From Drug Smuggler to Healer: How Nick Brewer Created Primal Moves

Summary

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The Dr. Hyman Show

Episode Summary: "From Drug Smuggler to Healer: How Nick Brewer Created Primal Moves"

Date: September 10, 2025
Host: Dr. Mark Hyman
Guest: Nick Brewer, Founder of Primal Moves

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Dr. Hyman Show delves into the transformational journey of Nick Brewer, who went from being a pro athlete to drug smuggler, spending ten years (four in solitary) in an Argentinian prison, to emerging as a renowned somatic movement facilitator and founder of Primal Moves. Nick and Dr. Hyman discuss the roots of chronic pain, trauma, disconnection from the body, and the healing power of movement and somatic practice. The conversation offers both a gripping story of personal redemption and a practical, science-based approach to regaining health, freedom, and physical vitality.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Nick Brewer's Background & Transformation

• Early Life & Injuries:

  • Nick was a pro skier, sustaining severe spinal injuries in his teens and early twenties (fractures at L3, L4, T7, and T9).
  • These injuries, combined with a self-destructive streak, led to involvement in drug trafficking.

• Prison & Isolation:

  • Arrested in South America, he served ten years in Argentinian prison, four in total isolation:
    • "Of those 10 years that I spent in prison, I spent four years in isolation." (06:05)
  • Used the time to develop a deep yoga and movement practice as a means of surviving both physical pain and mental anguish.

• Breakdown and Somatic Release:

  • Nick describes a turning point—“ego death”—that led to emotional and psychological healing:
    • "That looked like a baby crying on the floor, sobbing for about two weeks, Completely broken and shaking." (14:03)
    • Movement and breathwork catalyzed the release of stuck trauma and emotional pain.

• Rehabilitation through Movement:

  • Rejected surgery in favor of embodied practices to stabilize joints and heal his back.
  • Developed the Primal Moves system, focusing on nonlinear, quadrupedal, bodyweight movement patterned after animal motion—accessible, multidirectional, low-leverage, and joint-friendly.

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The Power of Movement as Medicine

• Embodied Healing:

  • Both Nick and Dr. Hyman highlight the limitations of "talk therapy" and the unique value of somatic work:
    • "If we just stay in our heads, we'll never get there." – Hyman (18:04)
    • "The only way that I knew was somatic work to release myself of pain, mental, emotional and physical. All I could do was move." – Brewer (18:14)

• Physical and Mental Transformation:

  • Real-world effects are swift:
    • "They come to class once, twice, three times. They get hooked and they're going away happy humans. And they're going away pain free." – Brewer (08:52)
  • Dr. Hyman recounts the instant impact:
    • "In one class, my pain was gone and I was like, holy shit. It's powerful stuff." (04:08)

• Community and Group Practice:

  • The classes cultivate belonging and amplify results:
    • “We have like a big group of people that move together and that's really beautiful and really inspiring. You release oxytocin, you release serotonin and dopamine, you get that happy drug feeling of just moving in a group.” – Brewer (27:37)

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Disconnection from the Body—A Modern Epidemic

• Societal Patterns:

  • Dr. Hyman notes widespread bodily disconnection:
    • "So many people don't live in their body. They are disconnected from their body.” (24:41)
  • Modern sedentary lifestyles, technology, and lack of embodied habits contribute to chronic illness and emotional stagnation.

• Reconnecting: The First Step

  • Awareness and simple daily movement are key:
    • "Movement is medicine. It's a healer for the body, it's a healer from the mind." – Brewer (05:03)
    • “You need to shift the perception of your mindset and make movement a lifestyle.” – Brewer (24:53)

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The Primal Moves Approach

• Methodology:

  • Nonlinear, quadrupedal bodyweight movement
  • Practices designed for joint restoration, spinal health, cognitive and emotional flexibility
  • Accessible online and in studios; mat-based, no special equipment needed

• Science & Benefits:

  • Promotes muscle and bone density, fluidity in the fascial system, neuronal/non-neuronal intelligence, and stem cell activation:
    • "All the joints are creating what we call micro, micro trauma. Which then gives stem cell a job to actually start healing you again." – Brewer (29:59)
  • Offers cognitive rewiring and supports healing from trauma.

• Accessible Practice:

  • Digital classes available (www.primalmoves.com)
  • "All you need is a mat and a small space. Just roll out your mat, open up your tablet and you get visual." – Brewer (31:04)
  • Studios expanding to major US cities.

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Nutrition and Lifestyle Philosophy

• Radically Simple, Ancestral Diet:

  • Nick eats 80% grass-fed red meat, minimal vegetables, some fruit, potatoes, and no supplements (except occasional creatine):
    • “My main meat is red meat and I'm super particular about how I source it... I don't eat many vegetables. I don't eat greens.” – Brewer (33:47)
    • "My bloods are like that of a man 30 years ago... My testosterone is up at a thousand." (35:44)
  • Focus on feeling, not dogma:
    • "Wake up in the morning and I know, how about, how am I feeling, how am I sleeping, how's my recovery, how's my mind, is it foggy?" (35:03)

• Avoids Supplements & Processed Foods:

  • “I avoid supplements at all costs... I literally just source really good foods, train and breathe.” – Brewer (35:59)

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Spiritual Freedom and “Getting Free”

• Freedom Is a State of Mind:

  • The biggest prison can be mental and emotional constructs:
    • “I've met so many people that are actually in prison because they're just bound by their thoughts.” – Brewer (15:16)
  • Solitude stripped away distractions, allowed ego death, and opened the way for blissful presence even amid scarcity:
    • "I've understood that blissful state of nothingness, you know, when you absolutely own nothing, have nothing. And you can be blissfully happy. So I have experienced that." – Brewer (16:37)

• Practices, Not Dogma:

  • Primal Moves is stripped of spiritual lineage or belief system:
    • “We don't actually do any spiritual work in there as such. I don't teach a belief system. We're not teaching yoga or Buddhism... My lineage is just practice.” – Brewer (58:34)
  • The invitation is simple:
    • "Show up for yourself once a day and do something, and that will be a bridge into something different." – Brewer (58:03)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “I smashed myself to pieces. I'd gotten into drug trafficking... found myself in South America. I wound up with 10 years in prison... I had a broken body and a broken mind... I heard this voice. It came through and it said that I was going to be a facilitator of movement into people's lives.” – Nick Brewer (00:06)

• “Freedom is actually a state of mind. Because I've met so many people that are actually in prison because they're just bound by their thoughts.” – Nick Brewer (15:16)

• “For me, there's nothing more pleasurable than living in my body. It's the most pleasurable place I can ever be.” – Nick Brewer (32:16)

• “People say, what's the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life? To me, it's getting free.” – Dr. Mark Hyman (62:01)

• “I can see their body language. They're overthinking how to move, and the body actually knows how to move in that direction.” – Nick Brewer (60:49)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Intro & Nick's transformation: 00:02–04:43
• Early injuries & prison experience: 05:03–10:54
• Solitary confinement as spiritual awakening: 10:54–16:26
• Ego death & somatic trauma release: 13:41–17:38
• Somatic practice discussion & science: 27:17–31:29
• Accessible movement: digital, studio options: 31:33–32:16
• Nick’s diet and blood markers: 32:47–35:46
• Prison to freedom – redefining purpose: 40:08–44:20
• Healing trauma/addiction through embodied practice: 44:38–47:54
• Primal Moves practicals & stripping away dogma: 58:34–60:49
• Invitation to embodied living: 61:29–62:27

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Actionable Takeaways

• Start by Moving: Even 10–20 minutes of mat-based, nonlinear movement at home can radically impact physical and mental health.
• Listen to the Body: Use internal cues and feelings—hunger, pain, mood, energy—not external gadgets or rigid belief systems.
• Freedom is Within: Chronic pain and emotional rut can be self-imposed prisons—a path to freedom begins with daily embodied practice.
• Join a Community: Group movement amplifies results, fosters support, and triggers powerful neurochemical rewards.
• No Excuses Needed: You don’t need fancy equipment or a belief system: “Just show up. Just do it.”

