Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. It's an exciting day today. You know, the world has changed a bit since our days as hunter-gatherers and it's left our brains in a state of despair. And you might be feeling that today, so please stay tuned. You know, according to the World Health Assembly, the burden of depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions is on the rise. No joke. The good news is we can turn things around. In a moment, I'm going to speak with the renowned health journalist, podcaster, and New York Times best-selling author, Max Luccavair, who I consider a colleague and friend. In his latest book, The Genius Life, Max says that we can heal our bodies and brains by changing our lifestyle, improving our cognitive function and emotional wellness as a result. Today we're going to discuss how. Max, welcome back to the Dr. Gundry podcast. Thank you so much for having me. It's always a treat to get to talk to you. I've learned a lot from you over the years and I value our friendship, so thanks for having me. You have been an outspoken health and wellness advocate actually for years now. I know, but tell our listeners how you got into this line of work. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I began as a generalist, journalist. That's a bit of a mouthful. I consider myself having been a bit of a stem cell in my previous line of work in that I was undifferentiated. I used to work for Al Gore who had a TV network called Current TV. It was not a political network, but I was there as an investigator to tell stories and convey stories that were not being told and to do so in a way that was engaging for younger people. I could draw younger people into the worlds of geopolitics, of technology, of the environment and science and things like that. Climate change. That was a small part of it, actually. I did that for six years and it was a great opportunity to cut my teeth as a storyteller, as an investigator, and that was my first job out of college. Then when I left that to try to figure out where I was going to go with my career, it was then in my personal life that my mother got sick.  That is indeed what happened to me. It was at the Cleveland Clinic in 2011 that my mother at the age of 58, very young, was diagnosed for the first time with a neurodegenerative condition. It was a rare form of dementia called Lewy Body Dementia, which I'm sure you're familiar with. It was sort of in the zeitgeist a couple of years ago when it was revealed that that's what Robin Williams was diagnosed with just prior to his unfortunate suicide. For those who have never heard of Lewy Body Dementia, it's essentially like having Alzheimer's disease in Parkinson's disease at the same time. That's what my mom had. It was awful. It was traumatic. At that time, when the initial trauma subsided, I decided to use every tool within my toolkit to try to understand why this would have happened to a woman that was so young. I had no prior family history of any kind of neurodegenerative disease. It sent me down the rabbit hole to try to discover what it was about my mom's diet and lifestyle and the environment around her over the years that would have predisposed her to developing that condition. It was kind of sad and ironic that at the same time that my mom was succumbing to this condition, my mother's mother, my maternal grandmother, was actually 96 and she was cognitively healthy. She was actually in relatively good physical health. And so, what the heck? It caused me to have this hypothesis that I've explored in all my work since then that something had to have mutated in between my grandmother's generation and my mother's generation to the degree that something in my mom's environment, whether it's the food, whether it's industrial chemicals that were all routinely exposed to, whether it was her lifestyle, something pulled the trigger on her having developed this condition. And, you know, she passed away about a year ago, a little over a year ago, and that was the worst experience I'd ever gone through. And it motivates me to this day and that's what The Genius Life is really all about. It's a book in which I look at all of the different aspects of our modern lives and what in each area might be tweaked so that we might feel better and have better health, both in the short term as well as in the long term. So, how do you go about researching something like this? I know, you know, your first book, The Genius Foods, is done very well. And so, where do you go from there? You obviously said it's probably more than food. Yeah. Yeah, well said. I mean, I think food is a huge part of the equation and it's something that people feel very emotionally invested in because our diets in a way become a part of our identity. You know, it's very funny, actually, when you look at people's social media profiles, they're very often inclined to put their diets in their bios, in their social media profiles. Why do people do that? Because we tend to feel so strongly about our diets because everybody eats, right? And what we eat is so ingrained in our sense of self. And once we have that diet, you know, when we find a diet that works for us, what do we want to do? Well, we want to evangelize it. We want to become proselytists for our diet. So that's why I think diet gets most of the attention. But actually, diet is just one part of the pie. There are so many other aspects of the way that we live that are important when it comes to feeling good, having lots of energy, having a brain that works as well as it ought to, not just as well as we've accepted it to. And of course, procuring our long term health. And so, every topic that I cover in my book, The Genius Life, is certainly deserving of its own book. So I try to basically look at all of the breadth of research that's out there in regard to nature immersion. So our relationship with the outdoors, you know, with the external world, our relationship with light, our relationship with time, so many of these aspects have basically become deranged and decoupled from our biology. And so that's really where I began. I began looking at, I began with nutrition because I've had a sort of lifelong passion for nutrition and that's where my sort of bias was initially. But, you know, there were other aspects of my mom's life that I think were probably not helping all that much in terms of her health. I mean, my mom, and not to put any blame on her or anything like that, I mean, you know, science is evolving and we know things now that we didn't know five years ago, 10 years ago, and certainly not 30 years ago. But she, you know, was never, she never really exercised until her later years. And we now know that exercise is crucial in so many ways. It's one of the most powerful, actually disease modifying interventions that we have for a condition called mild cognitive impairment, which is like a form of pre-dementia. It is super important for mental health. I mean, there's now, you know, we're now at a point where we have, in recent years, a number of meta-analyses published showing us that whether you are anxious or depressed, exercise has a disease modifying role to play in terms of your mental health, which is a major problem. I mean, depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide now, or it's set to be. And so that's something that, when I look at previous generations and the fact that leisure time physical activity was not part of the, you know, ingrained in the constitution of previous generations, the way that it is now, you know, it makes me kind of sad. And then you read statistics like that the fact that today a third of people do not engage, still do not engage in any leisure time physical activity. And it's a major problem.  Two thirds of adults are either overweight or obese, which we know, you know, infers problems on multiple organ systems in the body, not least of which the brain. And so exercise is a big part of the problem. The environmental working group estimates that your average adult now spends 93% of their time indoors, either in their cars or in their homes. So what about our indoor environments? Are we getting what our biology needs from our indoor environment? Are we getting exposure to healthy full spectrum light? Certainly not. When you realize how widespread and pervasive circadian disruption is. So our bodies, you know, function on this 24 hour clock. And we need the light to help anchor our bodies internal clocks, which affects everything from how well we digest food to our energy levels to our mental acuity and alertness. So I know this sounds like a lot. But I've looked at all of these different, these different realms, and I've tried to sort of distill them and synthesize them in a way that's accessible and approachable for readers in the book to help them arrive at some sense of how they might live for better, for better health.  What do you think in the modern world are the biggest triggers for that now? Why? How is it different now? Yeah, I think that's such a good question.  I think, you know, part of it has to do with the fact that we do spend so much of our time indoors and just getting outside into nature is such a salve for the soul. I mean, research out of Japan is now, and it's this research is incredible, increasingly being done around the world, but they're looking at a form of therapy called forest bathing, where they find that the minimal effective dose is just 20 minutes, just a 20 minute immersion into a natural environment as opposed to an urban environment can have a significant effect on levels of cortisol in the body that they, you know, that they were able to ascertain via a salivary test. So that's crucial. I mean, we know that stress is related to cardiovascular disease.   Chronic stress also affects your blood pressure in a negative way. And one of the things that I look in the book that I examine in the book is the role of healthy blood pressure on brain function. And actually, having healthy blood pressure is essential for having a healthy brain. There was this great trial that I talk about. We're getting a little bit off the topic of mental health, but the sprint mind trial, which was recently published that found that when people were being with high blood pressure, were being treated for that with a pharmaceutical to a more aggressive degree than what they would have normally been, you know, treated at to reach an even lower systolic blood pressure, but still within the healthy range, obviously, they were significantly able to avert developing mild cognitive impairment. So I mean, we have no there's no pharmaceutical drug on the market, specifically FDA approved to prevent MCI. So yeah, get you know, being getting out into nature, I think it's a great way to boost your mental health as well as, you know, your brain health as well. I think well, wait a minute, I'm from the northern Midwest originally, are you are you going to tell me that when it's 10 degrees below zero, and there's a foot of snow out, and I need to go get my 20 minutes for mental health to go outside? I think it's probably still worthwhile to be to be outside. I am, you know, it's really funny. I so I have a podcast. Also, it's also called the genius life. And on it, I interviewed a brilliant neuroscientist from Stanford named Andrew Huberman. And he was telling me that literally this is something that his lab studies. And so, you know, he was sharing this information with me. And I haven't read, you know, what he's published on it necessarily. But just by by loosening your gaze to a more panoramic vision, you can have an effect on your body's nervous system. You can actually engage your body's parasympathetic nervous response, which is more associated with like resting and digesting and basically being being not stressed out. And so that's easy to do when you're outside, right? When you when you perceive the perceptual vastness of an outdoor weather, whether it's snowing or whether you're on a you know, on a mountaintop in the summer, it doesn't make a difference. But staying within the confines of our apartments, of our cars, of our offices, and keeping our our eyes focused on what's immediately in front of us. I mean, that's a new axis through which we might be, you know, getting getting stressed out. There's also, you know, noise exposure, you know, in the indoor environment can sometimes be noisy, whether we have the TV on or stereos or we're dealing with screaming children. I don't have to deal with that yet, thankfully. But yeah, getting outside and experiencing peace and calmness and allowing your gaze to broaden out to that to that panoramic vision, those could all be beneficial on your on your mental health, no matter what time of year it is. Yeah, as a kid, again, we would be out in sub-freezing temperatures, bundled up, playing all day, and we actually had like three changes of mittens and gloves because they get soaking wet in the snow, and we come in and we change our genes because they get soaking wet, and then we'd run back out.  