing tens of thousands of patients, I have some patients and I'll put them on a ketogenic diet and there's other patients, I would never do it. In fact, I probably only put 1 to 2% on a ketogenic diet. For instance, if I have somebody with inflammatory bowel disease, I have them only eating cooked foods and it's a lot of soups and it's a lot of meat. If I have somebody with cancer though, I have them eating raw vegetables and juicing vegetables and doing those things. And here's another example. I take care of a lot of patients with hypothyroidism and diabetes. Well, my patients with hypothyroidism, their body temperature is low. We need to raise up their body temperature. We need to heal their mitochondria. Like most people come in with thyroid issues, they think, oh, it's my thyroid. It's never their thyroid, it's always their adrenals and their gut and the mitochondria of their cells. If we fix those things, the thyroid starts working properly. But there's a lot of people with hypothyroidism. They're eating salads. It's one of the single worst things you can eat with hypothyroidism. You got to warm up your body. We got to be doing a lot of ginger and turmeric tea. We got to be doing a lot of soups, a lot of things that kind of warm up and rev up your metabolism. And they don't know that, but their friends were eating a salad. And a lot of times Your friends do something and it works for them. So you think, oh well, I'm going to follow that same diet and that's going to work for me. And it doesn't. This happens with keto a lot is one reason I bring it up. The keto diet's great for a very small group of people, but for a lot of people it's not the right diet for them.

Kevin St. Clergy (22:08)

Well, it gave me short term gains, it didn't give me a long term strategy. That's what I got out of it for me personally. But I see that a lot of people like oh, go keto. I was like, yeah, I did. It didn't work. I'm kind of pissed at the doctors because for so many years I just avoided rice and even pasta. Pasta once a week I love. It's something I can follow long term. But it's all real cooked food. And what's really cool is since I started eating real food at home, guess what I don't do anymore?

Dr. Josh Axe (22:34)

Eat out as much.

Kevin St. Clergy (22:35)

I don't quite, I don't even don't crave pizzas. I just don't crave it. I mean I did try the protein chicken, the chicken crust. I did not like that. If I do anything, I'll have a slice of pizza once a quarter. But I think I've finally found something that I can sustain for the rest of my life and not feel bad. In fact, I feel better than ever. And another thing that's worked for me is just keeping that eating window from about 8:30 in the morning till 6 to 7 at night and that's it. I don't need anything after that. I don't know why that's worked for me. But how do you start with people to find out what is the right diet for them? Because I used to think the intermittent fasting was bs, but it's worked really well for me, especially in the last 90 days.

Dr. Josh Axe (23:15)

There's another one, intermittent fasting. It works for a group of people, amazingly, I mean, just really incredible and more so for men than women. But there's a whole other group that should not do intermittent fasting. Or at least now let me say this, what I have, most of my patients do is I have them eat within a 10 hour window of them, eat breakfast at 8 or 9, lunch around noon or 1, and then eat an early dinner around 5 or at the latest 6 o'. Clock. Cause to your point, the later you eat at night, the greater chance you'll have of storing that food is fat you ideally want to have about three hours before you go to sleep. So if you're going to eat at 5:00pm, let's say you're going to eat at 6:00pm well, okay. You really don't want to go to bed before 9pm or even 10. But you also want to get to bed by 10 at the latest. For most people, they should be in bed at 10 to optimize their sleep schedule and their circadian rhythm. But to find out what diet is best for you, this is why I recommend for a lot of people, they do work with a practitioner, because sometimes it's hard. Now, I will give people some hints here if you want to know for sure. Work with a practitioner who understands personalized medicine and they'll be able to tell. So one way that I tell with people is I look at their tongue. It's called tongue diagnosis. This is the oldest form of diagnosis in the world done via Chinese medicine. So if somebody that sticks out their tongue, if there's ridges on the side, I know that there's an issue going on with their digestive system. So I know the foods for that. If the color of their tongue, it could be a light pink, a bright pink, red or bluish in color, or gray. So based on the color, just slight change in the color of their tongue, I can tell what's going on with their blood based on the coating on their tongue. If it's light, if it's only on the back, that's more colon. If it's the full tongue, it's the entire digestive system. So there's something called tongue diagnosis. And I can look at somebody's tongue and say, oh, this is what you have going on. So anyways, and you could do this by seeing an acupuncturist. So acupuncturist, you could go to an acupuncturist or a Chinese medicine or Orient, a medical doctor, and they could look at your tongue and say, you've got this. Now, they're gonna use different terminology like spleen QI deficiency, or you have dampness in your body, which is essentially candida. There's all Western examples of this. Kidney qi deficiency is actually your adrenal glands are worn out or it's a mitochondrial issue. But you could see a Chinese medicine practitioner, an acupuncturist, they could diagnose you, and then you could create a diet based on that. You could see a practitioner at the health institute, or you could just do research yourself. Let's say you have hypothyroidism, maybe Go online and look up Dr. Axe hypothyroidism recommendations or plug that into chat GPP, Dr. Axe hypothyroidism Recommendations, or Dr. Axe diabetes recommendations and have AI or Google or something. Tell you what my recommendations would be. Or someone else you might know who's reputable, who creates personalized diets and that can make recommendations for you. So that's off the cuff. Some of the best options, I think that maybe people could find out exactly what diet's best for them.