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Resources & Links Mentioned

• Primal Moves Online: primalmoves.com
• Instagram: @primalmovesibiza
• Dr. Hyman's platforms: @drmarkhyman

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This episode stands as a powerful testament to the body’s reparative intelligence, the healing power of movement, and the capacity for radical personal transformation—no matter your starting point. If you’re disconnected, living in pain, or stuck mentally/emotionally, Brewer’s journey and the Primal Moves method offer an inspiring, practical roadmap to “getting free.”

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Transcript

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show.

Went from cracked out on cocaine to cracked open in your consciousness.

[Nick Brewer]

I smashed myself to pieces. I'd gotten into drug trafficking. I found myself in South America. I wound up with 10 years in prison in Argentina for smuggling cocaine. And I had a broken body and a broken mind. You had this life as a smuggler. It's finished. And I sat there and I asked, I said, what am I going to do? And I heard this voice. It came through and it said that I was going to be a facilitator of movement into people's lives. So it was through a damaged body that I developed Primal Moves. Nick Brewer is the founder of Primal Moves, Fusing movement, breathwork and trauma, informed awareness. He turned a prison sentence into a.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Blueprint for freedom, reconnecting people to their bodies and out of pain.

People say, what's the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life? To me, it's getting free.

[Nick Brewer]

There's a lot of fear around actually wanting to be well, because people are actually quite happy living in pain. They think it's a place where they can reside, it's comfortable.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So many people don't live in their body. They are disconnected from their body.

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Nick, welcome to the podcast. So great to have you on today.

[Nick Brewer]

Thanks, Mark. Thanks for hosting me. I'm a big fan of yours.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Oh, ditto. I mean, here we are in Ibiza in your house, or Ibiza, as they say in Spain. This morning. I just came from one of your classes called Primal Moves, which we're going to talk about, which is a powerful way of rehabilitating the body, of gaining strength, of healing injury. And I've known you for years, I've come to your class for years, but I don't think the world really knows about you very much. And I don't think the world knows about this practice that you developed that is quite powerful and for me looks deceptively easy, but it's actually quite hard. And I want to sort of start off by kind of talking about something that just happened to me, which is I'm rehabilitating for my own back surgery. And I've shared a little about that and I really was taken down and I've been doing better and better. And it's been about six months and I gained a lot of strength and I was weight training by myself because I was traveling and I was lifting these weights in a way that kind of tweaked my back a little bit. And I was really hurting and I was a little nervous about that I do something wrong that I screw it up. I was uncomfortable. But I decided I'm gonna go to the class and just do what I can do. And I just did one class and I was huffing and puffing and sweating and by using these sort of very weird movements that are like animal movements. Crawling on the floor, crawling backwards, going on your side, stomach stretching. It's like this kind of wild practice. In one class, my pain was gone and I was like, holy shit. It's powerful stuff.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, that's very rewarding to hear.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I want to sort of start out by talking about a little about your background because it's so interesting. And you know, you're not your typical yoga teacher who you know, like our fitness trainer who kind of just went through the traditional route. You had a kind of a crazy story. You went from basically cracked down on cocaine to cracked open in your consciousness through an incredible story that we can't really tell the whole thing because it takes hours. And we were in Africa together, and you told me the story. Took hours to tell the story, and it was. Blew my mind. But essentially, you know, I want you to sort of start by how. How you first injured yourself and then how you became like a drug smuggler, and then how that led to you being in prison and then what you learned in prison. So kind of take us through that story and what happened to you and how you came out the other side as a whole human being.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. I mean, that's a big backdrop. So, you know, first and foremost, movement is medicine. It's a healer for the body. It's a healer from the mind. And when I was growing up, in my teenage years, I was a pro skier. I had an idyllic life. I lived in the Alps. I was on the international circuit, and I broke my back in two places.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You fractured your vertebrae?

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, I fractured L3 and L4, so compression fractures, and completely herniated all the lumbar spine. That was the first injury. Five years later, I broke T7 and T9 in a motocross accident. So, you know, in my teenage years, in my early 20s, I smashed myself to pieces. In the process of that, you know, I'd hit the self destruct switch. I'd gotten into drug trafficking. I found myself in South America. I wound up with 10 years in prison in Argentina for smuggling cocaine. And I had a broken body and a broken mind, and it was the template that I had.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. By the way, I haven't had anybody on my podcast who's been in prison for 10 years. Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Actually, of those 10 years that I spent in prison, I spent four years in isolation.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Wow.

[Nick Brewer]

Which is another story. That was a deep, deep, deep dive into my. Into myself, into practice, which is actually where a lot of the kind of benefits and a lot of the rewards I get today for movement and medicine practices came from. That's kind of how and why I developed primal moves. I came out of prison in 2010 with a broken body. You know, my spine looked like it had scoliosis. I had total lumbar herniation. I had degeneration of the discs.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

When you went into prison?

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. So when I came out, I was in a lot of pain, and I spent years practicing with a chiropractor the kind of modern medicine were like, look, let's just open up your spine. Let's put a big bolt in there. Let's stitch the entire lumbar spine together and bolt it together. And I was like, no way. Like, there's no way we're going down that route just yet. So I started.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's major surgery. That's what I just had, by the way.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. I mean, you know, I think yours was undeniable. You had to have it. I had that, but I was still in that position of, you know, I was 40 years of age.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And I was like, I don't want to have a rod in my back. So I went down the route of yoga, Pilates, elementary gymnastics training, and I tapped into lots of different modalities of movement. And, you know, I just came out of prison as well. Well, I developed a deep, deep yoga practice.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

In prison.

[Nick Brewer]

In prison. And that was what started the whole kind of journey into rehabilitation, like physical and mental. My body was not in a good place when I was 40, you know, I was in a lot of pain. I had joint pain, my spine hurt. You know, more often than not, I'd be two or three weeks lying down in my bed in the fetal position with where the discs are just completely bulging. I had no spinal stability, I had no joint stability. So I basically went about restabilizing my joints through quadrupedal bodyweight movement.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Quadrupedal body weight movement.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. So my body weight, legs moving on all fours in a non linear fashion.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

So it'd be forwards, backwards, sideways, diagonally, moving in multiple planes of direction, multiple joint action. But with my body weight not creating any levers in the body, which would then create stress in the lumbar spine, which is what you've done. You've picked up a weight in an awkward fashion. And that lever, you know, the weak part of the lever is the hinge. And that's what's happened. You've just tweaked it. So what I was looking at doing was restabilizing my body. So I did it through this practice. So it was through a damaged body that I developed primal moves.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And the story that I'm hearing from you today is a story that I've heard hundreds and hundreds of times, that people come to class and they've got stiff bodies, jammed up bodies, herniations in their lower back, destabilized joints, hypermobility, stiffness, and just basically like degenerating bodies. They come to class once, twice, three times. They get hooked and they're going away happy humans.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And they're going away pain free. And then they take on them, really. Then they start to embody the practice because not only do they get their physical youth back, but they actually start to grow with that and really start to enjoy their body again and start doing things in their 40s and 50s that they thought they would never ever be able to do again.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You said earlier you were in solitary confinement for four years. I mean, that would drive most people insane.