We're gonna play. We have to understand that kids instinctively understand that.  My dogs look at me twice a day and say, come on, more on, let's go. And it's like, what do you mean let's go? It's time for your walk. And I think we have to get, understand that kids and dogs understand this instinctively, that we got to be out there. That's where we came from. Yeah. Right? And I think that's what you say. Right, exactly.  I mean, when you look at a kid, first of all, I mean, the whole movement pattern, all the movement patterns of a child and the way that children breathe are so much healthier than the way that we do now. You know, I'm into vocal health, actually. It's something that I think is really important.  It's a lot easier to teach a kid to sing because they know how to naturally breathe than it is to teach an adult because we tend to breathe with our chests, you know, when you really want to practice breathing with your diaphragm. They also, if you ever watch a child squat, they squat and lift things off the floor with perfect form. So, you're right, there's a lot to be learned from our children. But you also made me think about the fact that going outside in the cold, I mean, that might have completely, that might have mental health benefits completely independent of, you know, the fact that it's a more natural environment than our indoor environment.  Which is what I like to call it. But just going outside, experiencing cooler temperatures, even mild ambient cool temperature can actually boost mental acuity, brain health and things like that. There have been a number of interesting case reports published about people actually self-treating their own depression with like cold water swimming, so winter swimming, cryotherapy and things like that. And the beautiful thing about these is whether or not they actually work for you, there really are no negative side effects. Correct. So, yeah, I'm all about that more natural, you know, embrace of whether it's variation in temperature or just, you know, getting out of your comfort zone or just, you know, being outside no matter what time of year it is. Speaking of indoor air, it's some of the worst air in the world, my wife's mother always forced them to sleep with the window open and she grew up in Connecticut where it's pretty cold in the winter and my mother always cracked a window even in the dead of winter in Omaha and Milwaukee and we still do that actually now. I curse my wife when the heat comes on, but what about opening a window or unleashing the seals of our hermetically sealed houses every now and then? That's such a good question. You know, actually something that I talk about in a book is a real medical diagnosis. It's called sick building syndrome. So a lot of people that have unexplained symptoms and they go to the doctor and the doctor sends you home and says, you look, you're fine. You know, a lot of people can actually be suffering from the confluence of pollutants that we're actually exposed to indoors, which is counterintuitive because we tend to think of pollutants being primarily outdoors, you know, on the street, for example, or in our in our places of employee. But yeah, the home is can can actually be vastly more polluted than the outdoor environment. And that's because a lot of our, whether it's our furniture or our carpets or the paint used to, you know, to coat the walls in our homes can actually be packed with pollutants ranging from plastic compounds like BPA to phthalates, which are used to create, you know, our furniture and even in fragrances that you'll find in common household cleaning products. What about the new car smell? I love the new car smell. Yeah, I mean, that new car smell is owed to a process called offgassing. And so we're inhaling all kinds of compounds from and I couldn't possibly name them all but formaldehyde and things like that, that you definitely don't want in your system to any significant degree. We have flame retardants in our furniture, flame retardants are also used to, you know, in children's clothing and pajamas and things like that and mattresses and the like. And we, you know, originally we thought that these compounds were inert, but actually we know that they're able to enter the environment, they're able to enter the air, they're able to form the dust in our homes. So if you, you know, I think it's really smart for a homeowner to have, to wet dust frequently. So if you're using like one of those dry dusters, like a feather duster, you want to get rid of that because what you're doing is essentially you're just redistributing dust and the primary components of dust, aside from dead skin cells, are these compounds, like little plastic nanoparticles that slough off from our furniture, from our carpets, and we breathe them in, they get into us.  It's a, I think having plants in the home, also really essential, plants actually can help clean the air. And I talk about some of the plants that are most effective at doing that in the genius life. And yeah, so what if you don't have a green thumb, what if you kill everything that ever lived in your house? Not me, I'm thinking about someone else. I don't, I definitely don't have a green thumb, but I have some plants like just off the top of my head there's a plant called the rubber plant, which is very good at cleansing the air. They're definitely a handful of others. You could also get an air purifier, you can vacuum an HVAC vacuum or air purifier is also very effective. But you're absolutely right. You should also have a well ventilated home. And the irony is that buildings and homes now are becoming less and less well ventilated because it saves money, a home that actually is more hermetically sealed, you're going to have less cost in terms of the heating and air conditioning cost. And so that might seem like it's a good thing, but it actually might not be such a good thing from the standpoint of our biology. Great for our wallets, but not so good for our health. All right, so when we started this, you mentioned that dementia was really that with your mother was the driving force that started you down this path. What are you going to tell us in the genius life you can do to forestall dementia, avoid dementia? What's the tricks?  And in the United States alone, 50 million people suffer from dementia. 15 million people suffer from Alzheimer's disease alone. And those numbers are expected to explode in the coming years. So this is really a lifestyle guide given the best available evidence how one might live and eat to essentially avoid that condition. So there's definitely a strong nutritional component to the book. But I do talk a lot about the role of the environment on brain health. So as I mentioned, having a healthy blood pressure, that's crucial.  And I think that there are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to how to maintain a healthy blood pressure. So a lot of people go straight to salt, eat less salt, right? Well, actually, I think that the reality is a little bit more complex than what we've been led to believe. In fact, a very large meta-analysis was recently published that found that it wasn't necessarily the salt per se that had the biggest impact on people's cardiovascular health, but it was what they were consuming the salt with, where do people eat enough potassium, right? So when you consume enough potassium containing foods, which where do you find potassium? You find potassium in healthy foods. Fruits, vegetables, salmon is actually a wonderful source of potassium. That any impact that sodium might have on your blood pressure for, I would say, the majority of people is going to be moot. And the other thing is that most sodium is found in packaged processed foods, which we know are not good for us. So ultra-processed foods that line our supermarket aisles and canned foods and the like, they're all saturated with sodium. And I think that it's probably the foods, not the sodium that they contain that are the problem. Yeah, I agree with you completely. Speaking of blood pressure, I'm going to throw in a really nerdy study. A few years ago, I usually presented the microbiotic conference over in Europe. And there was a phenomenal paper that discovered that there are smell, olfactory nerves that not only live in our nose, but they live in our kidneys and they live in our heart.  What are they there for? And what they propose, and actually I've seen it in my patients, is they're actually smelling in your kidney what I call bug farts, that the microbiome produces certain compounds that are smelled by the kidney in the heart.  And the kidney senses impending danger and constricts blood vessels to the idea is to trap bacteria, which was once our mortal enemy, in the walls of the blood vessels where white blood cells could grab them and not let them out. And we can actually measure tension in blood vessels with blood tests and also with devices. And we showed that changing the microbiome and getting rid of biofilms, which we talked about in a recent podcast, actually lowers blood pressure. And I think it's because these olfactory sensors in your kidney no longer smell these bad bacteria farts and they relax. And that's do do do do. So there are ways that we, I mean, we're so naive about all of this that there's nerves that smell in your kidneys and in your heart. It's amazing.  It's like biology is so amazing. And you learn something new, or at least I feel like I do every single day about it. It's just so awe-inspiring. I wonder, so are you talking about nitric oxide? Because the bacteria in our mouth, actually. Well, absolutely.   The human study showed that blood pressure went up about five points systolic when you use mouthwash.  