Kevin St. Clergy (26:09)

So if they do come see you, do you start with blood work or anything else? I know. The tongue was awesome, by the way. I love that.

Dr. Josh Axe (26:14)

It depends, you know, I think some people, we start with blood work, Some people, we don't. For some people, we just know very clearly what they have going on. Right. Like, let's say, for instance, if somebody comes in with type 2 diabetes, there's a very specific protocol I have, and in 90 plus percent of cases, we reverse type 2 diabetes. It's actually one of the easiest cases I have to reverse because we really just need to balance insulin. And so to balance insulin, you know, there's a few factors we need to look at. Okay, well, we need to create a diet that's high in protein, high in fiber, and high in fatty acids. That's simple. So we do that. We keep that glycemic index right where it needs to be. And then there's supplements that really move the needle with diabetes. Chromium, picolinate, berberine or bayberry leaf, fenugreek, Ceylon cinnamon, gymnema, those sort of herbs and nutrients. We get people on those. Well, boom. I mean, what that does to their cells and for re in healing those insulin receptor sites is pretty profound. And then it's movement. We give them the option sometimes, hey, either walk or play pickleball or lift weights, but just move more. Right.

Kevin St. Clergy (27:20)

And.

Dr. Josh Axe (27:20)

And if we do those things, here's the only outlier. 90% of the time, we do those things and we personalize things. With the type 2 diabetics, it reverses it. Sometimes with diabetics, they always see improvements with that protocol. But there's a fraction of people, 10%, where their cortisol's too high, and that's from stress and lack of sleep. And so those people, we also do some lifestyle modifications on, hey, here's how to get stress down. Here's how to optimize your sleep.

Kevin St. Clergy (27:47)

And.

Dr. Josh Axe (27:47)

And then once we fix the cortisol, then the insulin comes right down too.

Kevin St. Clergy (27:50)

You just described what happened to me. Because we got my A1C from 6.8 to 5.2 this year. That continuous glucose monitor was a fascinating experiment to see what would happen because I learned a lot about what foods are reactive. For me, we went through some blood work on which foods I can eat, which ones I probably shouldn't. It was interesting, though, because that blood work showed that most of the foods that I was highly reactive to were foods I didn't like anyway. It's just what everybody's been telling me to eat. So it is high protein, but we do have some carbs. That was really interesting is my cardiologist and my primary care physician were blown away. They're like, let me get this straight. You're eating rice and you're eating. I'm like, yes, guys, thank you for running my life for a couple of years and taking me away from those types of things.