[Nick Brewer]

You'll end up climbing the walls.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. And there are practices like the dark retreats that Tibetans do, where they go for months or longer in darkness and vipassanas. But you didn't choose this.

[Nick Brewer]

It chose me.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It chose. And four years is a hell of a long time.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, it's a long time.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's a long time. And you were in a little cell.

[Nick Brewer]

Yep, I was in a cell. It was probably 2 meters by 3 meters. Had a tiny little window at the top and gray concrete walls and you.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Had to figure out how to move in that space.

[Nick Brewer]

So I had some books on yoga that I managed to get sent in.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So they let you have books in solitary?

[Nick Brewer]

So I could have books. And I was in there like 22 hours a day. So I did a lot of city practice, did a lot of kind of reflection, a lot of mind work. I started to study the works of Ramana Maharashi, which was about, you know, observing the mind and the ego, which I actually didn't even know we had one until I got into isolation. So this was really.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You didn't know you had a mind?

[Nick Brewer]

I had no idea that we had a mind and an ego prior to going into prison.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You were just going through life.

[Nick Brewer]

I was just completely numbed out and desensitized. Going through life like a bullet.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Like a steam train. Completely on the self destruct mission. So actually it was. It was a really beautiful process of actually going into that space of, you know, I was a very grateful convict.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Albeit, you know, South American prisons are slightly rough.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And Argentina was not a pleasant place to be in prison.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It wasn't like where Martha Stewart went to prison. No, no, no.

[Nick Brewer]

It was nothing like that. The opportunity that I had to go into that isolated period for four years of my life was really quite profound. And, you know, I got into the yoga practice, but it was static, so that was fine. It kept me moving and I was basically practicing all day.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

But when I got, I mean, yoga postures.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, it was static. It was mat based. So when I got out of prison and I had a studio to move in, I thought, wow, let's try moving this across the floor. So I was doing my son's salutations and the static poses, you know, instead of just staying on the mat, I actually moved across the floor. And then it was through the healing that started to come around my body. And then I started to practice with clients. And through that, the practice built a small community in London. And it was from this community and observing bodies that then I really started to systemize an entire method around it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And then you kind of found yourself out of prison, but your body was still not great. And then through these embodied practices that we now you call primal moves, you've been able to sort of repair all that. So all the broken back, all the disc herniations, all the pain, because you're like in your mid-50s now. You're one of the strongest guys I've ever met, and you can do like a one armed handstand and crazy shit.

[Nick Brewer]

Exactly. And it is my absolute joy.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And you feel like that time in prison helped you sort of get grounded and present in yourself completely, kind of start to listen to what was happening because you didn't have a lot of distractions pre prison.

[Nick Brewer]

I was totally distracted. I was numbed down, and I was desensitized. Going into prison and going into isolation and going back into that space of stillness and started to embody myself, Meaning I was able to actually feel and stop thinking, you know, so instead of asking myself what I was thinking, I was asking myself, what am I feeling?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And that was a completely different outlook. That was a completely different lens to look at my life through, you know, how am I feeling in the morning? How am I sleeping? What do I feel like? How's my cognition? How's my memory? How's my evacuation? Do I have energy? Am I recovered? Am I feeling depressed? So I was actually able to start feeling myself again. And then I worked out that through embodying these practices, which was a lot of breath work and a lot of movement, you know, I was able to remove that, that kind of depressed feeling that came down into me. You know, anything that became stagnant, any stuck energies, I moved them through with practice. It was through moving my body that I was able to free myself completely.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So not only did you kind of move your way out of physical pain, you were able to move your way out of emotional and mental pain.

[Nick Brewer]

Absolutely. Because all the traumas that I had, you know, from 15 years of smuggling and breaking my body and being on that self destructive path. I was actually able to go in there and start healing that in prison through these practices. You know, I realized I was so stuck. I was so stuck in my head. I was so rigid. There was so much control, there was so much manipulation going on up there. There was a lot of darkness that was going on in my life at the time. And I had no idea.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, it was just your life.

[Nick Brewer]

That was basically what it was. And then as I started to work through my body, I started to work through the fascial system, I started to work through the mind, you know, I also, I broke down, you know, I had mental breakdowns as well. I think three or four years into prison. I'd been in isolation for about two years and it brought me to my knees, you know, I had a complete emotional mental breakdown.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

What did that look like?

[Nick Brewer]

What did that look like? That looked like a baby crying on the floor, sobbing for about two weeks, Completely broken and shaking.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It was kind of letting go of your old self.

[Nick Brewer]

My old self. I was having a total ego death. I didn't even know it. Yeah, it completely crushed me, brought me to my knees. I lay there crying and sobbing for about two weeks. And where I was, there was no humanity. There was no one coming around to check up on you and say, hey, how you doing? You want a hug? Do you need something? You need any help?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

No, the prison guards weren't doing that.

[Nick Brewer]

The prison guards in South America didn't even come and check. They just came and checked for dead bodies.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

They just went, give you your food and the thing, they gave you a.

[Nick Brewer]

Head count, that was it. They didn't even feed you?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

They didn't feed you?

[Nick Brewer]

No.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, how did you get your food?

[Nick Brewer]

You had to get your food in. Someone from the outside had to bring your food in for you and you'd have it in boxes and bags and you had to try and make it and cook it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It somehow really.

[Nick Brewer]

I mean, the malnutrition in the prisons was people dying of malnutrition. It was terrible. It was horrific. It's like third world.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's a powerful story because, you know, most of us are pretty locked into our psychological framework. Our emotions are pretty sort of fixed in the way we relate to the world, to our experience, to relationships, to work, to family, to ourselves. And those rigid patterns like keep us from being free. And I always.

[Nick Brewer]

The constructs that we create in our head, which actually I realized post prison that, you know, freedom is actually a state of mind. Because I've met so many people that are actually in prison because they're just bound by their thoughts.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

They're so rigid. They've built so many constructs that actually they've stopped themselves from being free anymore. And I didn't actually realize that until I got out of prison.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's true. You can be a billionaire and be so in the prison of your mind.

[Nick Brewer]

Exactly. So I was euphorically year five in prison. I was euphorically happy.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's incredible.

[Nick Brewer]

Euphorically happy.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

She went from, like, breaking completely down.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. From having complete ego deaths, total mental emotional breakdowns. Again, it was. It was movement and meditation, breath work of a daily practice that got me out of that. But I went into states of absolute euphoric happiness, which I haven't actually achieved since being in prison because now I'm actually, you know, I'm back in the world and I've got distraction again.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

You know, I have a house, I have to pay rent, I have a business, I need to pay salaries. You know, I have a. A lover. So I have desires. So I actually went into some really interesting states of being when I was in there.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. It's a sort of a gift in disguise, right?

[Nick Brewer]

Totally. I mean, I had that now as a reference point to go back to. So I've been there, I've understood that blissful state of nothingness, you know, when you absolutely own nothing, have nothing.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And you can be blissfully happy. So I have experienced that.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, I'm curious about what happened in the process of the. The breakdown, because you describe it almost as a physical experience, you know, laying on the floor, sobbing and going through the somatic expression and discharge of all the emotion. You know, talk therapy really doesn't do that.