But no, this is actually a different effect. It's not a nitric oxide effect. It's a direct vasoconstriction effect. Amazing. Amazing. It's actually based on the arena and angiotensin system. So your kidneys produce more arena to constrict your blood vessels. Amazing. Yeah, just because of bad bugs. Yeah, well, I mean, the microbiome is crucially important for everything from cardiovascular health to brain health. And it's this burgeoning line of research. And I'm so excited to learn more about it. But let's get back to brain health and exercise. Because I know you're really excited about this in the book. And your mom was not an exerciser. And I, in my longevity paradox, I mentioned some very good studies, particularly with women that exercise throughout their lifespan is very good at preventing dementia. And even in the people who were genetically predisposed to develop dementia, that dementia occurred 11 years later than if they didn't exercise chronically. What's going on with that? Exercise is medicine for the brain. It truly is. I mean, it's, you know, when we talk about the hierarchy of things that are important when it comes to procuring good brain health, I think exercise is probably at the very top of the pyramid. In fact, in fact, the evidence now is just overwhelming. There's a new treatment guideline for physicians. If you have mild cognitive impairment, which again, you know, is a pre-dementia, it can often and it often does convert to more severe forms of cognitive impairment, physicians should now can now and should write exercise on a prescription pad. According to the American Academy of Neurology, it's a treatment for MCI. And there is no pharmaceutical drug that's currently approved to treat MCI. So via a myriad of different pathways, exercise is crucial. It helps us to sweat, right? So when we sweat, sweating is one of the primary detox modalities, you know, when we sweat, we release a lot of the kinds of pollutants that we were talking about earlier. It boosts a miracle grow protein in the brain called BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which is decreased by as much as 50% in patients with Alzheimer's disease. But we can actually boost levels of BDNF in the brain with exercise. What form of exercise? Well, you know, I think there's a bias in the literature for aerobic exercise, but I think it's starting to come to light that whatever the form of exercise you like to do, it seems that whether it's yoga or resistance training or high-intensity interval training, they all work to have a very similar effect. And in fact, I think that resistance training is probably the most important form of exercise. Because when you're having a weight training workout, you actually do get a cardio workout. But I think growing stronger muscles and achieving a healthier body composition is crucially important. I mean, there's now a documented relationship between the strength of our muscles and the health of our brains. Muscles are important. Having stronger muscles are important for hormone homeostasis in the body. So basically, making sure that your hormones are functioning the way that they ought to. Conditions like type 2 diabetes are characterized by insulin insensitivity. And there's no better way to make your body more insulin sensitive and to reverse insulin resistance than resistance training. And in terms of the mood, in terms of your mood, exercise is crucial. It helps your brain create serotonin more easily, which is a neurotransmitter involved in mood, as you know. And it's also involved in executive function, which is essentially how your brain gets stuffed on. So that's crucially important. It reduces inflammation.  So it works all of these different pathways. The problem with pharmaceutical drugs, and I'm not against pharmaceutical drugs, certainly. Do I use them? Do I have to? Of course. Do you break a leg? I'm going to put a cast on you.  If there was a drug that I could have given my mom that would have helped her, I would have, you know, in a heartbeat run to the pharmacy to fill that prescription. But the problem with many of these drugs is that they target single chemicals or single biological pathways. Exercise works the entirety of the system. There's no drug on the market as powerful, you know, in terms of its medicinal, almost medicinal effect on the body as exercise. Exercise is medicine. OK, but it's so much easier to swallow a pill. And but I think your point is really good. It's you got to find something that you enjoy doing. Yes.  And I've had so many patients come back with that prescription filled and framed because they said, this is the, you know, this changed my life because dog makes you exercise twice a day, you know, whether you want to or not. And walking, it turns out, the old idea that you had to walk 10,000 steps a day for exercise, it turns out, was actually fabricated by a Japanese company that sold pedometers. And the more recent evidence says that 2,000 to 3,000 steps a day are effective. And I think the other thing that's interesting in studying, you know, blue zones, those places in the world with extreme longevity, and I'm the only nutritionist that spent most of my career in a blue zone, Loma Linda, California, they all live in hilly communities and they walk against gravity. And quite frankly, working against gravity is some of the best strength training that ever existed. And a quick tip, there was a very famous Austrian study that wanted to see the effect of uphill hiking versus downhill hiking. And obviously they expected that uphill was a lot better for in downhill. So they went to a mountain where there was a cable car. And half the participants had to hike up and then ride the cable car down. The other half had to ride up and hike down. And guess what they found, not only in cardiovascular fitness, but insulin sensitivity and muscle growth was exactly the same. Oh, wow. So are you going uphill or downhill? Yeah, because you're breaking against gravity on the downhill. It appears to be easier. You know, everybody volunteered for the downhill. Take that. But yeah, it was equally as effective. So I tell my patients, look, I know you're not going to climb the stairs in a building or to your apartment, but walk down and you'll get a benefit.  And I detail this in the book. In the medical literature, walking, doing chores around the house, chasing your kids or pets around, these all fall under a category of activity called non-exercise physical activity. And non-exercise physical activity, as the name implies, it's not deliberate exercise. It's anything other than sitting on your couch and watching reruns. And it's crucial, actually. It burns a massive amount of calories. So in a time when so many people are overweight, people tend to think that you're going to the gym and running on the treadmill is a great way to burn calories.  In terms of brain health, there's very interesting research. First of all, being sedentary for an extended period of time literally drains the blood from your brain. I feel this in terms of my mental health when I'm sitting for an extended period of time.  And don't stop at the M&M jar. Don't stop at the M&M. Eat your coworkers desk. Yes, maybe go for a drink of water or something. But yeah, just simple movements create these microvaculations in your blood pressure. It basically causes your blood to pump independent of what your heart is doing, and it causes blood to basically shoot up to the brain. And there was an interesting study that was performed on older adults that found that people with greater levels of non-exercise physical activity. So again, just these simple movements, spontaneous movements, whether it's cooking or doing laundry or chores, as I mentioned. Gardening. Gardening was able to help these people actually avert cognitive decline even when brain scans revealed that they had Alzheimer's pathology in their brains. So like amyloid plaque. So it seems like simple daily movements, if you're able to continue doing that, it's gonna help potentially shield your brain against whatever is going on below the surface. Got any one or two workout tips that people can do quick and easy?  Yeah, a quick fix. Well, the quickest fix I think is gonna be what's called HIT or high-intensity interval training. They've found that with basically 10 minutes of high-intensity interval training that people are able to achieve the same improvement in their cardiorespiratory fitness. So basically fitness is the short hand way of just saying that. As people who did, it was either a half an hour or 45 minutes of steady-state cardio, which is amazing news, right?  In fact, I don't do it very often. Not nothing against people who like to do it because it is still very good for you.  And so the difference between the two, steady-state cardio is something that you can do for half an hour or 45 minutes on the treadmill, right? You're just plotting along on the treadmill at sort of a moderate intensity pace. You can hold a conversation with somebody if they're jogging next to you on the treadmill. That I don't think is very much fun. High-intensity interval training, on the other hand, is taking an activity, like riding on the stationary bike or doing sprints up a hill, or even sprints down a hill, but that's probably a little bit more dangerous, you know? But doing sprints up a hill or I like to go to my gym and they have these battle ropes, big, heavy ropes that I like to swing around, and you do 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 seconds of all-out reps. So giving it your all, like literally, you know, the speed at which you do it doesn't matter so much is the effort that you put in.  And you don't do it on a full stomach. Don't do it on a full stomach. Yeah, because it actually might make you nauseous. But you give it everything that you've got and then you recuperate for a minute. So you do that for 10 to 20 to 30 seconds and then you recuperate for a minute and then you do it again. And you do three to four to five reps of that and that's only gonna take about 10 minutes. And you do that and it's been shown that that actually can boost your fitness to the degree of running for 30 minutes on a treadmill. So I mean, that's a way more efficient way. You're gonna get a lot more bang for your buck, I think, doing HIIT. And, you know, doing HIIT is not without risk so you obviously want to check your physician before starting that. But highly recommend using that as a tool in your toolkit. Yeah, because you definitely do, if you're doing it right, get your heart rate up and really get it up. Yeah, I do a spin HIIT class every week for 30 minutes. And, you know, I'm in the breathless zone and I track with a monitor and I go, whoa, I'm not supposed to be up here but I'm okay and it's a great stress test. Yeah, but yeah, check with your physician if you're gonna do HIIT training. Okay, food, we talked about number one food that a person should avoid. I think you've mentioned this if you want good brain health, what is it? Yeah, I would say, I would definitely say ultra-processed foods, you know, I would have probably had a different answer if you would have asked me three years ago, but whether it's refined industrial grain and seed oils like canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, you want to avoid those oils, those oils are usually used to create processed foods, you know, ultra-processed foods. Processed foods also contain refined grain flowers and the like and so I'm not a fan of those foods and one of the reasons really for that, aside from the fact that we know that those oils are unhealthy and that those flowers shoot your blood sugar through the roof and can cause refractory hunger afterwards as soon as you get the insulin drop or the blood sugar drop that often ensues. I mean, those are bad enough, but the problem with these foods, which has been shown actually over the past year and a half in a study from the National Institute of Health was that these foods actually drive their own consumption essentially to the tune of about 500 additional calories a day. So if you're building your diet around ultra-processed foods, it's gonna be infinitely more difficult for you to maintain a healthy weight or lose weight because these foods perpetuate their own consumption, whereas if you try to base your diet instead around whole foods, whatever, I mean, we like to get into the nitty gritty of what whole foods to, you know, are gonna be better for you and what whole foods you're probably better off avoiding, but at the end of the day, I think- Not whole grains, I hope. No, I'm not an advocate of grain consumption because I think grains are essentially cattle feed. They don't offer any real nutritional value. It's mostly just energy, which I think most people have too much of in their bodies as it is. And I'm not talking about the sense of energy. I'm talking about stored energy on our waistlines. But yeah, ultra-processed foods drive their own over consumption.  And so I think it's best to try to avoid them altogether.  So even though you might be thinking to yourself, it's so difficult to eat less. I can't possibly eat less. Look at the kinds of foods that you're eating and you might be able to glean some insights there in terms of why you feel like your hunger is so insatiable.  