Dr. Josh Axe (28:32)

The big thing is people with diabetic, they should have some carbs. You just don't want to over consume carbs, especially at night. If you're doing everything else right, you can have some carbs. And here's the other thing. Sweet potatoes are the most healing carbohydrate for diabetes, according to Chinese medicine. So if you're doing yams, pumpkin, sweet potato, butternut squash, and then adding some cinnamon to it, that sort of thing, it actually can be very therapeutic for the pancreas.

Kevin St. Clergy (28:57)

Well, every day that's what I do for lunch. Just high protein and then a sweet potato. And I just made the squash soup. I really like the squash soup with some cinnamon in it. So, yeah, it's coming together because I feel so much better. But it was just interesting to me, where I was going with it is just the walking because I have all this fancy gym equipment that I was always trying to hit and everything else. And they're like, listen, the hit's driving up your cortisol, in our opinion. Stop that. We just want you to walk. Which took a while to adjust to because when I did get into working out, I was used to hitting it pretty hard. I'm just amazed that just walking and lifting weights five days a week is all I needed to do.

Dr. Josh Axe (29:31)

Yeah, the benefits of being outside are hard to overstate because the other thing is so many conditions have a hormonal component. And so by you being outside, what that's doing for raising cortisol during the day to the right levels and then also optimizing the melatonin is just a big deal. I mean, I found with patients, especially the number of people today that have trouble sleeping. I'm not talking about full blown insomnia, which is actually a significant amount of people, but just the amount of people who takes them a while to fall asleep or they don't sleep really deeply or they wake up early, that really throws off your health and healing. That's when you're healing, when you're sleeping. So the more time you spend outside, the better you will sleep. Like go camping or go on a boat for a weekend or spend time at the beach for three, five days, see how you sleep then versus when you're in an office or house all day long. So it's really the missing key in great sleep is just walking or spending more time outside.

Kevin St. Clergy (30:26)

That's a good one because when my 50th birthday I went to Maui and we went on the Hana side and the cell phone didn't work very well. Our precious. And so we didn't use them for the whole week. And I've never slept so well in my life. How much do you think our precious cell phones interfere with our ability to heal ourselves?

Dr. Josh Axe (30:44)

Oh, it's tremendous. It's affecting us hormonally more than anything. One on a dopamine level, as I mentioned. And you're kind of exchanging hormones here Again, Oxytocin is so much more meaningful in healing to our body. People are not connected. We're not connected to other humans the way we used to. We used to have much stronger, more intimate, deep relationships. And there are people feeling that. I mean, if you ask a lot of people, do you feel like you have really deep, connected, meaningful relationships with quite a few people, Most people would say, no, I don't have that with anybody. And so that is very significant that you're getting too much dopamine, you're not getting enough oxytocin. But the other thing is driving is cortisol up and melatonin down. So you're not sleeping as well at night. You're living in a flight or fight state which is causing you to age more quickly. And so I would say that the biggest villains today that are destroying people's health are big pharma, big agriculture and big tech. The amount of time we spend on technology is incredibly, incredibly disruptive to our health.

Kevin St. Clergy (31:46)

It's interesting because nobody's really talking. When you hear people talk about health, they're not talking about the relationships we have. Although when you go look at the blue zone people, they have really nice communities and they're with other people. That's really fascinating because you're One of the first people I've had on the podcast that's actually mentioned that as a big three, which tells me that some of the. I think there's some data out there, tell me if I'm wrong, that when you go on a fitness journey or a health journey, the ones that seem to do the best are when you have a good coach or practitioner, as you said. But then there's also something that says when you have a good community for support.

Dr. Josh Axe (32:18)

There are so many studies today, as I mentioned, the Harvard Longevity study is a great example of this. And there are other studies. There was a study I wrote about in one of my recent books called Think this, Not that. And the study found that loneliness, if you're a person that feels very lonely for a day or you don't feel like you have close relationships, it's the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes that day.

Kevin St. Clergy (32:41)

That's fascinating. So how do you get them out of that?