[Nick Brewer]

No.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And for me, you know, I. I went through a lot of things in my life. I've had many illnesses, many marriages. Probably about five years ago, I found myself fairly, you know, sort of stuck in the prison of my own beliefs in mind. And I knew. I knew intellectually what the issues were from my childhood and my mother, who was child of deaf parents, and how that affected her and how that affected her parenting me. And then it's a long story, but I really did not know how to get rid of it. And through a series of processes and things, I was able to kind of have this somatic experience where I just like, literally broke down on the floor crying and crying for days.

[Nick Brewer]

Like a week. Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So you've had that breakdown and it was the Weirdest thing, I had the same experience after you. I literally, after it was all free from that, I emerged and I felt euphoric, like high. Like I just taken some drugs, but like happy drugs.

[Nick Brewer]

I hear you.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And it was pretty remarkable. And I just went around in this state for quite a while. It's why I think being in your body is so important and why the.

Work you do is so important.

Because if we just stay in our heads, we'll never get there. And you were. You were forced into it unwillingly.

[Nick Brewer]

And I had no one to talk to.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

So I couldn't do talk therapy.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

So the only way that I knew was somatic work to release myself of pain, mental, emotional and physical. All I could do was move. And some days I woke up in pain. My hips were hurting my shoulders, but my pain, my head was in pain, you know, So I had no one actually there to talk to. I had no one to intellectualize or compartmentalize it with. But I understood, okay, these were the traumas. But the only way I could actually release myself from that was from basic breathwork and movement. And it was actually the movement, the somatic work I was doing in the prison and just constantly working with my somatic nervous system that started to ease out. It was agitating all this stuck energy. It was agitating these traumas to move out of the somatic system, out of the fascial system. And it was freeing me up. You know, don't get me wrong, some days I had to stand there in my. In my room for maybe an hour, having an internal fight with myself, because there was one part of me that wanted to lay down and just be depressed. And there was another part of it was like, no, you got to do your practice because this pain you're feeling will move through your body.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

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[Nick Brewer]

I would literally stand there and have a stand up fight with myself for an hour.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And I would not move until I did my practice. And the euphoric feeling that came through me as I started to move my body, even raising my hands above my head and touching the floor and synchronizing that with some breathing.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Lightness came.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And it moved through me. And I went through this like a year, two years of this internal fight of to practice or not to practice.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

You know, that's why now for me, I think one of the reasons that primal moves has become so successful is because of 15 years I've shown up every single day to practice.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. And when you don't feel like it, Right.

[Nick Brewer]

Everyone comes down and they see me kind of leading through example and inspiration like, hey, this guy's down there looking at a Great concrete floor 2, 3 hours a day and he's euphorically happy. I'll try that.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I went through a different experience recently where I kind of went through this portal where I almost died and I had an infection in my back. It led to an abscess and I had to have major surgery and I was in bed for six weeks. I couldn't walk. I lost £20, which I'm already pretty skinny. I came out of that and I was really unable to move. I couldn't tie my shoes. I couldn't get up off the toilet by myself. I couldn't do the most basic life things that you think getting dressed you take for granted. Yeah, I mean, and I recently saw my surgeon and he said most people at your stage are on a walker or maybe never get off a walker. And I did what you did. No matter how bad I felt or how depressed I was or how broken I was, I literally got up into the gym every day and worked with physical therapist and trainer. I started moving. I'm not 100% back yet, but I'm out of pain.

[Nick Brewer]

Amazing.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I'm moving. I'm doing your class, which is, I.

[Nick Brewer]

Mean, I've seen the MRI scans of your spine and it's incredible.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, I've got all the hardware in there, like a hardware store in there. And you know, I'm there with a bunch of 30 year olds in the class and I'm 65.

[Nick Brewer]

That's amazing. That's inspiring.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And it's just like your body has that capacity. And what I really find interesting, and I wonder if you have any insight on this. As I look around the world, and especially in America, so many people don't live in their body. They are disconnected from their body. And you can see their bodies become overweight or they are hunched over or you can see they don't move fluidly. And it's interesting that people are kind of locked in this state of physical contraction and don't really even know it or aware of it. And they don't realize that there's a way to the other side of that and actually getting free. Because I think, you know, more and more because we're so connected to our devices, we're so not having to move our bodies. We're just sort of out of this traditional way of living that we've done for hundreds of thousands of years, which I think the question I have for you is seeing what's happening in the world around this sort of disconnection from our bodies. How do we start to inch Forward because it feels like a big hurdle for a lot of people who, who aren't in their bodies, who aren't exercising regularly, who aren't moving regularly. To actually go from that to doing something.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, it's a big push.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I mean, this is mental. You have to like, you have to.

[Nick Brewer]

It has to be a mindset. You need to shift the perception of your mindset and make movement a lifestyle. It has to become part of your life. You know, I say to a lot of people here that, you know, have full time jobs and they work, that you need to actually book this session in and make it part of your life. It needs to be embodied as a daily practice and they see the benefits from that and trying to create that shift of people where they actually think, yeah, you know what, just going to give myself one hour a day to go to class or to get on the mat or to go to the gym and do something, even go for a walk or a swim. But something just move your body. Because this is a hunter gatherer body. Yeah, it needs to move. It was designed and created to move. And the more you move it, the better it feels.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And it will degenerate the body. If you sit in a chair all day, the body will just slowly degenerate quicker than you think.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's true.

[Nick Brewer]

I mean, it doesn't discriminate. The more you move it, the better it's going to feel.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I mean, I was in bed for six weeks and I, I never felt so debilitated.

[Nick Brewer]

Powerless.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, powerless. But also just like my body lost all of its function and I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself. I couldn't do the most simple lifestyle.

[Nick Brewer]

I think, because if you had that template, that framework of being healthy because.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, I could get, I could remember what it was like, but I was.

[Nick Brewer]

Like, remember what it felt like. So you have muscle memory to be like, hey, I want to go back to feeling like this. I don't want to feel like I am now.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I mean, I was a yoga teacher in my, you know, 20s and you know, we did seven hours of yoga a day for like a month. And you get pretty flexible.

[Nick Brewer]

But even as kids, you know, growing up now, you know, it's not in the school curriculum. There's no sport. There's not a daily session of sport where they're encouraging children to move and be fit and be conscious and try and be embodied and do mindful practices. You know, they're sat down in a.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Chair and they're given a book and that's True. And I think, you know, because we're so disconnected from our bodies, I think it also prevents us from being able to access a very powerful liberating force which is using the body. And the somatic practices, as you call them, start to free up a lot of the stuck emotions and the beliefs and the fears. And yes, sometimes talk therapy helps or coaching helps or those things can be helpful or psychedelic medicine. But I think movement as medicine, you said that right at the beginning, is powerful. And a lot of people are into longevity and they want to take this vitamin or this drug or do this special thing, or take a hyperbaric chamber or whatever. And it's like you don't actually move.

[Nick Brewer]

For me, it's bypassing. They're trying to hack their way to health by bar passing, doing the hard work.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Which is actually to go into a class. I mean, one of the beautiful things about Primal is a very community driven brand. So we have like a big group of people that move together and that's really beautiful and really inspiring. You know, we sometimes have 80 people come into class.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I know it's pretty crowded this morning and.

[Nick Brewer]

But they're so very beautiful because of, you know, you get this.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I could barely find it. I could barely find a place on the. On the hanging bar because there's like.

[Nick Brewer]

So many people there. But, you know, just moving together as a group, it brings about exponential growth.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

You know, it brings a flow state around. It's inspiring. You release oxytocin, you release serotonin and dopamine, you get that happy drug feeling of just moving in a group.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

You know, when you're doing a class which biomechanically works, not only do you feel emotionally good, but you feel bloody physically good as well.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

You know, and that's what primal essentially is.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. It's sort of like healing almost invisibly when you do it and you don't have to think about it. And you know, I think whether it's yoga, whether it's primal moves, or whether it's other forms of exercise, if people can get in their bodies, it's really the key to feeling good, to healing. If I don't exercise for a few days, I start to feel cranky.