And you can look at this with spec scans and PET scans and these foods, you're right. They make you eat more and seek out more. They do, yeah. This was shown. It's like the invasion of the body snatchers or something. Yeah. It's, whoa, okay. Well, okay, so we don't wanna eat those things. So what are you gonna eat instead? What are two or three foods that we should be eating? Yeah, I'm a big fan of, I think a perfect brain food, if I had to pick one, is the avocado.  You know, they are packed with potassium, which we talked about earlier, which is important for healthy blood pressure. They're packed with dietary fiber, which we know is really good for the microbiota.  Yeah, gut buddies. The gut buddies, so they can have their gut farts or whatever rude term that was earlier, which I really appreciated. You know, they're packed with healthy fats like monounsaturated fat, which I know you've interviewed David Sinclair, I believe, and he recently posted a study that found that monounsaturated fat actually can activate some of our body's sirtuin gene pathways, which is amazing. So you know, monounsaturated fat, great for the heart, cardiovascular system, for the brain, might have an anti-aging effect. And avocados are very concentrated in compounds called keratinoids, particularly lutein and zeaxanthin, which I talk about in the book. I think that these are sort of the unsung heroes of the produce section of the supermarket in terms of having good brain health. I mean, we already know that lutein and zeaxanthin are important to help prevent age-related macular degeneration at about six milligrams per day combined, but they have done studies where they found that 12 milligrams, so if you're able to increase your keratinoid consumption, that these keratinoids actually also are able to accumulate in the brain and enhance cognitive function. So I eat a high keratinoid diet. I'm always trying to get more lutein and zeaxanthin in my diet, and avocados are a very good source. In fact, there was a study that used an avocado. It was a randomized control trial where they gave subjects either avocados or potatoes or chickpeas, and they found that avocado consumption, because of the keratinoids in them, these compounds actually led to an improvement in cognitive function in this older adult population. So they're an all-in-one brain food. I'm a huge fan of avocados. And then if I had to pick one more, man, I would say, well, I would have to say fatty fish. Wild salmon, sardines, it's really hard to talk about brain health without giving a hat tip to fatty fish just because they're packed with DHA fat, which is so important for healthy brain function. It's one of the most important structural building blocks of the brain. So if you're growing up some wild salmon, throw some avocado on the side, and you've got your perfect genius meal right there. All right, I'm gonna eat shellfish instead of fatty fish, and you'll find out in the next book why you're gonna eat for brain health. Oh, man. Oh, wait, I forgot to mention, we also wanna drizzle some extra virgin olive oil in there. Oh, thank goodness. All right, so we can agree there, that extra virgin olive. Yeah. Yeah, which is also mostly a mono-insaturated fat. But studies show that it's a great way of producing BDNF and grow brain cells with olive oil. So, okay. Yeah, huge fan. Okay, also, good point in avocado studies show that the compounds in avocado will allow you to absorb more of the vitamins and minerals from the food you eat than if the avocado isn't there. Plus, a study in humans show that an avocado a day produces weight loss compared to not eating an avocado.  It makes you lose weight. Yeah, I mean, avocados are, they're a wonderful food. It's sort of like nature's, or it's like, well, you know, because butter is natural, I was gonna say nature's butter, but they're sort of like a plant butter, you know, essentially, but not these fake, super unhealthy alternative butters that you'll find in the supermarket. Likes, yeah, those are bad. Scary stuff. Yeah, scary stuff. But an avocado, avocados are amazing. All right, one more thing before we let you go. Sleep is really good for you. Everybody now agrees. Everybody now agrees. And nobody's getting enough sleep. Nobody's getting enough sleep. I think a third of adults get fewer than six hours per night.  So if you're trying to make a dietary adjustment with poor sleep, it's gonna be infinitely more difficult to do than when you're well rested. Because when you're well rested, you know, you're sort of, your executive function is firing at full capacity. An executive function is, again, it's that sort of cognitive domain that allows us to be in control of our lives. And when you're underslept, you're essentially not in control of your life.  Gotta find the sugar. Gotta find the fatty foods.  It becomes a lot more difficult to emotionally regulate when we're underslept as well because of that disconnection between two parts of our brain, the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, which is sort of how we handle uncertainty and fear. In regards to brain health now, I think the research is overwhelming that, you know, sleep is crucial for an optimally performing brain. On just one night of poor sleep, they can measure in cerebrospinal fluid, increases in the two proteins that are associated with Alzheimer's disease. So amyloid beta, which forms the backbone of the plaques that aggregate and, you know, characterize Alzheimer's disease and also tau protein. To the degree that on one night of poor sleep, there's an increase of amyloid beta by about 30% and tau by about 50% in cerebrospinal fluid, which is kind of shocking. Which is scary. Yeah. Okay, all right, so okay, you scared me. Give us one tip, how do we get better sleep? I know there's lots of ways, but give us one that we can institute. One tip for better sleep. And there's a lot in the book. There's a lot in the book, yeah.   But actually, what we do in the mornings dictates how well we sleep at night to a significant degree. And I would say that making sure that you're getting good, bright, you know, sunlight in through our eyes, whether it's behind a window or even if it's an overcast day, getting bright daylight in through our eyes for about a half an hour every morning or at least before noon is gonna have a major improvement in the way that we sleep. Because people who do that tend to have earlier melatonin production. Melatonin is the hormone that makes us sleepy. At night, it's also involved in cancer protection and all that stuff. So melatonin is a wonderful hormone that we don't want to suppress. And so getting good adequate light during the day, I mean, you could go outside as we discussed earlier and spend that time in nature while you're allowing your eyes to, you know, expand to that panoramic view while the sunlight is coming in, even if it's an overcast day for half an hour. And that'll really help you sleep a lot better. In fact, and I talk about this in the book too, a lot of older adults, there's this stereotype that the older you get, the less sleep you get. You know, older adults tend to not sleep as well. Why is that? Well, you know, I think we don't have an answer for certain as to why that is. But I think, and a hypothesis that I advance in the book, you know, there is a, the lens of our eyes actually becomes more yellow as we get older. And that can actually affect photoreceptors in our eyes called, or proteins in the eye, called melanopsin proteins that are involved in the anchoring of our body's circadian rhythm. And so you might actually need more time in the sun in the morning, if you're older, for example, if you're in your 60s, 70s, or 80s, then a younger kid, then a kid might, or a teenager might, because of that discoloring of the lens that occurs. And so I think getting out into the sun is crucial for a person, for so many aspects of health, not least of which sleep, across the age spectrum, but it becomes, you know, it becomes probably exponentially more important as we get older. So how about if you live in Michigan or Seattle, what about a light box therapy in the morning? I think light boxes can be great. In fact, really what you need is a light intensity of at least 1,000 lux. So lux is a unit of light, how we measure light intensity. And the light intensity that basically sets off those proteins in the eye, the melanopsin proteins that set our body's circadian rhythm, require about 1,000 lux, which we know that if you are under the bright fluorescent lights of a supermarket or a drugstore, the light is able to reach that intensity. And so if you get a light box, you just wanna make sure that it's at least 1,000 lux. And when- Does 1,000 lux cost 1,000 bucks? It doesn't cost 1,000 bucks, thankfully. Thankfully, but there's an app that you can get for your smartphone. I believe it's actually called Lux. It's not as accurate as some of these more professional devices, but you can get a good sense of the amount of light intensity that you're exposed to at any moment with this app on your phone. And so you wanna make sure that in the morning you take out the app, whether it's by an open window in your living room, or even if you have a half an hour commute to work, and you just take your sunglasses off and make sure that your eyes are getting that bright light and it's at least 1,000 lux. And that'll have a major effect on your sleep, according to the best available evidence. All right, great tip. Oh, Max, it's always great to see you and thanks again for coming on the program. Where do people find you and the Genius Life? You can head to geniuslifebook.com or you can pick up the book anywhere books are sold. So Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and yeah, it's- And your local bookseller, please. Yeah, support local bookshops. And any cool websites, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Yeah, I'm very active on Instagram, so come and say hi. It's at Max Lugavere. My last name is L-U-G-A-V-E-R-E. For those of you who are watching, there it is. Yeah. All right, and if you wanna, you know, debate Max on Instagram, I guess he's going at it today as we speak, but don't go too far down those- No, yeah. Social media's funny. We didn't even talk about that, but you're right. It's like one of the, that's one of the area, another one of the areas of modern life that leads to this pervasive and insidious stress that we all have.  I'm very open-minded, so I welcome it. Great, all right, well thanks again. It's now time for the audience question. Rochelle Glam Six on YouTube wrote in and asked, Dr. Gundry, what say you about the bio-identical hormone therapy Suzanne Summers talks about in your podcast with her? I'm very curious about your perspective. That is a great question, and I bet Max and I could go on for several hours about that. And I was actually, we were talking about this before the show, and we've had some interesting responses, very positive to that show on Instagram, and some very questioning responses on Facebook about Suzanne's positions on bio-identical hormones, and I'll tell you what. We're gonna put together a podcast on that subject, and I'll give you my honest opinion of doing this now for, now over 20 years, and I'll give you, and quite frankly, Palm Springs and Santa Barbara are two of the epicenters of bio-identical hormone replacement therapy. And I'll tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly, and hopefully you'll get some information. But great question, thank you for asking it, and I'm not gonna answer it today. Okay, Max, again. Dr. Gundry, thank you. We'll hopefully see you next time. Can't wait, yeah, and we'll have you back on my podcast, and thank you for helping spread the word about the genius life. Yeah, it's really important, Max goes far more than just genius food this time around. It's the whole kitten kaboodle, as we used to say. All right, see you next time on the Dr. Gundry podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, because I'm Dr. Gundry, and I'm always looking out for you.