Dr. Josh Axe (32:44)

This is something I've always focused on. A big part of is due to my faith. You know, I've led youth groups for years and been really active in my faith based community and leading people to Christ. And so for me, I think I've always been very aware that health is body, mind and spirit. And so I really want to take care of that mind and spirit aspect for people as well, or at least help guide them in the right direction. I remember, Kevin, I would have patients come in to my practice and they'd seen 10 different doctors and they would come in and, and I would always ask them, hey, what did your doctor recommend? And one of the things a lot of their doctors recommended were for them to reduce stress. And I would say, that's great advice. What did they tell you to do to reduce stress? They said, well, they didn't. They just tell me I needed to reduce stress. And most people, I found out they had no idea how to reduce stress. And so what I started having my patients do is this. I still have them do this exercise today is they'll say, okay, do this for me. I want you to write down all the things that are stressing you out. I also want you to write on the left side of this sheet of paper. On the other side, I want you to write down all the things you love to do that bring you joy, things you get lost in, things you just love. Write those down. And then we would go through together and I would say, okay, all these things you have on this left side, which ones can you give to God because you can't fix Them. Are there things you need to go back and forgive people? Are there conversations you need to have? We'll go and do those, but let's do everything we can to address these things. The other thing I want you to do is I want you to start scheduling things you love to do. Reading a novel. I gave them permission. I said, listen, it's okay to read a novel. Like, especially for the type A's like yourself. Like the business people, they feel guilty if they're not being productive every moment of every day. And the moms do too. A lot of moms feel like, oh, if I'm not doing something for my kids or family, I'm a bad mom or bad wife. So I had to give them permission and let them know if you've got an empty cup, you can't pour into others. So what I need you to do is fill up your cup. Let's talk about what fills your cup up. Is it going and walking around the mall? Is it again reading a favorite novel? Is it lunch with a best friend? Is it playing pickleball? Whatever. Like, let's write down those things. I want you to get them in your schedule. And what I found is even when you have some stress, people can handle it as long as it's not stress all day, every day. If they have times of rest and recovery and taking walks and doing those things within their schedule, they can handle a certain amount of stress. So I found that. And then from the community standpoint, I would actually typically have them write down who are the five people you spend the most time with? And I would say I want you to grade them on a scale of 1 to 10 on how much they are. Iron sharpens iron or they're nourishing you. They're encouragers. They love you. You know, they have your back. Versus are they backstabbing? If you're on a diet, you're eating differently than them. Are they like, hey, why don't you just eat this? Or making you feel guilty or bad? Right? So rank those people. Okay? The ones that are the one out of tens, the three, two out of tens. You shouldn't have those people in your life. Let's go. Now write down five people that you might know. Even if you're not close with them, you could spend more time with. And if you don't have those people, go get plugged into a faith based community, a group of positive people that you can start building relationships with. I want to encourage you to try and pursue that in some sort of group.

Kevin St. Clergy (35:46)

What do you do when it's the toxic people in their life or either their children or their parents.

Dr. Josh Axe (35:50)

Yeah.

Kevin St. Clergy (35:50)

And then they feel guilty. It gets really hard because I've got some coaching clients where it's a similar exercise that we do to get them and. And the last one, four adult children driving her crazy. But she feels obligated to take care of them because they are her kids. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. I had to get her a counselor because I didn't know how to take it to the next step.

Dr. Josh Axe (36:10)

Yeah, I think there's a few things there. So much of it is our perspective of what that relationship is. And then also making sure that, you know, I work out about an hour a day. I like working out a lot. And that's stress on my body. I don't work out eight hours a day. My body can't handle eight hours of stress. If I had to deal with one hour of a stressful person a day, I could handle it if I have the right mindset going in. So I think my advice to those people is, okay, which I give this a lot. It's okay, well, let's figure out how to manage this better one. By the way, my mom is dealing with this right now. My mom has a 96 year old, so my grandmother's 96. She has dementia. She's mean. Okay. I got a mean 96 year old grandma and my mom is having a challenging time. And the way that I just share with my mom is I'm like, mom, every interaction you have with grandma, you need to focus on your ministering to her. I know it's hard, she's your mom. But you need to see this as a form of ministry. So you go in and understand that she's a child essentially and she's throwing a fit. And look at her as if she was a five year old. And that's not in a way of degrading or having a superior order complex towards her, but that's the sort of state she's actually in psychologically. And so I'd say when she says things that are mean to you, I'd say you do one of three things. Say something nice, ask her why she's saying that and if she really means that or walk away. Those are the three options, you know, and every time you have a conversation, if you get in this thing where she's say, which one of these three things is it most appropriate to do right now? And then do that, then I think having a before strategy of going in, of knowing this person's like this, they're toxic. And there's lots of great books and YouTube episodes and things people can watch. And how do you deal with a narcissist? How do you deal with somebody that's really toxic? Right. There's some great advice for that. But one good thing is to ask people a further question is, well, hey, why you feel that way? You're saying you feel this. Do you really mean that? Okay, well, I'm sorry you feel that way. There are some good strategies around that.