[Nick Brewer]

It's physical longevity. You know, people talk a lot about physical longevity these days. You know, just move.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And so are you familiar with the science around. Around how this all works in terms of the somatic healing of primal, of primal, or just in general?

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, I've studied it, I've looked into it. Quite deeply.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So can you tell us sort of about the science behind this? Because I think it's, you know, people may not really be aware of what the sort of underlying principles are of why this works and how it works.

[Nick Brewer]

I've written a manual on this. I wrote 100 page manual on why Primal Moves works.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Where can people find that?

[Nick Brewer]

You have to do one of my teacher trainings to get that. That's not my blueprint. So it's a big topic, it's a big conversation about what it does, but it's actually starting to. It starts to rebuild muscle mass, it starts to re. Stabilize your joints. It starts to increase cognitive and behavioral patterns, physically and mentally. It's nonlinear. It starts to break down rigidity in the mind, the fascial networks. It starts to move the fluids around in the fascial system. The motion creates the lotion. The body starts to move. It starts to become lean and supple, becomes healthy. The muscles are working properly. You start to get bone density, muscle density again. You know, you're working with neuronal and non neuronal intelligence. You know, the cells are working to release stem cell. Creating stem cell because of this micro trauma.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

In the body, every time you're moving across the floor, all the joints are creating what we call micro, micro trauma. Which then gives stem cell a job to actually start healing you again. You know, if you don't do anything, stem cell doesn't work, doesn't need to go to sleep. The more you work your body, the more stem cell has a job. So it starts to heal, the body starts to rejuvenate the muscles, the bones, the skin, the connective tissue. You know, along with that, if you're also eating consciously as well, that, that for me is hacking. That's biohacking, breathing, eating, moving.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I think the, the hurdle for a lot of people is just getting started. Right. So how, how would you sort of advise people who want to get.

[Nick Brewer]

Just show up to class, come to class.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, not every town has Primal Moves yet.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. So we, well, we've got a digital space so you can find it online.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Where do you, where do you find it online?

[Nick Brewer]

So ww.primalmoves.com so we've got a plug and play, really cheap subscription model. And on there you've got probably like 150 sessions and it's mat based. So all you need is a mat and a small space. You don't need to go to a gym, you don't need equipment. You can literally just roll out your mat, open up your, your tablet and you get visual.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You don't need a big like floor space. Nothing else to do.

[Nick Brewer]

So I can I guide the sessions. Actually I built it in Covid because when the studio started to shut in Covid, everyone reached out to me was like, hey, how can we practice?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

So then I built this very simple plug and play digital space where people could just literally turn on the system and they could work through their body to have like full flow classes. Or you can work on stabilizing your spine, opening your hip, strengthen your shoulders.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Amazing.

[Nick Brewer]

So there's a lot of content on there.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's definitely my future.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. And obviously now what we're trying to do, you know, because there's so many people that have come into this community of pramble that when they're going home to their cities throughout the States and Europe, they're actually wanting to open studios. So now we have a whole training program and the idea is over the next few years we're going to be opening, you know, like mothership destination studios in the bigger cities.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's great. And if you don't live in one of those cities, you can do it online. And I think, I think I'm going to start doing that because I miss it like when I'm not here, I'm.

[Nick Brewer]

Like, I mean the session's like half an hour. There's 10, 20, 30 minute sessions. That's all you need. Just a little bit every single day. You just got to tap into the body every day. And also it gets you out of your head. You know, for me there's nothing more pleasurable than living in my body. It's the most pleasurable place I can ever be.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, I think most people don't live in their body. They don't pay attention to the signals that their body says. They don't eat when they're hungry and not eat when they're not hungry. They don't sleep when they're tired, they push themselves. People are in all sorts of strange disconnect from their physical body.

[Nick Brewer]

Upregulated, they're anxious, they're living on sugar, their sleep patterns aren't good.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And you very disciplined about your practices, right?

[Nick Brewer]

Really? Yeah, it's a daily thing for me. It's non negotiable.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Tell us about your food patterns and your habits because it's different.

[Nick Brewer]

So I'm a very simple eater. I'm 80% carnivore. So my main meat is red meat and I'm super particular about how I source it. So I Actually go to the farm myself. I look at the cows. I need to understand that the cow is walking around eating grass under the sun and does not go in the barn, and that the way that the animal is killed is very special. As you know, the whole food conversation is a big topic, is a big debate, and getting well sourced foods is a really hard thing to do these days. You know, the soils are devitalized, they're demineralized. The foods are genetically modified. The animals are being injected with God knows what. So sourcing your food is a. For me, it's a really important thing. You know what? I believe that, you know, what we eat is what we are. What's going in the soils and what's going in these animals is who our body becomes. So my. My meat's grass fed, grass finished, and I eat a lot of it. I don't eat many vegetables. I don't eat greens.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I eat fruit, which explains to me why. Because people like why greens are good or vegetables are good. So why, why do you.

[Nick Brewer]

I started to feel inflamed because you.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Were noticing what your body was feeling.

[Nick Brewer]

So I was observing my gut. It didn't feel good. When I ate greens, my gut started to feel almost a bit achy, and I started to feel a little bit. Had like joint ache and a bit foggy in the head. So I'd go through long periods, say three to six months of doing processes of elimination of foods that I would eat and wouldn't eat. So I stopped eating grains completely. I eat very few carbs. You know, every now and then I might go out and have some pasta or some rice, but, you know, very seldom, like once or twice a month. I don't eat many sugars, hardly any. I eat fruit and all the animals and potatoes. Potatoes. My classic meal would be a fillet steak, barely cooked, with lashings of ghee. Yeah, So I eat a lot of ghee. I eat a lot of fat, a lot of protein. So I'm essentially, I'm fueled by mitochondria, which is the cell's ability to produce energy as opposed to insulin. So my energy levels throughout the day are really well balanced. I have a.2 lattes and a pan of chocolate. So I keep it real. I have like my. My percentage of diet, which is what I call my junk diet.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Why keep it real? You know, I have a pan of chocolate. I have a coffee every now and then. I might have an ice cream.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

You know, I like to keep it real. Yeah. But I know that 75, 80% of what I eat is grass fed animals, really well sourced. And for me, like, you know, to understand my markers, I wake up in the morning and I know, how about, how am I feeling, how am I sleeping, how's my recovery, how's my mind, is it foggy? How's my gut, how's my evacuation in my practice, my physical practice, how's my body recovering, how am I training, how's my energy levels? 955 and they're good. I just recently had my, my blood stun and I had them, them checked and they said, well, your bloods are like that of a man 30 years ago.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Of a 30 year old man.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Like my, my testosterone is up at a thousand.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

My hdl, my LDL is really healthy. My hemoglobin is good. My minerals, my vitamins are really high. And they say to me, this is incredible, you don't eat vegetables.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Do you take supplements?

[Nick Brewer]

No. So I don't take supplements. I avoid supplements at all costs. I've started to take creatine just to see how it feels for like cognition and recovery. But I don't supplement. I literally just source really good foods, train and breathe. And that for me is hacking. I take a sauna four times a week and I get in the ice bath when I can. But again, it's more of a lifestyle as opposed to, you know, I try and avoid supplements and I try and convert people onto healthy foods, healthy living.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, you know, it's interesting, you know, historically we never took supplements because we had a very nutrient dense diet. And if you look at hunter gatherer's diets, and this has been well studied, you know, the, the amount of vitamins, minerals were extremely high compared to modern diets. And they also had animals that were eating wild plants.