I have let's get to this damn show. I can't see this again Don't stop my day like this.  Oh, no the animation got better.   Oh my god I think it's because I've grown with these characters that it really hits me now, but that scene in particular was Beautiful this is the path he chose He did not want to be the military police and he reminisces about Hitch He thinks about Hitch right before his death like what if I didn't choose his path, and I chose to be on that path in bed But and then he smiles like you know, I chose the right path This is what I wanted after all and if this is the end. I'm happy that I took this path. Oh My god, I thought it was gonna be him.   I am not ready for this a single soldier. Yeah No, it's here. He's doing the screaming now imagine if they had 10 Levi's I saw this comment once if they had 10 Levi's This war would have been over from the beginning this dude single-handedly Took down the Beast Titan. This is supposed to be like the biggest Titan.  I forgot he has this the serum. Oh My god, they're leaving. They got away. What and they listen. He's not even They're gonna fight again one day. I'm telling you guys Oh my god, she made a promise to Erwin He doesn't even have trees by him. He's using the Titans. Oh and the bet.   I forgot about this everything that just happened I forgot about these new bastards. Oh lord.  Oh my god. Look how much he's matured I don't like when he talks like this. It makes me worried I'm gonna do that next time. I want to get through to someone. I'm literally gonna stick a knife through them Wow, he knew exactly where to put that sword.     There's no way he's alive. Oh my god Dude this guy has no soul right now. Oh My god, I just thought of something like three episodes ago We had that little fest forward scene with Levi on the roof with Aaron and Mikasa and they're all oh my god I think that's seeds coming up. They're on the roof. Oh No, we're just getting to it Is this the finale? Why is it starting like this?  Oh dude the way there was no intro and it's oh my god What I guys too much is going on right now what?  I don't believe anyone's dead yet.  Levi's gonna have to make a choice. Oh Shit man Wow for John to say that to an upper rankman I Love that relationship how they know each other. They're like family I Can't even make a joke. I was about to say I have a lot of gas in me. Oh, no Too much is going on right now, man We're gonna put my heart the only one left is Berthold, but they left him He even said this is the end for you Berthold Wow, they really got through this day. I didn't even know how they would She took that burden upon herself. She's the leader. Oh My god, I was right. I don't even know what I want.   Like did you understand what's happening right now? Man oh This is it this this is just something else, bro This show is phenomenal the long-term storytelling The silence in this entire episode. It's just something else. Oh I'm fighting these tears man. I don't like crying on camera. I don't like crying in general He was listening he was listening No My god This show is the greatest thing I've ever watched in my life.  It just gets increasingly better and better It's like right when you thought it reached its peak it created a new mountain a new fucking universe This show is absolutely phenomenal the emotions in this episode the The silence throughout every second of this episode the battle of the consciousness is Consciousness is the word the battle of the heart's the emotions that the priorities the benefit of humanity and Emotion balancing these as a human even seeing Levi Contemplate and think about That conversation Armin had every single thing in the show means something when Levi was sitting in the court on that in The alleyway listening to three of them talk about the dreams and to see that meant something and I knew what meant something because in a way They highlighted that everything means something in a show Erwin's talking about his dreams Best episode of the show by far best best episode. That was number one midnight sun number one episode of attack on Titan so far Anyways guys you gotta let me know down below how you felt about that episode because I need to know Were you surprised were you shot where you were your tears all over the place? Were you fighting back tears like me? Let me know down below, but other than that I'm a different man now I'm a different man. Goodbye


Hey there lads and ladies it is Petrifying Pumpkins here and today we have some very moist firewall zero hour news. This news is going to be all about the upcoming firewall season three updates which we now know is called Operation Heartland. So let's jump right in. Earlier today first contact entertainment tweeted out this official artwork to promote and reveal firewalls third season. The tweet was accompanied by the caption, landing October 22nd firewall zero hour season three takes our contractors to the land of red, white and blue in Operation Heartland. So if you're wondering why it's called Heartland instead of something more summer blockbuster like Nightfall or Dark Web, well it's because the United States will be sort of a big theme for season three. This all but guarantees that the new map Prepper takes place in the US, a first for firewall and in hindsight it does look very American with its shooting ranges, the Prepper bunker, the neon beer signs hung up on the wall as well as a cowboy hat that I saw hung up on the wall but I never copped on I never thought that it was an American thing and probably a bunch of other American type stuff like hamburgers and diabetes are hidden there somewhere so you got to keep your eyes out for that stuff. It's also very possible that the season's second map which will release at week five if history is anything to go by will also be set in the good old US of A but we'll talk more about the second map in just a bit. The artwork also features the new weapon coming on the 22nd which is the crossbow which of course we've already seen in action over on the first contact entertainment official youtube channel although that video has since been removed for reasons unknown I did restream it however so that's why I had to use my fuzzage instead of the cleaner original one in the background we also finally get a good look at bear now bear is the newest contractor who will also come with the season three up pass for firewall we don't know what his skill is yes but this is the best look we've gotten of him so far I'm going to go ahead and best that he will join ds texas and proxy and represent in the united states judging by his get up and his codename he just looks and sounds very american he has a cool hunter look about him which I like and this hunter look may be a clue as to what his skill will be some people have speculated that it will be some kind of trap that will hold an enemy in place like a bear trap which sounds pretty cool to me but it could be anything really for example maybe he can see enemy footprints for a short period kind of like a tracking skill like something like bloodhound in apex legends something like that that would suit him nicely as well we won't have long to waste to find out as heartland will be coming this tuesday and remember a new operation means a new up pass new operations to complete and a whole suite of new cosmetics to earn by completing these operations I would imagine it will cost $9.99 and euro I'm not sure about the sterling price there but just expect it to cost the same that might fall and dark web did now let's move on to the juicy part of this video so over the last two days I've received two emails from two different people both claiming to have leaked artwork for an upcoming firewall map I'm not going to disclose their identities in case they don't want it known but let me just give them a thanks for reaching out and letting me know I appreciate that too the first person sent me this image with the original email which is pretty high quality and then the second person didn't want to disclose how they got their hands on the image but they then posted the image that they had to redis which was the same image but taken off-screen so it was lower quality they laser revealed to me that they had since gotten their hands on the original image too so two people had the original and I don't know where or how the obtained us I didn't want to jump in it too soon in case it was photoshopped or doctored in some way but I've since come to learn that it's the real deal so it's safe to talk about us anyway as you can see it appears to be artwork for the second map that will be dropping in the mid-season updates and it prominently features this airplane fuselage type thing I know that a lot of the community have been asking for a map which features an airplane for the longest time now so it looks like we're getting one however this isn't simply an airplane map as there's a lot going on in this image that points to it being some kind of staged training exercise ground of some kind the seats are occupied with dummies a couple of which are holding knives in their hands the fuselage is in a state of disrepair with huge holes in this along with signs of wear and tear and the seats and whatnot and if you look outside you can see a window and a wall or a large door or something like that which points to it all being located indoors so overall it looks like this map is a staged exercise area with this particular exercise being dealing with maybe a terrorist attack on an airplane something along those lines of course this is just one shot of the map who knows what else is in this large warehouse or hangar area there could be other fuselages there could be like just a million other things going on so we'll probably have to waste until closer to the time it releases before first contact entertainment tees some actual fussage of the second map until then we'll have prepper to enjoy and this is the point in the video which was originally going to be the ending but right when I almost finished I got a message from Decepticon telling me that first contact entertainment were doing a developer stream so I hopped on over to their channel and I'm glad I did because they revealed a lot of cool new info most importantly is that they revealed Bear's skill it's called hunter and it removes the big red arrow over your head and I think this is going to be a pretty big change a lot of people don't want anything over their heads and they've been saying this since day one we suspected in the past that if they ever brought out a hardcore mode then there will be no arrows there but I don't think anyone expected it to come in the form of a skill I think picking your skill load out just got that much more complicated now in a good way this is adding real tactical depth again it may not be very useful on a bright map like prepper in the outdoor area at least but imagine this skill on district or docks where there's so many dark places to hide I think stealth has just become way more viable now thanks to hunter let me know your thoughts on this down below in the comments next up is some big news about the crossbow so it's going to be called the tc-1 in game that's going to be its name and the thing you need to know about this weapon is that you can down someone in one hiss without needing a headshot according to frank you might think that will make it overpowered but keep in mind it has a very slow raise of fire while you wait for that bolt string to be drawn back into place before you can shoot again plus the bolts travel slower than bullets as we learned from her first contact developer in the chat I believe his name