Kevin St. Clergy (38:10)

No. And I love it. And I've never seen somebody tie it to people's overall health. That's why I'm so fascinated by. You're the first guest that I've had that's tied it to overall health. You don't hear physicians talking about that. You don't hear very many people talking about that as one of the three pillars. So thank you. Well, let's move on to something else I think you feel is very good for people. And that's the power of ancient remedies like herbal medicine. And I say these right. Adaptogens and bone broth is a couple that you mentioned. Why do you believe these traditional healing methods are still relevant today?

Dr. Josh Axe (38:39)

Well, one thing that I found throughout my career is science is always catching up with ancient medicine and philosophy. Let me give you an example of this. A study came out 10 years ago and the study said that when you take turmeric, which is an herb, you should take it with black pepper because it increases absorption. One study found around 154%. So it was really significant. I mean, you're getting double the benefits or the absorption rate of turmeric when you take it with black pepper. And all the scientific community and nutrition community was like, wow, this is groundbreaking. And then all these supplement companies started adding black pepper with turmeric. But did you know there's a 3,000 year old recipe, it's called turmeric golden milk. And the exact recipe is turmeric with ghee, which is clarified butter or sometimes coconut milk, and then a warming spice called trikatu, which is black pepper, long pepper and ginger. So we knew this 3,000 years ago. And actually their recipe is better than what's in the supplements because they also have ghee or coconut milk, which those fatty acids also increase absorption of the actual herbal. So herbs were the first form of medicine for the most part. I mean, along with prayer, I would say probably the first form of medicine. But after prayer and if you would have gone into a pharmacy, which would have been called an apothecary. A thousand years ago, you would have opened up a medicine cabinet, you would have found it would have been all herbs, mushrooms and organs. That's what would have been in there. So herbs are nature's medicine. In fact, most people don't know this, but nearly. I want to say it's 1/3 total, but it might even be close to 50% of medications today are taken from herbs. And here's what I mean. When you look at aspirin and salicylic acid, that compound that works in aspirin, that's taken from the birch tree or wintergreen or white willow bark, so it's taken up from a bark of a tree that was used. And then what pharmaceutical companies do is they go and create that same compound synthetically. I wanna say metformin comes from lilacs. The compound's there. Now when you create it into a pharmaceutical, it's synthetic. So it's the equivalent of taking, like blueberries, which are natural, and making high fructose Cor syrup. So when you create a pharmaceutical, these side effects are much more severe. And it tends to be even more potent, too, in terms of medications today. But really, herbs were the first medicines, and they work much more friendly with our body and have very few to no side effects because your body recognizes them more like they would a food. And there's many other compounds with them that work synergistically with the body. So there's an herb for almost everything. You know, if somebody has hypothyroidism, I mentioned earlier, you want to do herbs that really build heat metabolism, support adrenals and thyroid. So ashwagandha tends to be the best herb. But Rhodiola rosea is also great. Panax ginseng is also great. So those are good. Low testosterone, fenugreek, tribulus, Panax ginseng as well, deer antler velvet. Those are very good. Tongkat Ali. If somebody has menopausal symptoms, I mentioned some of those earlier, like black cohosh, wild yam and red clover. If somebody has gut issues, slippery elm, licorice root, ginger, chronic pain and inflammation, turmeric, boswellia. So there are herbs for pretty much every condition that are better with no side effects for the most part. There's not a single synthetic medication, which they're all synthetic. There's not a single drug that you can take that's not harming your body, not a single one, because all of them deplete your body of Nutrients, even birth control. Here's an example. You know how many teenage girls are getting prescribed birth control? Do you know it's causing hypothyroidism? It depletes the body of vitamin B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, B12, selenium, iron, probiotics. Antibiotic drugs are one of the worst. Those are decimating to nutrients. Statin drugs deplete your body of coenzyme Q10. So herbs, they are true medicine.