[Nick Brewer]

Exactly.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And those wild plants are full of not just vitamins and minerals, but also phytochemicals that are very healing. There's an amazing guy, did a podcast with him, a couple of podcasts, because one of the most incredible people I've ever met named Fred Provenza, who wrote a book called Nourishment about what we can learn from animals, about how to eat. And what he said was he studied rangeland ecology and the relationship between plants and animals and the soil and nature. He found that the animals would eat, you know, a few main, like calorie crops or plants, but then they would sample up to 100 or more different plants, Right. That had different properties, the different minerals or different nutrients and that the animals knew, like I'VE been in the Amazon. I remember seeing this side of this river, which is clay and the pears just came like flying. Flying flocks were eating the minerals because they knew their body, the soul. Yeah, right. We're so disconnected.

[Nick Brewer]

We don't.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

We think we need like skittles, you know, like, oh, that looks good.

[Nick Brewer]

The thing is now, you know, the food has lost its vitality and so we have to overeat, over, consume to get all the minerals and vitamins that we need. And now we're lacking.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Whereas, you know, If I eat 3 or 400 grams of grass fed grass finished fillet steak, it's so densely nutritious that actually that's all I need for the afternoon. That and a few potatoes for flavor, but that's it. And a couple of big scoops of ghee and I'm done. I feel absolutely amazing.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And the meat you're eating though is different because it's animals who are eating wild plants and who are actually getting those phytochemicals in their meat and the nutrients in their meat and the fatty acids in their meat that are different and those actually have profound biological effects. So it's not only what you eat, it's what you're eating ate.

[Nick Brewer]

No, I'm really, I mean, I'm very careful if I go out to a restaurant, you know, I'm super careful about if I eat meat or not. You know, I want to know that it's grass fed, you know, because if you eat industrial meat, you're going to get sick. Yeah, It's a fact. You're going to get inflamed. And you know, I go through periods sometimes. If I go away on holiday, then I will, you know, I'll venture out and I'll eat vegetables and I get flatulence, I get swelling in my gut.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

I get bloating, I get fogginess in the head. I wake up in the morning, I feel drowsy. So I'm thinking, that can't be good.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, it's fascinating, Nick, is that, you know, you went from being this kind of broken guy who was dealing drugs and running cocaine between Argentina, the UK, eating McDonald's, eating McDonald's to being at 55 in a way that you really remade your whole self, physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, from the ground up. And most people don't have to go through what you went through. Hopefully you can get there. But what's so fascinating to me is that, you know, very few people pay attention to what's happening in their body. In real time every day. And then listen to it now. I would say, the smartest doctor in the room is your body. It'll tell you exactly what's going on. You're like, oh, I ate this. And my stomach feels that. Most people have no clue that what they eat affects how they feel.

[Nick Brewer]

When I was in prison as well, obviously I saw the. The effects of the human condition at its worst. You know, not only for living and the way that humans were treating each other, but what they were eating. So I. I experienced such darkness that when I got out of prison, I was like, okay, I'm going to completely rewrite the story because I don't want to go there ever again. You know, I completely rewrote my. Rewrote my story.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And how old are you when you got out of prison?

[Nick Brewer]

40.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

40.

[Nick Brewer]

So I've been going 15 years now. Yeah. Wow. I've never looked back once.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Wow.

[Nick Brewer]

I got out of prison, and I think within six weeks, I was coaching. I never took. But I got out of prison with $80 in my back pocket, and I had to go home and live in my. My parents at the age of 40 with no money in the bedroom that I grew up in. That was tough. I mean, yeah. Imagine going back to your parents.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, you were, you know, a millionaire, right?

[Nick Brewer]

I was a multi millionaire.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Multi millionaire. I mean, I had everything, cars.

[Nick Brewer]

I had boats, cars, all the toys. I mean, houses, investments. I was ahead of the game in my early 30s, and I lost everything. And that was a good process as well. That was a big process around attachment because it was a tough call coming out of prison with $80 in my back pocket.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And when you were in prison, did you have the sense that you were wanting to move into teaching what you learned there?

[Nick Brewer]

I didn't quite know. I was on such a healing journey. Everything was really about healing my body and my mind. And I knew that there was going to be a big shift and a big change, but I didn't actually quite know what I was going to do because I never knew when I was going to get out of prison. In South America, prisoners stay there indefinitely because the justice systems are so bad. Early 2010, they came around to see me, and they literally said to me one day, you got five minutes to get your shit together. We're expelling you from the country. And a bunch of guys came with machine guns, and they shackled me to a van. They took me to the airport, and they put me on the back of a plane. So my first experience was freedom. Was the back of a jumbo jet with 400 tourists. Imagine I'd just been in this wild prison in South America where they're killing each other for fun. I was shackled, and as I got to the bottom of the stairs of the airplane, they unshackled me. They took me to the top of the stairs. The captain was there to meet me and he said to me, when you get to the uk, you'll be free to go.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Wow.

[Nick Brewer]

So I sat on the back of the plane for 12 hours and it was like a time warp. And I'll tell you something very interesting was this was the first realization that I ever had of living in your body, in your head, because I sat at the back of the plane. I was like a Zen monk. You know, I've just been in prison for six, seven years, isolation for four. And I just sat down still, and I looked around me. I was like, wow, these people don't stop fidgeting, right? You know, they were playing with the in house entertainment. They kept opening and closing these poppers and doing these zips up, putting things in the overhead locker. They had these new phones that had these screens on a thing called Facebook. And they were just like sitting there tapping and messaging away. And I just thought to myself, oh, my God, these people literally cannot stop fidgeting. They're so anxious. And I suddenly realized, wow, they're like totally in their heads, not in their bodies. And this was the first understanding that I actually had of observing that in real life, you know, because in prison, I couldn't observe that. I could only observe myself. And then when I arrived to Heathrow T5 the next day, I was sitting down and I went and bought myself a coffee. The first thing I bought in seven years. And I sat there and I asked myself, I was like, you know, what the hell are you going to go and do? You had this life as a smuggler. It's finished. You've just sat in prison and you've rehabilitated yourself and you have all this knowledge on yoga, but it's not that compartmentalized. You've got nowhere to go and you've got no money. And I sat there and I asked, I said, what am I going to do? And I heard this voice, it came through and it said that movement and meditation practices had such a profound impact on my life that it freed me from prison. And if I could facilitate that into one person's life, then everything would be worthwhile. And with that message, I got on the train, I went home to My mum knowing I was going to be a facilitator of movement into people's lives. And since that day, I've only ever focused on facilitating moving into one person's life. And now we get like 25,000 people a year that come to the space in Ibiza. And the same thing is now following through European states. So that has been my. It's almost like I was given this mission.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And I've stuck to it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I believe in it so much that I actually invested in the studio in Los Angeles because I think it's, it's something that can help transform people and help them in a very sort of, sort of subtle, almost sneaky way, get inside people and helps them land in their physical body.