is oddy the bolts may also lose altitude as they travel so you may need to aim higher at further distances to compensate for that but that is unconfirmed right now so just keep that in mind so the crossbow is going to have a huge risk and reward factor going on which I think makes it the most interesting weapon that first contact have added to this game so far of all time all of a sudden the cqb has a viable alternative as long as you got the skills to wield it of course so another couple of points to mention is that frank teased that we may be surprised by what things will be unlocking in the new operations and he specifically named lasers as an example and just before he said that I did notice that there was a laser that appeared to be a purpley color briefly so it looks like we are finally getting more laser colors which is pretty cool I mean it's not a big deal but it's nice little touch to have more customization and now I'm excited to see what else they'll branch out into in terms of adding more customization to areas where they haven't previously finally both the new prepper lobby and the prepper map itself had some halloween festivities going on and I assume all the other maps will have these too so in the lobby screen you can see lots of pumpkins and spiders and spooky skeletons and in the game itself then the intel and the crypto that you're all used to have been replaced with like halloween candy and so there's a new sound effect of like an evil laugh whenever you pick it up I mean I love that I wish you had more time with this as I'm assuming they're going to remove all this when November comes and November is just right around the corner but still it's a nice touch and I'm looking forward to get into it overall Operation Heartland looks like it's really going to shake up the mess of big time with both its new weapon and new skill I want to hear all about what you think about all of this in the comments below and I will now end this video where I had originally planned in this video and so that's it for this video lads and ladies thank you very much for watching and let me give a special thank you to these lads on the screen right now thanks to their support this channel is growing and of course let me shout out Columbus Thomas the third crumb and Pete Hawkins for pledging at the highest tier over there on patreon thank you very much lads for the generosity it is very much appreciated if you want to join my patreon too then the link will be in the description but if you just want to help me out the old-fashioned way with likes and comments and sharing this video and all that usual shite then I'll also appreciate that too thanks again for watching and I'll see you in the next one stay moist


Who's that handsome bird? Who is that? He needs a home. He's very, very loving and very special and very beautiful. And he loves me the most, he told me. What? Who's that handsome? It's a mutated Red Lord Amazon. Look at the yellow. How beautiful. If you guys want this bird, you tell me. I'll tell you where to get him after I decide if I'm going to steal him. Oh my god. What is that happen? He's just a bird. Who's bird? Well, he was at the bird store today. Hello. Hello. Okay, you don't want me? Hold on. Let me show you. Is he nice? He's a mutation. He's very special. He's so cute. Oh my god. Oh my god. You like pizza? So what happened was I saw him, I walked him because he's so special looking and then he just stepped up on me and then he came on my shoulder and then he wanted to cuddle. Does anyone cuddle? Well, no one picks him up like you and cuddles him. And then I just asked him if he's like $700. And? And I asked him if I could have him sleep over for the night. Okay, cool. With your honor. He's so cute. You know that I don't want to bite birds. Well, his owner died. But he needs love. So that's why he started getting his feathers back because he was spin out. Oh my god. He likes you. Just be careful in case. Let's see what Jenna thinks. Hi. Oh, you got nervous. You want to step up? Step up please. Is he going to bite me?  Just because he... When I went upstairs, George was cuddling him. Were you cuddling? You can put him. Yeah. Oh my god. You're like a con. You're mixed with the Amazon. The cheeky. Look at that. What's happening? Like you could kiss his head and stuff. What's happening? What's happening? Harry, stop being jealous. I love his colors up here. Isn't he gorgeous? What's happening over there? He went to CVS with me. Did you go to CVS? Did I stop you on your trip? Isn't he cute, Sylvia? I didn't want Jersey to see you with getting some cuddles. Are you jealous? What does that mean? Are you jealous? He's not liking us at all. Harry, you know about birds. Yeah, but he doesn't know about this one. I love his coloring up top.  Yeah, his beak is big. Oh, he's so beautiful. Yeah. It's okay, Harry.  Yeah, he's a plucker a little bit.  I want to ask you one last question. Did you see this bird? Yeah, this is Picasso. It's Picasso. It's a bird Picasso. Yeah, I got it. My God, I'm good. Okay, I'm glad that happened. So you were actually showering with six birds. Six? Six, because Vinny was out in the... No, Vinny was up there too. No, Vinny when I arrived. Oh yeah, but then I put him in there with him. So he had seven birds he was showering with. Are you? But do you think we should keep this one?   You're nuts. I love him. Throw a tantrum.  I want to keep him. You want to stay with me forever? Here I am. I'm going to go visit Leo. I can't stop thinking about him. I don't even know if that name fits him. He's so cute though. But it's really become evident in the last two days that I really don't need anymore birds. It's true. It's really true. Let's see if he misses me or loves me or anything. Oh, I love him. Let's hope that he's still there. There's so much traffic. I hope I get there before it closes. I am barely going to get there and hopefully he didn't close early because if there's cages outside they're still open.  Maybe did he close early? No! But he was put away and I didn't get to see him. But guess what? Today is a new day and I'm on my way again. Let's see if Leo is still here. He better still be here. I hope he went to a good home if he's not but I hate not knowing where he would have went. Oh, look at that. So hard leaving him. So I had this great idea to go into Birds Plus and see if I could put some money down to hold him until I could afford him or something and they said no, they need the whole amount. I mean if he's gone I hope he's gone to a good home. But I just feel like it's my duty to monitor what home he goes to and the only way to do that is to make sure he comes home to mine. No, there's other ways to do that. Guess what guys? We are about to go see Leo. I'm really excited to see him. I haven't seen him since yesterday and I need to get like a sniff. It's going to be really amazing. I still don't know what's going to happen. I don't even know if I'm going to be able to get to him or not, but we're going to go find out. Oh! Hi, Mama. You and it's a... Guys, I'm with Leo. I'll be back to see you. It is a good name, right? You know why I named him Leo? Because Leo is a fire sign when he looks like fire. Isn't that nice? Okay, you're hungry. I love you. Bye. I'm going to have a little snack now. Bye, Leo. I'll see you later. I think this is like the third or fourth day at another audition and now I'm going to drive by and check Leo out. Some new updates have happened. Melanie, a very special sniffer has made a GoFundMe for Leo to come home with me. So I think that's kind of exciting. I never done anything like that before. Hello. Is he in here? Can I see him? There's my glasses. Thank Leo. What do you think Leo? I have a toy for Jersey. I don't know what I did with it. So I have to find it. It's okay. Look at this one. Yeah, and also, if we get you and you get to come home, then we're going to have some extra spots as usual. And Christina here actually came in to meet Leo. Hi. And she's just loving Leo because how cute is he?  He's so cute. He's cute. He's like the cartoon that he portrays. Oh my gosh. So that's, you know, always a day of fun for me and a really good day for Christina. Look at her. If you're a girl, you have a lot of luck. Yeah. Your friend was here and Leo was like, I don't think so. What do you think of the picture that we just took? But what's the problem with it? No, not the problem. Not the problem. I'm getting all of these messages right now. It's a lot of congratulations messages from people saying that we've hit hello. 700, which means I can definitely get Leo. Because of course, like, I can put him in a temp cage and stuff like that. Hopefully, he's still there and all is well with Leo. So I'm really excited. I want to give out a shout out to Janice who put in the exact amount. You guys probably know Janice has more commendi on all of the chats. Yes, I'm in my robe. While this is really exciting, I'm having some parrot station drama because people are kind of mad that the GoFundMe about me was posted. I didn't post it, was posted and allowed and it's like, did you guys forget that you're on my page? If I allowed 47,000 people to post it, everyone would be spammed. But I made parrot station for you guys to share your birds with me and get help from the community. So it's my best way to reach all of you guys when it was posted by another member of Parrot Station I was asked if it's okay. And I said, you know what? It is okay. I worked hard to have this page and the moderators work very, very hard. There's a little bit of a buzzkill there. But that's the story. Oh, Jersey's excited. She's like, who walked into the house? Come here, I want to tell you something. Hi! Yo, dear. Hello Picasso. I want to tell you something. What's up? Hold Jersey a second if you want to come here. I have to tell you something. Okay. How do you feel about the fact that we're getting another bird? Oh, wow. Are you kidding? No, I'm serious. Well, they know you met Leo, right? Of course we met Leo. Yeah. So basically, Leo cost $700 as you know. And this is a GoFundMe that was made. I don't know how you missed it, but I know you work a lot.  No, I didn't do this. Who did it? Melanie made this. That's amazing. Melanie is a number one fan. She made this. She's not just, she's one of many people that donated and How many people donated? A lot.  Aww, your mom's cute. No, I'm telling you she was on board with getting a bird. She like donated. Yeah, because we're the ones that are going to have to take care of a bird. Yeah, but check this out. So Janice put $53 to make it and even $700 to make sure that I at least had the amount for the bird and worry about the cage later. That is so cool. It just went to $750. Oh my god it went to $750. Karen. Thank you, Karen. Karen was on duty. Oh nice. Oh my god. That's so cool. Isn't this amazing? And just to clarify, this is a bird that's owner died. So even though it was held at the bird store because people didn't know where to take him and because they trusted this bird store to give the bird to somebody who cares, as you can see that's what's most likely going to happen. For those of you that say you need rescues, like he's pretty much a rescue his owner dropped dead. Jersey, what do you think about having a little brother? Huh? Picasso is not thrilled either. It's okay. No, no, no. You know who? I guess we have a newcomer. And he's still there. Oh, he's not there? No, no, no. If he's still there. Did you find out? I saw him today. He was there today. Okay, cool. So we have a new bird, for sure. Well, we don't know. Yeah, so he could be there.