Kevin St. Clergy (42:38)

But it sounds like you need to find somebody like you who knows what they're doing. And be careful.

Dr. Josh Axe (42:42)

If somebody has something basic going on, let's say their joints hurt, turmeric is going to help almost everybody, and boswellia and ginger. So I think for most people, you could have joint discomfort and you could take that. I think if you've been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, ashwagandha is going to help you almost every single time. So I think people can take herbs without a practitioner, and I recommend that all the time. However, I do think if people have a medical condition and they really want to dial it in and not waste their time and know this is exactly what I want to take or what I should take, well, then there's no doubt that you're going to have a higher accuracy rating in taking what you should or what would be most beneficial for you if you have a very good practitioner. But people could take it by themselves. I mean, I recommend that constantly.

Kevin St. Clergy (43:26)

You've clearly invested in yourself. You love to learn. What are your favorite ways to learn and digest information so that you can continue to do what you do.

Dr. Josh Axe (43:35)

I prefer going deep than wide. I have a men's group that I meet with, like a growth group once a month. We get together for about three hours and then do dinner afterwards. So we'll meet at like 3 o' clock in the afternoon and then we'll go and meet for two, three hours and then do dinner afterwards. And I do that once a month. What we do is we read a book a month. We then take the book and we highlight our notes. We then type those out and then we share those during the group. And for me, reading a book a month, but also taking notes on them and essentially presenting to a group and hearing what everyone else says. I like memorize most of the material in the book by doing that. And then sometimes as a business entrepreneur, I'll then teach those principles to my team. That for me is a great way to grow, is being part of a growth group, doing it in community, having Those hard conversations, Iron sharpens iron with people and reading the same thing. So for me, I've been part of a growth group for years. Being part of a growth group, having peers that I have iron sharpens iron with and even mentors in the past, that's been the thing that's I think, helped me grow the most.

Kevin St. Clergy (44:39)

You're describing what I like to call masterminds, where we get a lot of people that are like minded individuals in a group. You know, we have one that we own and it's actually something that I recommend in the book that people join Masterminds because it sharpens a saw, as you said. You said, iron sharpens iron, I think is your. Your code, which I love.

Dr. Josh Axe (44:55)

That's actually the name of my group. So. Yeah.

Kevin St. Clergy (44:57)

Is it really? Okay, cool. I love it. Well, thank you for being here. If people wanted to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

Dr. Josh Axe (45:04)

I've got a podcast. It's called the Dr. Josh Axe show and we cover a lot of in depth nutrition and healing and ways to boost energy and heal. So people could check it out on YouTube or Apple or Spotify. It's the Dr. Josh Axe Show. And people can also just research my name on YouTube if they want to learn more about something. Let's say they heard me talk about testosterone or mitochondrial health. You could just search on YouTube, Dr. Axe Mitochondria, and you'll see a lot of the topics I covered. So I'd say podcast is number one. They could find my telemedicine clinic, my virtual medicine clinic where I have trained practitioners at the health institute and then on Instagram or social media at Dr. Josh Axe.

Kevin St. Clergy (45:40)

We'll make sure we list those on my YouTube as well as the resources at the bottom of our podcast as well. Dr. Axe, thank you for being here. Amazing time. I wish I had more time together and we may have you back on the show.

Dr. Josh Axe (45:51)

Awesome. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, everybody.

Kevin St. Clergy (45:55)

Sam.