[Nick Brewer]

And I come from a place of addictions, of alcoholism and of trauma. So I know that these practices have helped to cure me and shift that. And through the studios, I work with a lot of people that have a lot of trauma, they work a lot of addictions. You know, I'm surrounded by them. And they use this practice to help channel the behavior of their mind, you know, and they say to me, this is really helping me. Yeah, you know, this is really helping me stay centered, grounded. I'm learning to live in my body. You know, I'm leaving the narcotics alone. I've stopped drinking, I've stopped smoking. I'm getting healthy, I'm getting straight. So I know it works on so many subtle levels.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

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Well, what's so interesting, Nick, is I don't know if you've heard this, but as I'm doing it, and I was there this morning, the movements are so foreign. Things that you normally don't do. Like you're outstretched, you know, with your arms and you're kind of walking like with your feet and your hands on the floor, your body stretched out like Superman. And it's like not easier. You're going back and backwards and doing strange things that you normally don't do in order to actually do them. You have to be so present and aware in your body that all your thoughts kind of go away. So like you're just there.

[Nick Brewer]

It brings a presence about.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. Because yoga, like I can kind of get my mind sometimes to be still, but a lot of times it's drifting and I'm like. In my head.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. Because in yoga you're kind of your mat based. You're static.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And they're asking you to be still. You know, that's a hard thing.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

You know, to sit and be still and not think is almost impossible. So it's, for me, it's like a moving meditation.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Exactly.

[Nick Brewer]

And that's exactly. You know, I came through a lot of practice of Ashtanga yoga.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Which again is a very beautiful, moving meditation. I didn't find that it was. It didn't functionally fit all the physical needs that I wanted, but it was very Beautiful practice. I was really inspired from these practices. So it was through the community and so many bodies that I was actually able to fully develop the system where it has now for so many people become a moving meditation. The practice works physically, that they understand and they know that and I know that. You know, I've seen so many benefits from thousands and thousands of people over 15 years. But for me it's now. People say it's like they're checking. Yeah, it's like their daily place they come to. You know, it's like their morning church session. They just come in, they get in their bodies and sometimes they call it church. It's like moving church. Yeah, it's like a moving church. It's a moving meditation. It's so rewarding to see the effects that people receive from this. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally. Yeah, it's beautiful. And it's a bridge into something deeper because then people actually learn to channel the behavior of their body. Their mind becomes quiet. Then they can go more into CT practices, which is pretty difficult if you haven't learned to kind of control your body and your breath. So then just try and sit. It's almost impossible, you know, because you can be thinking about last night and tomorrow night and what you're going to buy and what you're going to eat. Yeah, the mind is just like a constant monkey. Yeah, it's like a monkey mind. It's the channel of behavior that's really hard. So for me to channel it through movement is where it sits.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's interesting because when I, when I trained in Yoga, which was 42 years ago, a while ago, before they had yoga mats and before they had Lululemon, we had like sweatpants and a towel. Basically. The practice was powerful because I was like 23 at the time and it was seven hours a day of yoga. But the practice was called Meditation in Motion. It was a Kripala yoga. And basically it was a constant flow of movement and not just a static practice. And it was. And it was very breath focused. So it was like breath and movement and meditation sort of all in one. Which is kind of what primal moves is. Yeah, it's like breath and meditation.

[Nick Brewer]

It connects those three together. And also, you know, in the classes there is a bit of chit chat which creates that social interaction.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Was anybody else in prison doing this with you? Were you able to sort of bring anybody else into Weird guy doing this stuff?

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, I was kind of like the weird crank. They looked at me like this guy's lost it and actually I mean, it was two or three years after being on the main wing in prison and just observing the human condition at its worst that I actually took voluntary isolation because I wanted to be out of it. Yeah, you know, I was tired of.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So you weren't forced to be in?

[Nick Brewer]

No, I wanted to go into isolation because of the conditions were so bad. The violence perpetrated between human to human was horrific.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Worried about getting stabbed, stabbed, killed over nothing.

[Nick Brewer]

Life had no value. And I thought, you know, I'm done with this. I'd rather be on my own all day and checked out and tapping into something completely different, you know. And I used it as I turned.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It into a little ashram, like a mini cell ashram.

[Nick Brewer]

Literally. It was a four year vipassana.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's crazy.

[Nick Brewer]

I mean, said quickly, four years isn't that long. But as you start going through the seasons, you start to realize that you go very deep and start peeling back a lot of the layers of the mind and you really get to know yourself. I mean, they say, you know, you want to let a man know who he is, just put him in a room with these thoughts. You know, it doesn't take long before the, like the default mind, the superficial part of the mind disappears. And then you start going really deep into, you know, your, your framework and.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Your blueprint and you're able to sort.

[Nick Brewer]

Of see that very clearly. It takes some time. You know, eventually the mind will quieten down and your blueprint will come through. Any issues will come through. All your traumas, they will come through. You will be confronted with yourself.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, I mean I. A couple years ago I decided to take a retirement treat and I went for a month in a cabin by myself in Vermont. No phone, no computer, beautiful journal, no books, just food, me, nature, God. They did have a wood fired sauna though. I like that. And it was the winter, it was in December. But the first few weeks were a little challenging. And then I got really high. Like I got really happy, euphoric and realized that I didn't need anything.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, less is more for sure.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

If I had a place to sleep and had some food and some clothes to wear, then the rest is gravy, you know?

[Nick Brewer]

Exactly. You'd be surprised, you know, how quickly the distraction dies down. All the cessations of thought, eventually they quieten down.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Most people can't do that. So how do people start to sort of break down those old stories and the beliefs and their ego and the things that keep them in prison? Because I think people say, what's the meaning of life. What's the purpose of life? To me, it's getting free.

[Nick Brewer]

I mean, having an embodied practice to start with is a good place to go. Having a physical practice, which is mindful, is definitely a good place to start. Just starting to feel your body is a very good place to start. Then you can start working on the other stuff. But if you're just going to sit there in your head and try and intellectually work it all out, there's no somatic work being done there. It's like doing your own talk therapy, and you can talk yourself in and out of an empty cardboard box all day long. Yeah, but you're still gonna wake up the next day with the same shit.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, well, you can see it. I mean, there's a book, the Body Keeps Score. And you can see how when you watch and observe people where they're. Where their bodies are not free, where they're constricted or limited or just completely living outside of their body. I mean, how, you know, how does someone get to £300? You know, it's like by being very unconscious.

[Nick Brewer]

At what point, you know, do you not stop to look and be, okay, that's enough?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Well, it's just trauma. Usually it's pain. It's feeding an emptiness. There's all the psychological reasons. But, you know, when you just start to do the simplest things, to move, it's kind of a. It's almost like a trap door to get to freedom. It's like, you know, where's that sort of magic button you could push? We can push a lot of places. But I think if more people lived in their bodies, inhabited their bodies, and were doing what you call embodied practices, which are not that hard to do and don't take that much time, it's really profound what happens. And for me, I know it's the core to who I am. If I don't move, I don't feel good and I don't feel like I'm alive and I don't feel like I'm free. For me, being sick and not being able to get out of bed for six weeks and not be able to walk for months. And, you know, I was, like, on a cane for a long time.

[Nick Brewer]

It's amazing what you just did there. I mean.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, just a few months. Like, I just, you know. But the body has this incredible reparative capacity.

[Nick Brewer]

The body is one of the most amazing creations ever.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. And then people don't realize.

[Nick Brewer]

Intelligent.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And so I've injured myself or I've done this Or I've done that, so I can't do this, I can't do that. And they started feeling all these limitations. If I have an injury, I'm going to stop this or I'm going to stop that instead of going okay, how do I actually get to repair my system? How do I get to heal those things? And I was talking to a friend recently about the yoga teacher, because he was a yoga teacher training with me. The yoga teacher that taught us was a 65 year old woman named Lila, German woman who was in a wheelchair, had massive back surgery, kind of like me, had spinal fusion, basically made herself completely like Gumby, which is like flexible. And as a yoga teacher, through the embodied practices that we're talking about, through.