So these are pallet racks. Pallet racks are large warehouse shelving components that you may have seen in Ikea, Home Depot, Costco, large big box stores in America. But they're also just incredibly ubiquitous. Like almost every warehouse on the planet is filled with pallet racks. What I discovered was that compared with supporting pallets of dog food and bottles of water and concrete blocks, that supporting people is actually remarkably easy. And so I got into setting up sort of large pallet rack buildings that would sort of form community centers. So this is JAGA. It's a large community center, art space, technology space, hacker space, event center in Bangalore. And it's, as you can see, it's about four stories tall. It's about 7,000 square feet. It has a cafe. It has a space for co-working. And it has a large auditorium where we conduct events like TEDx. So it's, there's something kind of amazing about what we're able to do with these structures. The land that we move into was basically a dump when we got there.  And that, you know, as we come in and we build this giant structure, all of a sudden it brings a lot of vitality to the community. We're having events, people are hanging out. It becomes a real social positive. And it's also relatively low and expensive because we don't own the land. So if any of you have thought about setting up a community center but didn't think that you could afford it, you know, you might think about whether or not a pallet rack supported building might be a way of sort of giving you sort of a large semi-temporary space in your community. I've been doing this for a little while. This is my sixth building. This was the previous one also in Bangalore. I did two in Los Angeles and then also set up two large installations at Burning Man. One of the aspects of these buildings is also that when we move out of a space, we leave the space in sort of as good or better condition than it was when we got there. And this is impressive as we're living large. You know, we have tens of people working there every day. We have hundreds of people who come to our events. And then, you know, after years of this, when we move out, you could farm on the land that we were hanging out on. So, you know, as we think about cities and sort of massive growth, this idea that people can live on the land in density and leave the land in a very healthy state is a really sort of powerful concept to think about. So I've been doing it for a while and I've started thinking about what large problems pallet racks could be useful for. I've been in India for about seven years and India has some interesting kind of scary statistics about sort of what's happening with the growth of cities there. The expectations are that in the next 18 years, over 250 million people are going to be moving into the cities. And the cities just really aren't set up to deal with this kind of influx. And it means that a large percentage of the people coming in tend to be moving into the slums. And that while slums can be extremely vital communities, there's a very entrepreneurial spirit in them often. They also tend to be extremely crowded. They tend to lack sort of core services. And they tend to have sort of an essence of sort of insecurity because the residents don't have title to their land and don't know how long they'll necessarily be allowed to stay there. There's no real incentive to invest in their homes and their properties which sort of propagates sort of the sort of miserable conditions a lot of times. So I've been looking at, you know, what do pallet racks have to offer this situation? And so for one, they're relatively low cost. On about 400 square feet of space, you can build a 1,500 square foot pallet rack supported building for about $5,000.  And then another component is that because they're inherently temporary, they can be used to set up sort of a legitimate relationship between the residents and the owners of the land where the owners can feel comfortable that the people will be moving out and that the people can invest in their homes and know that this is an asset that they'll be able to take with them as they move on to their next place. So as my first step sort of towards doing this next thing, I've set up a large or a simple competition to try to gather design and architecture ideas for what a large scale pallet rack installation could look like. And so that's it. Thank you very much.


Welcome to Mindset Mondays with Roseanne and Jenny. I'm Roseanne from Yuma, Arizona, and I'm an Enrollment and Client Journey Coach inside one of our alcohol-free lifestyle programs called Project 90. And I'm Jenny. I'm in Northern Ireland and I am the community manager for the 30-day alcohol-free program. And also a Project 90 alumnus. Alumnus? Is that how I say it? Alumnus? No, apparently not. Thank you. We're broadcasting this Facebook live across our multiple public and private platforms, and we're also recording this for our podcast listeners who will be listening to it next Monday. If you're here with us live on Facebook, please, please, please feel free to say hi, especially if you're from the UK. Jenny wants to know somebody's up late with her and tell us where you're from and ask us if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them. We're going to save our shout-outs and our answers to the questions until the end of our discussion, but please do not let that discourage you from posting. If you'd like to know more about Jenny or me, please feel free to tune into our alcohol-free lifestyle podcast available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and YouTube. My story is episode 19 and Jenny's is episode 29. 39. I keep getting that wrong. You know, maybe after 39 broadcasts, we'll be able to get this right. Anyway, there's a multiple multitude of stories and interviews there that I am certain will inspire you. So before we get started, I'd like to offer you some free stuff by a way of the alcohol freedom formula guide. This resource will be available below in the chat. And for those of you on the podcast, there will be instructions on how to gain access to that at the end of the show. I am going to hand the show today over to Jenny, who's going to be leading the discussion about why community is an important part of habit reformation. Jenny, all yours. Thank you, Roseanne. Oh, the responsibility is in my... I love this topic actually. I could talk forever on it, but I won't. This is somewhere where I went really wrong in the beginning. Roseanne, when I was trying to quit alcohol for so long, I tried to do it on my own. I read lots of books. I think I've probably got every single quit alcohol book that's right there. I tried lots of ways of changing my behaviour. And I felt I was failing because I couldn't do it on my own. And eventually I realised that it wasn't a failure to reach out to other people's support. It was actually the essence of my success. And the interesting thing about this is this is not just my experience. This is backed up by science. Every single behavioral expert in the world who writes about changing habits says community and support is at the heart of it. Why is that? Because when you reach out and you become part of the community, you have a common goal, you have a common mindset, you've got shared experiences, and you have accountability. I think it was Charles, do you think you're fine pronouncing that correctly? Who writes part of habits? He said communities make change achievable. The other person who writes really well on behaviour changes James Clear. And he says nothing sustains your motivation better than being part of a tribe because it transforms your personal quest into a shared one. And the experience of going through what you're trying to achieve with the group of other people who are trying to go through exactly the same thing makes it an experience that's real and that is, I can't even think of the words for it. It just is part of being a community. And part of that I think is you're being accountable to other people, not just yourself.  I mean, you will see this on project 90 and I'll ask you about that in a minute. But I see it in the 30 day community all the time. There's so much support in that community. And if someone is struggling, everyone will reach out and hold them. If someone has a win, everyone will reach out and congratulate them and just knowing that you're part of a journey with other people makes it makes it something that's so much more achievable because you're not on your own. And you know, someone said that addiction is the opposite of connection. You cannot fix this on your own. And if you try to, you're making something that can be easy, really, really hard. And for me, and I'll talk more about my journey in a moment, but for me, the community that was project 90 was what was the complete game changer for me. There was Anna's as the client journey manager on project 90. You see this all the time. I'm guessing you see people's success is probably directly related to their level of engagement. Am I right in that? Oh, yeah, I call it the secret sauce. Now I have a new term. I have new terms all the time, but we have something called our Marco Polo app where we're community because we were all over the world, right? And we have coaches. This is a coaching program. But a lot of it is that community like you talked about, Jenny, where we're meeting together in smaller groups or pods, I suppose. But then we have a larger community where all of us can talk whatever time of day is convenient because, of course, we're all in different time zones all over the world. But I think I just did a post maybe last weekend and I'm like, who needs coaches? Like you guys are so amazing. They're all like providing so much insight and learning and just supporting one another. It's so inspiring. I think, of course, we need to do it on our own to figure out we can't do it on our own. One of the unfortunate things that happens as an enrollment coach is people wait way too long. For me, I don't know if it was waiting too long or I hadn't found anything that resonated with me. Most people that call us or that looked at us are not feeling like AA is a good fit for them. They're not feeling like rehab is a good fit for them. They're just like, why can't I stop this? And as you are so eloquent always to understand is this is a cycle of a habit. That's all it is. This is a habit formation. I love when James says you are not an alcoholic. This is not about an alcoholic. This is about a habit. And by the time I talk to people, they've spent so many times, and this is including my own journey, so many days or years talking to themselves about I'm going to today's the day. I'm going to do it today.  And so back to this community, when you get in this place and you relieve yourself of what appears to be a secret, right? Because we're afraid to talk about it, but you're you're free to talk about it in the community. It's it's just like this big sigh of relief. Did you feel like that too? A big sigh? Completely, completely. And you know the thing was on isn't it funny how it's so much easier to keep a promise to someone else than to keep a promise to yourself? Right. So yeah, I lost kind of, as you say, the Mondays where I would go, okay, today is the day didn't happen. Okay, it's the first of the month. This is the day it will happen. It's a day after my birthday. It will happen. And it never did. And it wasn't until I got into that community, and there were other people to whom I was accountable. I did not want to go on a Project 90 call and have to say I've slipped, I've had a drink. I just was not prepared to do that. And in terms of engagement with the community, I mean, I really leaned into that once it dawned on me that I needed support, I went for it from tilt. I think I went on every single call I was on three or four calls a week. I had a one to one with coach Kevin, which was invaluable. And then there was a market full of where there's always a conversation ongoing. I'm just feeling surrounded by that community made it easy for me, actually. And that was the math bio for me, something that I had struggled with for a long, long, long time suddenly became easy, because I was with a group of like minded people. And the thing that was so interesting to me about Project 90, and again, James talks about this a lot in his book, Atomic Habits, when you're in a group where the behavior that you're seeking is the norm, it becomes easy because it becomes not the main focus of the conversation. So what we find in Project 90 is we were all trying to recalibrate our relationship with alcohol. So in fact, a lot of the time, that wasn't even what we talked