[Nick Brewer]

Breath and movement, it's medicine, it really is. It has to be a non negotiable. And once you start tapping into it and realizing the benefits of really simple embodied movement practices, you won't turn back.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I think this whole idea of somatic medicine is kind of foreign to people. You know, we're used to therapy and talk therapy, but you know, I found for my patients and for myself and for many, you can talk all day long, but if you don't change this sort of meat suit that we're in into something that can be a transducer for understanding, for healing, for repair, you kind of become almost rigidified in these patterns and you sort of. I really encourage everybody listening to think about how they can in their own life start to inhabit their body as a way of not just getting fit or living a long time or for exercise, but as a way of starting to heal some of the psycho emotional, spiritual things that we all carry through life that we get stuck in.

[Nick Brewer]

It's a big step, you know, and also there's a lot of fear around actually wanting to be well, because people are actually quite happy living in pain. They think it's a place where they can reside that sometimes feels it's comfortable. I mean, I used to live in pain, you know, I used to live in my trauma based state of living. That was my day to day way of living. Numbed down, desensitized and in pain. And it felt good. Sometimes I still go back there, you know, I can regress, I can relapse and I can go into this place of traumatic pain which feels normal to me, but luckily I've got tools, you know, where I can move that through.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So if someone's listening and they want to reset their nervous system and they want to begin to kind of start with Some tools if you feel anxious or stuck or disconnected, like where do people start? What's the practice that you recommend just starting with, in terms of reconnecting with your body?

[Nick Brewer]

I mean if they have access to go to a local studio and do a movement, body weight, movement based class, it could be yoga, could be Pilates, Any kind of movement based practice is a great place to start. That's the beginning. And make it a practice, make it a daily practice and very quickly you're going to see the benefits and the shifts.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So don't overthink it, but just start somewhere.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. People say to me, what do I do?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Might just shout to class or go to primalmoves.com.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, exactly. Just show up, Just do that for yourself. Give yourself that one thing. Show up to class, show up for yourself once a day and do something and that will be a bridge into something different.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Like you say you have 10 minute classes, 20 minute classes, 30 minute classes.

[Nick Brewer]

It's a start. Yeah, it gets you into the body, it gets you feeling the relationship to yourself will start to shift very quick.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

But you know, sometimes I do see that even people like who do a lot of yoga, for example, they still can be rigid in their mind. And so can you kind of explain that in terms of why?

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, because of a lot of the yoga practices are quite dogmatic. They're tradition based. So when I was building the primal system, I made sure that it was stripped back from any esoteric or traditional belief system. We don't actually do any spiritual work in there as such. I don't teach a belief system. We're not teaching yoga or Buddhism. Yeah, we don't use any kind of lineage as such other than that of practice. My lineage is just practice.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Just do it.

[Nick Brewer]

Just do it. But we're not actually trying to share a belief system. If someone wants to come to practice to have a belief system, that's fine. But we're going to try and break that, that rigidity. And a lot of times in yoga there's a lot of lineages that are very traditional and they're taught through dogma. So people again are getting stuck in rigid kind of thought patterns. That has to be a certain way. And that was another reason, reason why I actually broke away from a lot of the kind of traditional yogic practices.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

I still do breath work. If you want to call that spiritual, that's fine. I go to primal every day. If you want to call that spiritual, that's fine. But it could just be a practice. So we strip it back from anything esoteric. And people really enjoy that because we're not trying to put our beliefs upon anyone in class. And people really find that very refreshing.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It is refreshing. Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

You know, we're coming to do a practice and that's it. Showing up could be the spiritual part of it, and it could be enough.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And also, the movements are so unique and different that you do, and they're sometimes very physically challenging and hard that it seems to break a lot of the rigid patterns of thinking and being and moving.

[Nick Brewer]

It's an agitator.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, it definitely shakes things up.

[Nick Brewer]

Exactly.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

When you agitate, how do you do this? And how do I make my body do this thing?

[Nick Brewer]

So, I mean, I. Sometimes I get a lot of people asking me questions in class, and I can see that they're really stuck in their heads, and they put their hands on the floor and they can't move. And I say to them, you're completely in your head.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Stop thinking. Just move your body. And then I don't know how I said, just follow these people. Just move that way and they start moving. And I look back at me and they smile. You know, I can see their body language. They're overthinking how to move, and the body actually knows how to move in that direction.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's such an amazing thing. So this has been an incredible conversation. You've gone from being a guy with a broken body, with a broken life in prison, and have basically resurrected yourself and transformed your physical, emotional, mental, spiritual self in a way that you're now sharing with people and inviting them in with you to try. And it's so beautiful and it's so rare. And I think you don't put yourself out there as a guru, as some guy who's got the answer, but he just encouraged people to just live in their.

[Nick Brewer]

I'm a student like everyone else.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Just live in your body, which most of us don't, get connected to your body, which most of us aren't. And to listen. Your body, which most of us don't know how to do.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And. And when you start to do those simple things, like if I. If I eat something that isn't good for me, I. My body tells me, like, I feel it.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah, you feel it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And I'm like, if I am in Europe and I'm eating at like 10:30 at night, yeah. My body's like, no, don't do that. You know, the invitation is really to start to listen. Like, start to listen to your body and start to change the way you.

[Nick Brewer]

Observe how you feel.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Observe how you feel. Connect the dots between.

[Nick Brewer]

Yeah. Wake up in the morning and sit on the edge of the bed. Don't look at your phone. Ask yourself, you know, before you open your apps, that's telling you how you slept. Ask yourself how you slept.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

Ask yourself, how are you feeling?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

You know, are you foggy? How's your gut? How's your recovery?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

How are you feeling?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

And then from that you can work out. Okay, let's. Let's maybe shift some things today. Let's eat differently or eat earlier or change the way that I'm meeting and change where that I'm moving.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's such a simple invitation. It's just you're inviting people just to listen.

[Nick Brewer]

Very much so.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

To be aware.

[Nick Brewer]

And I don't use any apps.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[Nick Brewer]

For health data at all.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Amazing, Nick. What a journey you've been on. What a gift you've given to the world. I think everybody should check out primalmoose.com thanks, Mark. They can find you on Instagram at Primo Moves Ibiza. Primo Moves Ibiza. I B I Z A. And check out your studios when they're coming around in America. You're going to be in Los Angeles.

[Nick Brewer]

You're going to be in Miami, Austin, New York, San Francisco.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

When is Austin opening? Because I live in Austin.

[Nick Brewer]

We should be doing Austin next year.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Amazing. Great. I'll be there every day.

[Nick Brewer]

Fantastic.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So, Nick, thanks so much for what you do.

[Nick Brewer]

Thank you.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

If you love this. When it comes to supplements, you only want the best for your body. The kind with the highest quality, cleanest and most potent ingredients you can get. That's exactly what you'll find at my supplement store, where I've hand selected each and every product to meet the most rigorous standards for safety, purity and effectiveness. These are the only supplements I recommend to my patients, and they're also what I use myself. Whether you want to optimize longevity or reduce your disease risk, or you're looking to improve your sleep, blood sugar, metabolism, gut health, you name it, Dr. Hyman.com has the world's best selection of top quality premium supplements, all backed by science and expertly vetted by me, Dr. Mark Hyman. So check out Dr.hyman.com because when it comes to your health, nothing less than the very best will do. That's Dr. Hyman.com d r h y m a n.com podcast. Please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at drmark HYMAN please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness center at ultrawellnesscenter.com and request to become a patient. It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public, so I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.