about. We talked about other things. We talked about deeper things. We talked about fun things. We talked about lots of things. Of course, our struggles and wins were in the mix. But it was a much broader, wider and deeper conversation than that, because we all have that common goal. And to me, finding a tribe really, that's what it was. I find my tribe. And that's just one last little thing I would say. I was surrounded by friends who were very supportive of my attempts to quit drinking. They wanted to see me succeed in that because they could see I was struggling. But they didn't get it. They didn't have the problem with alcohol that I had. So they didn't understand. And being in a group where people just got it, so that I didn't have to explain it. I just had to be there and learn from their experiences and their wisdom, made all the difference in the world to me. And that is why to me, community is the number one thing that would change your experience. Yeah. And we see that over and over again inside project. I mean, actually in the 30-day program, I don't want to discount the 30-day program. It's a fabulous community. Mel, hello. Our favorite follower is here. Sorry, I just had to do that. I know. I'm happy to see you too, Mel. And yeah, please continue to shout out. But hi, hi, Walker, another regular follower. Yeah, that's a really good point, Meg. You don't think you're ready to be part of the community and let people know. I'll just speak to that. I get that. I was scared to reach out. I hesitated for a long time to reach out because I didn't want other people to know. The thing about the 30-day challenge, the thing about Project 90, they are safe, private, supportive groups. What goes on tour stays on tour. It's a safe community. And it's not scary to share because everyone just understands. There is no shame. There is no judgment. There is just love and support. Yeah. And I've talked about this in prior Mindset Mondays with you. And I talk about it on my enrollment calls too. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And unfortunately, that habit that is ingrained in our subconscious mind is a loop of just doing the same thing again. And so in order to shift whether we're doing it by ourselves or in community, we need to do something that's uncomfortable. And we talk a lot inside our programs about stretching into uncomfortable areas because when you stretch into something that's uncomfortable and you win, that creates confidence and you're willing to stretch more. I would say the ultimate example of that is Jenny and I doing. You want me to do what? Yeah. And yeah, if I go back to my first one, it's pretty, pretty much horrific. But they, you know, James and Kevin said, well, if you did perfect, then we would definitely have waited too long before pushing you out there. So stretch, are you starting to feel more comfortable with that, Jimmy? What with being stretched on doing a live broadcast at 10 o'clock on the Monday night? Yeah, it's perfect. Oh, you have to admit it's getting a little easier though. Yeah. You know what, if even if we're not perfect, Roseanne, if any of the words you say give some support and comfort to somebody out there, then hey ho, that's a result. Sonia. Oh, hi Sonia. It must be Tuesday morning with you because you're in Australia. You're so right. Having the group tribe, whatever you want to call it makes all the difference. And Sonia, you have been, if I may just say, an absolute superstar on the 30 day challenge. Sonia is someone who has crushed the 30 day challenge. She's on day 40, something, no, I think, or just about getting 40. And she is in there supporting, encouraging, commenting, helping other people cheerleading. And that makes, you know, that makes such a difference. That's what makes a community, a real community. So Sonia. I want to talk a little bit. We talk a lot about Project 90, but we might want to talk about the 30 day program today. Yeah. Do you want to tell them about it? What can I say? So the 30 day challenge is what it says on the tin. It's let's go 30 days alcohol free. There's a Facebook group which is vibrant. There's lots of support on there. There's there's fun. There's banter. There's advice. There's wisdom. There are people who are at every single stage of the journey. So there are people still posting on there who are 45, 60, 90 days and beyond alcohol free who are freely sharing their experience and their wisdom. There are people who are just starting. There's a place for everyone on there. And it's a fabulous community. And anyone who has signed up for it and not become active in the Facebook group, I encourage you to do that because there's a real grind to have support there for you. Yeah. And I think Melanie, if you can give the link for that as well below, but we call it do it yourself. Although we have Jenny being, you know, the supportive community manager, but you will get 30 days worth of videos five to 10 minutes long that are just giving you different ways to look at your alcohol habits and how to be light free and open. We do again consider this the more do it yourself. You do have a community. You have Jenny. It's 30 days, but it is very successful for many people. And so it just depends where you are on the journey, how you like to grow. The 90 days is obviously 90 days is more challenging than 30, but, you know, we always recommend for 30 to give it another 30 and give it another 30 and then you're at 92. So yeah, but yeah, I love this. Any other things to Isandra? Oh, someone who looks forward to our show. Well, that's more than we do. 13 days alcohol free. That's brilliant. One more day and you'll be two weeks. And that's halfway to a month and you just keep building. Just keep building. That's brilliant. Yeah. Anything else you want to talk about with? Oh, Alana. Hello. I use alcohol to deal with stress like many others. I'm more likely to be addicted because I've created a use for it. Yeah, that's exactly what we're talking about. We kind of talk about it more as a habit loop. And that's what we do the coaching for on Project 90 is we are not we're putting alcohol to the side. So we kind of don't discuss it very often. But we do discuss the reasons we want to go for it. Like I'm I'm socializing and I want to go out with my friends and they're drinking. How do I handle it? I'm stressed at the end of the day. I want to go and open my bottle of wine or crack a beer or whatever else. I'm depressed. I'm lonely. There are so many reasons why we choose alcohol and over time, we choose it for the same reasons over and over again, it develops a habit. So yeah, that's exactly what's happening. Thank you for that question. I don't see any more questions. So Jenny, is there anything else that you want to just share? We've done 20 minutes, which is probably enough. I'll finish with one with one little quote. And this is from, I think this is from Ben Hardy, who writes a book called Will Carr Doesn't Work, which is a very good read about exactly why trying to do it yourself and relying on Will Carr is is a bit of a hiding to nothing. And he says, surround yourself with people who love you enough to hold you to a high standard. But sometimes we think people who love us should forgive us or go easy on us or be accepting of who we are. But actually, sometimes real love is tough love. Sometimes real love is Jenny, you told me you would do this and I expect you therefore to do that. And the beauty of Project 90 in particular is that I was surrounded by people whose own standards were very high. And they in turn encouraged and enabled me to start to show what is a much better version of myself. That really was the game changer from me. Yeah, I almost find in my experience as a Roman coach, and I've learned, I've heard James talk about this too. It's actually very difficult using a family member or your friends as the guiding post for your succeeding. And it's far, you know, it is far better to get into that community that that is a loving community like you say, Jenny, that does hold you. Well, you're holding yourself to that standard too by joining that community. But hi, Jenna. If I have a family member who is an alcoholic, is it possible that my reaction to alcohol might be more intense than someone else? If I understand that science, well, that there is a gene that is more susceptible to it being turned on if you if there is alcoholism or that habit somewhere in your family. So I'm not sure about intense, it can be intense for anyone. But it's like turning on the switch. I guess that the habit I suppose in my very layman's terms is easier to switch on and introduce to yourself than it would be somebody not. But I've talked to people on phone calls that didn't start drinking until they were 29 and ended up turning it on really fast. So there's a switch, there's a family tree, there is a gene that is, it doesn't predestine you, but it makes it easier to create the habit, I believe. So it's there, it's there for all of us, whether it's in your family or it's not, it can be created equally in all of us. And once the habit is created, it's no different than if it's in your family or not in your family. Would you disagree with anything like that? I think that's right. I think, you know, you could spend forever and you could probably spend years in therapy about why you drink. And I think the experts agree it's usually a quite a complex combination of reasons. Some of that's environmental, some of it's genetic, some of it is circumstantial. And really the thing to focus on is why do I want to stop drinking? What are my whys going forward? So, you know, I could sit and talk for hours about all the reasons why I think I developed a problem with alcohol bats. I don't think especially helpful to me or to anyone else. What I was more interested in is why do I want to move forward and what do I have to gain from it? And that sort of looking forward and not back. I think it's one of our wonderful Project 90 members, Mike, came up with a beautiful phrase where he said, let's be pioneers, not historians. Let's look forward, not back. And that would be my general advice to people just keep looking forward. All right. This has been a great topic, Jenny. Thank you so much for leading that conversation today. Thank you to everybody watching live because you've really participated well today with some great questions and we really appreciate. And so, will our listeners on the podcast, those questions that you have? If you guys are interested in talking more about Project 90, Melanie in the background has posted a link to book a call with me below in the comment section. If you're listening to our podcast, you'll soon hear James talking about how to book a call with any of our other amazing and wonderful Project 90 coaches who are also former clients. But until, and we do hope to hear from you, there's just a lot to talk about. So until next week, Jenny. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast. I want to load you up with some free stuff right now. So if you want to go to jameswanick.com slash guide, I will send you my quit alcohol guide, which has helped six figure entrepreneurs and top professionals reduce or quit drinking. You can also text the word quit guide to the number 44222. If you're in the US, of course, it doesn't really work anywhere outside of the US. But if you're in the US on your mobile phone and you'd like that guide, text the word quit guide to the number 44222, or you can go to jameswanick.com slash guide. If you'd like to schedule a free 15 minute call with one of my top coaches, just an exploratory call to see if or how we can help you, then you can go to jameswanick.com slash schedule, or you can text the word project 90 to the number 44222. If you're listening in the US on a mobile phone, that's jameswanick.com slash schedule, or you can text the word project 90, that's one word project 90 to the number 44222. Feel free to send me a direct message over on my Instagram account, which is at jameswanick. You can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my YouTube channel, which is jameswanick1, or you can direct message me on Facebook at jameswanickofficial. And finally, a request. Would you please now write a short review of the podcast inside of the Apple Podcast app on your phone or on iTunes on your desktop computer? Would you please give the show five stars and write a quick one or two sentence review? This will help the show get in front of even more listeners, potentially transforming someone's life. You can rate and review the show inside of your Apple Podcast app on your phone or over on iTunes on your desktop. Thank you so much and I'll catch you next time.